Missing A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND MILITARY

[Nothing Without Hope]

Bush made it clear in his speech that the Administration is STILL going to try to use the Katrina disaster to grab more power. It would be another big step in their ongoing push toward suspension of the Constitution and Pentagon-directed military police and gutted civilian and states' rights. This has been a major goal of theirs for years - it can be documented step by step, for example the Patriot Act. (Of course this demand for ultimate Fed power centralization is also part of the strategy to blame the local and state authorities for the mass negligent homicide - it is saying in effect, "Just give us feds all the power and then you will all be safe!!!")

We cannot let this happen and must be very alert to prevent it.

In Bush's speech, along with the prospect of the vast reconstruction funds to be gobbled up by GOP crony deals; the plan to permanently disperse, displace and impoverish the people from New Orleans and the other devastated areas of the South; the prospect of federal money for religious schools to "educate" the displaced children; and many more neocon dreams, don't miss THIS:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9360206
(snip)

"...It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.

"Four years after the frightening experience of September 11th, Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency. When the federal government fails to meet such an obligation, I, as President, am responsible for the problem, and for the solution. So I have ordered every Cabinet secretary to participate in a comprehensive review of the government response to the hurricane. This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. We are going to review every action and make necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people."

(snip)

You know the kind of people he has for Cabinet secretaries, so you know whatever "recommendations" they come up with will be for the purpose of furthering neocon goals. His assertion that the federal government and the military need more power to act effectively during a crisis is a lie. EXISTING laws already give him that power, but he is trying to push the limits. For example, read the relevant sections of the DHS National Response Plan, an EXISTING document:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4668155
thread title: The Buck Stops Here: NATIONAL RESPONSE PLAN
The lines of authority are very clear; Bush does NOT need more power or more excuses to call for martial law and was TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FAILURES IN THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE KATRINA. Count on it, the detailed language in any change would include extension of the military policing to "civil disturbances" or just about any other damn thing.

And we're supposed to be encouraged that the disastrous federal non-response to the catastrophe will result in even TIGHTER exclusion of state and civilian efforts?!?! FEMA/DHS should have even GREATER power to block aid and disrupt search/rescue efforts and essential communication?!? Look at horrors FEMA/DHS are ALREADY responsible for in the Katrina disaster and their efforts to prevent anyone else from helping the victims that they have abandoned to die. The answer is supposed to be to INCREASE the power of these people?!?!

Oh yes. Using Katrina to grab more power for the POTUS is a theme. For example:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1778930
Thread title: Bush says he may need more power in disasters
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4715924#4726849
Thread title: NPR Reports: GW to Blanco"I'll send in the troops if you answer to the WH"

Make no mistake, there are years of step-by-step plans and moves leading up to this crisis and the intended political manipulation of it. I've been researching this and it isn't tinfoilhattery at all. The WH/Pentagon knew the disaster would come in some form, natural or man-made, sooner or later. In fact, in early 2001 there was the official report that the three top, most likely catastrophes to hit the US would be an earthquake in San Francisco, a terrorist attack in New York, or a hurricane in New Orleans. Bush knew, and he cut funding to maintain levees and improve hurricane preparedness:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4545852
thread title: FACTS: Bush was told about NO , he funded a study to confirm & then CUT $$
(New Orleans hurricane and New York terrorist attack! Hey, two out of three!!! Though I do believe the New York attacks on 9/11 happened because of planning by Pentagon/WH insiders.)

For more of the back story on the step by step move to dictatorship and martial law, see this post and the follow the links back.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1765780&mesg_id=1766896

Let's not let the neocons use this great disaster as the "one more hit" that General Tommy Franks was referring to in his Cigar Aficionado interview that would could result in the suspension of the Constitution for our "protection."
http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Profiles/People_Profile/0,2540,201,00.html

I recommend this excellent article, a column written in response to Tommy Franks' surprisingly frank prediction.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/07/Columns/From_Tommy_Franks__a_.shtml

From Tommy Franks, a doomsday scenario

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published December 7, 2003

The doomsday scenario was laid out by Gen. Tommy Franks, the recently retired head of CentCom, in of all places the December edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine.

"What is the worst thing that can happen in our country?" Franks asked rhetorically. "Two steps. The first step would be a nexus between weapons of mass destruction . . . and terrorism." The second step would be "the western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy."

Franks suggested that a "massive casualty-producing event" might cause "our population to question our own Constitution and begin to militarize our country."

(snip)

It was the Nine Years' War in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World that facilitated the seizure of power by the world reformers who then took control of nearly all human and social development. In 1984, George Orwell described Oceania as in a constant state of war with a changeable enemy who "always represented absolute evil." These inventors of the great dystopias understood the way governments use war and its associative fear and instability to consolidate power. Despotism thrives on insecurity. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs puts safety right behind food, water and sleep. Humans naturally crave stability and are willing to sacrifice values such as liberty in its pursuit.

(snip)

Foolish tinfoilhattery, you say? John Dean, one of our country's most respected legal authorites, disagrees with you. In 2002 he considered the probable consequences of the "one more hit," which he thought of as another domestic terrorist attack - though the hurricane can work even better for this purpose, especially with what certainly looks like deliberate worsening of the aftermath. Mr. Dean thought it quite possible that a great disaster like another terrorist attack could be successfully manipulated by the Administration into a functional suspension of the Constitution that he called "constitutional dictatorship."
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/columns/fl.dean.powers.0607

With the Bush Administration, always watch for the hand behind the back - the one holding the secret stiletto. They are STILL going to try to use this ongoing national tragedy to grab more civil and state power and consolidate under Pentagon-directed military police. If they give it a name at all, I promise you they won't call it what it is: martial law and military dictatorship. No, I'm betting on something Orwellian like "Operation Safe America." You can bet that it will NOT involve OUR National Guard back at home defending their states under their governors' authority.

We MUST MUST MUST stay alert and STOP the power grab that the Bush Administration will try to make based on their own murderously negligent and incompetent response to the hurricane.

Not only would this dismantle many more of the essential Constitutional protections from dictatorship and further increase Bush's unbalanced power, it would make us all LESS safe from natural and man-made disasters, not more. We MUST make both of these points clear to the American public. This is a turning point, one way or the other.

[eleny]

1. Yes, I caught that

And I expect to hear a lot about that from what media we do have on the left.

Bernie Ward is just now going off on how W did an imitation of a Dem/Lib. It's a start.

[Trevelyan]

77. Nominated - Thank you Nothing Without Hope for your steadfast work and

courage. I remember your predicting this before the hurricane and before we saw how bad BFEE's response was and now the Blackwell killers and Mexican army walking our streets armed to the teeth and not just the National Guard who would have feelings for their neighbors and neighborhood stuck in Iraq but also the equipment that would have helped save people.

I think it was Molly Ivins who wrote in a very good condemnation of the response that condemned so many to death saying "not to be picky but what do they need amphibious vehicles in the desert for?"

Anything we can do to stop this madness is good. Keep emailing and try to make it to Washington on Sept. 24. We have been complaining about the MSM not telling the truth, now that they are doing it, need to offer constant support.

Please leave leaflets of antiwar marches in DC and other cities in your grocery basket when you leave store, restrooms, benches at malls, please.

http://www.democracycellproject.net/
http://unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2872#24natl ~LEAFLETS ONSITE

[Nothing Without Hope]

92. Thank you, Trevelyan. I'm just glad this post didn't get locked or

disappeared like some other earlier ones did, both from me and from others. I'm wondering how many people are FINALLY beginning to see that what is STILL happening in the hurricane region is DELIBERATE. There is vast incompetence, yes, but the delays and blocks of aid are clearly DELIBERATE. Documents show that Chertoff and Bush delayed for days, and every new discovery makes it that much clearer. This is NOT some goofy, embarrassing "conspiracy theory." It's a conspiracy. Period.

The eyewitness accounts say that there are many, many areas where people are STILL without food or water, FEMA nowhere to be found. It's as if the abandoned, traumatized, dying people really are just "human garbage" to the neocons who have condemned them to slow death. And when they finally die, they are left to rot and be consumed by animals.

Did you read the accounts from the Veterans For Peace & Michael Moore? Yes, they're getting the aid out there, but in many areas they are the first and only ones who are, and they cannot reach nearly so far as the government is supposed to have been doing from the first:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4800863

Sometimes I think I'm being a fool, sinking so much time and energy into working on threads like this that are read by so few, but I don't know what else to do and I have to do SOMETHING. Thanks for your encouragement.

Edited to add: My DU friends call me Hope, and I really like it. :pals:

[Autumn Colors]

2. I agree 100%

That sentence was what jumped out at me the loudest out of the entire speech.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Very important point. Nominated.

This is a key point and though I noted it at the time, thank you for transcribing and analysing.

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. YVW, but I didn't have to transcribe. MSNBC has the "PREPARED TRANSCRIPT"

here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9360206

Its article discussing the speech is here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9345270/

[texpatriot2004]

4. I agree too. He'll try to get more power here.

NO MORE POWERS FOR HIM HE CAN'T EVEN USE THE ONES HE'S GOT!

[Trevelyan]

147. Kick - Blackwater Mercs and 82 Airborne not helping but armed & dangerous

in NOLA - Bush must have illegally declared martial law if Blanco held her ground.

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/rita_shows_new_.html
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/today_in_dc_com.html DOJgov.net Newswire July 4, 2002

Washington Post has an incredible new column, Early Warnings, on Operation Granite and Geyser online with even more incredible comments, sounds like a TruthBlog. Incredible comments!!

"Shadow Government, Martial Law and Locking Americans Out of the Liberty Loop"

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/091005Chin/091005chin.html Blackwater Mercs

http://www.AboveTopSecrets.com has a mixture of political beliefs but some very good information on British false flag operation being the insurgency to give bush a reason to keep his 14 military bases in Iraq. I hope Fitzgerald comes though and the Federal Marshalls are well trained in combat. The bush Regime and PNAC is not going to give up power easily, the only hope is if Bilderberg, the Pentagon and the Intelligence Communities are indeed in civil war mode and are sane enough not to want all out nuclear war and will help to bring down these insane criminals.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/23/102830/522

"Bush Extends Nat'l State of Emergency - Military in Streets of DC
Don't want to be alarmist about this, but these three simultaneous items together are really jarring...."

"The concept of maintaining continuity of government during and after an emergency is not a new idea. During the Cold War, Congress established elaborate and rather luxurious survival facilities in the mountains of West Virginia. Presumably, while the American "common folk" would be incinerated, the privileged could survive and guarantee the continuity of government and civilization based on their own criteria for human survival.

It was on this premise that in 1964, the great film Director Stanley Kubrick created the classic "Dr. Strangelove."

According to the Washington Post (March 2002), the operation was re-activated after the 11 September attacks. It is reported to involve officials drawn from all departments, depending on the perceived level of threat (or in the case of Dr. Strangelove... position in government, superior genetics and potential virility for human regeneration).

Sec. 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both...."

[alfredo]

5. I have read where some top Republicans want to "review" the

Posse Comitatus Act so the military can take over a "policing" role.

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. They've wanted to do that for years. They see this as their big chance.

I'm betting that one reason (there were several) that the Administration withheld aid after the storm was to try to make the local and state authorities look as bad as possible before they then swept in dramatically and "saved the day."

Didn't work that way both because of the surprising (to both sides) outrage of some of the Press and also because they are SO DAMNED FRIGGING INCOMPETENT. So the net result was unknown thousands of effectively DELIBERATE deaths - call it negligent homicide or genocide, the facts are (a) the people who died or were displaced were mostly poor and mostly black, and (b) their deaths and displacedment were a direct result of a decision by the Administration to delay and block aid. Myself, I think I'll call it "mass murder for political gain."

[alfredo]

54. bush will try his best to use this tragedy to further his agenda.

the cuts will fuck the middle class and the poor, and the wider powers will be used to quell any angry reaction (insurection) to his policies.

[Nothing Without Hope]

32. We need to document such statements, get them word for word. They

are planning to do this by stealth, I believe. The powers of FEMA are already so huge (see this post downthread - it will curl your head: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112#4790882), but they are apparently NOT ENOUGH FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.

Posse Comitatus is specifically for preventing a military dictatorship. When they say they want to "review ithe Posse Comitatus Act," that is a red flag that they want martial law. We are FOOLS if we do not take notice and fight back.

[alfredo]

55. Someone like Clinton would use them as the last resort, bush

wouldn't have the same restraint.

The neo cons, the Straussians, have little love for democracy, look for them to try to convert the US into a Patrician Paradise.

[NYC]

6. This is the sentence.

This was predicted:

"...It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.

The Imperial Presidency by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. showed the beginning of increased executive branch power and the erosion of checks and balances among the three branches.

This must be stopped.

[burrowowl]

7. Yes noted and

recommended for greatest!
Scary!

[Trevelyan]

146. The Use of Blackwater Mercenaries Must Be Protested to Congress and the

media every chance we get, WaPo has a new online column called FIRST WARNING trying to help, Reuters is really stepping up to the bat, today's DU front page linking to Reuters and Guardian are good. I signed up for free registration with both of them. Good to reward those who are telling the truth. Reuter has been talking about their reporters being "detained" and tortured at Abu Ghraib with NO TRIAL DATE SET and now are reporting on the murder of reporters by US forces of their reporters and many other nationalities. And the lack of any aid now or long-term to the victims in the American Gulf by Bush and Repukes.

[NYC]

8. Professional army vs. citizen army.

Also known as enlisted vs. drafted.

The Imperial Presidency by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Page 198:

...The Commander in Chief clause gave every President nominal command of the Army and Navy. But it could not guarantee him, as Johnson and Nixon discovered in Vietnam, the loyalty of the soldiers in the field, nor the support of their families back home. When a citizen army had a war it believed in, like the Second World War, it fought with unsurpassed courage; but, thrown into a war it could not understand, it could become sullen and disaffected. Nixon now tried to solve the problem of the undependable army, and thereby elliminate one more check on presidential war, by replacing the army made up of civilans by an army made up of professional soldiers.

Had such an army existed in the 1960s, public criticism of the Indochina War would have been much slower to emerge. Even as it was, so long as the Americans killing and dying in Vietnam were sons of poor whites and poor blacks, the American middle class remained generally uninvolved. It was only when the contraction of educational deferments in 1967 and 1968 exposed their own sons to the draft that they (and, in many cases, their sons too) first began to wonder whether the American interest was after all worth the sacrifice of American lives. It was then that opinion began to change. Had conscription been on an egalitarian basis, the middle class would undoubtedly have swung against the war much earlier.

A citizen army is a projection of a whole nation and therefore has the capacity to find means of resisting a President who wants to fight wars in which the nation does not believe. A professional army is by definition a much more compliant and reliable instrument of presidential war. Its members are in the army by their own free choice. Because they believe in their career, they do not have to believe in a particular war. This would not matter if the United States needed only a very small army -- say, the 189,839 of the Army of 1939. But Nixon planned a very large professional army -- 2,233,000 men. The establishment of a vast professional army could only liberate Presidents for a wider range of foreign adventure.

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. I also believe federalization, war-hardening and displacement of the GUARD

is part of the larger picture. For a good discussion of this aspect as well as some important collateral points, I recommend reading through this thread - all of it - and studying the links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4519574
Thread title: Think about the implications of this: Nat'l Guard in Iraq, NorthCom HERE.

This is EXTREMELY important - we must understand NorthCom, one of the official missions of which is to administer martial law when it is declared. And it can be declared by the President for "civil unrest."

By the way, this is why I believe one of the goals of the policies of the Administration in this disaster was to CREATE enough "civil unrest" in protest for their blatantly racist, murderous policies that it could be hyped and fabricated into an excuse for widespread martial law - for our own "protection." The more "looters™" and scary, endlessly shown TV clips of angry faces, preferably dark faces, and the more likely enough people would be frightened to accept this step.

[nadinbrzezinski]

89. For teh record the rise of protest is at part

or faster than NAM... which saw our first advisors in country in 1955

[Trevelyan]

148. Paying Blackwater Mercs $250,000 a year is where the Social Security Trust

Fund has gone, along with private pensions, i.e. Enron (Ken Lay now belongs to Bilderberg), World.com, and now those poor people laid off from the airlines and the judicary let them down by saying that the pension plans stolen by the airlines don't have to be paid. more angry people, even WaPo printed letter from man who was laid off and now has no pension.

"President Bush is now voicing a desire to bolster the federal government's ability to quickly bring the forces of the U.S. military to bear on domestic soil during times of "extreme circumstances". But voices are rallying against his statements citing restrictions on use of the military as policing forces on domestic soil as banned in the
Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

www.cnn.com "The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bans the armed forces from participating in police-type activity on U.S. soil. Gene Healy, a senior editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush risks undermining "a fundamental principle of American law" by tinkering with the Posse Comitatus Act."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/091005Chin/091005chin.html

September 10, 2005—Wednesday's broadcast of KPFA's "Flashpoints" featured a telephone interview with Malik Rahim, who gave a gut-wrenching and shocking firsthand account of the staggering horror of still-neglected New Orleans that he and other survivors are facing...

In stark contrast to increasingly optimistic mainstream media coverage (cover-up) about "improving relief efforts" and rebuilding," Rahim exposed the fact that there is no relief. No Red Cross, no food, no emergency medical care under a FEMA lockdown that has kept any relief from getting into New Orleans.

[Why Syzygy]

157. ..civil war . is Halliburton in line?

http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_us.htm

[autorank]

9. I have to stop reading incredibly intelligent posts before bed time...

...This is so true and well documented and reasoned. There is no event that the * people, i.e., neocons, won't use to grab more power. Logic escapes them. The strong Federal response required was totally absent before, during and after the hurricane. Doesn't bother them, they just take th opportunity and turn it to their favor. Now they see the value of Federal insertion...great, too bad so many had to die, suffer, lose their homes, while the rest of us weep for our lost liberties and pay the tap.

This thread is one that needs to stick around a long time. It defines the issue beautifully and with precision.

Thanks!

[Hello_Kitty]

20. It really does escape them doesn't it?

It's as though they are completely oblivious to history. These Grover Norquists and their ilk are so clueless in the way that they are so intent upon imposing the very type of oppression that invariably leads to the popular revolts that produce what they fear most. I guess they figure it will happen long after they are dead. I think they're mistaken. Information travels much more quickly now than it did 100 years ago. The Internet that they use to disseminate their spin is the same format that will be their undoing. Dumbasses.

[autorank]

30. "Excuse me, thats Dumas!" No kidding, they're Dumbasses.

They have done so much damage, so quickly, our return to power will be called "The Restoration."

[NYC]

11. Use of professional (enlisted/volunteer) army at home.

In response to Nothing Without Hope's posting of:
"...It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.



The Imperial Presidency by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Continued from page 198:


A vast professional army, in addition, could provide dangerous temptations to the imperial Presidency at home. Tocqueville had long since pointed out the different consequences a citizen army and a professional army had for a democracy. When men were conscripted into an army, a few might acquire a taste for military life, "but the majority, being enlisted against their will and ever ready to go back to their homes," found military service not a chosen vocation but a vexatious duty. "They do not therefore imbibe the spirit of the army, or rather they infuse the spirit of the community at large into the army and retain it there." But a professional army "forms a small nation by itself, where the mind is less enlarged and habits are more rude than in the nation at large." Its officers in particular "contract tastes and wants wholly distinct from those of the nation." In consequence, "military revolutions, which are scarcely ever to be apprehended in aristocracies, are always to be dreaded among democratic nations."

It was not unkown for professional officers in the citizen army to complain about a want of discipline and patriotism in the nation. Nor was it inconceivable that the existence of an army professional in all its ranks might suggest things to a President who regarded dissent as a form of subversion or anarchy and wished to restore law and order in the name of national security. Seven Days in May (an excellent movie*) might seem melodramatic fantasy, but Preisident Kennedy, who knew the military, wanted it filmed as a warning to the nation. In any case, there seemed no advantage in compounding problems of an already volatile political society by introducing into it a "small nation by itself," united by professional prejudices, resentments and ambitions and possessing a monopoly of the weapons of war. Here, it would appear, was precisely the large and permanent military establishment which, as Hamilton had written in the Eighth Federalist, tended to destroy civil and political rights of the people and which, as Madison had said in 1812, was forbidden by the principles of our free government.

*It is I, NYC, who say it is an excellent movie, not Schlesinger.

[Nothing Without Hope]

25. Yes. I also suspect that the planned "consolidation" of military bases

the massive near-term plan that would shift long-established military bases mostly to "red state" areas, is part of this same planning for a "professional" (as opposed to civilian) military answerable only to the POTUS and the Pentagon. Yes, they are handing out pork to their cronies from the expected local base revenues, but that just doesn't seem like enough to generate this massive disruption. I think it's something even nearer to the neocons' hearts: POWER.

Yes, this is a speculation. But for me it has the right smell, or rather stench, and the possibility needs to be evaluated. It's clear that this isn't really for saving money, its avowed purpose. Why then? I think this gets to Schlesinger's point:

It was not unknown for professional officers in the citizen army to complain about a want of discipline and patriotism in the nation. Nor was it inconceivable that the existence of an army professional in all its ranks might suggest things to a President who regarded dissent as a form of subversion or anarchy and wished to restore law and order in the name of national security. Seven Days in May might seem melodramatic fantasy, but President Kennedy, who knew the military, wanted it filmed as a warning to the nation. In any case, there seemed no advantage in compounding problems of an already volatile political society by introducing into it a "small nation by itself," united by professional prejudices, resentments and ambitions and possessing a monopoly of the weapons of war.

Here's the post I put up when the base closing/moving plan was first announced - even then it was clear that the stated reason for this huge shift, a modest long-term savings, was a BLATANT LIE. In fact, later studies showed that in many if not most cases, the move would result in no savings or even INCREASED costs. (I have a link or two for that if anyone wants it.) Here's the original post, with excerpts and maps from the 3 top US papers - one in the opening post and others in the replies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1782877&mesg_id=1782877
Thread title: LAT: Military base closings will shift troops to the South- POLITICS!!!

I propose a project for someone or someones at DU - research the projected military base closings and movements with reference to the hypothesis that their primary function may actually be at least in part to promote the formation of a professional military answerable ONLY to the President and the Pentagon, capable of coolly administering martial law.

[scarletwoman]

13. This is really important stuff. Please keep voting & kicking this up!

We need to stay alert!

sw

[Lone_Star_Dem]

15. Nominated, kicked and bookmarked

That means I agree with you and you provided excellent resources on the topic.

The group I was watching with tonight and I discussed this prior to his speech. When it came there was a collective chorus of, "he said it."

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. Understand POSSE COMITATUS - it protects democracy and it is in danger:

The neocons have been trying to disable posse comitatus for some time. I think they see the after-Katrina changes they are planning, alluded to in Bush's speech, as their chance to destroy this vital protection from military dictatorship.

Here is an excellent description and explanation, at the web site of the Washington University School of Law.

http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-2/752-10.html

THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT: A PRINCIPLE IN NEED OF RENEWAL

Cite As 75 Wash. U. L.Q. 953

I. INTRODUCTION

In response to the military presence in the Southern States during the Reconstruction Era, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act<1> ("PCA" or the "Act") to prohibit the use of the Army in civilian law enforcement. The Act embodies the traditional American principle of separating civilian and military authority and currently forbids the use of the Army and Air Force to enforce civilian laws.<2> In the last fifteen years, Congress has deliberately eroded this principle by involving the military in drug interdiction at our borders.<3> This erosion will continue unless Congress renews the PCA's principle to preserve the necessary and traditional separation of civilian and military authority.

The need for reaffirmation of the PCA's principle is increasing because in recent years, Congress and the public have seen the military as a panacea for domestic problems.<4> Within one week of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City,<5> President Clinton proposed an exception to the PCA to allow the military to aid civilian authorities in investigations involving "weapons of mass destruction."<6> In addition to this proposal Congress also considered legislation to directly involve federal troops in enforcing customs and immigration laws at the border.<7> In the 1996 presidential campaign, candidate Bob Dole pledged to increase the role of the military in the drug war, and candidate Lamar Alexander even proposed replacing the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol with a new branch of the armed forces.<8>

The growing haste and ease with which the military is considered a panacea for domestic problems will quickly undermine the PCA if it remains unchecked. Minor exceptions to the PCA can quickly expand to become major exceptions. For example in 1981, Congress created an exception to the PCA to allow military involvement in drug interdiction at our borders. <9> Then in 1989, Congress designated the Department of Defense as the "single lead agency" in drug interdiction efforts.<10>

The PCA criminalizes, effectively prohibiting, the use of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus <11> to execute the laws of the United States. It reads:

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. <12>

Though a criminal law, the PCA has a more important role as a statement of policy that embodies "the traditional Anglo-American principle of separation of military and civilian spheres of authority, one of the fundamental precepts of our form of government." <13>

(snip - much, much more at this excellent site)

[NYC]

19. Posse Comitatus Act. (link)

This link will take you to the Washington University Law Quarterly,
Volume 75, Number 2, Summer 1997.

http://ls.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-2/752-10.html

"...to prohibit the use of the Army in civilian law enforcement. The Act embodies the traditional American principle of separating civilian and military authority and currently forbids the use of the Army and Air Force to enforce civilian laws."

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. Yes, that's part of the same Wash U law school page I just excerpted from

http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-2/752-10.html

It's the best thing I found when I googled around trying to figure out posse comitatus.

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. Here's a tidbit on a precedent for "preventive martial law" in the US:

This is an excerpt from a page full of important precedents at the Cornell University Law School site:

http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art2frag38_user.html
Preventive Martial Law

The question of executive power in the presence of civil disorder is dealt with in modern terms in Moyer v. Peabody,668 to which the Debs case669 may be regarded as an addendum. Moyer, a labor leader, brought suit against Peabody for having ordered his arrest during a labor dispute which occurred while Peabody was governor of Colorado. Speaking for a unanimous Court, one Justice being absent, Justice Holmes said: “Of course the plaintiff’s position is that he has been deprived of his liberty without due process of law. But it is familiar that what is due process of law dependson circumstances. It varies with the subject matter and the necessities of the situation. . . . The facts that we are to assume are that a state of insurrection existed and that the Governor, without sufficient reason but in good faith, in the course of putting the insurrection down held the plaintiff until he thought that he safely could release him.

“. . . In such a situation we must assume that he had a right under the state constitution and laws to call out troops, as was held by the Supreme Court of the State. . . . That means that he shall make the ordinary use of the soldiers to that end; that he may kill persons who resist and, of course, that he may use the milder measure of seizing the bodies of those whom he considers to stand in the way of restoring peace. Such arrests are not necessarily for punishment, but are by way of precaution to prevent the exercise of hostile power. So long as such arrests are made in good faith and in the honest belief that they are needed in order to head the insurrection off, the Governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action after he is out of office on the ground for his belief.

“. . . When it comes to a decision by the head of the State upon a matter involving its life, the ordinary rights of individuals must yield to what he deems the necessities of the moment. Public danger warrants the substitution of executive process for judicial process.”670

[annabanana]

38. kick . . . n/t

[grasswire]

18. outstanding post

...and you have nailed the point at which the people in my living room looked at each other with fear. Bushco has another opportunity to make huge inroads, and they will push for everything. Sweep it all up, related or not.

[specimenfred1984]

21. Excellent Point, It Nails What's Really Happening

I disagree with trying to disrupt it or stop it. The South votes for repukes, it is the core of chimp's voter base.

The South is the testing ground for all chimp/neo-con policies because that's where it can be done. No amount of education, no grassroots efforts, no undertaking of any kind will change the minds of many chimp voters.

The South is already a militaristic breeding ground and a 250-year-old sanctuary for bigots. Let them feed off each other in today's fascist state, neo-con vs. bigot-con.

It's going to happen somewhere where propaganda thrives and that place is the South.

[Nothing Without Hope]

26. Re the South being a Repub stronghold - please consider this:

I think the planned massive reorg/moving of US military bases, mostly to "red state" areas, is part of this overall plan to advance to martial law enforced by a professional military answerable only to the President/Pentagon.

See what you think of this post upthread on this possibility:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4790112&mesg_id=4790721

[Why Syzygy]

158. Southerners will not put up with this bullshit

hide and watch.

[nonconformist]

22. Nominated and kicked. Excellent post. nt

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. An ABSOLUTE MUST-READ: "The Bush Administration's 'Enabling Act' "

It's another one of those outrageous memos from Bush Administration lawyers claiming dictatorial powers for the president. You can bet the neocons intend to treat it as the only truth. (Question: will the new Supreme Court justices Bush is appointing ALSO see it this way? THE CANDIDATES MUST BE ASKED!!!)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_186.shtml

The Bush Administration's "Enabling Act"

January 24, 2005 Issue

{Italicized in the original} In early December, without a word of public notice, the Justice Department placed on its website a lengthy September 25, 2001 memorandum entitled "The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them." That document sets out, on behalf of the Bush administration, a plainly totalitarian view of presidential power.

(snip)

Reviewing the specific text of the Constitution, the Yoo memo makes the interesting discovery that "these provisions vest full control of the military forces of the United States in the President." In fact, Congress, not the president, is authorized "To raise and support armies … To provide and maintain a navy … provide for calling forth the militia...." It is Congress, not the president, that is given the power "To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces...." Those elements of the militia that are "employed in the service of the United States" are to be trained "according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

The Yoo memo's treatment of congressional power to declare war is similarly dishonest. "During the period leading up to the Constitution's ratification, the power to initiate hostilities and to control the escalation of conflict had long been understood to rest in the hands of the executive branch," claims the document. This is true only in the sense that the King of Great Britain — that government's chief executive — claimed and exercised that power.

As Alexander Hamilton pointed out in The Federalist, No. 69, "The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States." "In this respect," continued Hamilton, "his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it," since the British monarch's power included "the declaring of war and … the raising and regulating of fleets and armies — all which, by the Constitution … appertain to the legislature."

In defiance of the unambiguous text of the Constitution, the Yoo memo declares: "If the Framers had wanted to require congressional consent before the initiation of hostilities, they knew how to write such provisions." As noted above, the Framers of the Constitution did exactly that — and the most influential among them pointedly reiterated that principle on numerous occasions.

(snip - much more, all of it must-read)

In addition to the importance of this issue on its own - in effect this means Bush thinks he's a military dictator already - we MUST make certain that new candidates for the US Supreme Court DO NOT SUPPORT THIS BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. Does Roberts? I'm betting no one has asked him!!

And of course, with Loo's false constitutional interpretation, since only the President has control of the military, he can use it for martial law if posse comitatus is disabled. And it's almost destroyed already.

[sunnystarr]

58. Even if Roberts had been asked

he would never answer. Has he really answered anything? What do we really know about him what he would do? His pleasant demeanor is hiding what we have really have in store with him as Chief Justice. I'm very afraid.

[CTPatriot]

95. Regarding Judge Roberts and Checks on Presidential Power

Based on the excerpts and commentary I have seen on the Roberts' hearings, I highly doubt he would answer this question at all, and if he did answer it, I wouldn't trust the answer to be honest. I think a better guage of what his answer would be can be found in his ruling on presidential power as regards treatment of those people who are declared by Bush to be "enemy combatants".

The following excerpts from Chris Floyd's July 20, 2005 article, "", should be highly pertinent to this conversation:

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd07202005.html

July 20, 2005

Judge Dread: John Roberts and Enemy Combatants

By CHRIS FLOYD

<snip>

This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures of the state, as Deep Blade Journal reports in an excellent compendium of recent outrages against liberty.

For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges upheld Bush's sovereign right to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way he pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted - a brutal sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to "hide their oppression under U.S. precedent."

One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than John G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers, Roberts was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now he will be sitting in final judgment on this case - and any other challenges to Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in the tyrant trade, as "a safe pair of hands."

<snip>

I believe there are very legitimate and serious concerns about Roberts' willingness to rule in favor of unchecked presidential power.

[Why Syzygy]

159. Okay. It is gone.

Democracy out the window. What have we become?

I cannot tolerate Bush supporters, if there are any remaining.
They are the cornerstone to the destruction of our country.

This cannot stand.

[Nothing Without Hope]

27. ANOTHER MUST-READ: NorthCom devising plans for martial law in the US

The following is a commentary about a front-page Washington Post article written by Bradley Graham in August 2005. I don't yet have the Graham article itself - I hope someone here will post a link and excerpt to this extremely important WaPo article. In the meantime, I think this commentary on his article is valuable in its own right

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/08/322932.shtml

Pentagon devising scenarios for martial law in US

author: Patrick Martin
9 August 2005

According to a report published Monday by the Washington Post, the Pentagon has developed its first ever war plans for operations within the continental United States, in which terrorist attacks would be used as the justification for imposing martial law on cities, regions or the entire country.

The front-page article cites sources working at the headquarters of the military's Northern Command (Northcom), located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The plans themselves are classified, but "officers who drafted the plans" gave details to Post reporter Bradley Graham, who was recently given a tour of Northcom headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base. The article thus appears to be a deliberate leak conducted for the purpose of accustoming the American population to the prospect of military rule.

(snip)

Military lawyers have studied the legal implications of such deployments, which risk coming into conflict with a longstanding congressional prohibition on the use of the military for domestic policing, known as posse comitatus. Involving the National Guard, which is exempt from posse comitatus, could be one solution, Admiral Keating told the Post. "He cited a potential situation in which Guard units might begin rounding up people while regular forces could not," Graham wrote.

Graham adds: "when it comes to ground forces possibly taking a lead role in homeland operations, senior Northcom officers remain reluctant to discuss specifics. Keating {Admiral Timothy J. Keating, head of Northcom} said such situations, if they arise, probably would be temporary, with lead responsibility passing back to civilian authorities."

(snip - much more)

How do you like that phrase of Admiral Keating's in the last excerpted paragraph: military ground forces taking a lead role in homeland operations WOULD PROBABLY BE TEMPORARY??? PROBABLY??? And this is from the head of NorthCom.

[Why Syzygy]

160. Here it is .. they changed the title

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/07/AR2005080700843_pf.html

War Plans Drafted To Counter Terror Attacks in U.S.
Domestic Effort Is Big Shift for Military

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005; A01

COLORADO SPRINGS -- The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.

The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.

The possible scenarios range from "low end," relatively modest crowd-control missions to "high-end," full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said.

Some of the worst-case scenarios involve three attacks at the same time, in keeping with a Pentagon directive earlier this year ordering Northcom, as the command is called, to plan for multiple simultaneous attacks.

.more.

[DELUSIONAL]

28. The bastard could have called in the military

as have other Presidents during Natural disasters -- to provide rescue services with equipment found on many military bases.

He does NOT need more power to take over an area with armed military ready to murder citizens.

The states have the NATIONAL GUARD -- oh right but the people with local knowledge are off getting themselves killed in bushie's war of choice.

I've been predicting that bushie WILL NOT go (retire) in 2008 -- he intends to remain as DICTATOR.

But he is a very lazy bastard -- gee whiz he can't be bothered to follow the news when a super hurricane hits the Gulf States.

[Why Syzygy]

161. He's on VACATION

K? Don't bother the *@&(&@$ when he's on VACATION!

Dictator. My shiny. In his wildest dreams.

[SammyWinstonJack]

170. I'm sure the little bastard has some really wild dreams.

Being Dictator foremost among them.

[Nothing Without Hope]

29. John Roberts should be asked about his views of Loo's Justice Dept memo

stating (falsely) that only the President has the power to wield the military and to declare war. If Roberts supports this view and would support Bush in a bid for martial law, HE CANNOT BE ACCEPTED.

Here's the upthread post on Loo's infamous memo:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4790112&mesg_id=4790660

[Nothing Without Hope]

31. Check out the President's powers through FEMA. And he wants MORE!!!

From Bush's speech, even all of THIS is not enough power for him and the federal government:

http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/FEMAsecretgovt1995.shtml

FEMA - The Secret Government

By Harry V. Martin with research assistance from David Caul
(snip)

FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders. A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed. Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."

(snip - much more)

[Nothing Without Hope]

33. AGAIN, don't miss FEMA executive order #11921:

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

[Why Syzygy]

162. So. He has the Power

but no way to execute it. Figures. :eyes:

Does he grow dumber by the day?

[Nothing Without Hope]

34. It's almost dawn & I have to stop for the "night." PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING

and continue to add content, comment, and criticism. Let's make this thread a resource and a motivational tool. Forewarned is forearmed, and we need all the help we can get. (By the way, will someone see about getting a Senator to ask ROberts about his views of Loo's Justice Dept memo - discussed in this thread in Reply #23 - and other issues related to the POTUS' ability to declare and maintain martial law.)

I didn't yet put in info on NorthCom, which will be enough to curl any of your hair that is still reasonably straight after digesting the rest of this thread. Feel free to go ahead and educate the rest of us about NorthCom. (If you don't, I'll eventually get back and put some stuff up to get us started.)

One tidbit: The head of NORAD during the 9/11 attacks, when ALL fighter/interceptor planes were "coincidentally" and completely called off the hijacked planes so they could continue their very long flights to attack what includes the most highly protected airspace on the planet, was General Eberhard. You'd think he'd be court-martialed for this massive "dereliction of duty" plus the continually changing story put up by NORAD to explain it afterwards. Instead, he was PROMOTED by the grateful Bush Administration to be the first head of NorthCom at its creation in 2002.

It gets worse.

[fooj]

36. Good Morning! Can't sleep. These bastards will do it to you, won't they?

:grr:

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. Hello Fooj, yes, you're right. I've been working very hard on this thread

which is an extension of research I've been doing for some time. If it gets locked or "disappeared" I'm going to be utterly, totally crushed. Please excuse me while I make a general announcement:

THESE ARE NOT STUPID, EMBARRASSING, IDIOTIC CONSPIRACY THEORIES - THIS IS DEADLY SERIOUS AND THE LEADUP HAS BEEN HAPPENING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

I've not been able to sleep at night since the night before the hurricane hit. If that's part of what it did to ME, who am safe and have no family ties in the affected areas, I can't begin to imagine what it must be doing to people whose lives and loved ones are more directly affected.

The mass negligent homicide - and that's a euphemism - doesn't exactly surprise me, because I know what the Bush Administration is capable of as well as their profound callousness and incompetence. But every day there is so much more dreadful development.

Now we have in the latest utterings of Bush exactly what I've been expecting for a long time. It's not conducive to centering and replenishing sleep. I've got my fave photo of the Dalai Lama up on the right side of my computer screen as a calming reminder, but geez...

Good "night," Fooj :hug:

http://www.pacificvillage.org.nyud.net:8090/villagevoices/int4/Dalai_Lama.jpg

[fooj]

39. You are absolutely right. There's plenty of documented evidence

to support all of it. It's happening. In plain sight!

The White House is NOT a frat house. It is Our House! Brown? Rove? This is unacceptable. The bastards completely dismantle FEMA, create Homeland Security (0ver 2000 employees) and give the people of this country a guy involved with Arabian horses? If that's not bad enough...the asshole was fired from that job. Now he has the traitor, Karl Rove heading the reconstruction effort. At least he's qualified...as a evil, maniacal political adviser! No nepotism there! Great. Things are looking better already.

The bastard says that he'll create as many jobs as possible in La., Mississippi and Alabama yet he suspends the Davis/Bacon Act. Lower wages for all! Halliburton will save a bundle! The rat bastards are going to the bank on this one. I mean, really. Who gives a shit about the poor guy who lost everything because of Katrina? He needs a job, right? Well then- STFU!

Looks like they have that "professional army" in place. Blackwater is in New Orleans. Front and center. Why the hell are we allowing mercenaries on American soil? Holy crap. These guys are paid killers. I feel much safer now.


The Gulf of Mexico pumps 1.5 million barrels per day. The first place the rat bastard went today before his speech (void of any palpable empathy) was the Standard Oil Co. There you have it, America. The PNAC is in full swing. I'm thinking, at this point, Shrub's input is minimal. Two PNAC founders, Cheney and Rumsfeld have it under control. You can practically see them drooling over their new "Trifecta"...OIL, GUNS and DRUGS. Drug smuggling and gun running have long been a "sport" in the Gulf of Mexico. The goal is military and economic domination by land, space and cyberspace so as to establish American dominance in world affairs. Their plans and visions are clearly detailed on their website. (PNAC) How are they doing so far?

These rat bastards aren't patriots. They are war profiteers. We have been sold out. The treasonous bastards are shameless traitors who have made a fortune off the blood of our countrymen. Enough, already. Their betrayal of values and beliefs our country was founded on is nothing less than criminal. They must be held accountable. We deserve nothing less.

Peace.

[Why Syzygy]

163. I am so with you on that

you've got it wrapped up.

I would like to know who finances the mercs? Halliburton by any chance?

I think a court ruled they couldn't suspend Davis/Bacon. I hope so.

I see them drooling. It is disgusting. Oil, guns and drugs. Indeed.

Mom and Pop could use a little good old fashioned survival.

[LibertyorDeath]

35. Byrnes was dismissed as a warning to all senior officers.

The Plots Thicken: David Margolis, Michael Chertoff
(Of the Devil) & General Kevin Byrnes

on August 9, Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff said that if the military
were deployed inside the United States in response to
a terrorist attack, his department, not the Pentagon,
would exercise overall control, reports the Los
Angeles Times.

snip


This, in essence, will be a federal militarized
police, and they want the ability to use it for
political purposes. That’s why they want the control
of a militarized police to remain, not simply in
civilian hands, but to be in the hands of former
Bushonian cabalists, like Porter Goss, current head of
the CIA and John Negroponte, head of the new National
Intelligence Directorate. These are people who have
run illegal covert operations during Bushonian regimes
in the past, who acted to cover up Bushonian
involvement, and who also selected and went after
those who knew too much.

This new scheme of civilian Homeland Security
control of the military is very similar to the Gestapo
during Nazi Germany. Actually, the Gestapo remained a
civilian-controlled police agency, and it was under a
lot of people’s control. Ultimately, it was under
Heinrich Himmler’s control, but command of the Gestapo
was broken up. Effectively, in whatever country it
operated, it was under the command of the German
military governor of that country, like Heidrich, the
most infamous of the Gestapo chieftains.

snip

This is what Chertoff effectively is now going
to be doing with our law enforcement: to allow for the
militarization of law enforcement through the
overturning of Posse Comitatus, but to insure that the
military doesn’t control it, and that it remains under
political control within the Cabal so it can be used
for political purposes.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/1973043.html

[Why Syzygy]

164. Wait a minute

omg. I have been asking WHY? What do they hope to gain by turning us into a horrendous monstrous man eating monster.

Now it strikes me!

Control. Total and absolute control.
Do you realize that tendency is pathological? And when they do this stuff they are WAY out there.

What is the payoff? What do they gain? Power? Illusive and transitory.
Riches? Not if there's not a planet, dumbo.

I can see their means clearly. I just cannot fathom the end.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

40. Haley Barbour interviewed after speech. This is a must read

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/15/lkl.01.html

snip

KING: Anything in the speech you didn't like?

BARBOUR: Well, I don't want to say I didn't like. There was a part in there that people could have taken the impression that we in Mississippi need the federal government to come in and take over what we're doing that we need some kind of czar to tell us how to run Mississippi.

We don't need that. In fact, that wouldn't help us. That would hurt us. Right now we Mississippians are proving to the world that we're resilient, self reliant people who want to help our neighbors, who are selfless and courageous and we don't need the federal government to come in and take over what we're doing. We're going -- we're working hard at it but we're making progress every day.

KING: He didn't call for a czar though.

BARBOUR: Well, there was a stretch in there about the military and that sort of stuff.

KING: Yes.

BARBOUR: That, you know, a lot of this is sketchy. I like the sound of the Gulf Opportunity Zone, the home ownership, the workforce training but we don't need the military to come in to Mississippi or Florida or New York or any of those states if a disaster comes. We do need the federal government's help. We need them to be a good partner but we don't need a takeover.

KING: And I also want to ask you Mississippi's attorney general is suing five insurance companies. Jim Hood said adjusters have tried to trick Katrina survivors out of millions of dollars. What's your comment on that?

BARBOUR: I think we have to make sure that insurance companies honor their contracts. Insurance is a contract. If people make a contract, they got to honor their contract.

For people in Mississippi who do not have insurance for flood insurance or for this kind of disaster we and the federal government have an obligation, particularly if they were prudent. We have thousands of people outside the flood zone who got flooded. They were told they didn't need insurance.

We need to be sure we come up with the right way to help them. We cannot leave them high and dry and I'm committed to helping them just like I'm committed to people honoring their word when they make a contract with somebody.

KING: Thanks, governor, good seeing you as always.

BARBOUR: Thank you, Larry.

[H2O Man]

41. Those who wrote the speech

had to know that the "great society" goal is impossible to reach with the war draining our national resources. Clearly, the neocons are not socialists promoting an agenda to redistribute wealth in America. Hence, one could safely conclude there is something else involved in their response.

[malaise]

42. Good catch but it's up to the Dems

to point out clearly, loudly and publicly that if the National Guard across the US were not fighting an illegal war, there would be no need for the military. That military 'take over' must be resisted.

[H2O Man]

43. That's an important point.

Sometimes I take for granted that something like this is so obvious that everyone recognizes it. But that simply isn't true. I agree with your point that democrats need to keep reminding people that the National Guard, who is supposed to be responding to these domestic crises, is engaged in Bush's rapidly failing war in Iraq.

[rodeodance]

44. I will have to read better later--but yes, it is power grab --make no

mistake about this!

Bush had to say it was his problem-his responsiblility in order to assume owership for him/rove/rumsfield etc.

Now HE says he has the solution!! Beware when the solution is 'more Fed. power"!!

[Gloria]

63. I've seen one tepid Reid quote--when does this party WAKE UP??

You've got Rove in charge of the money/PR; Cheney organizing the sweetheart deals; the army and mercenaries on the ground; news blackouts in defiance of a court order; a Supreme Court ready to permanently lock in all the crap Bush has done in terms of lifting the law regarding everything from pay to pollution...

What the HELL DOES IT TAKE????

Instead of being Bush's Waterloo, they're going to get away with even more!! They're going to pull an IRAQ right here on US soil!!

And the LAST PERSON I want to see on Larry King or Meet the Press is BILL CLINTON---damn it, he will continue to muddy the water with his "Presidential" opining. If he says one more positive thing about Bush I swear I will go nuts!!

[Why Syzygy]

165. Oh? You didn't know

we're all on the same side now?

Yes. Nutz sounds like a safe place to be. I'll join you.

[Horse with no Name]

45. Most excellent compilation

You are certainly correct. We must remain diligent.
I have no doubts that the non-response of this event was done precisely so that he could tell the sheeple that he didn't have enough power to act.
We have to bring this cabal down.
They must be taken out of power.
I just wish I knew how to do it.:cry:

[triguy46]

46. When I heard that, I turned it off...

Just kind of slipped in that he was proposing a new "domestic" role for the military. Kind of setting the stage for brownshirts...they will be able to enforce the will of El Presidente for Life.

[Why Syzygy]

166. What is his "will"?

I cannot figure that one. Bow down to jeebus? Bow down to GWB?

What the hell does he want?

ps.. I know about pnac ..it is doomed for failure.
Is that all there is?

[Liberty Belle]

47. You've raised many valid concerns over the hurricane

being used as a pretext to increase militarism domestically.


With all the research you've done, why don't you submit some articles or editorials on this issue?



:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

68. I've never submitted articles or editorials before. I'd welcome speciific

suggestions! I don't have the physical energy to just send something every place randomly; several chronic illnesses mean I have to choose how I spend my "energy coins" with care.

So if you can suggest places to send, along with anything about acceptable length or other tips, I will most definitely do everything I can. Indeed, there are others here who would also benefit from such advice. Going in cold, with no idea where to start for best chance at reaching target audiences, is very daunting.

BTW, everything in any of my threads is free for the taking to anyone who can use it. I do prefer that the thread be referenced so that related links and the other pieces to the story being described can be found.

[Liberty Belle]

75. Try a local newspaper, or one of the liberal blogs.

Editorials may be the easiest way in the door.

Buzzflash takes reader submissions, even if you're not a journalist.

[snot]

48. VERY IMPT--kicked and nom'd!

[txaslftist]

49. This is the Republican version of "you break it you buy it"

"you break it (NOLA) you steal it."

[Bushwick Bill]

50. Another Great Martial Law Article

THE GLOBAL BATTLEFIELD -
WE ARE STANDING ON IT
The Evolution of the Bush-Rumsfeld War Doctrine

Roadmap to Martial Law

London Attacks From Another Perspective

By

Stan Goff

With comment by Michael C. Ruppert

<snip>

Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., June 2005 - Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support. From the Executive Summary:

We now confront an enemy who will attempt to engage us not only far from US shores, but also at home. Terrorists will seek to employ asymmetric means to penetrate our defenses and exploit the openness of our society to their advantage. By attacking our citizens, our economic institutions, our physical infrastructure, and our social fabric, they seek to destroy American democracy. We dare not underestimate the devastation that terrorists seek to bring to Americans at home.

To defeat 21st Century threats, we must think and act innovatively. Our adversaries consider US territory an integral part of a global theater of combat. We must therefore have a strategy that applies to the domestic context the key principles that are driving the transformation of US power projection and joint expeditionary warfare.

Each section of this ten-year strategy outline for the Department of Defense is headed by an italicized quote from Reich Fuehrer Bush. This is what must be borne in mind as part of any analysis of this document, which is scaring the bejesus out of a lot of civil libertarians. Because it is - and I will describe exactly how as we go along - it is a roadmap to martial law.

But it is also an outline of a strategy of abject failure. It is a strategy so ambitious, so insanely grandiose, and so interdependently complicated in any attempt to put it into practice, that time, expense, and mind-boggling complexity at every scale will render the reality a ragged effigy of its own feverish ideal.

It is, in short, a document prepared by ambitious bureaucratic functionaries to please two people who can give them what they want - advancement at any cost. There cannot be any doubt, after studying this so-called strategy document that the content was developed by the metrics-worshipping sycophants of Donald Rumsfeld, and that Rumsfeld added the cartoon-like Bush quotes as a series of kisses planted firmly on his boss's ass.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/070805_global_battlefield.shtml

[Just Me]

51. Um, such plans constitute a conspiracy to violate the Constitution,...

,...of the United States IOW treason. The extremists' in leadership unrestrained desire for an accumulation of power is frightening and dangerous to our people and our nation.

[calimary]

52. I caught that, too. The minute he mentioned a broader role for the

armed forces, I remember feeling the blood drain from my face.

He's done that before.

Remember the speech he made at the republi-CON convention last year? He glided over one tiny little mention about making things "better for business." And everybody just erupted.

NOBODY stopped for a second to think what that might mean.

What it meant was - MORE foxes invited in to guard MORE hen houses. But he spent about a second-and-a-half on it before swiftly moving on to more stirring oratory, and everybody went YEAH!!! and moved on with him and forgot all about it, and didn't take even an instant to try to interpret what that meant. Cue the balloons and the confetti! Let's party!

Until we find that big business is being allowed to cut more corners, and the watchdogs that might keep those businesses honest are being muzzled or sent away or fed dog food with rat poison in it.

Yeah. What is it - Posse comitatus - that this sounds like he wants to up-end?

Believe me, I ain't buyin' for a New York Minute! When I was listening to the speech and taking notes, I remember scrawling a big exclamation point by my note of that remark. And another little red flag started popping up in the back of my head.

That's why we HAVE to stay ON this. We have an individual here who doesn't have a conscience. He's leading many others astray into the no-conscience netherworld. That's why WE have to stay there, like that little kid along the parade route, who kept blurting out that the emperor was stark naked.

[Nothing Without Hope]

53. I agree with everything you are saying. There's helpful info on

the Posse Comitatus act upthread in Reply #16. Here's a short-cut link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112#4790545

I'm filling this thread - and so are others - with information and links to articles and documents to fill out understanding of each main point. We need to comprehend them ALL to really get a grasp of what is happening. There are many more, and I'll be posting some of them (and I hope others continue to do so as well). I hope people read through the entire thread, because this is a synthesis and some of the major pieces are being lined up to show how they fit together.

[understandinglife]

56. William M. Arkin: A broader role for the armed forces?

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

A broader role for the armed forces?

Amidst all of President Bush's proposals last night was one decree that the Commander-in-Chief can implement without Congressional or public intervention: "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."

The President has hit upon a seemingly no-brainer solution: Rely more on the one institution in our society that is most respected and competent.

The President’s plan is both wrong-headed and dangerous.

I for one don't want to live in a society where "a moment’s notice" justifies military action that either preempts or usurps civil authority.

<clip>

more at the link:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/a_broader_role_.html

Plenty of folk are onto this item .... Bush and the neoconsters must be removed.


Peace.

[Why Syzygy]

167. Just let it ride

. And yes they must be retired. Post haste.

Keep the faith.

[jokerman93]

57. kicked and nominated

:kick:

[Emit]

59. Kicked and nominated n/t

[jjanpundt]

60. I caught those sentences too and thought they don't bode well

for the future. My take is that the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina caught them by surprise (along with everything else). The reporters were there to cover an out of the ordinary hurricane and ended up showing the entire world how incompetent the admin is. The media will never get that chance again.

IMO the admin wants a complete lock on everything if there's another disaster. That means no media, no accountability, no true body counts, no reports of attempted genocide etc.

My blood runs cold at the thought of what would have happened in New Orleans if the media hadn't been there to report it.

[snot]

61. Valuable compilation! Could I suggest . . .

that you and others who post messages with useful links like this please reply to your own message first, to post a "plain text" version of the same info. That way, any of us who want to copy and paste the info in, say, LTTE's or, as I just did, in momcat's Katrina Info Organizing thread, can easily do so without having to separately copy and paste each link you've provided, in order to avoid truncating them.

Thanks!

[Nothing Without Hope]

65. HERE IS THE PLAIN TEXT VERSION OF THE OPENING POST (with html commands)

It still has all the html formatting commands, but the links
are all there in full:

******************************************************

Missing A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND
MILITARY

Bush made it clear in his speech that the Administration is
STILL going to try to use the Katrina disaster to grab more
power.  It would be another big step in their ongoing push
toward suspension of the Constitution and Pentagon-directed
military police and gutted civilian and states' rights.  This
has been a major goal of theirs for years - it can be
documented step by step, for example the Patriot Act.  (Of
course this demand for ultimate Fed power centralization is
also part of the strategy to blame the local and state
authorities for the mass negligent homicide - it is saying in
effect,  "Just give us feds all the power and then you
will all be safe!!!")   

We cannot let this happen and must be very alert to prevent
it.

In Bush's speech, along with the prospect of the vast
reconstruction funds to be gobbled up by GOP crony deals; the
plan to permanently disperse, displace and impoverish the
people from New Orleans and the other devastated areas of the
South;  the prospect of federal money for religious schools to
"educate" the displaced children; and many more
neocon dreams, don't miss THIS:

[div
class="excerpt"]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9360206
(snip)

[b][u]"...It is now clear that a challenge on this scale
requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the
armed forces[/u], the institution of our government most
capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s
notice.[/b]

"Four years after the frightening experience of September
11th, Americans have every right to expect a more effective
response in a time of emergency. When the federal government
fails to meet such an obligation, I, as President, am
responsible for the problem, and for the solution. [b]So I
have ordered every Cabinet secretary to participate in a
comprehensive review of the government response to the
hurricane. This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane
Katrina. We are going to review every action and make
necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for any
challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten
our people."[/b]

(snip)
[/div]

You know the kind of people he has for Cabinet secretaries, so
you know whatever "recommendations" they come up
with will be for the purpose of furthering neocon goals. 
[b]His assertion that the federal government and the military
need more power to act effectively during a crisis is a
lie.[/b]  EXISTING laws already give him that power, but he is
trying to push the limits.  For example, read the relevant
sections of the [b]DHS National Response Plan[/b], an EXISTING
document:  
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4668155
thread title:  [b]The Buck Stops Here: NATIONAL RESPONSE
PLAN[/b]
[b]The lines of authority are very clear; Bush does NOT need
more power or more excuses to call for martial law and was
TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FAILURES IN THE AFTERMATH OF
HURRICANE KATRINA.[/b]  Count on it, the detailed language in
any change would include extension of the military policing to
"civil disturbances" or just about any other damn
thing.   

And we're supposed to be [i]encouraged[/i] that the disastrous
federal non-response to the catastrophe will result in even
TIGHTER exclusion of state and civilian efforts?!?!  FEMA/DHS
should have even GREATER power to block aid and disrupt
search/rescue efforts and essential communication?!?  Look at
horrors FEMA/DHS are ALREADY responsible for in the Katrina
disaster and their efforts to prevent anyone else from helping
the victims that they have abandoned to die.  The answer is
supposed to be to INCREASE the power of these people?!?!

Oh yes.  Using Katrina to grab more power for the POTUS is a
theme.  For example:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1778930
Thread title: [b]Bush says he may need more power in
disasters[/b]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4715924#4726849
Thread title: [b]NPR Reports: GW to Blanco"I'll send in
the troops if you answer to the WH"[/b]

Make no mistake, there are years of step-by-step plans and
moves leading up to this crisis and the intended political
manipulation of it.  I've been researching this and it isn't
tinfoilhattery at all.  The WH/Pentagon knew the disaster
would come in some form, natural or man-made, sooner or later.
 In fact, in early 2001 there was the official report that the
three top, most likely catastrophes to hit the US would be an
earthquake in San Francisco, a terrorist attack in New York,
or a hurricane in New Orleans.  Bush knew, and he [i]cut[/i]
funding to maintain levees and improve hurricane preparedness:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4545852
thread title:  [b]FACTS: Bush was told about NO , he funded a
study to confirm & then CUT $$[/b]
(New Orleans hurricane and New York terrorist attack!  Hey,
two out of three!!!  Though I do believe the New York attacks
on 9/11 happened because of planning by Pentagon/WH insiders.)

For more of the back story on the step by step move to
dictatorship and martial law, see this post and the follow the
links back.  
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1765780&mesg_id=1766896

Let's not let the neocons use this great disaster as the
"one more hit" that General Tommy Franks was
referring to in his [i]Cigar Aficionado[/i] interview that
would could result in the suspension of the Constitution for
our "protection."  
http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Profiles/People_Profile/0,2540,201,00.html

I recommend this excellent article, a column written in
response to Tommy Franks' surprisingly [i]frank[/i]
prediction.  
[div
class="excerpt"]http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/07/Columns/From_Tommy_Franks__a_.shtml
[h3]From Tommy Franks, a doomsday scenario[/h3]
By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published December 7, 2003

The doomsday scenario was laid out by Gen. Tommy Franks, the
recently retired head of CentCom, in of all places the
December edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine.

"What is the worst thing that can happen in our
country?" Franks asked rhetorically. "Two steps. The
first step would be a nexus between weapons of mass
destruction . . . and terrorism." The second step would
be "the western world, the free world, loses what it
cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for
a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we
call democracy."

[b]Franks suggested that a "massive casualty-producing
event" might cause "our population to question our
own Constitution and begin to militarize our
country."[/b]

(snip)

It was the Nine Years' War in Aldous Huxley's [i]Brave New
World[/i] that facilitated the seizure of power by the world
reformers who then took control of nearly all human and social
development. In 1984, George Orwell described Oceania as in a
constant state of war with a changeable enemy who "always
represented absolute evil." These inventors of the great
dystopias understood the way governments use war and its
associative fear and instability to consolidate power.
[b]Despotism thrives on insecurity. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy
of needs puts safety right behind food, water and sleep.
Humans naturally crave stability and are willing to sacrifice
values such as liberty in its pursuit.[/b]

(snip)
[/div]

Foolish tinfoilhattery, you say?  John Dean, one of our
country's most respected legal authorites, disagrees with you.
 In 2002 he considered the probable consequences of the
"one more hit," which he thought of as another
domestic terrorist attack - though the hurricane can work even
better for this purpose, especially with what certainly looks
like deliberate worsening of the aftermath.  Mr. Dean thought
it quite possible that a great disaster like another terrorist
attack could be successfully manipulated by the Administration
into a functional suspension of the Constitution that he
called [b]"constitutional dictatorship."[/b]
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/columns/fl.dean.powers.0607

With the Bush Administration, always watch for the hand behind
the back - the one holding the secret stiletto.  They are
STILL going to try to use this ongoing national tragedy to
grab more civil and state power and consolidate  under
Pentagon-directed military police.  If they give it a name at
all, I promise you they won't call it what it is:  martial law
and military dictatorship.  No, I'm betting on something
Orwellian like "Operation Safe America."  You can
bet that it will NOT involve OUR National Guard back at home
defending their states under their governors' authority.  
[h3]We MUST MUST MUST stay alert and STOP the power grab that
the Bush Administration will try to make based on [i][u]their
own[/i][/u] murderously negligent and incompetent response to
the hurricane.[/h3]  
[b]Not only would this dismantle many more of the essential
Constitutional protections from dictatorship and further
increase Bush's unbalanced power, it would make us all LESS
safe from natural and man-made disasters, not more. We MUST
make both of these points clear to the American public.  This
is a turning point, one way or the other.[/b]

[snot]

85. Yay, thanks! nt

[Nothing Without Hope]

66. Next time I do this, maybe I should spend the extra effort to get TinyURLs

for everything. Then the post can be copied and pasted without breaking the URLs but it's still readable with the html formatting.

[scarletwoman]

100. PLEASE don't use TinyURLs! It's so easy to make a text link!

I really dislike "tinyurls", you can't see where the
link is really going.  I don't click on any links unless I can
see the source when I pass my mouse over it.

Making a text link is incredibly simple, and makes copy/paste
a breeze.  You can find out how to do it by clicking on the
"HTML lookup table" that appears above your message
window every time you compose a post.

It works like this: [link:(paste the URL here but be sure to
strip off the http://)|TEXT (that is, whatever you want to
title the link)]

So easy!  And you can name the link in such a way that you can
inform people what it is or where it leads.

For example:
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4790112&mesg_id=4790112|Missing
A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND MILITARY] 
The most important thing to remember is to strip off the
"http://"

Anyway, glad to see this VERY important post getting the
attention it deserves.  You're doing wonderful work!

sw

[scarletwoman]

101. And here's what the text link looks like with the html enabled:

Missing A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND MILITARY

[Nothing Without Hope]

130. Thanks for this. I have avoided using text links for three reasons:

1. Copying and pasting text links loses not only the live link but also even the tipoff that a link is present in the original. This is a serious downside in my opinion, since the whole idea here is to provide something that can be copied and pasted while conserving live links.
   
2. All too many text links are broken in my experience. You have to test every blasted one, and many posters don't. It's extra effort.
   
3. Setting up a text link for so many links is a significant extra step, and I am always fighting against insufficient time and energy. Even now, there are several "must-do" threads and updates I haven't been able to post.

So, thinking about it, maybe I'll use BOTH the original link (which will be cut off by the DU URL-shortener AND an added TinyURL for the same links. That way you see where the link is going but you still have a live link to use in a copy/pasted version. It's faster and less error-prone to make a TinyURL than it is to make a text link. Isn't as pretty, perhaps, but I think the other advantages outweigh that.

[bbgrunt]

62. you're exactly right about this

...and noone is mentioning it in MSM or even AAR so far, although I think Molloy might cover it.

Great article by paul craig roberts on counterpunch the other day:

http://www.counterpunch.org/
September 12, 2005
Riptide of the Brownshirts
Power Grab in New Orleans

[Time for change]

64. I believe you're right about this.

There isn't anything that this regime wouldn't do to get more power

[Nothing Without Hope]

67. another thread on this issue with the same conclusions:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4793504
thread title: Bush Power Grab

The neocons want to expand domestic military power. They are set up to do it and are just looking for an excuse. If they don't get one soon enough, they will manufacture one. Whatever can be designated as civic unrest can be used as an excuse. This is one reason why I believe one of the several reasons for the murderous delays in all forms of aid and the endlessly hyped stories of the "looters™" and the terrible treatment and "negligent homicide" of blacks, allowing their bodies to rot for days, is that they WANT RACIAL TENSION AND VIOLENT PROTESTS, which they can hype/over-report/fabricate to seize as their excuse for calling martial law. For "safety," of course. One more part of the picture, I believe. They are looking for "enabling events."

[Robeson]

69. Great post. Thanks for compiling. Nominated.

[lumpy]

70. Kick up

z

[spindoctor]

71. Interesting, but needs to be viewed against draft and current wars

In a (not unlikely) reinstated draft scenario, the military would be largely operated by the people.

Also, more military power/responsibility is a far cry from the military dictatorship that you are prophesying.

I don't believe a military that produces generals like Frank, Clark (and even Powell) is capable of forming a strong enough junta to oppress a country that is not only freedom-loving in nature, but also has a population that is largely armed to the teeth.

Having said all that, its always good to keep an eye out for this kind of thing ;)

[redacted]

74. Disagree, disagree, disagree

and the 3d point about Powell, Franks and Clark is naive. Is living in ID, the state in which Shrub is most popular, clouding your judgment a bit?

[spindoctor]

80. Who knows?

Maybe it is the Idaho air that causes me to elaborate on my opinions rather than to use cheap puns on red state rebels as an alleged argumentation.

[Why Syzygy]

168. They don't need a draft. See "mercenary".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary

In the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions (GC) of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977 it is stated:

Art 47. Mercenaries

A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
It should be noted that many countries including the U.S. are not signatory to the Protocol Additional GC 1977 (APGC77). So although it is the mostly widely accepted, it is not definitive.

...much more...

[killbotfactory]

72. It worked after 9/11

And we found out what happens when you give incompetent idiots more power.

[redacted]

73. KICK

[north houston dem]

76. kicked and nominated

[Nothing Without Hope]

78. Does the military lockdown of New Orleans HAVE to be THIS total???

As reported in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4792349
thread title: Brian Williams reports: Power ON for Bush's speech, DARKNESS 1 hour later

Brian Williams is on the scene in New Orleans and this is what he saw:

It is impossible to over-emphasize the extent to which this area is under government occupation, and portions of it under government-enforced lockdown. Police cars rule the streets. They (along with Humvees, ambulances, fire apparatus, FEMA trucks and all official-looking SUVs) are generally not stopped at checkpoints and roadblocks. All other vehicles are subject to long lines and snap judgments and must PROVE they have vital business inside the vast roped-off regions here. If we did not have the services of an off-duty law enforcement officer, we could not do our jobs in the course of a work day and get back in time to put together the broadcast and get on the air.

WHY is the military lockdown so total? Is it all those highly dangerous dark-skinned "looters™" -- or maybe their ABSENCE that must be hidden? Is it a way to prevent reporters from seeing things that might undermine the Administration's official line? Maybe there are atrocities, destruction of homes in poor areas or racial/social stratification of relief efforts that are unknown because unreported. After all, it seems like all eyewitness reports show the Administration's lies and the murderous consequences of their decisions. THEIR decisions, not the state's or the local authorities'. I'm betting the neocons don't want any more high-profile rescues of dying, abandoned New Orleans people. After all, photographs and stories like THIS ONE embarrass the Administration - an elderly New Orleans man lying alone and dying of dehydration and starvation TWO AND A HALF WEEKS after the storm rescued by California National Guards who DISOBEYED FEMA ORDERS and broke into his home when they saw his foot in the window:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/14/12516/3649



If those California National Guards had obeyed FEMA orders to never break into homes no matter what, Mr. Hollingsworth would surely be dead. How many hundreds or thousands are STILL dying at FEMA's orders to abandon them?

Is the military lockdown of New Orleans a preview of what will await "rebellious" Blue State cities if the neocon plans are allowed to come to fruition? I believe it does.

We are at the turning point, people. We must work our heads and hearts out to take this country and all her people back. Any Dem leaders who do not rise to this challenge must be marginalized as effective leaders step forward. The stakes have never been higher.

[Nothing Without Hope]

79. I believe the Bush Administration PNAC thugs have misunderstood the

American people. They are greedy, willfully blind sociopaths, and despite all their devious cleverness, manipulative dirty tricks, and string of past successes, they have no real understanding of whole human beings. This time they have gone too far and what they truly are is plain to see.

I believe that the ultimate downfall of the unspeakable criminals who have killed so many people and traumatized so many more will come because of things they don't understand. Things like the courage and compassion shown by the California National Guards who rescued Mr. Hollingsworth despite their FEMA orders that would have let him die in silence and invisibility (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/14/12516/3649). Things like the reporters who are at last finding their spine and rising to their calling. Things like the great outpouring of humanitarian caring toward the victims of the hurricane and deep outrage at the Administration's murderous policies and continuous spew of self-serving lies.

See, I think the rest of the country was "supposed" to just gawk at shallow, sensationalist TV coverage of the hurricane for a day or two and then go back to business as usual and forget New Orleans, let alone the rest of LA and MS and AL.

We were "supposed" to allow the terrible and corrupt further plans of the neocons to unfold unopposed until it was too late for dissent.

We were "supposed" to be reassured when the FEMA "cavalry" rode in after making sure the situation was unspeakable after days of deliberately delaying any action - that didn't work in part because FEMA is no one's saving-the-day cavalry under the jaw-droppingly incompetent hacks installed by the Bush Administration - but also because of the horror of what we saw during those days of needless trauma and death. The stories of FEMA acts which deliberately WORSENED the situation and killed people continue to roll in despite all efforts to suppress them and bar reporters. Everyone saw Bush and Cheney relaxing while thousands were dying. Their lies about the delays being caused by the state and local officials have been debunked. The ones who incessantly called for avoidance of “the Blame Game” were themselves to blame, and everyone with a functioning mind can see it.

I believe we were even "supposed" to be disgusted and above all frightened by the highly hyped and endlessly repeated video clips showing the dark-skinned "looters™" so we would beg for federal protection, NOT rise to help the victims of the hurricane and Bush.

I strongly suspect that there were ”supposed” to be enough race/class protests over the hurricane aftermath abandonment of poor people – mostly black – that there would be an excuse for the Administration to call for wider martial law. Remember: civil unrest, as defined by the President, is one of the excuses for doing so.

We were "supposed" to believe all the Administration lies, just as the American public has believed so many of their other lies, no matter how outrageous. We were brought up to believe our country's President is worthy of respect and trust - he's our LEADER. It took some time to break that trust and for people to accept that Bush is a soulless, thoroughly corrupt liar.

The Big Media reporters and commentators were "supposed" to go along with all this and enable it wherever it needed a boost or a suppression. Some have (like Bill O'Rielly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and to some extent Wolf Blitzer), but many have actually dared to tell the truth with most convincing outrage. Looking at Brian Williams on site in New Orleans, for example, I see a man of passion and conviction who has found his own voice.

I believe all this was “supposed” to happen – guess we missed our cues.

I believe that it will be the things the PNAC neocons don't understand that will bring them down: integrity, compassion, courage, dignity, generosity, and a deep, burning outrage that is far larger than they ever expected. Even optimism in the sense that Americans have a strong sense that if they apply themselves, throw themselves whole-heartedly into a bad situation, they can make it better. It's the downside of being a sociopath, you see: you can get blindsided by those emotions and passions that real human beings have. Lies and tricks only go so far, and I think they've just about reached their limit.

We cannot let it be otherwise. This is the turning point, one way or the other.

[glitch]

82. I believe you are correct.

Well said. They have no capacity for integrity, courage, generosity and compassion, so they underestimate their true power.

I think, yes once again, time for some Gandhi:

"When I dispair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers. For a while they seem invincible. But they always fall. Think of it. ALWAYS."

[Nothing Without Hope]

87. Oh yes, I needed to be reminded of that Gandhi quote. THANK YOU!!!

My favorite photo of the Dalai Lama is on the right side of my computer screen as I write this as a reminder of what is important:
http://www.pacificvillage.org.nyud.net:8090/villagevoices/int4/Dalai_Lama.jpg
It's so hard not to be sucked into useless anxiety and burnout over all this. But this is the turning point, the crucial time. Now or never. This is the gate of fire: either we pull this country together, find its heart and will and integrity and move forward together, or we will quickly descend the rest of the way to fascist military dictatorship. They know what they want and they have it all worked out. We have to block those plans.

Which brings up an important point:
It's not enough to be angry - we have to show the people of the US why they should FEAR the Bush Administration and most of all we have to show them a positive, forward-looking alternative. Any Dem leaders that do not rise to this momentous occasion must be marginalized so that effective, insightful leaders can step forward in their places. Politics as usual - too long the DLC byword - is sellout. Period.

[Why Syzygy]

169. I have faith in Americans

some may buy the bait. Most will not. We will not go natzi. Not that they won't try it . . .

[fooj]

91. They have underestimated the indomitable spirit of the American People

"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer."-Albert Camus

They have taken enough from us. It is time to reclaim what is rightfully ours!

Peace.

[Nothing Without Hope]

93. Oh yes, I love that quote and hadn't thought of it for much too long.

Thank you.

I'm thinking of posting what I just wrote, about them underestimating our fellow Americans and us not doing what we were "supposed" to do in their script. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow and also solicit quotes like the Camus and Gandhi ones to lift and replenish our spirits. And also solicit "hero" stories of ordinary people who did and are continuing to do extraordinary things in saving lives and spreading hope. Yes, I think a thread like that would be a good thing.

Be well, fooj and all of you who see this. :grouphug: It's dawn again, now I think I can sleep. If anyone wants to help keep the thread kicked, or even better, continue to build it with more information and links, that would be great.

http://www.pacificvillage.org.nyud.net:8090/villagevoices/int4/Dalai_Lama.jpg

[Nothing Without Hope]

81. *** MARTIAL LAW/FEMA HAS ALREADY KILLED PEOPLE IN NEW ORLEANS: ***

Oh yes, the stories keep flooding in of all the times FEMA has blocked crucial aid or done other things that resulted in deaths or dramatically worsened conditions. But here's one more specific story that shows the soulless, uncaring truth of martial law, where even the "good Samaritan laws" of the state are suspended and sick people are allowed to die because of the imposed rules of FEMA:

Here is a permalink for the report:
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/091605/new_doctorordered001.shtml
Posted in this DU thread (though the link in the OP is NOT the permalink):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1786336
thread title: Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victims

This story is so important, because it is a documented case of deaths occurring directly because of FEMA-mandated martial law. THEY DO NOT PERMIT ANYONE BUT THEIR OWN PERSONNEL TO SAVE LIVES. THEREFORE, NO VOLUNTEER DOCTORS, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE FULL CREDENTIALS AND BEG FOR FEMA'S PERMISSION TO SAVE LIVES OF PEOPLE DYING IN FRONT OF THEM. AND THE FEMA PERSONNEL WERE NOWHERE IN SIGHT.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/091605/new_doctorordered001.shtml

Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victims

By LAURIE SMITH ANDERSON
[e-mail]
Advocate staff writer

In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. "People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.

"I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave."

FEMA issued a formal response to Perlmutter's story, acknowledging that the agency does not use voluntary physicians.

(snip - much more)

That last devastating sentence is expanded upon in the article. FEMA is in total control, you see, and they do NOT allow saving of lives except by their command. Which isn't given for "undesirables," apparently.

A FEMA spokesman (Kim Pease) issued this statement Thursday:
"We have a cadre of physicians of our own. They are the National Disaster Medical Team. ... The voluntary doctor was not a credentialed FEMA physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area."

BUT NO OTHER "FEMA-APPROVED" DOCTORS WERE THERE ON THE TARMAC, AND PATIENTS DIED BECAUSE FEMA KEPT DR. PERLMUTTER FROM SAVING THEIR LIVES. FEMA would not accept the doctor, though he tried for 12 hours to get through to them, and NO acceptable FEMA doctors were there. The normal "good Samaritan" laws by which lives can be saved were set aside by martial law. WHY????

[redacted]

86. EXTREME KICK

[HR_Pufnstuf]

83. Perhaps its time for 7 new countries.

New California, New England, New Texas, New Florida, New West, New Central, and the New South.

That would bring the world tension down a notch.

[Nothing Without Hope]

88. Nope, it wouldn't. The new plan making PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES

OFFICIAL US MILITARY POLICY is nearing approval. I have been pulling my hair over this - despite being reported in the WaPo, NYT and Times(UK), it's been under most people's radar.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1770759
thread title: Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

Under this policy, Bush could nuke any country he didn't like or wanted to bully by claiming he THOUGHT they MIGHT want to make or use bio- or chemical weapons or other WMDs. We'd most likely be in a nuclear World War III now if that had been the policy when they went into Iraq. And of course they've wanted to attack Iran for a long time, and apparently Syria too...

No, your new countries would doubtless come under immediate suspicion of kinda maybe looking like they might be thinking of WMDs, and out would come the nukes. No kidding.

I've been meaning to repost this vitally important news about the pre-emptive nuclear strike policy, but I've gotten eaten up with trying to get this thread built. I do think it should serve as a resource, with some (far from all) important links for people to study further. I'm glad some of the DU community have posted important articles here too.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

84. --

nt

[Nothing Without Hope]

90. For anyone who STILL doesn't think the delays were deliberate, READ THIS:

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=152&topic_id=197

It's a compilation thread in the form of linked articles arranged in a timeline. Some of the links don't go to the right place, and some things are missing, like the fact that Gov. Blanco's first letter to Bush calling for state of emergency was actually on Aug 27; the one on the 28th was her second letter:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2064469&mesg_id=2067532

But overall, it's a useful compilation of some of the important milestones and events. Reading through it, you have to ask, as its poster did, "Where does Incompetence end and where does intent begin?"

And thanks to DUer ruperupe for pointing out this compilation thread! :hi:

[Catchawave]

94. You should send this to one of the Dem leaders....

...but at this time, I can't think of one :silly:

I posted on another thread my concern over....fighting for democracy "there", but losing it "here"....scary.

Thanks for all your hard work Hope :hi:

[bettyellen]

kicked.......

[Nothing Without Hope]

97. Thanks, bettyellen, I guess it's keep-it-kicked time now. I do want to

keep this thread visible and hope other people do too, otherwise it's going to sink into invisibility very fast.

Again, thanks for kicking! :hi:

[bettyellen]

96. kicked.......

[fooj]

98. Kick for TRUTH!

Peace.

[bettyellen]

99. Lookee here: the moneygrab quietly started last week......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4804459

[KYDEM]

104. kick

n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

102. kick - I expect to post some more in this thread over the next days and I

hope you DUers out there do too. Let's make it a useful resource to build on in later study and writing.

[Nothing Without Hope]

103. this is relevant - Iraq war protestors to be allowed NO DEFENSE in trial:

This is beyond outrageous, it is truly frightening and a foretaste of what the neocons have planned for all of us irritating dissenters under the thumb of martial law. This must be fought and exposed and blasted everywhere:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4798268
thread title: War protestors denied right to defense! Please read!

Here is the opening post of that H2O Man thread, currently on the Greatest Page with 47 votes; be sure to check all the replies as well and watch for updates on the St. Patrick's Four.

Last night I posted a thread with information on the St. Patrick's Four. They are four people from the Ithaca, NY area who took part in a non-violent protest against the war in Iraq. They were originally charged with criminal mischief, and tried in the Tompkins County Court. When the jury heard their defense, based upon their religious and spiritual beliefs, and rooted in the history of civil disobedience in this great nation, 9 of 12 jurors voted to acquit them.

However, the federal government has recently charged them with conspiracy. They will go on trial starting Monday, 9-19, in Binghamton, NY.

I found out today that the federal court will not allow these four to present a defense to the conspiracy charges. This was reported in todays edition of The Daily Star (Oneonta, NY; see: www.thedailystar.com LTTE)

The four face 6 years in prison and $250,000 fines if convicted. How in the hell can they not be allowed to put on a defense? I believe it is because the prosecutor knows that no jury would convict them if they hear the truth.

For more information, see: http://stpatricksfour.com /

Please help.

[Why Syzygy]

174. wow

Now that's what I call "freedom fighters".

[Nothing Without Hope]

105. Will post an article on the militarization of New Orleans here tomorrow.

last kick for the night

[KYDEM]

106. kick

n/t

[livvy]

107. Sunday morning kick. 9:35

Important stuff here. People need to read and think about this.

[bettyellen]

108. KICK

[Nothing Without Hope]

109. OH. MY. GOD. MUST-READ article "The Militarization of New Orleans"

Here's just one small bit of this:

It's interesting, we talked earlier this week about the Blackwater mercenaries and I talked about my hour-long conversation with them when they had first arrived here, and I reported that they were saying they were on contract with the Department of Homeland Security. This, of course, was denied by the federal government. Well, now they have been forced to admit, the federal government, that Blackwater is on federal contract with FEMA to protect -- so-called protect, its rebuilding or reconstruction efforts in Louisiana.

Much more - Israeli paramilitaries, Mexican laborers brought in from Texas, the horrors go on and on.

It's happening.

Reported in this DU thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x157616
thread title: The Militarization of New Orleans

[AzDar]

110. No more power for you, incompetent monkey-man.......n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

111. No reason to doubt this so far. I am concerned about the Washington

and nationwide protests on Sept 24 - I believe the Bush Administration is itching for an excuse to declare wider martial law, now that it has its vicious, murderous foothold in New Orleans. Read the post on the FEMA powers upthread again:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4790112&mesg_id=4790882

Read the whole thing, or better yet, read the whole original article.

Looks to me like Bush could declare that the protests consitituted civil unrest/disturbance and call in the military. He could basically do anything he wanted - read the list of "emergency" powers in that post again. And Congress would not be able to do anything about it for at least six months. He could do a LOT in six months.

I am hoping that this does not happen - they may be planning on a longer timeline, perhaps with incitement/overhyping of other protests (antiwar, racial outrage, many possibilities) as an excuse - but it COULD happen. Congress gave Bush all these dictatorial powers to use whenever HE thought it appropriate. INSANITY!!!!!

[LibertyorDeath]

112. Great thread NWH more info here

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/1973043.html
The Plots Thicken: David Margolis, Michael Chertoff (Of the Devil) & General Kevin Byrnes

by Al Martin

The Plots Thicken: David Margolis, Michael Chertoff
(Of the Devil) & General Kevin Byrnes



This is what Chertoff effectively is now going
to be doing with our law enforcement: to allow for the
militarization of law enforcement through the
overturning of Posse Comitatus, but to insure that the
military doesn’t control it, and that it remains under
political control within the Cabal so it can be used
for political purposes.

The recent dismissal of the four-star general
sent a signal. General Kevin Byrnes was a four-star
general who was the head of TRADOC (Training and
Doctrine Command) in Hampton, Virginia.

This never been done. A four-star general has
never been dismissed from the service since the rank
was created. Furthermore, the dismissal of a four-star
general should have instigated Congressional hearings.

Now, for a four-star general to be dismissed
without any call by the opposition, (in this case, the
Democrats) for Congressional hearings and without the
Department of Defense providing a reasonable
explanation is unheard of.

A must read IMO

much more

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/1973043.html

[Nothing Without Hope]

113. kick - keeping this alive n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

114. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

115. Will post some more info here tonight n/t

[PeacePal]

116. Read today's Washington Post blog by Arkin on Posse Comitatus!

Here it is:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/?referrer=email

Read it, pass it on to others, sound the warning!

[Nothing Without Hope]

117. Excellent! I'll post an excerpt from it here later tonight

We need to be thoroughly well-versed on these laws, or we will be crushed when they make their move. Again, here is a good site for Posse Comitatus Act information:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112#4790545

The POTUS has far, far too much power under FEMA as well - and he can declare a state of emergency whenever he feels like it, for things like "civil unrest." Congress can't even review it for six months!! See upthread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112#4790882

[buzzsaw_23]

118. Glad to have bumped into this

bookmarked

[Nothing Without Hope]

119. Increasingly, I believe that the Administration WANTS racial protest to

rise over the massive "negligent homicide" and all other horrors since the storm. Deaths are STILL occurring, and bodies are STILL not being gathered even in New Orleans, which is crawling with military squads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4832252

"Civil disturbance" is one of the "justifications" that Bush could use to declare martial law, and according to the outrageous, dictatorial "rules" of FEMA, Congress couldn't even review the decision for six months. (See upthread.) So it could work to their advantage to incite enough people to riot in protest that the military police and emergency powers could be called out. I surely wouldn't put it past them.

[earth mom]

120. Wow why didn't I see this thread earlier?

Thanks for all your hard work on it NWH-you are amazing! :applause:

I am a jumble of emotions right now...angry, nervous,scared...and wishing I hadn't read this at almost 1:30 am when I should be asleep...don't know if I can sleep now!

One little comment to make and that's about the protest in DC on the 24th. Do you think they will use it as an example of "unrest"?

OMG, I sincerely hope not!!!

[Nothing Without Hope]

124. Your thought about the 24th had occurred to me too. I do have some

concern, but if the protest is peaceful and well-reported, I sort of doubt they'll make their move then. Just a guess...and a hope. It's very important for the country to see the size and cohesiveness and inclusiveness of the antiwar movement, which Rove says doesn't exist.

I am increasingly concerned that one of the reasons why people were treated so abusively in New Orleans and throughout the South, to the point of thousands of extra deaths, untold added trauma, and bodies lying rotting THREE WEEKS after the storm was to deliberately incite racial unrest. At this point, I can't see another word for it than genocide. If ruling neocons could get some semi-violent protests around the country to hype and twist, they could use THAT as their "enabling act."

As I see it, the most likely alternative "enabling act" is one or more staged domestic "terrorist" attacks.

I do believe that forewarned is forearmed. The best defense is thorough exposure and public education, and thank god, for now the press telling enough of the truth to show just how dishonest, callous, and disastrously bad for the country the Bush Administration really is. The public needs to be educated in why they should FEAR the Administration - anger may not be enough - and when this is done, there must be a POSITIVE ALTERNATIVE to turn to. Otherwise it's just more aimless, anxious terror. We must have a direction to move it, plans to follow. So far, most Dem leaders have not been up to this. If this continues, then the ineffective ones should be sidelined as the able ones step forward.

An unstoppable, inclusive, local AND nation-wide, forward-looking NONVIOLENT COALITION is needed. As long as it's small, local and relatively invisible, it's easier to suppress.

I'll try to post some more info in this threads in future days, hoping that more people will see the thread. Maybe some of them will contribute too. The facts throughout this thread are things we need to know.

[dbeach]

121. the song remains the same..MORE for him less for us

SOS from the scion of wealth and privlege

bush has one major goal..MARTIAL LAW and him the president..

all tragedies are opportunities for the repukes and their dem enablers to make america their goal mine and us gettin the shaft

King George Bush the second = KGB II

[Nothing Without Hope]

122. Keeping it alive until I have time to post more

There is indeed more, but I can't post it today.

[buzzsaw_23]

123. Look forward to the rest

Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others.

-- Emma Goldman

[Nothing Without Hope]

125. All too true, and to clear the miasma of that toxic worldview, here is

my favorite Einstein quote. It's just about totally opposite, and in the best way:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. —Albert Einstein

[Nothing Without Hope]

126. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

127. OH MY GOD!!! READ THIS!!!! IT MAY BE STARTING IN PREPARATION FOR

SEPT 24TH WASHINGTON PROTEST!!!!

Here's an excerpt, much more in the thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4849457
thread title: Bush Extends National State of Emergency - Military in Streets of DC


********************************************

Don't want to be alarmist about this, but these two simultaneous items together are really jarring.

* First, without any discussion or warning, Bush announced yesterday that he has extended the terrorism-related state of National Emergency he declared after 9/11.

* Second, a Washington Post columnist tells us that today is the kickoff of a massive Pentagon exercise simulating the declaration of a martial law in Washington, DC and that military special forces and intelligence officers have, in fact, been deployed in force in the streets of the capitol.

Of course, this comes on the eve of the largest anti-war demonstration in DC in 35 years.

1)
Notice of September 21, 2005--Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism

Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________

Title 3--
The President

Notice of September 21, 2005

Continuation of the National Emergency With
Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or
Support Terrorism

On September 23, 2001, by Executive Order 13224, I
declared a national emergency with respect to persons
who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism,
pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706). I took this action to deal
with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the
national security, foreign policy, and economy of the
United States constituted by the grave acts of
terrorism and threats of terrorism committed by foreign
terrorists, including the terrorist attacks in New
York, in Pennsylvania, and against the Pentagon
committed on September 11, 2001, and the continuing and
immediate threat of further attacks against United
States nationals or the United States. Because the
actions of these persons who commit, threaten to
commit, or support terrorism continue to pose an
unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States,
the national emergency declared on September 23, 2001,
and the measures adopted on that date to deal with that
emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 23,
2005. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of
the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am
continuing for 1 year the national emergency with
respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or
support terrorism.

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register
and transmitted to the Congress.

(Presidential Sig.)B

THE WHITE HOUSE,

September 21, 2005.

Filed 9-21-05; 1:07 pm]

Billing code 3195-01-P
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/e ...

******

2)
Now, read this:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/to ...
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Today in DC: Commandos in the Streets?
Today, somewhere in the DC metropolitan area, the military is conducting a highly classified Granite Shadow "demonstration."

Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military’s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.

A spokesman at the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR) confirmed the existence of Granite Shadow to me yesterday, but all he would say is that Granite Shadow is the unclassified name for a classified plan.

SNIP

When that "area of operations" is the United States, things become particularly sensitive.

That's where Granite Shadow comes in. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military's new homeland security command, is preparing its draft version of CONPLAN 0400 for military operations in the United States, and the resulting Granite Shadow plan has been classified above Top Secret by adding a Special Category (SPECAT) compartment restricting access.

The sensitivities, according to military sources, include deployment of "special mission units" (the so-called Delta Force, SEAL teams, Rangers, and other special units of Joint Special Operations Command) in Washington, DC and other domestic hot spots. NORTHCOM has worked closely with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), as well as the secret branches of non-military agencies and departments to enforce "unity of command" over any post 9/11 efforts.

Further, Granite Shadow posits domestic military operations, including intelligence collection and surveillance, unique rules of engagement regarding the use of lethal force, the use of experimental non-lethal weapons, and federal and military control of incident locations that are highly controversial and might border on the illegal.

(snip - much more)

[Nothing Without Hope]

128. Will post more in the next couple of days - feel free to do so too n/t

[G_j]

129. big kick..

[seemslikeadream]

133. A kick from me too G_j

:hi:

[Nothing Without Hope]

131. The Pentagon "refuses to testify" to Congress about Able Danger - proof

that they are following the unconstitutional position laid out in the infamous Yoo Memo of Jan 2005, which states quite blatantly and most definitely in gross defiance of the Constitution, that the President has sole power to wage war and order the military. Thus, the Pentagon under Rumsfeld demonstrates its position that ONLY the President, NOT the Congress has any say about their activities. The Congress, they say, has no power over the Pentagon at all - excerpt, presumably, for funding whatever Bush decides to do.

Here is the thread about the unconstitutional refusal of the Pentagon to obey the Congress:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1802447
Thread title: Specter: Pentagon Drops Hearing Objection ABLE DANGER

Here is the post upthread on the infamous - and unconstitutional - Yoo Memo that makes the US in effect a military dictatorship:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112#4790660

[Nothing Without Hope]

134. Sorry - I misstated. The Yoo memo is from earlier, 2001. I'll get a link

to the memo and post it here when I find it - or someone else can.

[paineinthearse]

132. Blast this to the media and to progressive congresspeople

Please!

[Nothing Without Hope]

135. A cautionary historical comment and quote:

We are at a turning point now, up or down for the Republic. Same thing has happened in so many nations - a representational government eroding and eventually falling to lassitude and the aggression of a faction supporting a military dictator and their own agenda. Think of history - there are many, many examples. And you know what they say about people who forget history being condemned to repeat it.

If the military obeys ONLY the president's personal orders, not the Constitution, and Congress has illegally ceded to the president the power to declare war, as they have,

what we have is a military dictatorship with some democratic-looking window dressing.

A quote comes to mind:

"No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be stupid enough to shatter the façade of democratic institutions." -- Murray B. Levin, Political Hysteria in America, 1971

In those earlier nations, at some point the power shift was complete enough to finally make the last superficial trappings of a republic disposable without destabilizing the new power base. The primary allegiance of the military was ALWAYS key, and I believe too many in Congress, in the Press, and in the citizenry take the allegiance of the US military leadership to the Constitution for granted.

[G_j]

136. kick!!

[Octafish]

137. It's 'Seven Days in May' without a happy ending...

... since 22 November 1963.

These PNAC stooges are codifying empire.

[Nothing Without Hope]

138. kick - keeping this alive til more can be posted.

Please feel free to post articles that you consider relevant and important.

[G_j]

139. ~kICk~

[Nothing Without Hope]

140. kick - will post an article on NorthCom history tonight n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

141. Bush is stepping up the push for military takeover - and STILL lying

about the reasons for the murderously "incompetent" response to Katrina. He is saying there needs to be a "national response plan" when in fact, it already exists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4668155
and explicitly ALREADY gives full power to Bush and to Chertoff in an emergency - which they failed to use:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1778603

They are STILL trying to blame all the problems on the state and local officials, STILL trying to federalize the National Guard, STILL trying to make Bush a military dictator. Will the Press allow it? The NewsDay article did.

Reported in this DU thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1805660
Thread title: Newsday: Bush urges larger role for military

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usbush26,0,3017289.story?coll=ny-nation-big-pix

Bush urges larger role for military

BY CRAIG GORDON
WASHINGTON BUREAU

(snip)

Bush wrapped up a weekend-long Hurricane Rita-watch tour in Colorado and Texas. In San Antonio yesterday, he heard a two-star general call the Katrina rescue efforts a "train wreck" of failed coordination and communications, one that could be improved with a national response plan.

(snip)

"The president's talking about considering a situation where you need a clear line of authority," McClellan said. "And it's the Department of Defense that has the capability to do that ... to be able to do it quickly for the initial time period you need to stabilize the situation."

During Katrina, the White House was frustrated that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco resisted the call to "federalize" the troops in New Orleans under a single commander, and some Republicans have grumbled that it was Blanco's poor handling of the initial National Guard response that allowed conditions there to deteriorate, a situation that has helped push Bush to his lowest approval ratings yet.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld already is studying whether the Pentagon should have a broader role in future disasters. One senior defense official yesterday pointed toward the example cited by the two-star general, Maj. Gen. John White, of five helicopters converging to rescue one person in New Orleans as the kind of situation where the Pentagon might be able to take a stronger role in coordinating efforts.

(snip)

Outrageous that they should be allowed to lie like this when the evidence is so clear. Even to the point that they are allowed to pretend that the DHS National Response Plan already exists and explicitly gives full power to Bush and to Chertoff - power that they did not invoke for DAYS while thousands died. There is no question that Bush and the neocon cabal intend to push to further their plans for military dictatorship - and no, that term is not too strong.

[Nothing Without Hope]

142. WaTimes: Bush seeks to federalize emergencies (end Posse Comitatus Act)

Right on schedule - they're making their move all right. Will our feckless, clueless - or deliberately collaborationist - Dem Congress members save us? We had better be yelling our heads off 24/7.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1808662
Thread title: WaTimes: Bush seeks to federalize emergencies (end Posse Comitatus Act)

This is a Moonie Times report on events of 9/27. Here's part of the excerpt posted in the DU thread linked to above:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050927-121122-3262r.htm
(snip)

President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process. "It wouldn't be necessary to get a request from the governor or take other action," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday. "This would be," he added, "more of an automatic trigger." Mr. McClellan was referring to a new, direct line of authority that would allow the president to place the Pentagon in charge of responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and outbreaks of disease. "It may require change of law," Mr. Bush said yesterday. "It's very important for us as we look at the lessons of Katrina to think about other scenarios that might require a well-planned, significant federal response -- right off the bat -- to provide stability."

(snip)

Remember, that "trigger" event could be an antiwar protest, absolutely anything at all. Bush would be a full military dictator with just some nonfunctional fossil democratic-looking flim-flam window dressing.

[Why Syzygy]

175. Okay. You got me thinking .. and looking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

TITLE 6 CHAPTER 1 SUBCHAPTER VIII Part H Sec. 466. Congress finds the following:

Section 1385 of title 18 (commonly known as the Posse Comitatus Act) prohibits the use of the Armed Forces as a Posse comitatus to execute the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.
Enacted in 1878, the Posse Comitatus Act was expressly intended to prevent United States Marshals, on their own initiative, from calling on the Army for assistance in enforcing Federal law.
The Posse Comitatus Act has served the Nation well in limiting the use of the Armed Forces to enforce the law.
Nevertheless, by its express terms, the Posse Comitatus Act is not a complete barrier to the use of the Armed Forces for a range of domestic purposes, including law enforcement functions, when the use of the Armed Forces is authorized by Act of Congress or the President determines that the use of the Armed Forces is required to fulfill the President's obligations under the Constitution to respond promptly in time of war, insurrection, or other serious emergency.
Existing laws, including Title 10, Chapter 15 (commonly known as The Insurrection Act), and The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Title 42, Chapter 68), grant the President broad powers that may be invoked in the event of domestic emergencies, including an attack against the Nation using weapons of mass destruction, and these laws specifically authorize the President to use the Armed Forces to help restore public order.

..more..

Check out the footnotes.
Maybe you (we) can add to the wikipedia database.

[Nothing Without Hope]

143. Transcript & video, 9/26 McClellan press briefing: "automatic trigger"

...with the Pentagon directing military police at the President's whim without any reference to the desire or concern of the states' governors. In other words, military dictatorship.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050926-2.html

Be afraid, be very very afraid. AND YELL LIKE HELL AT THE SPINELESS DEMS IN CONGRESS AND THE REPUBS WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES PARTY!!!!

[slipslidingaway]

144. Many thanks for putting this together, not sure if this

site is allowed nor will I vouch for the accuracy, worth a look in light of developments.

http://infowars.net/Pages/Sept05/270905Martiallaw.htm

"Special Report:Katrina/Rita Fallout Part One
Martial Law: Police State America - We're So Close Now

Steve Watson / Infowars | Sept 27 2005

For years we have warned that the police state is coming, how Martial Law will become the norm, how ancient laws, rights and freedoms are being overturned and replaced with repressive mechanisms of control.

For years we have presented the evidence, the Army War College documents, the domestic military takeover drills, the draconian legislation, officials left right and centre calling for more centralized military control domestically.

For years people refuted the evidence, or passed it off as being intended for something else, or simply refused to believe it. Now everything we warned you about is happening.

In the wake of the recent natural disasters on American soil, dangerous precedents have been set. We have been forced to watch how in times of crisis we must submit and follow the orders of Federal Commanders, no matter whether they deny us basic human rights or not."

[Nothing Without Hope]

145. Thank you for this. It's right on target, unfortunately.

I'll post an article on NorthCom's history and mission tomorrow - that will curl your hair.

[Nothing Without Hope]

149. kick - no time to post more today n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

150. So sad - something similar appears to be happening in AUSTRALIA:

Sounds very like the Patriot Act, and the Australians have been cowed by hyped fears of "terra-ism™" just like happened here.

Discussed in this DU thread, including articles posted in the replies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1810200

http://smh.com.au/news/national/powers-pave-way-for-secret-new-world/2005/09/27/1127804477975.html

Powers pave way for secret new world

By Marian Wilkinson
September 28, 2005

Secret detentions without charge, house arrests, even the possible monitoring of lawyers - this is the brave new security world embraced by Australia's leaders as a necessary evil in the fight against terrorism.

(snip)

But a line in the leaders' communique will no doubt unnerve many Muslims. Suspects picked up for preventive detention will, as a safeguard, be able to contact their family and their employer "solely for the purposes of letting them know they are safe, but are not able to be contacted for the time being".

This detail, released hours after the news conference was over, was the first hint that the sweeping new powers the leaders are giving the police forces and ASIO will be exercised largely in secret.

A control order on a suspect that could put him or her under house arrest for a year, without charge, without trial, and without criminal standards of evidence, can be granted by a judge operating in a closed court, under the proposals the premiers agreed to.

Also reported by the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4285304.stm
Last Updated: Tuesday, 27 September 2005, 11:57 GMT 12:57 UK
Australia agrees new terror laws
The measures include tightened security at airports

Australia's federal government has reached agreement with leaders of the country's regions over the enforcement of tough new anti-terror laws.

The state leaders said they would back the law, in return for a promise from Prime Minister John Howard that the measures be reviewed after five years.

They allow terror suspects to be held without charge for up to 14 days.

The move came as a respected think-tank said a terror group blamed for the Bali attacks no longer threatened Australia.

(snip)

I am wondering whether there are also moves to make calling up a military police force are also being discussed in Australia as they are here.

[Nothing Without Hope]

151. kick - keeping it alive, will post more later on n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

152. Marital law in New Orleans means you can't even get your own father's

body to bury it or even get the official morgue to admit it has the body. And this is a body found and identified by the family - and this experience is typical.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4949027
Thread title: LAT: "Families Lose Loved Ones Again- in a Bureaucratic Mire" BODIES TAKEN

Martial law means that the numbers of missing, unidentified and unburied dead, and uncounted deaths are easiily manipulated by the controlling authorities; civilians have no recourse at all.

Martial law means helplessness.

[Nothing Without Hope]

153. kick - will post an article on NorthCom tomorrow - it's another piece n/t

[chknltl]

154. another kick

[Nothing Without Hope]

155. The very outrageous history of NorthCom - another must-read article:

Don't be put off by the title of this piece. It was written by a Canadian who is outraged by the flagrant violation of Canadian sovereignty by the NorthCom unilateral declarations, and you'll see that the title is not without justification.

Note that the first head of NorthCom when it was set up in 2002 was General Eberhard, who was the head of NORAD during the 9/11 attacks, when ALL fighter/interceptor planes were mysterioiusly (never explained - and the excuses kept changing) and "coincidentally" called off. This allowed the long flights of the hijacked planes into the most heavily protected airspace on the planet - and the neocons got the Pearl Harbor event they had been wanting for launching their assaults on Iraq and on the US Constitution.

You'd think Eberhard would have been court-martialed for such a lapse, but instead the grateful Bush Administration rewarded his actions by promoting him to be head of the newly formed NorthCom. Does make you think - and gives an indication of what kind of people, what kind of priorities are at work here.

Part of NorthCom's stated mission is to administer martial law in the US if the president calls for it.

Here is the article on NorthCom:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO411C.html

[Nothing Without Hope]

156. Now Bush is talking about using the military to quarantine large areas of

the country in the event of an avian flu epidemic:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1826007

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4967430

That would be another "enabling act" for them. Under the FEMA executive orders, he can do anything he wants.

He is also talking more about using the military for search-and-rescue in future disasters. Definitely is wanting an excuse to launch martial law. We ignore this at our peril.

[Marie26]

172. Keep on kicking

Also to add news report that US scientists have revived the 1918 flu virus to study its deadliness in response to the bird flu panic. I'm not sure what this has to do with it, but it doesn't seem to wise to me!
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N0517580.htm

I also have a question - the bird flu is apparantly transmitted by birds to humans, not humans to humans. So what would be the point of a quarantine? The infected birds can keep on flying around to spread the disease, while the people who can't infect others are roped off. How would that even help?

[Nothing Without Hope]

171. LA Times - they're trying to use the threat of bird flu to get martial law

They'll add that threat to the others and tell the public that they'll all die unless Bush can send in the imilitary police to "protect" them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bushflu5oct05,1,1789377.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
THE NATION

President Cites Flu Epidemic Risk, Suggests Role for Troops

By Warren Vieth
Times Staff Writer

October 5, 2005
(snip)

Part of the planning should focus on the federal government's authority to take any steps needed to contain a flu contagion, including local or regional quarantines, Bush said.

Bush said one option would be deploying the military to provide the rapid command and control measures required to deal with a pandemic. He asked Congress to consider producing legislation to expand the federal role.

Doing so would require changing laws that restrict the role of active-duty troops in domestic emergencies, a possibility raised by the government's problematic responses to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Some military officials have expressed skepticism about assuming more responsibility in such situations, and some lawmakers have voiced concern about the diminished authority of state officials and the National Guard units they control.

(snip)

Bush and his enablers keep talking about how we need a National Response Plan. Well, as I explained in the opening post, we ALREADY HAVE a National Response Plan - a 400-plus page document from the DHS that gives the president absolutely top authority in an emergency. We're not supposed to notice that; you'll note that they never mention it and keep saying we NEED a national response plan, as if it doesn't exist.

It's not the National Respoonse Plan that they want. They already have one and it gives the President extreme dictatorial powers in an emergency when combined with the executive orders available via FEMA. (For these hair-curling executive orders, see Reply # 31 uphread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112#4790882

They want MILITARY DICTATORSHIP so they can steal anything they want, sell whatever of the country's resources are still left, nuke any country they want, and never have to even PRETEND to have an election again.

PERMANENTLY.

It's only hard for SANE people to understand.

[Why Syzygy]

173. Kick

How do we stop this? Can we rely on our elected reps?

[Nothing Without Hope]

176. Another DUer gets it - Bush's staatements about using the military for

quarantine make no sense at all except as a ploy for martial law itself. What is needed is greatly enhanced domestic vaccine production and distribution resources (as the LATimes article points out), NOT a bunch of armed guards standing around keeping people from moving and probably coming down with the illness themselves.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4979995
thread title: Bush sees pandemic as a means to power, not a disaster to be prevented

excerpt from opening post:

If you were thinking about what to do about pandemics, you would be thinking about, oh, I don't know, public health, treatments at the local emergency rooms, quarantines on a hospital wide level, fast response with vaccinations, stuff like that.

But all of that is the boring stuff, the hard work, the stuff that costs money and don't directly aid the rich or the halliburtons of America. So Bush won't touch it. (The CDC plays the same role in the world of infectious disease that FEMA plays in the world of natural or unnatural disasters. And of course, Bush didn’t even mention the CDC. Hope there isn’t a horse show manager in charge at the CDC. Vaccinations and public health are the levees against disease. Wonder if they are fully funded.)

But his lack of interest in the hard work of preventing pandemics doesn’t mean Bush doesn’t have a plan. Bush practically falls over himself to skip to the martial law, Bush installed as People’s CinC latter stages of a disaster. That's the FUN stuff. Men in uniforms armed with abbreviations, making plans, drawing up contingencies, markers on the map, big arrows showing huge, coordinated and successful operations. AND, unspoken, Bush striding like a colossus as the people BEG him to save them, and Congress passes a Grant of SuperduperAuthority, appropriates a trillion bucks string-free, and the constitutional rights and federalism are superseded by the Emergency. Don't think it would happen? What do you think the War on Terra is? It's already happened, but largely happening overseas, but feel free to ask Jose Padilla if there's martial law yet.

(snip)