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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
 Posted - 11/09/2006 : 11:59:56
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I remember back in the Clinton years listening to a co-worker babble on about how Clinton was going to declare martial law and turn the USA into a police state. Supposedly some obscure law gave all kinds of powers to FEMA who was going to do all the dirty work, and government contractors had already built secret concentration camps and the tracks for secret trains had already been laid just waiting for the day. There was also a plan to bring UN troops onto US soil, because US troops would never support such a move. The “crisis” that would justify all this never happened.
Why would Clinton want to do this? That's when the story got really kooky. Clinton was a Satanist, or maybe he was a pawn of the Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission or something.
I used to like to play with people like that. Ask them a few leading questions and get a sample of the fever-swamp just under the surface. RFID tags were the Mark of the Beast, soon nobody will be able to buy or sell anything without having one implanted. The government tracks money with micro-chips implanted in the bills, and if you micro-wave your twenties Jefferson's left eye will flare because that's where the chip is. The One World government will be led by the anti-Christ, and many will be deceived, blah, blah, blah…
Where do they get their information? Ah, some newsletter from kooks4Christ dot com or some similar foolishness.
It used to be that kind of kookiness was limited to the nut-case Christian right. They're the ones who spent their afternoons dreaming of apocalyptic scenarios where the world would be devastated, but their faith would be rewarded. They had various guru's like Pat Robertson and Jack Van Impe to lead them on in these fantasies, continually interpreting world events according to the Book of Revelations.
At least they had an excuse. After all, Christianity is specifically designed to circumvent rational thinking. Faith isn't supposed to be rational, the whole point of prophesy is to give the in-group an informational edge the rest of us don't have.
So what's the excuse when this kind of insane apocalyptic thinking starts erupting in mainstream press by guys with regular opinion columns?
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20061108/cm_ucru/ourlongnationalnightmarehasjustbegun
quote:
Concentration Camps
In January 2006 HomeSec awarded a $385 million contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton Co., to build "temporary detention and processing capabilities"--internment camps--"in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."
The question, asks Progressive magazine editor Ruth Conniff, "is what is the government planning to do with mass roundups of people?" After all, Bush and other Republican leaders have spent five years calling Democrats and others who disagree with them traitors and terrorists. Following so much hateful rhetoric, you can't blame liberals for wondering whether they too are about to be declared "enemy combatants." They're not paranoid; they're just paying attention.
And Now, Martial Law
About a week ago some left-wing bloggers began circulating rumors that Bush had secretly signed something called the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" that "allows the president to declare a 'public emergency' and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to 'suppress public disorder.'" I couldn't find the text of the law at the time, formerly H.R. 5122, or a reliable media account, so I decided not to report on it.
I can now confirm the bloggers' account. Bush signed the JWDAA hours after the MCA, in a furtive
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2006 : 13:19:13 [Permalink]
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Hoard canned goods and stockpile ammunition. That's my advice, but then, as a confirmed lefty in a neocon world deep in the Bible Belt, I'm pretty paranoid going in....
And virtually all of today's mainstream press are owned and controlled by ignorant swine immersed in greed, and who pander to the perversions of the half-witted.
Ah Karl, where are you when we need you...
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2006 : 13:53:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
I'm not sure that a Yahoo! News opinion piece would be considered part of the "responsible press." 
In the spirit of skepticism, that's a fantastic issue to raise.
Tedd Rall is a cartoonist with a regular syndicated column. While I can't say how broadly his column is syndicated, Wikipedia has this to say about the distribution of his comic.
quote:
Syndicated since 1991, he enjoyed success in mainstream newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post. Unexpected attacks on sacred cows led to a reputation for unorthodox politics. He was, for example, one of the few liberal cartoonists to call for Bill Clinton's impeachment for lying under oath. He is also opposed to gun control legislation. His cartoons have appeared regularly in Rolling Stone, Time, Fortune and Men's Health magazines, and were for several years the most reproduced cartoons in the New York Times.
Rall's cartoons have won numerous awards, including the 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and the Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Award. His book Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done! won first prize from the Firecracker Alternative Press Awards, his Orwell parody "2024" was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, and his graphic travelogue To Afghanistan and Back was named as one of the American Library Association's Best Books of the Year. Rall was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Vice President Elect of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.
So he's not a nobody expressing kooky opinions. This guy is a known public figure with a platform.
Edited to add link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Rall |
| Edited by - Mycroft on 11/09/2006 13:54:41 |
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2006 : 14:56:26 [Permalink]
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Nah, it was Bush the Mediocre-but-the-Better that started it, and Clinto seized upon the power to retrain FEMA for crowd control. Energy Weapons were all the fashion. Y2K was going to keep Clinton in power due to National Emergency. The Chi-Coms would take advantage of the situation and take most of Asia out....... I am sure I forgot smething......
Peace
Joe |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2006 : 20:26:16 [Permalink]
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At one point FEMA did have extrordinary powers. In an officially declared emergency/disaster the head of FEMA could issue orders to the rest of the government (including the president and governors) and they had to comply. But the president could still fire the FEMA chief and replace him/her. There was a plan to make FEMA a cabinet level position as well. As we all know now FEMA was folded into the DHS when it was formed post 9/11.
W did indeed sign a bill that allows him to use the national guard as police in other states (without the permission of any state), and he did indeed sign a bill that allows him (and people he appoints) to declare certain people "enemy combatants" and deny them due process.
Some of the reaction to all of it is over reaction.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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