Lost in the endless ranting by Glenn Beck and lesser Tea Party fanatics about “tyranny” and “protecting the Constitution” is this bit of history: Wingnut hero Oliver North was credibly alleged to be behind a 1982 plan to suspend their beloved Constitution.
While researching a completely different topic in a microfilm archive, I stumbled upon the July 1987 United Press International report pictured above.
Described as a “contingency plan” to be enacted “in the event of a national crisis,” a June 1982 memorandum “called for the suspension of the Constitution and imposition of martial law,” according to UPI.
The news agency obtained the memo authored by FEMA official John Brinkerhoff with North’s assistance. Under the right conditions, “control of the United States” would be turned over to FEMA, which would appoint “military commanders to run state and local governments.”
Brinkerhoff denied the allegation, claiming the plan’s purpose was “emergency preparedness” and the maintenance of “civil rule.”
The ironies here would be hilarious, if Beck and his peers were not so deadly serious about banging the “we need more guns to defend Amerikka against Goblin King Barack Hussain Obama’s tyranny” drum.
Their endless-but-empty invocations of The Constitution and fear-mongering about FEMA camps are absurdly hypocritical, considering their elevation of North to near-saintly status.