About these detention centers and our military/police.

[Twist_U_Up]

OK say they build these detention centers and Bush starts rounding up dissidents. How many of military or police force will actually go along with this. Alls I can see is a complete uprising of our people who serve.There is no way johnny down the block is going to throw common joe in the clink. People arent that dumb. Are they ?

edit for spelling oops

[kansasblue]

1. and nobody at the NSA would break the law either!

[punpirate]

2. Who says such centers would be controlled by...

... the military? Could just as easily be staffed by mercenaries from private security corporations, or by guards supplied by private prison contractors....

[Twist_U_Up]

4. They are still Americans.

Can that many people be that loyal to shrub ? Naaa they start filling these with common folk I think we would see a huge backlash

[punpirate]

7. And the Germans were still...

... Germans. If you believe that United States citizens are any different, I suggest a rereading of history--particularly of Hannah Arendt's work regarding the Nuremberg trials, and of our own history with regard to the detention camps set up for Japanese-Americans in WWII.

I think you'll find that plenty of people were available to run such operations, whether their motivation was a job, patriotism or internalized desires.

Cheers.

[bananas]

17. And the Milgram experiment

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

The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974)

[punpirate]

19. Very much in keeping with the...

... Zimbardo experiment at Stanford.

People do things under the auspices and protection of a higher authority they would never do otherwise:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2001/august22/prison2-822.html

[bananas]

24. Jane Elliott and her eye-color experiment

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

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Yup. Halliburton for the facilities management and Blackwater

for the security, they have all the resources they need.

You gotta wonder WHY there's been so much emphasis on use of contractors and mercenaries for jobs the military used to do. Because it's cheaper? Bullshit. The cost of the contractors is way above the cost of grunt labor. Sure, the cronies are getting rich off of owning the contracts, but if that is all it is, why wasn't it done for the past 200 years?

I think there are deeper reasons, and among them is that these 'security companies' are the future SA whose loyalties are not necessarily to America or the constitution.

[FreedomAngel82]

11. Because they won't out anyone who they get introuble with

[FreedomAngel82]

8. I'd say mercenaries and private firms friendly to Bush

[rockymountaindem]

3. I was very young at the time, but at Tienneman Square

didn't a lot of the Chinese army refuse orders to fire on their own people?

I'm with you though, I don't think people would be happy to arrest their neighbors en masse, not that I think they're gonna try that anyway.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. Yes, a lot of Mandarin-speaking PLA soldiers refused to fire

on fellow Chinese, so they were replaced with Mongolians who didn't speak the local language and who could be counted on to follow orders.

[rockymountaindem]

28. Interesting. I didn't know that n/t

[Art_from_Ark]

29. This information came to me from my officemate,

a Chinese national who knew some of the protestors at Tiennamen Square. He would often tell me horror stories about the Tiennamen Square Massacre, as well as the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Whenever one of the other Chinese students came into our office, however, he would clam up and start talking about the weather or other innocuous topics.

[leeroysphitz]

25. Neighbors may be but what about personnel from say Alabama

sent up to Vermont to quell dissent? It's no longer a "neighbor" kind of situation at that point.

Regional bigotry and stereotypes could easily be employed in a nation as large and diverse as ours.

[davikim]

5. well, not to seem negative,

but yeah, I think Johnny down the block would throw common Joe in the clink, and maybe even be proud of it. It scares me....

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Especially if Joe is gay, or atheist, or a pinko, or a tree hugger,

or a person of color, or a Green, or a Muslim --

and eventually they'll even get around to the Jews, just as soon as Pat Robertson changes his mind about how much he loves them.

There is probably a third of the population who'd consider it a good thing if all the Planned Parenthood personnel in the country were interred. After all, if you just shut down the clinics, they'll just go somewhere else to murder babies, right?

Don't think it can't happen here. Paranoia is what keeps people alive in dangerous times.

[seabeyond]

9. you know what, i dont know. i am in the religious environment

i have gotten to know these religious people very well. there was a time after the election i told my boys, you know, you might want to keep your mouths shut. i just wasnt feeling particularly safe in this country at that time. and then here recently i got that feeling again. i can see thru religious leaders deeming us evil, and being christian duty to turn in thy neighbor, i cna see it happening. i can see people in my life that would do it. there are things i wont discuss with some because i dont want them to have it on me.

i can easily see it

see how easy it is to turn regular airport help in abusing their fellow citizens. wont be hard

cops have already learned to see us all as animals, criminals, they have already been conditioned

[FloridaPat]

10. Somewhere around 1970 there was a big protest in DC.

20,000 people were arrested and taken to JFK Stadium. They grabbed everyone on the streets, including people walking to work. I don't remember too many people upset except the anti-war people.

[smoogatz]

12. Reasonable question. You'd see a political purge of the armed forces,

the CIA, FBI and other federal intelligence/law enforcement agencies before any such wholesale rounding-up could commence, IMO. Only Bushco loyalists would keep their jobs. This is already taking place inside the CIA, and to some degree in the upper echelons of the military--those who criticise Bushco find themselves in abrupt "retirement," or home spending more time with their families. The ordinary grunts are trained to follow orders--if they won't refuse to use white phosphorous as a weapon in Fallujah, why would they hesitate to round up a few thousand leftwing troublemakers?

[DemInDistress]

14. UN troops will be called in to round up the pesky liberal democrats

and all others who refuse to bow down to Here Bush...

[recoveringrepublican]

15. Wish I could have the same hope as you, but I really don't

I use to be one of those "oh but police are just doing their jobs, trying to protect us" kind of people. Then, when I started to get more active in the activist community, I realized that MANY cops are just on a power trip and care nothing about my freedom. We already live in a police state when cops can basically make up laws, throw somebody in jail, and then later say "oops, I guess it really wasn't against the law". I've personally just seen too much bullshit from cops that I have no doubt that many will gladly do whatever the state tells them to do.

As for the military I'm somewhat conflicted on what they would do. I wasn't even born when Kent State happened, though that is just one scary incident of the military turning on those they are suppose to protect. However I'm an ARMY brat and know sooo many soldiers, many who helped raise me. Unlike the cops, most don't join for a power trip, but to be educated, feed their family or have a direction in life. I think if what you are describing happened at first most would go along with it, but later they would play a large part of stopping such insanity.

[smoogatz]

18. Kent State.

I was around then, living in another Ohio college town that was also essentially under martial law, with armed Ohio National Guard troops on the streets, under the orders of Gov. James Rhodes. The Ohio Guard then were pretty much what the Guard is now--trained to follow orders. I don't think we have any reason to believe that any substantial part of our military would refuse to follow orders in the event of the declaration of martial law.

[recoveringrepublican]

20. Thanks for replying, I'm always interested in that story.

I'm somewhat naive when it comes to our military, I just can't imagine the men and women I know holding a gun to my family's head and forcing us to do something, but deep down I know it would probably happen. I felt the same way about cops, as I have a couple of friends who are cops. Then when I started interacting with cops on DUTY (and not shooting the breeze in my back yard) the idea that cops would protect me flew right out my head.

[Twist_U_Up]

21. I guess this thread has answered my question

Time to buy me a gun or 2

[AndyTiedye]

16. They'll Staff Them With Fundie Dominionists. They'd Do Anything To Anyone

:scared:

[leeroysphitz]

26. "They'd Do Anything To Anyone" ea and all in the name of

The Lord... Religious zealots are capable of ANYTHING (history shows atrocity after atrocity) if they are convinced it's GOD'S will.

[roguevalley]

22. agreed. the soviets didn't do it, their army refused. I believe the

same will happen here.

[RaleighNCDUer]

31. ??? The soviets didn't do it???

Are you missing a 'sarcasm' tag here?

The soviets did it for 70 years. Of course, they never used local troops for local actions. They sent Georgians to police actions in Eastern Europe and the Russian East; they had Russian Mongolians on police duty in Georgia; etc.

Without their military, they'd have never maintained power. And when their military was chewed up in Afghanistan, the Soviet system collapsed. but that was only in the last few years.

[roguevalley]

32. excuse me. when they tried to overthrow the guy with the birthmark

=lord, I can't believe I forgot his name -- Gorbachev, the army refused to follow orders. For god sake. they refused. Boris Yeltsin climbed on a tank for god sake.

[RaleighNCDUer]

33. Sorry - wasn't trying to be dense. I was thrown by you saying

'Soviets' rather than 'Russians', since it was the soviets who were attempting the coup, after being marginilized by Gorby.

That's a good point. My only caveat would be, they had just come out of 70 years of severe repression and knew what awaited them if they knuckled under. Here, a significant portion of the population seems to want it.

[roguevalley]

34. true. but when it happens, for a lot of the drones, it will be put up or

shut up time.

[The2ndWheel]

27. I'm sure some would love to do it

Certainly not all. But if you control the fate of a man's family, he can be made to do quite a bit. He would hate to see his children go hungry.

[Protagoras]

30. Far more people would go along and follow the orders

than we would ever imagine. Germany isn't some bizarre exception, it was the rule. Read any text on mass movements and social psychology.

a significant portion would do it because they actually buy the propaganda and believe that the ends justify the means.

a portion would do it because they are viscious petty people who enjoy exercising power...they are cruel because they can be.

a huge portion would simply deny it's happening till it happened to them (at which point they would cower in the corner or scream WHY OH WHY!)

a decent number would know it was happening, hate it...but remain paralyzed by fear.

and probably the smallest number would actually fight back.

Read "Night". Read "They Thought They Were Free". Read "The True Believer". Read "Group Psychology and analysis of the ego".

and read "It can't happen here".

The hell it can't.

People are, as a whole, that dumb.

[Laelth]

35. Heck, yeah. They are that dumb.

And I suspect the job will pay well.

Remember the electric shock psychology test? People will inflict massive pain on others if an authority figure tells them to.

-Laelth