POLL: What will YOU DO if they build CONCENTRATION CAMPS on US soil?

[Selatius]

What if after a mass-casualty event like another 9/11 or the war takes a stunning turn with aggression against Iran, the government uses that as the excuse to declare martial law in the "interests of national security"? What if they suspended the right to trial by jury along with the right to protest, the right to assemble, and the right say or write things that are critical of the government or critical of government actions or policies?

They build concentration camps like the ones possibly mentioned here to deal with "enemies of the state":

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/47/17936

If such a time comes to pass, what will you do?

[mike_c]

1. I voted for #5-- I've lived a good life by my standards...

...and am not afraid of dying. The problem is that intelligent totalitarian regimes tighten the screws by incremental degrees, giving people time to become accustomed to each new manifestation of the police state until one day they wake up and everyone either conforms or has been disappeared. Folks that decide to make a stand are simply criminalized, even by their peers. So if and when I make my stand, most will likely denounce me for it, even here.

[Selatius]

2. I'm also interested in seeing how honest people are with themselves

That's why option 3 and 7 is there. I think a lot of people would probably not challenge the authorities in public but would privately reveal their thoughts if they felt safe, and if people are made so abjectly terrified of being killed, they could do things they would normally not do, like turn in fellow friends.

[itzamirakul]

4. For a few moments I debated between joining the underground

or facing the government as a protester. I chose #5, facing the government as a protester because I think it is best to just come on out front and speak one's true feelings...consequences be what they may. Besides, I have gotten a bit old for underground activities.

In the past six years we have seen these incremental changes begin to take place and we keep accepting and adjusting to them, all the while believing that things will go back to being the way they used to be before the Republicans, the Neocons and the Lobby took over the U.S. government. We need to wake up and realize that things will never go back to where they used to be.

[Jamastiene]

5. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

I'm not sure who originally said that, but it fits my take on this concept. Right is right and wrong is wrong. I'd rather die for what I think is right than live under what I think is incredibly wrong like that.

[Demeter]

3. Organize a Crew To tear the Damn Things Down

If we have to take evety single crime this regime does in our own hands, and literally remove it from the face of the earth, if we have to personally disable and detain every single Bushbot, so be it. We will not be kind, or gentle, for having to go so far out of our natural tendencies to enforce the rule of law.

[don954]

6. how does it go again?

oh yes, democracy is protected by the soap box, the ballot box, and lastly the ammo box. it isn't a good idea to make your governed use the last.

[magellan]

7. I voted 5 in defiance, but 4 is probably closer to the truth

I'm mostly German, but I'll be damned if I'll be a "good" one!!

[dipsydoodle]

8. Is the voting age related ?

I voted #5 as though I'd applied it to the UK where I am <or are as * might have said> Given that I'm 62 and don't really give a shit I've less to lose by almost any form of civil protest. Hence my question - is age having a bearing on this subject ?

Am I right in believing that your Constitution entitles you to bear arms against your government if it's a bad government ?

[Selatius]

9. You have a right to bear arms, but the gov't would disagree with...

the notion of you being able to bear arms against the government you feel is bad.

In reflection, I should've factored in age. I wondered how the elderly were able to get buy in occupied Europe during the war on very limited food and medicine and being made to face constant bombardment and heavy fighting. I wouldn't imagine very many did survive the war.

[dipsydoodle]

16. 2nd Amendment

"The history of the Second Amendment indicates that its purposes were to secure to each individual the right to keep and bear arms so that he could protect his absolute individual rights as well as carry out his obligation to assist in the common defense. It is evident that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to limit the right to keep and bear arms to a formal military body or organized militia, but intended to provide for an "unorganized" armed citizenry prepared to assist in the common defense against a foreign invader or a domestic tyrant. This concept of an unorganized, armed citizenry clearly recognized the right, and moreover the duty, to keep and bear arms in an individual capacity."

http://www.guncite.com/journals/senrpt/fgd-guar.html

What is a domestic tyrant ? .............no answer required.

[EFerrari]

18. Maybe not so much age as, are you protecting small children

or other dependents?

I read the poll three times before voting and finally, even reluctantly chose 5 -- because, who really knows? But, if my boys were still young or if I were caring for my parents, I wouldn't chose that one. I'd try to lie low and wait. Hard choices.

[readmoreoften]

10. I know what I am capable of before detention, but threats to my loved ones

could break me. Break me in what direction, I don't know. It's not my death or torture that worries me so much. I understand now why people say "love makes you weak."

I think I will try to get out before hand, but if the detentions start and there are mass rallies I will most certainly take to the streets.

[readmoreoften]

11. Actually, #5 is a little bogus. It won't happen that way.

There won't be tanks in the streets. People will be disappeared one at a time. They'll let us protest and discredit us as "kooks" the way they do now. Then they'll smear so many of the detainees that just being captured will taint one's purity. As in, oh ten arab terrorists, ten pedophiles, ten immigrants who deal drugs, and.. and one... what? socialist sympathizer? What's that? Well, I guess they probably deserved it. Besides that's a pretty alright ratio.

It's like the death penalty now. We all know a few innocent men get fried, but 95% are guilty as sin. Guess those innocents are shit outta luck. It's a shame but life's not fair.

That's how I think it will go down.

[mike_c]

14. I agree with you....

I keep thinking about the guy who attacked the Jewish center in Seattle. One person's hate crime is another's act of resistance. I don't mean to condone that specific attack-- I deplore it, in fact, but that's the way most of us who resist will ultimately be made to look. When you make the choice to step outside the herd, you will be criminalized and your best friends will denounce your memory. That's why choosing to resist takes such courage-- not because you will suffer, but because your suffering will be misjudged.

[readmoreoften]

Yeah, if it was as easy as one mass uprising planned by ANSWER

then we'd all go and chant our little chants, etc. How is that a threat to them any more that it is now? How do we take to the streets? Which streets? For what purpose? In protest? The MSM (RWM actually) will say that "100,000 showed" or "tens of thousands of people". And they'll say "tens of thousands of people showed up to protest the incarceration of terrorists and pedophiles."

I always tell people, I swear I'm like a broken record. Know your friends. Only 10% will stand by you when the shit hits the fan. 40% will turn against you for their own benefit. 50% will run and hide. I have only two people I trust like that: my girlfriend and my best friend. Add to that a few people in my union. Your friends aren't necessarily the people you go out drinking with. They're the people you have fun with. Friends are an entirely different animal when it comes to things like this.

We will start disappearing in the night and it will be 2-3 years in before the MSM begins to seriously cover our disappearances. I suspect it will only be about 1% of the population. Given my profile I think I'm in the middle-front of that line. I'm definitely not at the front, but by no means can I even see the back of the list.

[EFerrari]

31. Give ANSWER their due. If nothing else, they are teaching

people to respond rather than react as best as they can

That's some valuable training at any level.

[readmoreoften]

44. Oh, I'm not dissing ANSWER. I'm just saying.

If a big rally were all it took to fight these creeps we'd be good to go. It's not likely to be one big final showdown. That's just my opinion.

[EFerrari]

49. Oh, I agree. Won't happen that way. n/t

[sueragingroz]

34. here's an idea

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

[readmoreoften]

45. I agree 100%. As a person who's been on strike for 9 months now.

I also know how hard it is to keep the scabs from taking over. Not an easy thing to pull off, but I'm in.

[bananarepublican]

12. HE-LLL-OHHH!!!! How many millions of Americans are currently behind bars?

How many of those convicted of some crime or another are actually innocent?

Lee Harvey Oswald did not murder JFK but he got a death sentence bestowed upon him anyway (in order to prevent "the true facts from coming above board to the world").

[rman]

13. What if these camps are already build?

Although more are being build.
NOLA refugees were kept in FEMA camps; barbed wire fences, watchtowers, armed guards.


Democracy Now
Friday, December 9th, 2005
New Orleans Evacuees and Activists Testify at Explosive House Hearing on the Role of Race and Class in Government's Response to Hurricane Katrina
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/09/1443240&mode=thread&tid=25

<snip>

"LEAH HODGES: Very true. Very true. Particularly true of and Jefferson Parish. Jefferson Parish is where the Causeway concentration camp was housed, where we experienced the Gestapo-type oppression, as opposed to being rescued. We were three minutes away from the airport. They could have taken us to the airport. Those military vehicles could have taken us to any dry, safe city in America. Instead, they dumped us at a dumping ground, sealed us in there, and they backed up all their authority with military M-16s.

And there were thousands and thousands of people. On the last day we were in there -- and let me tell you something -- they hand-picked the white people to ride out first. Yes, racism was very much involved. They hand-picked the white people to ride out first. Every day, the crowd got darker and darker and darker until finally there were only – there were 95% people of color in that place.

REP. JEFF MILLER: Miss Hodges, would you be offended if I respectfully asked you not to call the Causeway area a concentration camp?

LEAH HODGES: I am going to call it what it is. If I put a dress on a pig, a pig is still a pig.

REP. JEFF MILLER: Are you familiar with the history?

LEAH HODGES: Yes, sir, I am. And that is the only thing I could compare what we went through to: a concentration camp."

<more>

[Selatius]

15. I had heard the gov't used "private contractors" in NOLA but not this.

This is way beyond what I've heard.

[liberal N proud]

17. It's in my blood, you can only keep me down so long

Then I come out fighting, start hauling Americans to concentration camps, you had better make me the first one in the gate. Otherwise I will be fighting for freedom of those on the inside.

[datasuspect]

19. "i'd rather live on my feet than die on my knees!"

viva zapata!

viva pancho villa!

[cyclezealot]

20. With Bush's plan to label nationals terrorists

Concentration camps must in the planning stage. A US national under the new Patriot act, allows so called terrorist association to be treated as domestic terrorsits and therefore forfeit your judicial rights. Bush has so many domestic terrorists on his list, it will take a lot of beds to house them all.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. Actually, they've done it

rumor has it that one camp has been built in Berryville Arkansas, supposedly to house "illegals", but who knows?

I have no clue what I will do if it comes down to it.

[helderheid]

48. Exactly. It's not for illegals. They need them for cheap labor.

[tocqueville]

22. the "Tien An Men" strategy is very brave

but innefficient. The risks are as big in the underground but the later is always a winning strategy. I can understand the people who for physical/family reasons cannot join a resistance and move abroad but they should keep contact with the resistance and build a government in exile and ask for UN recognition. BTW who is the traitor who voted for #7 ?

[Selatius]

25. I would say the risks are bigger by choosing the Tiananmen option

When you protest, you make yourself known to whoever it is you are protesting. For the government, it would be a matter of identifying who you are through informants in your protests and surveillance video.

Unfortunately, I feel a small number of Americans would actually opt for number 7 if truly faced with such a situation. The fear of death is a great motivator to do many things. I remember reading it was so bad in East Germany that the STASI had informants in every city and town to keep track of what people were doing.

[tocqueville]

50. #7 ? more than you think....

count in about 30% of the population actively supporting the power in place not only out of fear but for own winning or ideology, 40% "neutral", 30% supporting a resistance but maybe only 5% out of them really fighting. Besides that it would be geographically uneven. When the power will start failing, you'll get the "neutrals" on your side, some of them pretending they fought from the first minute. They'll manifest themselves through "patriotic lynching" of the defeated bushbots. And then you'll better have a new Jefferson, because a new Washington isn't enough. Anyway any democratic victory in the US in event of an hostile fascist takeover cannot be achieved without at least a part of the Army staying loyal to the Constitution and backing the insurgency. Or else you are in big fucking trouble. And this time it will be more difficult for the French to come to the rescue... unless the new power becomes hostile towards Europe...

[China_cat]

23. What do you mean IF?

[baldguy]

24. Google "REX 84"

[katty]

26. yes, read all about this years ago-everyone should

[truebrit71]

27. Flash my British Passport and get the hell out....

...

[deaniac21]

28. The first thing I'll do is watch the pigs fly out of my butt!

I really enjoy melodrama.:toast:

[Marie26]

29. There's a suspiciously low

number of votes for option #3 considering world history. That's probably what 90% of people would do.

[Selatius]

33. Yes, I put that on there expecting more results

Since the poll is anonymous, you don't have to reveal your choices. I guess the option's presence, more than anything, is there as a guage of how honest one is with oneself if faced with such a situation. I would guess that if the poll was aimed at the general populace, many people who are neither activist nor very much informed would choose the option for the sake of living and avoiding trouble.

Most dictatorships exist as long as they have (See Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) precisely because most people don't challenge the government. We see the program of force and terror has succeeded in cowing people into silence.

[originalpckelly]

35. We all live in the natural democracy...

if the people of totalitarian nations choose to rise up, aside from the advantages gained by technology, there is no way they can be held back.

[Selatius]

38. Yes, but it comes back to choice in the end

Dictatorships exist precisely because most people choose not to "rise up." If most of China had risen up in 1989, then what happened at Tiananmen Square would've turned out differently than it has. The Chinese Communist Party would be dead today if that were true. Dictatorships falling only works when a clear majority of people take action, not when the majority of people feel oppressed. This is why the Soviet Union lasted for so long or why Kim Jong-Il remains in power. People may have felt the government was wrong, but they never took the final step of taking action until after a long time passes.

[Fleshdancer]

30. I can't decide between leaving or staying and fighting

The only reason why I would run is for my daughter. If I were childless or if my child was old enough to take care of herself, I would definitely fight.

[warrens]

32. Other

Can't say exactly, though.

[originalpckelly]

36. Last time I checked, border fences work for both people coming in...

and people trying to get out.

We are being used, and now the final vision of what is to be, now forms in our minds. There maybe nothing to stop this, but we must try.

[MoseyWalker]

43. Very good point! n/t

[MarkDevin]

37. To quote one of my father's old James Brown records...

"We'd rather die on our feet than live on our knees."

[Initech]

39. I voted #1 - if the worst happens, fuck it!

I'm outta here, man. I'll high tail it and move to South America. I dont want to pay taxes to a government I dont support.

[sweetheart]

40. other they already exist and i've already left

A million cannabis smokers are in prison for marijuana violations, concentrating those who
practice the hindu intoxication as a prison-caste. What is left when freedom of religion is at risk?
What is left to defend? ... or even remotely defensible when that very same state represents horrible
state terrorism, murder and violence of the iraq/lebannon variety... then, what evil concentrates what
liberty?

[meldroc]

41. I voted other, because I don't actually know.

I'd like to think that if the government went bad, built concentration camps, and repressed our rights, I'd do the right thing, and join whatever Rebel Alliance happens to be available, and try to liberate my country.

In reality, I don't know. Government force is a truly terrifying thing, and the .gov will likely make you believe that if you keep your head down, don't make waves, and sit silently, they'll overlook you. Until one day, they see that post you made a few years ago on that bulletin board comparing the Commander in Chief to a simian, and break down your door...

That "Keep your head down" mentality is very, very strong, and explains why so many decent every-day people support Evil Empires.

While I would like to join the Rebels in this scenario, I don't know if I'll actually do it. All I know is that I'll die before I let the .gov drag me to a concentration camp. They'd better bring a SWAT team when they do it - because when the day comes for them to take me away, I'll kill as many of them as I can before I go down. I also won't become an informant. They'll have to torture me before I betray anyone.

[RagAss]

42. You'll have to guess what I'll do......why make it easy for them...

[flyarm]

46. if? if?? IF??..THEY ARE ALREADY!!..N/T

[cool user name]

47. I'm going to join the resistance if that happens.

I have never touched a gun but once they declare martial law and start herding people to the camps, I'm picking up a gun and I'm fighting like hell.

[Cobalt-60]

52. Practice now

You should pick up that weapon now and become as expert as possible in its use.
You'll be more effective that way.
If you have no experience at all, make that weapon a 12 gage pump shotgun.
It's a point and click death ray at close range. And it's a big enough bore for a number of special rounds.
And remember: Flechettes cut right through fascist flak vests!

[leftofthedial]

51. I know nothing.

Nothing!

[blogslut]

53. We dress like students

We dress like housewives
I wear a suit and a tie
Changed my hairstyle
so many times now
don't know what I look like

;)