--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> does Bush _need_ to impose martial law? isn't the
> population pretty passive?
Not only that, but GO has no opposition worthy its name, can procure electoral results it wants through gerrymandering, advertising and, if everything else fails, through vote fraud.
I am extremely suspcious of all conrpiratorial claiming that the enemy "has plans" - people who make such claims usually have no idea how complex organizations operate and tend to think that plan equals intent. In reality, organizations do all kinds of contingency planning, even though if contingency is quite remote or even undesirable. For example, the USPS developed a contingency plan for mail delivery after a nuclear attack on the US. Does that mean that the USPS or US gov't had an intent of being attacked with nuclear weapons? Of course not. They developed a plan because that is what risk management procedures require, so if they did not - Inspector General would criticize them for not doing their job.
It is quite possible that various gov't agencies have contingency plans for almost everything, including terrorist attack, and those plans may call for various mesures restricting citicent's civil rights, freedom of movement, property rights, etc. But that does not mean that such plans are a conspiracy to grab power. In fact, the chances are that such contingency plans are a bunch of bullshit that looks good on paper but in reality cannot be possibly implemented (think New Orleans).
Lee Clarke (_MIssion Improbable: Unsing Fantasy Documents to Tame Disasters_, The U of Chicago Press, 1999) studied contingnecy plans developed by government agencies, nuclear facilities, oil companies etc. and concluded that these often are "fantasy documents," i.e. plans that look good on paper but have no chance of working or to prevent any disasters if implemented. Such documents are developed mainly for creating "peace of mind" and creating an impression that the government officials and corporate execs ar "in charge." and "know what they are doing" - even if they clearly are not.
So to summarize, government plans for every possible contingency, because that is government's job, and it would be very bad if they did not. That does not mean that these plans will work, let alone are a conspiracy to grab power. Aside the technical difficulty in orchestrating a coup in all 50 states (or even the key states, like NY, CA, MA, IL, or even TX) - GOP, and the ruling class in this country, has pretty much what it wants and faces little or no opposion. So why would they conspire to "grab power" when they already grabbed it?
Wojtek
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com