Late Night Top Ten Dick Cheney Excuses

[norml]

10. "Heart Palpitation Caused Trigger Finger To Spasm"

9. "Wanted To Get The Iraq Mess Off The Front Page"

8. "Not Enough Jim Beam"

7. "Trying To Stop The Spread Of Bird Flu"

6. "I Love To Shoot People"

5. "Guy Was Making Cracks About My Lesbian Daughter"

4. "I Thought The Guy Was Trying To Go 'Gay Cowboy' On Me"

3. "Excuse? I Hit Him Didn't I?"

2. "Until Democrats Approve Medicare Reform, We Have To Make Some Tough Choices For The Elderly"

1. "Made A Bet With Gretzkey's Wife"

[norml]

1. Utility Kick

New Orleans: Dress Rehearsal for American Lockdown


by Carolyn Baker

September 13, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca





The war has come home to America, right here, right now and so have myriad questions so disturbing that most Americans, even if they know what the questions are, are terrified to ask:

Why is Blackwater USA, the principal mercenary force outsourced by the Pentagon to fight in Iraq, now patrolling the streets of New Orleans?

Why the disgraceful, ghastly slowness of response by the federal government to the Katrina disaster? Why FEMA’s destruction of communication lines and implacable refusal to allow food, water, and medicine into the city? (http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/, September 6)

Why have reconstruction and clean-up contracts conveniently fallen, with perfect timing, to Halliburton and Bechtel, the two U.S. corporations most infamous for their expertise in rebuilding Iraq and worldwide whatever the U.S. military has blown up?



Mainstream media and the Internet are abuzz with stories of FEMA’s “gutting” by the federal government as the agency became part of the Department of Homeland Security, as if FEMA were some sort of altruistic savior who could have rescued New Orleans if only it had been granted sufficient funding. In reality, FEMA’s obstruction of assistance, not only from the likes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and several European nations, but from humanitarian organizations inside the United States is mindboggling. For a complete list of efforts blocked by FEMA see: http://www.rense.com/general67/femwont.htm



In order to begin answering the endless disturbing questions, we must understand what FEMA actually is. In Sheila Samples’ excellent September 10 article (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/samples7.html), she emphasizes the origins of FEMA in the 1980s under its architect, Oliver North. North’s Operation Rex 84, or Readiness Exercise 1984, was a plan by which the the federal government would accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens during times of emergency. Through Rex-84 an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States, for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state. Existence of the Rex 84 plan was first revealed during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987, and subsequently reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84)



For decades since North’s operation was disclosed, many dissidents have assumed that as in Nazi Germany, concentration camps were being secretly constructed for the incarceration of Americans. While this may be more than merely an assumption, there has been little speculation about what specific purpose such camps might serve—until the Katrina disaster. In the aftermath of the South Coast hurricane, we saw massive numbers of evacuees relocated throughout the nation.



Particularly since 9-11, FEMA has been very little about disaster relief and very much about “population management.” Katrina has underscored what the federal government and virtually all Americans already knew—the chaos that results from natural disasters. What the federal government knows, but most Americans don’t know is the pandemonium that will result as the consequences of Peak Oil exacerbate.


snip


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050913&articleId=938