I can't get the KBR detention camp thing out of my mind.

[roguevalley]

In thinking about it, one wanders a path of tortured logic that defies reconciliation. Consider:

If the world's oil supply is sufficiently corraled or disrupted, then the possibility of major population displacements will be real and sudden. I personally believe its more a problem of Europe to face than North America. Say what you will, the oceans keep us out of the consequences of some of our actions. Remember when Bulgaria had a hemmorhage and people swarmed off boats into Italy? What a sad sight. Imagine millions of people displaced and moving toward better food, better shelter. It will be like the famine times in the dark ages and the Roman era when the Goths came into Roman territory looking for food, land and citizenship.

Also, if the idiots over here believe its time to corral people, imagine what that will be like in a gun owning society like ours? You don't possibly believe that they would allow people to keep their guns when their ultimate goal is to get iron control over the country and strategic portions of the world. There are more than 56% of the country that thinks things suck and imagine how many of them own guns?

What army will they use to make this happen? What bogus act of congress? Can you imagine John Conyers and the others going along with this? Will they be arrested? Will people who are in the service and police forces fire on their neighbors and fellow Americans if the little king tells them to? Gonzales says he has the power to order the death of people here in America. Since there are no controls, he can order it. Legalities are not a concern of these people. But will our friends and neighbors actually do it? Makes you wonder.

Bush lives in a bubble. Even Rice tells people not to tell him the truth. It 'upsets' him. Bush has no clue. But he's mean, tyrannical and out-of-control. He would order it as surely as he is ignoring the suffering of the people in the Gulf Coast and the people who have had their paltry benefits taken to pay for his next war.

Sometimes events get away from even the most diabolical buffoon. Sometimes things happen and it turns the corner of history in ways unexpected. The Russian Army didn't obey the treasonous orders to putsch Gorbachev. The most conditioned army in the most traumatized country in the world refused. Who can forget Yeltsin on the tank.

We all better be Yeltsins on tanks. The freepers that find all of this just too fun had better get it too. No one is immune from a madman. No one is safe from the wrath of the man in the bunker. Not in 1945 and not now. When they come for the troublemakers, they won't care what side of the aisle you are from. There are plenty of people in the Gulf that should have attracted his attention. They are plenty white enough and plenty conservative enough but he has turned his back on them. No one is safe and no one is immune.

I can't get the picture of gulags out of my mind. He can order anything, Gonzales said so and a senator said if he can, then all of it ... the courts and the congress are irrelevant. Don't be irrelevant.

[leftstreet]

1. (sigh) They're NOT detention camps

Bushco is using the excuse of ending the catch/release program of illegal immigrants in an effort to push his guest worker program. The contract was only for $385 million. That's peanuts, and will probably just buy some Bushco crony at KBR a new yacht.

Don't give in to fear and terra politics.
:)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halliburto ...


In recent months, the Homeland Security Department has promised to increase bed space in its detention centers to hold thousands of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. In the first quarter of the 2006 fiscal year, nearly 60 percent of the illegal immigrants apprehended from countries other than Mexico were released on their own recognizance.

Domestic security officials have promised to end the releases by increasing the number of detention beds. Last week, domestic security officials announced that they would expand detaining and swiftly deporting illegal immigrants to include those seized near the Canadian border.

Advocates for immigrants said they feared that the new contract was another indication that the government planned to expand the detention of illegal immigrants, including those seeking asylum.

"It's pretty obvious that the intent of the government is to detain more and more people and to expedite their removal," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.

Ms. Zuieback said the KBR contract was not intended for that.

"It's not part of any day-to-day enforcement," she said.

She added that she could not provide additional information about the company's statement that the contract was also meant to support the rapid development of new programs.

Halliburton executives, who announced the contract last week, said they were pleased.

"We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract," an executive vice president, Bruce Stanski, said in a statement, "because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency management support."

[roguevalley]

2. I guess when you're old enough to know people who were detained

in the Japanese camps and WWII is still a good memory, its hard to shake the dread. Damn them all.

[leftstreet]

3. Yes. But this isn't the same thing.

These fuckers are just exploiting those of us who do remember.

They have no social agenda. They just want $$$$.

Don't let them do it!

[lapfog_1]

4. Peanuts...

$385 Million is peanuts.

Please share a peanut with this poor person here.

Let's say a cost of $10,000 per bed for simply "upgrading" current unused military barracks...

That's still 38,500 illegal immigrants to be held until they send them back.

But I suspect they aren't spending a dime on the actual living quarters, mostly on the barb wire and barricades and guard rooms.
I'm thinking that $385 million goes a long way to make what is already a fairly "secure" facility (military base) into a medium security prison.
Probably at a significantly smaller cost than $10,000 per inmate. Think more like $500 to $1000.

That's 385,000 inmates to nearly 800,000 inmates.

That's a lot of illegal immigrants that are clogging up the county jails right now...

(There is a lot of sarcasm in my post, in case you didn't get it)

Why is it that I just don't believe the Bushco explanation for giving out this contract... and, oh yeah, if all they wanted to do was move more money to Halliburton, finding an extra "cost overrun" item to tack on the billions in Iraq (where $385 M is, after all, apparently peanuts) would be a much simpler and less attention getting way to do it.

[OneBlueSky]

5. if it were just the KBR contract, that would be one thing . . . but . . .

there's more . . . much, much more . . . some factual, some speculative, but certainly enough to cause one to toss and turn a bit . . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=328519&mesg_id=328941

[Dunvegan]

6. One of my main concerns is that these "enhanced facilities"...

...might be used for union busting in strategic zones.

If you ship a hundred or so detained illegal aliens to, say 4 major urban areas where you'd like to reduce influence the unions have on corporations, you might just offer the detainees "scab work" where needed at rates below the union scale, without benefits, for the duration of time it takes to break the union.

That alone would be a horrible situation, and misuse of taxpayer funds to undermine said taxpayers.