The National Defense Authorization Act may be the last curtain call of our democratic form of government. The law places domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military, leading to indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, as long as the government calls them terrorists.
Most empires eventually cannibalize their country's form of democracy, as did Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. As did Athens and Rome. Why would our empire be different?
All this ends, of course, when the "War on Terror" end. But for empires, the wars never end, and the terror becomes an integral part of invading and occupying other sovereign nations.
All we can do is resist this destruction of our basic rights, not really knowing when our time will come to be swept up by some overzealous storm trooper. Even having the Revolutionary Communist Party as a radio guest talking about the loss of free speech in America makes us vulnerable to some FBI agent deciding that we are part of some ill defined "problem." Yes, we all have the same common problem, the loss of our Constitutional rights under a military state.
