I just came across something that has, frankly, frightened me more deeply than almost anything I've discovered lately about our own beloved Republican leadership.
Check this out:
"When president Ronald Reagan was considering invading Nicaragua he issued a series of executive orders that provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with broad powers in the event of a "crisis" such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad"."
I'll repeat that. "VIOLENT AND WIDESPREAD INTERNAL DISSENT ..." FEMA is allowed to take over our country and install martial law, NOT ONLY in a case of a natural disaster (as most of us believe) but in case of "domestic unrest". And guess who was involved with drafting this plan?
"FEMA, whose main role is disaster response, is also responsible for handling US domestic unrest.
From 1982-84 Colonel Oliver North assisted FEMA in drafting its civil defence preparations. Details of these plans emerged during the 1987 Iran-Contra scandal.
(You might want to read the rest of this ....)
They included executive orders providing for suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA."
No, this isn't from prisonplanet or any other paranoid site. This is from what we call your "mainstream media:"
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/1027497418339.html?oneclick=true
And if you're thinking "no way, this must be bunk", well check out THIS link, from our very own Washington Congressman Jim McDermott:
http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp030311.shtml
"MARTIAL LAW CONCERNS
House of Representatives - March 11, 2003
Madam Speaker, I come to the House floor tonight to talk about an issue which I think is of grave concern to this country.
I recently read an article published in the Sydney, Australia, Morning Herald entitled ``Foundations Are in Place for Martial Law in the United States.''
The author is a man named Ritt Goldstein, an investigative reporter for the Herald, and he said that recent pronouncements from the Bush administration and national security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment camps and martial law in the United States. .......
A Miami Herald article on the 5th of July, 1987, reported that the former FEMA director's, Louis Guiffrida's, deputy, John Brinkerhoff, handled the martial law portion of the planning. The planning was said to be similar to one Mr. Guiffrida had developed earlier to combat a national uprising by black militants. It provided for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps. Today, Mr. Brinkerhoff is with the highly influential Anser Institute for Homeland Security. Following a request by the Pentagon in January that the U.S. military be allowed the option of deploying troops on American streets, the institute in February published a paper by Mr. Brinkerhoff arguing the legality of this. He alleged that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has long been accepted as prohibiting such deployments, had simply been misunderstood and misapplied. The preface to the article also provided the revelation that the national plan he had worked on under Mr. Guiffrida was approved by Reagan and actions were taken to implement it.
By April, the U.S. military had created a Northern Command to aid homeland security. Reuters reported that the command is mainly expected to play a supporting role to local authorities. However, Mr. Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security, has just advocated a review of U.S. law regarding the use of military for law enforcement duties.
Disturbingly, and it just really should disturb people, the full facts and contents of Mr. Reagan's national plan remain uncertain. This is in part because President Bush took the unusual step of sealing the Reagan Presidential papers last November. However, many of the key figures of the Reagan era are part of the present administration, including John Poindexter, to whom Oliver North later reported.
At the time of the Reagan initiatives, the then-Attorney General, William French Smith, a Republican, wrote to the National Security Adviser, Robert McFarlane: ``I believe that the role assigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the revised executive order exceeds its proper function as a coordinating agency for emergency preparedness. This department and others have repeatedly raised serious policy and legal objections to an emergency czar role for FEMA.''
Criticism of the Bush administration's response to September 11 echoes Mr. Smith's warning. On June 7 of last year, the former Presidential counsel, John Dean, spoke of America sliding into a, quote, ``constitutional dictatorship,'' close quote, and martial law.
The reason I raise this issue is that I come from a State where in 1941 under executive order by the President, 9661, we rounded up all the Japanese Americans in this country and put them in concentration camps. We have set in place the mechanism to do that again and we must not, we cannot sacrifice the Constitution in this rush to war that we are doing in Iraq. "
x x x x x
Here is a list of the executive orders which gives FEMA the authority to throw away the constitution and everything that we've worked for since it was written, and simply turn our country into a police state:
10900
Allows the government to take control over all modes of transportation, highways, and seaports.
10995
Allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
10997
Allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
10998
Allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
11000
Allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
11001
Allows the government to take over all health, education, and welfare functions.
11002
Designates the Postmaster General to operate national registration of all persons.
11003
Allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
11004
Allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
11005
Allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways, and public storage facilities.
11051
Specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
11310
Grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
11049
Assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
11921
Allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and flow of money in the U.S.A. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.
x x x x x x
I don't know about any of you, but this scares the hell out of me.
All that Bushco has to do to hang onto power is declare a national state of emergency, and it's all over.
No wonder they don't seem to concerned about their dwindling popularity.