What does “our Mayan moment” mean here?

Question

In a brief article I read, it is stated that:

For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment: 2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.

Could anybody shed any light on what an author is likely to mean when referring to something as "our Mayan moment"?

Answer 1

The author is using it to mean "the end of the world as we know it," in reference to the disaster movie that sensationalized the belief that, because the Maya Long Count Calendar ends in 2012, it somehow signifies apocalypse.

The author as much states that the passage of the NDAA signifies “one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country -- the American way of life defined by our Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights.”

Answer 2

My best guess here is that he means "the end of our world". The "Mayan" part alludes to the widespread semi-serious idea that the world will end in 2012, based on a cycle in the Mayan calendar. Here the "Mayan moment" is the end of the libertarian world, based on the passage of NDAA.