Martial law? O RLY?
 

Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control" | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.

Tanks and soldiers moving on American soil. I think this is an "if" situation, but still. WTF. That's fucked up.

Is anyone not in a position of power for this sort of action? If so, do you understand that they will be policing you too, when you go to the store, work, take your kids to school? They will be at the school too, holding guns over your kids. That's just the beginning of sweeping changes that can occur under martial law. Thoughts?

I really don't know at this point. My initial reaction is that this is merely fear-mongering. But after a bit of thought, this also looks like the beginnings of the kind of paranoia one would expect coming from a military-industrial complex once it's lost sight of the conventional altogether.

Yeah I agree it is fear mongering. I'm not trying to be a part of that, this is more of an awareness post, just like Sherman was making people aware of what he heard. I'm not the reactionary type, I prefer to just hang back and let the piss-and-vinegar types get shot at, but the fact that this topic even comes up does concern me.

The government is just fear mongering as usual. What amazes me is how well the fear mongering seems to work.

rex 84?!

shit! run!

FEMA Coffins are here for a reason, ARGHH!!!!!

question, when is it NOT fear mongering? Is it too late then?

WOLVERINES!

...

No, seriously. The US has had this plan on the drawing board for a while.

Here's one perspective: Defense Review: Anti-Terrorism Shmanti-Terrorism!

so the contention is that in the event of a major armed assault by terrorists in the US, our police will be ineffective and we must use military forces?

Yeah! With an impossible war going on at two like-shit-for-breakfast locations across the globe, it's hard for The Man (TM) to Keep-A-Brother-Down (TM) when he doesn't have any Jack-Booted Thugs (TM) with which to do it. These hot-hot Bush wars are so awesome you have to pass freakin' legislation to get troops home these days.

I was always under the impression that the national guard was designed for "domestic security" stuff. After touring both of our illustrious prime GWOT locations in the last couple years and seeing flabby guard people everywhere when I arrived... I've determined that national guard has a "inter" prefix attached to it somewhere in invisible ink.

the decision to start using the national guard as a way to avoid instituting the draft for the various colonial adventures undertaken by reactionary administrations these days is yet another gift that keeps on giving from the reagan period. there are a bunch of others as well, like building a legal apparatus around fema that enables martial law to be imposed in principle...good ole ronny, spokesmodel of the counter-revolution. what an asshat.

i will say that the clip above does not particularly alarm me simply because the bush people are in such a politically weak position now that i don't see a scenario, short of maybe taking a page from the playbook of the algerian fln and staging an attack that could be blamed on the Other, that would allow for such an action without entailing a wholesale collapse of whatever legitimacy remains, not just domestically but internationally.

we are stumbling through a rickety time: few houses grown rickety implode with quite the dramatic flair of an imperial house.

besides, where'd the "domestic disturbances" come from? the host of rural men who've bought guns in the last month?

For sufficiently major definitions of major, yes? The police are not a military, and training the police in military tactics results in them treating parts of the country like occupied territory. (Note that the police are already militarized to a decent extent -- isn't the 'special' part of SWAT basically 'military'?)

Actually, contrary to what many people don't realize, is that even though it is called "The National Guard" Each guard unit is a specialized unit attatched to their own individual state; And that the purpose in general for the National Guard is to help out in cases of natural disaster, and public unrest. For them to be activated the Governor of said state must declare a state of emergency, i.e. hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. Their jobs at that point are to protect the citizens of the affected areas, to supply food and water until agencies like FEMA are able to set up camp, and ASSIST, the key word being ASSIST the local police if called upon. Now this assistance could be in to form of localized martial law.

Some people also freak out a bit more than necessary when the word "martial law" is spoken. Martial law was enacted in Florida and recently in Houston, Texas durring many of the hurricanes there due to massive loss of power, which affected the local law enforcement from doing their jobs since there was no power to run the switchboards. The military have huge mobile communication systems obviously, and are self contained and self powered. You didn't see the National Guard running around Houston or Florida waving their guns around and freaking people out. Personally we WELCOMED them. I felt much safer. Now in the case of the OP, yea, martial law country wide does not sit well, but don't everyone think that martial law eneacted any time is a bad thing.