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The Next Election or. . .What?
Caveat:- I am not a fan of the paranoid style of politics, America's favorite style, the style that has brought the most paranoid and paranoia-provoking into power. The paranoid style of politics is a politics of fear, a politics of what-if, a politics of the smoking gun--and it's always a good idea to be a good Boy Scout. This is a politics that knows no bounds in not only fear mongering but in creating ways to defend against the delusion, for fear must be fought at all costs with every means available. . .and any means conceivable. The paranoid style of American politics overwhelms the general populace, creates conspiracy theories and keeps the left frenziedly running from one ubiquitous crisis to another. Much of the mental anguish that goes into the fright doctrine is loosely logical at best and utterly groundless at worst. Paranoid fear mongering sees connections to things that are unrelated events but strings them together into a plotted whole. At the same time, the paranoid style of politics produces writers intent on proving the fear reality with facts, facts and more facts, writing books that have almost as many footnotes as text--but there's always a jump from these facts to the fantasy conclusion. I do not want to become part of this fear mongering, but I fear I cannot write about a possible future that is both well within reach and utterly, outrageously tinsel town capricious. It is my fear. It is my fear for my country and the fools who believe loss of freedoms are okay in the name of security, in the face of fear. It is my fear for the left that is all but impotent. It is my fear for my mindlessly, selfish, ignorant family, for it is only via my fear that they and the vast majority of Americans will realize the danger they have enabled. And it will be too late. When it is in their backyard, it is too late. I wrote about this horror four years ago. I hope it does not come to pass. I hope I am proven a liar, even a lunatic: better that than, in this case, being a seer. (Cf. Richard Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," , originally appearing in Harper's Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86). The Fear:- Martial Law. The Argument:- As far back as Reagan's administration, there were plans afoot for instituting martial law, while Ollie North developed Rex-84, a "readiness exercise" for "rounding up and detaining 400,000 'refugees' in the event of 'uncontrolled population movements' over the Mexican border into the US" (Media Freeze, Judges Tell Congress: Don't Suspend Habeas Corpus, Mon., Sept. 28, 2006). Although Mike Whitney's writing can be classified as left paranoid style political writing (notably his article on administrative subpoenas which shows a decided lack of factual knowledge about the topic; Cf. David Corn, The FBI Fails (For Now) to Grab Subpoena Powers, for a more knowledgeable discussion), he does document the actualization of Ollie North's plans via Alberto Gonzales' rounding up of 10,000 people in Operation Falcon (Mike Whitney, Alberto Gonzales' Kristallnacht: Purges for a Safer America, May 19, 2005). Ben Reyna of the U.S. Marshal's Office boasted that these raids "produced the largest number of arrests ever recorded during a single initiative [4-10 April]" (Whitney). Nine hundred and sixty agencies were involved. Nine hundred and sixty! Was America moved by what Whitney calls Alberto Gonzales' Kristallnacht? No. Because these 10,000 were criminals and it's good to be rid of criminals. But it should have been frightening because the round-up was accomplished surreptitiously and. . .it could not have been successful without these agencies already knowing right where these 10,000 people were before the dragnet was instituted. Could this have been a dry run for assessing the efficacy of instituting martial law? After all, intelligence gathering on US citizens was proven effective and the citizenry did not react with shouts of "foul" or other epithets of distaste. This is the most important point: the populace did not react adversely (or otherwise, in truth). The populace found nothing wrong with this. The populace gave its tacit assent to such tactics. Thus, it might be deduced that instituting martial law would be a piece of cake, a walk in the park, a no brainer. Peter Byrne ("Battleship America: The new Pentagon can peruse intelligence on U.S. citizens and send Marines down Main Street," Mother Jones, May/June 2005) and Patrick Martin (Pentagon devising scenarios for martial law in US, 9 August 2005) wrote about pentagon plans for becoming involved in law enforcement, which is illegal. Apparently, 15 scenarios were worked up, running the gamut from biological attack to natural catastrophe that would result in the deployment of thousands of military troops as "quick response forces" for crowd control (Martin). Along with local and state police, this worked very well in New Orleans. The document produced by the Pentagon is called Conplan 2002 and it is 1,000 pages long. A second document, Conplan 0500, gives further details. Northcom, the Strategic Air Command defense unit that flew armed nuclear warheads from Colorado Springs, CO, to Barksdale AFB, LA, with little outcry, is involved. The National Guard is involved. The Coast Guard and the Navy. Bradley Graham of the Washington Post notes that practice is underway via the code name Vital Archer (cited in Martin). Obviously an article coming from an official leak, its effect was completely below the radar of the greater populace: very few people cried "foul." Perhaps not to be wondered at as in 2002 the DoD updated its unified command plan blurring into illegibility the lines separating civilian and military and no one complained. Not surprising in a nation that has not bothered to read either Patriot Act or, in fact, reads much at all. Northcom, following 9/11, "established the military's first domestic combatant command centre" which departs from distinguishing military and law enforcement responsibilities (Byrne). Northcom will, in a consequent crisis, take control of all National Guard units and regular troops. It's first job, though, is locating and tracking terrorists or suspected terrorists (Byrne). Much later, NSA's illegal wire-tapping was challenged (but never done away with). Northcom's surveillance has never been broached. Surveillance is endemic in America: Internet, phone, mail. Nobody fights it as, they say, they have nothing to hide, a specious defense (see "I've got nothing to hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy, Daniel J. Solove, downloadable in PDF format ). This shows, again, the ease with which martial law could be implemented. How easy? All it would take would be a crisis--perceived, real or (heaven help us) staged. Naomi Wolf notes the ease with which a fascist state can be implemented ("Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps," The Guardian, Apr. 24, 2007). All but #10, suspending the rule of law, is in place; that is, the first nine steps have already occurred. Naomi Klein notes, though, in The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, how all it takes to initiate draconian policies is a crisis (see also John Cusak's interview with Klein). Only the left and real political activists bothered to note the horror of the Republican and Democratic convention repression and violence (Cf. JoAnn Wypijewski, "Lockdown Manhattan," Mother Jones, Sep. 3, 2004 and Jeremy Scahill, The Miami Model). Scahill is right in asking, "Is this Iraq? It's your country." Nothing, though, seems to deter the blind complacency of the American public, not even the suspension of habeas corpus (the right to challenge detention in a court of law) via the 2006 Military Commissions Act (Cf. LectLaw and Media Freeze above). Chalmers Johnson follows historical precedent for the militarization of a country in The Scourge of Militarism: Rome and America , June 10, 2005, though William Shirer is more detailed in his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a veritable textbook for the rise of George W. Bush and the Neocons. So, how is my fear to be realized? A crisis or war will occur, martial law will be invoked and elections will be suspended in the name of national security and we will have a new Hitlerean rule. Is it possible? Nuclear warheads at Barksdale AFB, home of the 8th Air Force and staging area for all points in the Middle East. Bush and Co. could care less about intelligence findings on Iran; invasion is still on the table. Dick Cheney goes off on a Middle East tour suspiciously similar to that undertaken just prior to the invasion of Iraq. The Tibet-China-Olympics affair is cloud cover, a wagging of the dog--what is going on behind the scenes as our attention is diverted? Even a Democratic president who will change nothing and be thwarted at every turn by a bitter Republican Senate would be better, I think. If John McCain is elected. . .but I tremble in fear for the worst.
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 Jim is a retired professor, a writer-playwright living out on the edge of the Gobi Desert where the skies are clear, the air fresh and the water possibly the only non-polluted water in the country: mountain run-off from the year-round snow-capped Qilian Range, which he can see from his front patio. He can be reached at: znzfqlxskj@gmail.com any time night or day.
Other articles by this author: http://mwcnews.net/Jimsecor
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