Bush’s Critics Say Threat of Martial Law in The United States is ‘Real’
Two issues are being debated concurrently in the United States these days. On the one hand, critics of the Bush administration say that, from the look of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule in the US, such that at this point, in the words of one critic, “it really only lacks the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government.” In an article published by CommonDreams.org on July 27, 2007, Dave Lindorff, author of the book “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), says that Bush and Cheney “have done this with the support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last Republican-led Congress.”
On the other hand, talk of impeachment is getting louder. In an article published by the Seattle Post Intelligencer on July 27, 2007, Hubert G. Locke, former dean of the Daniel J. Evans Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, says that “on the eve of a congressionally mandated assessment of the unending madness in Iraq, strange and ominous signs are beginning to appear in all sorts of odd and curious quarters that this nation (the US) should not have to endure another 18 months of the George W. Bush administration and that, if we do, it might well be at the nation’s peril.”
As Locke notes, “Much of the current dismay swirls around Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is busily ignoring rules of government he doesn’t like and declaring his office to be beyond the purview of anyone’s scrutiny, while actively setting about to demolish any government agency that has the impertinence to suggest otherwise.”
Locke says, “Cheney’s advocacy of interrogation techniques for ‘enemy combatants’ that many think tantamount to torture, of monitoring phone calls and e-mails without bothering about (court) warrants, and of ignoring the niceties of the Geneva Convention when dealing with terrorists has put him out of favour even with a growing number of conservatives. Some want to jettison him as a hopeless drag on the Republican Party’s electoral prospects next year; others are beginning to join the throng that is convinced Cheney is out of control and needs to be dispatched for the health and safety of the republic itself.”
Arguing that the threat of martial law in the US is real, Lindorff says, “The first step, of course, was the first Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed in September 2001, which the president has subsequently used to claim improperly (but so what?) that the whole world, including the US is a battlefield in a so-called ‘War’ on Terror, and that he has extra-Constitutional unitary executive powers to ignore laws passed by Congress.”
As constitutional scholar and former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein observes, that one claim, that the US itself is a battlefield, is enough to allow Bush or some future president to declare martial law, “since you can always declare martial law on a battlefield. All he would need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack inside the US.”
The AUMF was followed by the PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001, which undermined much of the US Bill of Rights. The PATRIOT Act is an assault on constitutional protections so atrocious that legislators in several US states and local officials in more than 200 cities, towns and counties across the land have passed resolutions or ordinances condemning and rejecting its abuse of civil liberties.
More than 25 million Americans live in states or communities that have officially declared that they oppose those parts of the PATRIOT Act and the even more draconian Homeland Security Act of January 2002 that trample on their freedoms. Yet the Bush administration has continued to ignore such protests and has continued to press ahead with an agenda that has had the effect of turning America more and more into a police state.
Even libraries in America are under siege. Under the PATRIOT Act, which was enacted by Congress with hardly any debate, the FBI has the right to obtain a court order to access any records that American libraries have of books borrowed by customers. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement agencies to peer into Americans’ reading habits and Internet activity, not only at the nation’s libraries but in bookstores as well.
Around the same time that the PATRIOT Act was passed in October 2001, President Bush began a campaign of massive spying on Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA), conducted without any court warrants or other judicial review. As Lindorff notes, the campaign “was and remains a programme that is clearly aimed at American dissidents and the administration’s political opponents, since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) would never have raised objections to spying on potential terrorists.”
This, and other government spying programmes, have resulted in the Bush administration having a list now of some 325,000 “suspected terrorists”!
In October 2006, Bush and Cheney, with the help of a compliant Republican-controlled Congress (as it then was, before the November 2006 mid-term congressional elections in which the Democratic Party won control of both the Senate and House of Representatives), put in place some key elements needed for a military putsch.
As Lindorff notes, “There was the overturning of the venerable Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which barred the use of active duty military inside the United States for police-type functions, and the revision of the Insurrection Act, so as to empower the president to take control of National Guard units in the 50 states even over the objections of the governors of those states.”
Put this together, says Lindorff, “with the wholly secret construction now under way - courtesy of a $ 385-million grant by the US Army Corps of Engineers to Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc - of detention camps reportedly capable of confining as many as 400,000 people, and a recent report that the Pentagon has a document, dated June 1, 2007, classified Top Secret, which declares there to be a developing ‘insurgency’ within the US, and which lays out a whole martial law counterinsurgency campaign against legal dissent, and you have all the ingredients for a military takeover of the United States.”
It is no coincidence that the contract for the building of detention camps in the US has been awarded to Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), the construction subsidiary of Houston-based oil services giant Halliburton Corporation. Before Dick Cheney became George W. Bush’s running mate in the 2000 presidential campaign, he was Halliburton’s CEO for five years (1995-2000). When Cheney left Halliburton, he was given a $ 37 million severance package by Halliburton and continues to receive $ 100,000 a year from the company under a deferred payment arrangement. He also has stock options worth $ 18 million in Halliburton. The company’s share price has shot up over the last four years as the result of the huge profits it has earned from well over $ 12 billion worth of reconstruction, supply and services contracts it has been awarded in Iraq by the Bush administration through a manifestly non-transparent no-bid process. If Cheney were to cash in his stock option today, he would earn a windfall profit of more than $ 49 million.
Says Lindorff, “As we (Americans) go about our daily lives - our shopping, our escapist movie watching, and even our protesting and political organising - we need to be aware there is a real risk it could all blow up, and that we could find ourselves facing armed, uniformed troops at our doors.”
Former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein is not an alarmist. He says he doesn’t see martial law in the US coming tomorrow. But he is also realistic. He says, “This is all sitting around like a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real. And it stays with us after Bush and Cheney are gone, because terrorism stays with us forever.”
Bush claims that the 2001 AUMF makes him commander-in-chief of a “borderless, endless war on terror.” It may be significant that Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, has called for the revocation of the 2002 AUMF against Iraq, but not for the revocation of the 2001 AUMF.
As Locke notes in his article in The Seattle Post Intelligencer, the US “media are also speaking these days of a looming constitutional crisis as committee chairs in the House and Senate confront a White House refusal to provide requested documents regarding the firings of US attorneys by the Justice Department.”
© 2007 The International News
When I was younger people used to talk about a “pendulum” — that when the country went too far to the Right or to the Left that, in time, things would swing back the other way, restoring order and normalcy. I almost believed that when the Bushistas started losing, when things seemed to stop going their way — you know, last year’s election and all.
But these people are so entrenched and have so thoroughly co-opted all the reins and mechanisms of power that a major shift in public opinion (and the shift isn’t as major as progressives more optimistic than I believe) have no effect on them whatsoever.
My thought it that it isn’t a “threat,” it’s almost a certitude. As the lame duck period nears an end I fully expect to see civil liberties formally suspended and a kind of modified martial law that won’t look like martial law will be in place, and most people will go along with it because if they don’t protest nothing majorly bad will happen to them, and those who don’t will experience . . . difficulties.
It’s pleasant to think the Democrats might repeal the the revisions to the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act that allow Bush to use the Army for police action within the United States and take over the National Guard in every state without the consent of the governors.
But we all know the Democrats have no firm conviction about anything. They will triangulate, and compromise, and dither along just like they dithered along for the last seven years, and Mr. Bush will do whatever he thinks he can get away with.
Restoration of the Posse Comitatus and Insurrection Acts to their traditional form would require a real confrontation with reality. The Democrats would have to admit that they have been compromising and playing along with evil for the last seven years. The focus-groups wouldn’t like it, and the polls wouldn’t like it, and the Democrats won’t do anything that the polls and focus-groups don’t like.
I will be waiting for any member of the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, just one presidential candidate from either party and anyone in the MSM to make a very public statement about the contents of this article tomorrow.
If this isn’t the straw that breaks their backs and finally forces them to stand up for the Constitution, then I believe we can all very safely assume they have made a conscious choice to “go along to get along” and as such must all be held accountable by the People of the United States, one way or the other.
If Hillary is the next president, we at Common Dreams will always have something to write about.___ If there is an election.
Good Friends of the Earth and Her Lifeforce. I wish to reveal what some of us are
already aware of. The next set -up “terror thing” is already underway. That will be a
fake ET / alien landing(s) with the OF COURCE declaration that we are under attack.
As most of us know the “black ops.” have been finalizing (perfecting) there fake
manmade “star/ships” for a couple decades now. This that I Am sharing here is a very “REAL”, ready to go intention of those brothers and sisters in position/office now . A MOCK ET INVASION- A SET OF SIMULTANEOUS AROUND THE COUNTRY LANDINGS DESIGNED TO INVOKE A TOTAL ACCEPTANCE- WELCOMED- MARTIAL LAW.
May Peace prevail
Anyone know where this 400,000 camp is being built? It would take up an awful lot of space. Digital photos? Anyone take a hike out to it?
One of many articles re: prison camps
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77
Just google Haliburton Prison camps in U.S.
“This, and other government spying programmes, have resulted in the Bush administration having a list now of some 325,000 “suspected terrorists”!”
Perhaps such as individuals who frequent “progressive” web sites?
Martial law will be imposed before very long. All it takes is a “catastrophic event”. And guess who gets to decide what qualifies as catastrophic?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6134
Welcome to the New World Order
Yankee Doodles - I agree. It’s usually the case that the only choices are between the best available and the worse. Refusing anything less than the perfect is ridiculous - there’s no such thing as perfect, it’s only a dream, an ideal. But it’s still the enemy of the good. Lots of people on this blog seem to want only the perfect, but the Dems are probably the best we’re realistically going to get, and although they’re not perfect, they’re as good as we can get. And they’re not Republicans either. The Republicans are much worse.
Good question Paul. There is a lot of empty, isolated government land in the southwest and Texas, maybe near area 51 in Nevada. Then there are a lot of closed military bases in many states, Maine, Mich, the Dakotas, etc. Those bases would be swell prisons. The coal fired heating plant at Loring AFB Maine was the forth largest of its type in the World. They Could burn bodies and have less pollution, you don’t have to feed or watch dead people.
I’d like to see more hard data on the Top Secret memo about insurgents. Of course there’s an insurgency brewing here. Threats to our Constitutional rights and rule of law seem to be regular business these days. But it isn’t some blogger in his basement who has created the surveilled society, the free speech protest cages, the concentration camps, preemptive wars, secret prisons, torture, loss of habeas corpus, etc.
Detaining a theoretical massive rush of new illegals is one thing, preparing against a genuine foreign threat is another. Rounding up 400,000 law-abiding Americans, many of them respected professionals, etc. for ideological reasons would undoubtedly plunge the US into Civil War. What purpose would it serve? There already is the “perfect” sort of fascism — but without the uniforms, symbols and stiff-arm salute. The Golden Rule: the man who has the gold makes the rules. They’ve found that they can secure the most power & riches when people are happy (for instance, the entertainment industry, gambling casinos, etc.).
What would make me and my generation happy would be some real estate equity before we die of old age, maybe get that cabin, more money to travel and drink beer, and more time to putz around in our gardens, readings, hikes, bikes, etc. They give me that much, and I’m their man. If they’re worried about people getting upset, perhaps they should figure out how morale works, and reconsider the merits of having a middle-class.
I like the way you think Paul. I have similar thoughts. I have my little isolated 28 acre ranch up in the southwestern mountins, a garden, an orchard and a few neighbors and friends who are pretty much far to the right type Christians.
We visit, party at times and have a few beers. However, if the bad guys came to haul me off, my friends and neighbors would probably shake their heads and quietly say, “I thought so”. There would be no outcry, we here at Common Dreams and others with similar beliefs are likely so far seperated by miles in this country, that few would even notice we were picked up and missing.
Then if the bad guys control the press and media, as they do. If arrests were all done slowly but surely. Who and how many would know or care that it happened?
Just one thing. Actually our government has hired a few thousand new border patrol agents durng the past three years and their boot camp training is much like the Marines. What has happened to those new border patrol agents? They sure aren’t all guarding the borders. There is a lot going on that we are not aware of.
Rumsfeld still has an office and small military staff in the Pentagon and of course a computer. What is he planning? Conspiracy theory? Well, I can still see and read plausable articles. It don’t look good to me.
Paul B. - I remember reading somewhere about 2 months ago that some townspeaple were protesting the building of one of these camps in their county. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where. For some reason, I think it was in one of the southern states, like the Carolinas. The info must be out there, but I don’t remember how I stumbled on it.
The other thing is, I don’t know if Congress approved funding for these detention camps. Does anybody else know?
QUOTE:
Yankee Doodles July 29th, 2007 11:57 pm
I will take a “bad” Democratic Party Congress/Senate over a “good” Republican Party Congress/Senate any day of the week.
END QUOTE
You’re STILL drinking the Dems’ koolaid, eh Yankee Doodles?
“We” got in this disaster, in part, because of people like you adopting this “best of the worst” mentality.
Assuming there are future “elections” and assuming Bush/Cheney leave, as long as people stay in the “best of the worst” or “lesser of two evils” rut, NOTHING is going to change.
“Lesser of two evils” = status quo
“Best of the worst” = status quo
You wrote you will take a “Democratic Party Congress/Senate”
The Senate is PART OF the Congress, it’s not a separate body.
Congress = House and Senate
We have Senators from the Senate
We have Representatives from the House of Representatives
Yankee Doodles you are the sad face of ignorance. Democrats and Republicans are two rotten pieces of the same cloth. Go get informed. Start with Gore Vidal, since I’m sure Noam Chomsky is too sophisticated for your tiny brain.
I could not post my post despite many attempts. So I will use a link instead.
grandma July 30th, 2007 12:24 am AND
Yankee Doodles July 29th, 2007 11:57 pm
I disagree with you. We are not “refusing anything less than the
perfect”. We are refusing empty rhetoric. We need to withhold support
from the democrats until we get better than empty rhetoric.
An this is why:-
http://web.aanet.net.au/webspace/BloodForOil/voteDemoc.txt
QUOTE:
grandma July 30th, 2007 12:24 am
Yankee Doodles - I agree. It’s usually the case that the only choices are between the best available and the worse. Refusing anything less than the perfect is ridiculous - there’s no such thing as perfect, it’s only a dream, an ideal. But it’s still the enemy of the good. Lots of people on this blog seem to want only the perfect, but the Dems are probably the best we’re realistically going to get, and although they’re not perfect, they’re as good as we can get. And they’re not Republicans either. The Republicans are much worse.
END QUOTE
Oh lord. Where to begin with this drivel? No one is talking about or has talked about “perfect” except YOU. It’s predictable: The Dem apologists and excuse makers usually have to drag out the “perfect” card as their lame and pathetic defense for the Bush-Enabler Dems. The fact is the Dems are indefensible based on their miserable performance since 2000 as some sort of phony, failed “opposition” party and only the desperate gullible Dem koolaid drinkers are STILL trying to defend them, and frankly you folks look pretty damn foolish. I can only presume you haven’t been following closely what the Dems have been doing FOR Bush ever since 2000. And nobody has enough time to go into all of that in detail. I won’t even go into the part where you say the Dems are not Repugs. Most of them are Repugs when the truth be told. But you’re in Denial.
Rebel Farmer, I read a newpaper article today, that that congress has approved the concept, but has not as yet approved the funding.
Did you ever think about how quickly the Patriot act was put together and signed? ONE MONTH after 9/11? And how much of a coincidence it is that someone plannned the perfect crime of the anthrax attacks, so soon after 9/11? And how it went to the very key Dems who may have blocked a war? The night of 9/11 Bush said there would be an immediate investigation, yet he blocked that very thing for well over a year?!
Stop with the marital law already! In case y’all haven’t been paying attention, we got no troops and most of their equipment is as trashed as their morale and support for their, er, Loonitary Decider in Chief. Not to mention the fact that “we” can’t pacify Baghdad - how the hell would Cheneybush impose marital law on 300 million of the most heavily armed, pissed off citizens in the world?
Marital law, like conscription, would be the ultimate nail in the coffin of the GOPathologicals. Never happen. However, Cheneybush may try to impose the new secret Happy Patriot executive order which allows for the warehousing of Qaeda-lovin liberals in Halliburton’s “special projects” detention centers until the “long war” ends…
Frank - true, “we got no troops, and their equipment is trashed.”
But haven’t you been paying attention to the “outsourced” military, not to mention all the used-to-be considered “unfit” for military who’re now being accepted? That’s felons, gang members, and anyone willing to join up. Just think of the numbers of gang members from all the states suddenly “legally” armed and in charge of us.
I read a year or two about the detention centers being built all over the country. People probably think they’re just more Wal- Marts or warehouses going in.
It isn’t just one gigantic one that’ll hold 400,000, it’s many, all over the country, which is why spotting them would be difficult.
I’ve been saying for a long time that after the next attack here - and they’ve started the spin for it, beginning with Chertoff’s “gut feeling,” and going from the mantra of how we haven’t been attacked since 9/11 because of Bush’s great job of protecting us, to saying another attack is imminent, (I think something will happen this fall, possibly on 9/11, or about the time of the election primaries) and then Bush will declare martial law, and cancel the ‘08 election, and then we can all kiss our you know whats goodbye.
This is the emperor without clothes trying to appear clothed.
Bush has always been all hat no cattle, and the attempt to look as if he’s prepared to impose martial law is a pure bluff. Impose it with what? The National Guard? Police departments which are woefully overworked and understaffed? Bush can’t even please the latinophobes demanding a Great Wall at the border; how in the world would someone who can’t subdue a country of 25 million subdue a country of three hundred million?
This is only a tool to get the Democrats in the House and Senate not to impeach. It’s a hollow threat.
I have to agree with frank1569, Dichterfreund: Much as Cheney/Bush might like to impose martial law, they haven’t got the troops, the popular support, nor the competence to achieve it.
The Gestapo and KGB relied on fear and patriotism to intimidate. Imagine if they had been headed up by, say, Alberto Gonzales?
No, martial law is not going to happen because the Bushies would be laughed out of office the day after they tried to impose it.
Bush has also purchased property on the moon!! Surely an example of his planning ahead. And illustrating the importance of private property and real estate that has driven on great numbers of the human race since the idea of divvying up the world began. And its concomitant greed for wealth, the current natural resource of choice, etc, etc.
And our ruling parties are at the forefront of this possessiveness. God forbid fortune should find you born to the lower depths because the options for getting out are decreasing exponentially, regardless of the American dream.
Whether martial law arrives or not, there are undoubtedly highly sophisticated government studies on what would happen were just the smallest pebble removed from the tottering edifice we are being forced to contemplate on a daily basis.
When there is a gas shortage in Iran, there are riots in the streets and torched petrol stations and they live on top of the oil. What would happen here if something similar deprived the masses of our god given impression of ourselves? Who would we be then raised from youth with the idea that things define who and what we are? The flow of fuel being only the most glaring of imbalances in the world considering folks are already lining up to buy a chunk of the moon.
How threatened the ruling elites must feel as they gaze out over the corrugated landscape. Surely you don’t expect the American population, born and bred to entitlement, will let deprivation go down like cream and honey?
There are undoubtedly checks and balances in the system to prevent a fall into a chaos that would disturb the even flow of the status quo of the “elites” living in their gated communities, or on their Montana estate? Of those who declare that “god” or good fortune, or blind chance has placed them at the top of the food chain.
The rest of us can as per eat cake or whatever.
I believe you are correct about its hollowness, at least I hope so. I understand the motives of the corporate parties in promoting it, but I don’t understand why the progressive community wouldn’t scrutize its authenticity very, very, carefully.
But the deeper matter is how low we’ve sunk that the ruling parties need to resort to fear-mongering to silence people. Whether it’s a totalitarianism with or without clothes remains to be seen. But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of unhappy people — and through no fault of their own.
Run amok banks & lending, real estate speculation and racketeering, pricing even a modest home out of middle-class reach — while at the same time sieving jobs offshore because our labor is too “expensive” (no kidding — with real estate prices like this). Fact of the matter is that a job at the FBI or local police department will barely afford you a middle-class home. From a class perspective, most of the progressive community’s former antagonists are actually ON THEIR SIDE.
So the fear-mongering, if not real, only serves to drive a wedge between the authoritarian-poor and the free-poor.
Now if I’m wrong, I hope they let us pick the paint decor.
Martial Law? Ha, not the way this outfit runs things, I could imagine martial law run by Larry, Moe and Curly. Yup, I are the decider. Let’s go and clear brush. Tell me one thing that they haven’t screwed up and if they even try impeachment is the last thing they will have to worry about, more like a rope will be on the politicians mind instead. Imagine martial law and joe six pack without his job and nascar, UFL and other mindless entertainment. I cannot imagine the imposition of martial law going easily and the country collapsing overnight into chaos. We are doomed to watch this country slide back into a depression, and no matter what it won’t be managed carefully or even competently.
Though I have little doubt that this administration has the will and has created the legal framework to declare martial law, I doubt that they could maintain it for long. The Blackwater thugs and goons necessary to enforce it would be a wake-up call for a massive popular resistance that would topple this regime.
Our National Guard is busy guarding another nation, as is much of our regular military.
It’s possible that this was the plan. After all, the N.G. and regular army might be considered too unreliable to shoot other Americans.
Martial law could be enforced by private armies, Blackwater blackshirts, who don’t even have to be American citizens, just people who are willing to shoot Americans for money. Blackwater employees shot at civilians in
New Orleans after Katrina.
Martial law could happen thusly:
1. devastated urban area. The West Coast is in danger, IMHO. I wouldn’t advise buying property in the SF Bay Area right now. Too Democratic.
2. major domestic disturbances (real or imagined) after hostilities against Iran when everyone must join the war frenzy or be deemed disloyal.
3. the final defense against impeachment.
Unless war with Iran becomes hot (#2) I don’t see martial law happening until next year.
We have 1 year.
Bladerunner;
You’re on top of it, to be sure. I have seen your posts for many days now, even your asking people on a particular thread what they thought about it, with no responses that I saw (of course people will participate without responding to the post). Well, happily, there are a few responses here. I must say, your idea is the best and most practical suggestion I have seen for what would be a truly powerful wake up call to the powers that be. It would also be an equally powerful wake up call to the American people and people everywhere, however different in nature, as we would all be so energized and empowered by it, it would be beyond words. What a change it would bring about!
To everyone else I say; if you do not participate in Red White and Blue Flu day on Sept 10 and 11, you will be proving that you are just talkers and therefore just as much to blame as Bush and Cheney themselves. Silence and non-action are complicity. Bush said to Americans citizens and to the world; Your are either for us or against us. What’s it gonna be everyone? Are you just talkers and thereby ‘with Bush’ or not? The strike WILL WORK. It will. So if you don’t do it, for ANY reason, you are just part of the problem.
Sept 10 and 11th National Strike!!! It will work, believe it!
If the worst were to happen, I think it would happen something like this: a very small group of right-wing neocon nuts with higher-up govt jobs would hunt up some chemical, biological, or dirty nuclear garbage and spread a bit here and there for a few days. They’d perhaps kill a few thousands and sicken many thousands more. Panic would be widespread. Our leaders would have to take action. Prominent lefties and Muslims would disappear. The media propaganda mill would do its job with very little nudging. The majority of American citizens would understand that we have to pull together to fight the forces of evil and “temporarily” losing a few more civil rights is acceptable under such trying circumstances. I feel bad posting this depressing message. I do however believe we would eventually pull out of that horror.
MAKE IT STOP!!!
don’t have time to research now, but have previously googled “FEMA detention camps” or something similar and came up with some interesting info.
have a good day, people! remember to greet your fellow citizens and be kind to each other. it’s one way we can resist the fear.
I agree we’re ruled by an oligarchy through the form of a plutocracy.
But what I don’t understand is that if the powers that be truly wanted to pacify the masses, enforcement wouldn’t be the way to go. It’s less practical because you’re going to get way too much resistence. Why wouldn’t the oligarchy just build a more content and larger middle-class? We’re a spending society. They’re just going to get taht money back anyway, plus we all know revolutions begin when the middle class is not content. Basically, you’d figure the powers that be would want to build a stable and content middle class- This keeps people distracted, apathetic, lazy, and most importantly spending money which ultimately goes to the pockets of the corperations.
That’s why there has to be an alterior motive in implementing Martial law. SOmeone is trying to manipulate the country into civil unrest- from there it will eventually unify the country (under a police-state and facism) and we will then soon be at war with the world, WWIII- Which in the end will lead to the new world order, the oligarchy’s ultimate goal. However, to first get there, the Oligarchy has to manipulate the masses into being more militaristic, imperial, and nationalistic. False flag operations, and martial law will help.
A new poll just came out and 75% of Americans support “surveillence Cameras” in public places. All you have to do to know that there is an oligarchy is look at two things: The Volume of blue collar crime enforcement (ie crime on the streets) and cases VERSUS the Volume of white collar crime enforcement (ie corperate crime). That sums it all up right there, and where our societies priorities lie. And most of us have been duped into going along with this too. People even call corperate lobbying/writing policy as “AMerican as apple pie.” The near exclusive focus of law enforcement on blue collar crimes proves that government is setup pretty much only for the interests of corperations.
The war in Iraq? terrorism? there is no war on terrorism. If there ever is a full blow real war, a world war, it will only occur to protect the interests of business.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling… Gimme a break. Short of a nuclear attack, there will be no nationwide martial law imposed, nor will Bush/Cheney ever be impeached.
You conspiracy nuts are as whacky as the crazies on the religious right.
Slave of Power’s post attacks liberals, while SoP tries their ineffectual best to make it seem that a military solution to a political problem is what is really needed. That’s sure working in Iraq now, isn’t it? Why not import it back home? SoP’s gun-toting, foolish belligerence is a sorry substitute for political action and it’s part of the problem, not the solution. We’re going to put an end to the Bush/Cheney cabal through democratic force, which includes excellent ideas such as Bladerunner offers, not through some idiotic notion of civil war. It’s civil disobedience we need here with the goal of a more equitable society being the target. We don’t need to target each other through the scope of a rifle. But, that’s just this proud liberal’s point of view. Impeach Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez and restore the rule of law!
Where is my tinfoil hat when I really need it?
Boognish-
Few things would make me happier than to be wrong about the threat of martial law. I will party like never before after unfraudulent elections next year, November.
However, look at the evidence.
Bush has stated more than once that dictatorship would be good if he was the dictator.
Posse Comitatus has been overthrown, so the military can be legally used as police within America.
The Pres. can order the National Guards into the streets even over the objections of the state governors.
Habeus Corpus is gone. People can be detained without showing cause to any court and without any legal representation.
The White House will not let Congress see its secret plans for a post-catastrophe government.
Bush recently issued an Executive Order based on National Emergency Acts. Did you know we’re in a state of National Emergency?
Detention camps to hold illegal aliens ‘or to support the rapid development of new programs’ are being built-capacity of camps in the hundreds of thousands.
I consider all this disturbing. You don’t? That’s fine, but I will continue to try and make sure martial law doesn’t happen, and not by pretending that it can’t.
None of us know exactly how many mercenaries the Cheney/Bush crime family has. They will use the mercenaries and the gangs and crooks that they have put in the Army and Marines. Martial Law is a very real possibility.
Red, White and Blue flu is an excellent idea. I’ll certainly do it.
frank1569 July 30th, 2007 5:51 am
It wouldn’t take much to “pacify” a population that’s aready mostly brain dead anyway.
Martial law is just the way to complete the transition to the total fascist dictatorship we have in all but name already.
non_sequitur@q.com
This discussion is isolated from the unemployed, homeless, hungry, immigrant, non-white masses more dependent on the system than those who have computers, power, money, and security. This separation of poor and rich is widening. Who among us would not want more police, prisons, lawyers to protect our homes, jobs, children, and possessions from the disparate disenfranchised? Visible martial law would only be invoked to contain food riots and class civil war should the economy totally fail the vulnerable. Consider your fear if the Fed went broke and welfare became unavailable.
We currently have a huge fascist police state and the largest prison population in the world. Only the wealthy seem blissfully unaware of widespread trauma on the streets in the USA. We currently have invisible martial law. It grows daily. Why wait for formal declaration of martial law?
Relax everybody. It wasn’t the Constitution/Bill of Rights/Magna Carta or any philosopher or politican that determine the extent of our freedom or servitude. If you accept that some “other” can give you and define your freedom then you inheritantly accept that they can also take them away or limit them. You have the freedom and power that you choose. That has been demonstrated in the US during the past 100 years. The Americans have given more power to corpra-toxcity with the inherent acceptance of its people.
And NRA folks. I don’t trust people who think that guns are the answer. You are not trusting the need to include your family and community in your endeavors; although I revere your willingness to contemplate puting your life on the line. But don’t you know that you can get any weapon you want from the police or the military when it comes time to take arms against your own country. The weapons are all here and they are being maintained in great shape by our wardens. Unfortuenately that also goes for anyone who wishes to set off a nuclear bomb. They don’t need to import one. They are already here. Such is the irony of power.
If and only if each commondeams.org reader/writer would tell ten people “out there” who have not heard of commondreams, maybe just maybe they too tell ten and so on, would the mass have an idea of what has happened so far. Now what is coming is scary, even tho we do not know excatly what it is…..
ALL TELL TEN FOR A 2020 VISION OF A GOOD COUNTRY AGAIN.
BILL
BRAITHWA842 - You say -
“I disagree with you. We are not “refusing anything less than the perfect”. We are refusing empty rhetoric. We need to withhold support from the democrats until we get better than empty rhetoric.”
We have something more than empty rhetoric already - for one thing, Kucinich/HR333 and the many Dems who have already signed on to it. You may think this is not enough and I’d agree with that, but it’s a start and the Gonzales hearing has lit a fire under a lot of Congresspeople, both Senators and Representatives, and some are Repugs too (as, Sen. Spector).
ERMA - Your posts often remind me of the warring couples I used to counsel in my working days. There was always one of them who simply could not admit to any common ground between them. After much frustration, I finally got it that counseling was hopeless in these cases and they would wind up divorced and still fighting over money, kids, the house, etc.
Finding the common ground means a bit of co-operation and “agreeing to disagree” and getting on with the main things. In fact, that is the heart and soul of democracy (as well as the secret of a good marriage).
fedayeen- I believe you are mistaken when you suggest that Bush and Cheney could never pull off martial law because they are incompetent. I believe they have succeeded in creating chaos in the Middle East and America. As planned. To assume that the neo-cons that control this administration want the same things as you and I do is misguided, at best. The war on terror, the hunt for bin laden, Iraq, 9-11, Katrina, they all make a hell of a lot more sense when viewed through the context that this cabal of military neo-cons ARE the enemy. It’s really the only way any of their actions make any sense, from the Patriot Act, to destroying the crime scene at ground zero, not investigating or even acknowledging WTC-7, to letting Bin Laden get away at least twice, to having no entry or exit plan in Iraq, to stopping the oil from flowing out of Iraq- driving UP prices, to bringing Iran and Syria and now Pakistan in to the conflict, to setting up a puppet government, not having enough troops on the ground- insuring a long battle, arming both sides of the Iraqi civil war, crushing dissent in this country, etc, etc, etc
Also, to those that say the military is overseas and they don’t have the equipment. The way I look at it, that could very well be part of the plan. They could be training Blackwater/ black ops in Iraq for these types of battles. It is not exactly known how many there are in Iraq “training”, and as others have said many are not Americans at all, so we would never know when they were leaving Iraq. Bring Blackwater back to the states keep the soldiers and Marines out of the states and then slowly started imprisoning dissenters, probably after the next false flag attack.
It’s frightening, but it makes sense to me. Don’t be fooled in to thinking these guys are the fools. That’s one of the things they are banking on.
WmC writes: “Much as Cheney/Bush might like to impose martial law, they haven’t got the troops, the popular support, nor the competence to achieve it.”
Well, WmC, doncha know that BushCo’s got a whole private army on retainer? It’s called Blackwater. And if you think this is just a little gang of mercenaries, then you haven’t read Scahill’s book. Here’s a recent review:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n15/meek01_.html
I may be more cynical than others, but here is what i believe. i do not wish to debate about it its just what i think.
My father served in the Navy in WWII. He is a true Roosevelt democrat. You remember FDR. Arguably the finest President this country has ever had. For years my father has said time and time again that this is not he democratic party he has known all of his life. (in a rather eerie invasion of the body snatcher kind of way) He just does not recognize them, they do not have the same values anymore. Okay hold that thought.
Heres what we know in the year 2007. WE have actual proof that the 2000, and 2004 elections are completely fraudulent. (see Bev Harris, Clint Curtis florida deposition.) We suspect high levels of complicity by the Bush crime family in 9/11.(see whatreallyhappened.com)whether you think they knew about and let it happen or you think they outright planned and executed it(reichstag fires) everyone suspects they had a hand in it.* We know that there is no Iraq war but rather that we are excercising an occupation for the Bush Crime Families monitary gains. (see every progressive website there is)
We know they have duplicated the Hitler/Nazi playbook move for move. (patriot/enabling act, NSA spying, declaring absolute power, this article we are commenting on, and the list goes on for days)The crimes that have been openly committed by this administration are staggering. they are so arrogant that we do not need conspiracy theories with these guys because they openly break the laws and then laugh out loud about it.
Okay all of that being said, getting back to my fathers thoughts, I cannot accept any other explanation than the Democratic party has been totally hijacked and is literally been bought out. Most of them say the right things, like Kucinich etc, but as far as action they are totally impotent. Like a 90 year old dick. You can argue that its only been months and that they’ve made some progress, but even in the progress that they appear to make it is really inaffectual. A great big so what, now what will you do.
I contend that our government died with JFK. And that the Fascist war machine that Eisenhower spoke of in his farewell address is what we are seeing now. Alot of the groundwork was laid out in the Nixon and then Reagan administration. And now it has come to fruition.
As I watch whats happening its as if its all scripted. As far as this article (the threat of martial law is real)I believe its true. But it will play out in a slightly different way,more metaphorical, the Democrats now extinct and serving the same master as the Neocons, will assume power,(for appearances) but you watch, nothing will change. Thats how it plays out.
Now as far as what to do about all of this. Well I am for a Ghandi type “peaceful non cooperation with the government. There is also an all out full blown American revolution. Either of these are a solution, but what is lacking with either whether peaceful or violent is a leader. There are no leaders, no Che Guevarro’s no Ghandis no MLK’s nobody, nothing, zilch.
So there it is, ponder it, dismiss it, but watch thats how it will play out, I am willing to bet on it, Hillary will be the next president its all been bought and paid for and you can see the foreshadowing going on all around in the things that she has been saying….
liberal with an attitude:
scripted??
no doubt in my mind..
the boy george is very good!!
i’m in on sept 10 & 11,
ummmm yeah.
means no wine jug..
i can do that..
‘n
a couple of days ago a b29 bomber flew directly overhead at about 800 feet..the belly gun turrent was quit visible with guns protruding as was the tail..this post comes from n. idaho..a movie, i wonder…
ken
liberal with an attitude,
There are leaders out there, but there aren’t too many people listening to them now.
If you are correct about the Democratic buy-out, given their paralysis to actually do anything, to take charge, to drink non-tainted water or whatever it is that’s hamstringing them, if all of this is true — then it may be their inactions moreso than Bush’s actions that plunge us into deep troubles in the not-distant future.
http://wonkette.com/politics/george-w.-bush/we-hate-to-bring-up-the-nazis-but-they-fled-to-south-america-too-208549.php
Check this out…
Slave of Power wrote:
“Tomorrow or the next day, CD will print another blather by Derrick Jackson or Jesse “the pimp” Jackson calling for immediate and total gun control. And everyone will post saying how “reasonable” this is.
Meanwhile, if martial law comes, it will be the NRA members, not liberals, who save us.”
Ha, you are such a fool ! You want to start a revolution, but you first want to get “permission” from the government that you want to overthrow to use your guns ? Why haven’t you stood up against the criminal Bush regime then earlier, BEFORE they enact Martial Law?
As I suspect, it is all just empty rhetoric. You are just hiding behind your gun, but you don’t have the courage that is necessary to save the American people from a predatory government.
By the way, I don’t think that the Martial Law is a real threat. It is, as long as democratic institutions exist, just a matter of framing the debate. The Bush regime wants to enact Martial Law if a terrorist attack occurs, but another terrorist attack should be seen as absolute PROOF that Republicans are completely incompetent when it comes to protecting the American people against foreign enemies, since they also did not manage to prevent the previous terrorist attack at 9-11 2001. And we all know that the Iraq War has made the world less safe.
When another terrorist attack comes, everybody should be screaming for a new government, because this one has messed up big time.
If Republicans KNOW that this is how the public thinks, they would do anything just to prevent another terrorist attack.
KEM PATRICK writes: “… if the bad guys came to haul me off, my friends and neighbors would probably shake their heads and quietly say, “I thought so”. There would be no outcry, we here at Common Dreams and others with similar beliefs are likely so far seperated by miles in this country, that few would even notice we were picked up and missing.”
Reverend Niemöller wrote: “When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.”
Things are more like they used to be than they ever were.
I don’t know what scares me more: martial law, or the NRA nuts.
The ready availability of easily concealed weapons was one of the reasons I left for Canada. Yea, the border’s pretty porous, but if you get caught with one here, they take it away and lock you up or deport you.
All you blustering, bravado gun-nut types: we’ve seen how you stand up against something as inept as ATF. What makes you think you’d stand a minute against war-hardened Blackwater mercenaries? They’ll capture you alive, then slowly torture and kill your family until you tell them where your guns are hidden.
“He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.” During martial law or insurrection, guns will only make you a target of others who desire guns.
While the military, and even all of the other forces and private armies, do not have enough force to control all of the cites, if there is a nookular terrist attack, they won’t have to. Remember in the US most of our food travels thousands of miles. There are enough forces to search every truck and train for more nukes. Any city that does not fall in line will have a food shortage.
I’ll let you guess where the nuke used in the false flag attack will come from. Not from the US, because those nukes are too well documented.
If there is a cancellation of the 2008 election, we need to immediately respond with peaceful protests (at first). Any protests will need to go on for weeks or months. A one or two day boycott is a meaningless symbolic act. So what if those in power have to wait a few days to get your money.
We also need to let any military or private forces supporting such a move that they are supporting an unconstitutional action, and thus they are traitors and will face the music when things are sorted out. Remember there were elections during the War of 1812 and the Civil War. If the “terrists” have nukes, being at home, as opposed to being at the polls won’t save you.
If they start using the heavy guns to spread fear among the people, then we need to do everything we can to oppose the fear.
There are leaders out there, but there aren’t too many people listening to them now. Paul Bramscher END QUOTE
No there aren’t. Unfortunately not a single one. A leader of a revolution is someone that steps in and takes charge. Organizes, then plans and executes. We all sit around and preach to the choir, we listen to Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartman and Al Franken when he was on, we read “the assault on reason” and we peruse the internet for the truth and call ourselves informed, but then, wait for it, nothing happens…….
liberal with an attitude July 30th, 2007 5:19 pm
I share the same persective on history and the run-up to our present condition as you and your father.
Your description of the Dem’s take-over under Hillary reminds me of an Hegelian vice, i.e., thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It’s probably no accident that Francis Fukuyama, a neo-can, has already declared the ‘End of History’. (And, in case you haven’t kept up, he declared this current period in history the ‘Post-Human Era’ as of 2002.)
Further developments of Hegel’s philosophy led to the ideology that ‘reason is god and the state is absolute’.
I personally don’t buy into Hegel, et al’s, rubbish, but, for those who do it makes for interesting ‘theater’. And, the consequences to the poor unsuspecting masses is more like behavior modification and mind control.
KEM PATRICK July 30th, 2007 4:56 am
Rebel Farmer, I read a newpaper article today, that that congress has approved the concept, but has not as yet approved the funding.
When the contract was orginally awarded in 2006, Congressional approval for the funding was not required:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/
04halliburton.html?ex=1296709200&en=
01728da2eba059e4&ei=5088&partner=rssn
“WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq….”
“KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year.
“The contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions. Officials of the corps said that they had solicited bids and that KBR was the lone responder….”
“Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who has monitored the company, called the contract worrisome.
‘With Halliburton’s ever expanding track record of overcharging, it’s hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars’, Mr. Waxman said. ‘With each new contract, the need for real oversight grows’.”
I don’t know what the status of that contract is today but “four optional one-year extensions” gives them until 2010.
P.S. I’m from southern New Mexico, too.
Cheers!
Kudos……….only 325,000 ?? Hmm,,they are missing quite a few patriots I would say. Problem is, none of the American public see american patriots as terrorists. To bad that the wh does…it sure needs a douche !! :O)Perhaps Massengil will come to the rescue ?? lol