Huge FEMA/DoD operation being staged in Indiana; Disaster/Martial Law Training

[Hap Hazard]

I don't remember any barbed wire camps being created

REMEMBER, of course, being the key word here!

 

[rambone]

I find this to be a little uncomfortably close to the "ban guns because guns hurt people" argument. Yes, a structure for coordinating local and federal forces can end up serving dictators, just as a gun, in the hand of the wrong person, can commit crime. But ultimately it's the person who kills, not the gun.

Eliminating the Congress could be used for good too, I guess. But more than likely, it will be ultimately abused.

Division of power is one of the checks & balances that obstruct tyranny from growing in the country.

The sovereignty of the state and of the county has all but been erased. The Feds are supposed to obtain the permission of the county sheriff to operate inside his county. Local police were never intended to be the foot soldiers of Fedzilla.

It would seem to me we need to watch the government vigilantly so we can ensure democracy is functioning the way it's supposed to.

"We" haven't remained vigilant whatsoever. And it isn't functioning correctly, its already being sold out to the highest bidder.

Make sure the gun is in the hands of a good person.

Its been a long time since that happened. A very long time!

Otherwise where do we stop? Maybe disable telecommunication? Break up interstate highways? Destroy all federal computers because they could potentially contain a list of all citizens?

Not necessary. Just keep soldiers from thinking they are some sort of citizen police force, operating in American cities. We can hand out our own bottles of water.

We do need to pool our resources together to do things that are too expensive for us to do individually: public safety, firefighting, education, etc.

Why bother having states then, and state governments, if the Feds are free to take over any time they snap their fingers and say the word "emergency" ? Why not create a National Police Force while we are at it?

 

[rambone]

I don't remember any barbed wire camps being created

REMEMBER, of course, being the key word here!

Think harder! Its already happened lots of times... during generations much greater than ours.


American Concentration Camps


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[shibumiseeker]

Think harder! Its already happened lots of times... during generations much greater than ours.

He was making a joke about being brainwashed while he was there.

Our government doesn't need to practice disaster response to make our own concentration camps, it happened quite efficiently in the examples you provided, and in each time with complicity of the communities where the "undesirables" lived. They won't come rounding us up and putting us in cattle cars, they'll convince the sheep that a certain group is a threat and let the neighbors turn them in or burn them out. The muslin hatred present in this site proves that right there.

Next decade it'll be some other witch we're burning, and all the time feel smugly justified doing so. <ETA: I predict the Chinese will be the next demons>

THAT is what worries me, not martial law during some disaster.

 

[Garb]

I find this to be a little uncomfortably close to the "ban guns because guns hurt people" argument. Yes, a structure for coordinating local and federal forces can end up serving dictators, just as a gun, in the hand of the wrong person, can commit crime. But ultimately it's the person who kills, not the gun. It would seem to me we need to watch the government vigilantly so we can ensure democracy is functioning the way it's supposed to. Make sure the gun is in the hands of a good person. Otherwise where do we stop? Maybe disable telecommunication? Break up interstate highways? Destroy all federal computers because they could potentially contain a list of all citizens?

We do need to pool our resources together to do things that are too expensive for us to do individually: public safety, firefighting, education, etc. There is a legitimate purpose. What we need to watch for are abuses. DHS, for example, arrests people they identify as illegal aliens, put them in private prisons, deny them of habeas corpus and even medical care even in cases where the prisoner can pay for it. This is very disturbing to me. Human rights are the foundation of civil rights. Erosion of the human rights of illegal aliens will eventually lead to the erosion of the civil rights of citizens.

Similarly, look at Guantanomo. That's a place where the US has authority, yet no US law applies. I disagree with Rambone over the definition of the police state, but this is a good example of what a police state is: laws are ignored, altered, etc. to suit the arbitrary wishes of the policing authorities. We have to eliminate all these places of unjust incarceration. Really, these places worry me a lot more than SWAT no-knock warrants.

Da Bing

The problem with this is that you can give a good guy a gun, and when the next guy gets elected, he also has that power. Some will use it for good, but I'd rather not take that chance.

 

[Vince49]

New stuff?

I too participated in these drills, as a U.S.Army Infantry Officer, in order to assist civilian authorities should the need arise. We practiced in a very similar urban environment along side local LEO. This was at Ft.Stewart ,GA in 1971.

 

[flagtag]

bingley, those people live a lot better than many honest, hard working (or not) citizens of this country. Three meals, bed, roof over their heads, special foods, religious privledges, etc.) And, they tried to kill our people. (As well as their own)

 

[flagtag]

Eliminating the Congress could be used for good too, I guess. But more than likely, it will be ultimately abused.

Division of power is one of the checks & balances that obstruct tyranny from growing in the country.

The sovereignty of the state and of the county has all but been erased. The Feds are supposed to obtain the permission of the county sheriff to operate inside his county. Local police were never intended to be the foot soldiers of Fedzilla.


"We" haven't remained vigilant whatsoever. And it isn't functioning correctly, its already being sold out to the highest bidder.


Its been a long time since that happened. A very long time!


Not necessary. Just keep soldiers from thinking they are some sort of citizen police force, operating in American cities. We can hand out our own bottles of water.


Why bother having states then, and state governments, if the Feds are free to take over any time they snap their fingers and say the word "emergency" ? Why not create a National Police Force while we are at it?

What was it Obama said about his National Police Force? (Better equipped, etc.)

 

[wrigleycub]

As someone who has participated in this rodeo of goats on a few occasions over the past few years. I can assure you there is noone reporting to anyone! There is no grand conspiratorial plan involved! The only thing being accomplished is one massive waste of tax payer dollars and all the cols., chiefs, captains etc..... Displaying there incompetence and competing for who has a larger managerial............um uhhhhmmmmm you know what!

 

[jeremy]

Interested in selling them as a package with my patented tinfoil conspiracy theory reading glasses?

We might have to sit down and drink a Beer or three to hammer out the details...

Are we allowed to do that?!
You being a Cop and me being a Soldier...
Or will that start another Conspiracy, Cop and Soldier plotting to take over the World over Beer....

 

[phylodog]

We might have to sit down and drink a Beer or three to hammer out the details...

Are we allowed to do that?!
You being a Cop and me being a Soldier...
Or will that start another Conspiracy, Cop and Soldier plotting to take over the World over Beer....

I'm sure there are some here who feel it should be prohibited for "obvious" reasons.

We would surely end up plotting to deny someone of their rights...

 

[RockofStrength]

Not to be a complete idiot, but isn't the national guard for each state an emergency militia which can be called upon by the governor to perform policing/aid related tasks chiefly because they aren't regular army? I understand that the difference between NG and the federal armed forces has narrowed somewhat, but it seems like the fight needs to be about separating those two groups and letting the various National Guard groups train where they may so that states can coordinate as they please while the Federal troops focus on dealing with foreign threats.

These kinds of training sessions need to happen: they just need to be made up of National Guard and state-based emergency management teams rather than "Fedzilla".

 

[hondatech2k2]

Given how poorly coordinated the federal response I've seen is, I'm not too worried about it.

Exactly my thoughts...

 

[jeremy]

I'm sure there are some here who feel it should be prohibited for "obvious" reasons.

We would surely end up plotting to deny someone of their rights...

I can think of several People I would like to deny of their "Rights"...

O' "course I have been into my Bourbon tonight.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I'm not a fan of Federalizing local police, no matter how frequently it is done, how many members have personally joined hands with the Feds, how many tax-dollars are redistributed to Indiana, etc. FEMA and DHS can both go abolish themselves as far as I'm concerned. I'm just not comfortable with local cops being completely accustomed to being taken over by Federal agencies, and for soldiers to be accustomed to doing drills on the streets of America. I'm under no illusions that one Federal branch will be on my side while all others have been shown to gladly oppress Americans given the opportunity.

I suppose I understand your fears about federalizing police, but, for the most part, the FEMA response activities have more to do with FIRE/EMS and Human Services like the American Red Cross than they do with the FBI and DoD. Certainly a big chunk of FEMA response preparations has been for the Collapsed Structure/Rescue programs they've helped set up throughout the country and for coordination of emergency response activities such as getting food, shelter, and clothing to those displaced by disasters of whatever sort. In my opinion, DHS was a bad idea and I wish we'd break that up.

I will say that, while more jurisdictions should have assets equivalent to the US&R Task Forces, they are expensive to equip, expensive to train, and there's not enough call for them for most jurisdictions to be able to justify their expense - but when they're needed, it's too late to form them and train them. I think that's a legitimate reason for them to exist, but of course, YMMV.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Lets not forget all those Fema / whatever that gave all that help in Katrina and were the first to confiscate the local gun owners guns so they could not defend themselves against the rioters thugs and gangs. The NRA had to file a lawsuit so that could get the guns back to the law abiding citizens. When it finally made it through court. They were give keys to simi trailers full of rusted useless guns that were not even marked as to who they belonged to and were worth little more than scrap prices.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pWLyaY2ip0A/ST9ou6DH10I/AAAAAAAAACo/jENlD9Ir6kE/s320/DSC_0016.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pWLyaY2ip0A/ST9ov3oMzKI/AAAAAAAAAC4/OICnDU9v2ao/s320/DSC_0067.JPG

I don't know where you got your information, but FEMA didn't confiscate firearms, that was local law enforcement. And nobody's firearms got confiscated in Mississippi.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I suppose I understand your fears about federalizing police, but, for the most part, the FEMA response activities have more to do with FIRE/EMS and Human Services like the American Red Cross than they do with the FBI and DoD. Certainly a big chunk of FEMA response preparations has been for the Collapsed Structure/Rescue programs they've helped set up throughout the country and for coordination of emergency response activities such as getting food, shelter, and clothing to those displaced by disasters of whatever sort. In my opinion, DHS was a bad idea and I wish we'd break that up.

I will say that, while more jurisdictions should have assets equivalent to the US&R Task Forces, they are expensive to equip, expensive to train, and there's not enough call for them for most jurisdictions to be able to justify their expense - but when they're needed, it's too late to form them and train them. I think that's a legitimate reason for them to exist, but of course, YMMV.

I think one thing that Rambone is missing here too is that a significant number of people at these joint training exercises are civilian volunteers, as are most of the people in the FEMA Task Forces.

There are a few things the feds do very well in this context. Collapsed structure and wildland firefighting come to mind. But major multi-agency multi-jurisdiction coordination is not one of the federal strengths, which is one reason these exercises are very useful.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

(snipped)

Our government doesn't need to practice disaster response to make our own concentration camps, it happened quite efficiently in the examples you provided, and in each time with complicity of the communities where the "undesirables" lived. They won't come rounding us up and putting us in cattle cars, they'll convince the sheep that a certain group is a threat and let the neighbors turn them in or burn them out. The muslin hatred present in this site proves that right there.

Next decade it'll be some other witch we're burning, and all the time feel smugly justified doing so. <ETA: I predict the Chinese will be the next demons>

THAT is what worries me, not martial law during some disaster.

I disagree with your example. There are damned few cases of "hate crimes" documented against the muslims here. That folks here are wary of a group, any of which might contain folks who believe their greatest glory comes from killing us, is just common sense and, inflammatory rhetoric aside, you don't see Muslims being killed in the streets here in Indiana. There hasn't been a national outcry to imprison them or hinder them or their worship in any way, in fact, government officials seem to bend over backwards to avoid offending them. So that example doesn't work.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Not to be a complete idiot, but isn't the national guard for each state an emergency militia which can be called upon by the governor to perform policing/aid related tasks chiefly because they aren't regular army? I understand that the difference between NG and the federal armed forces has narrowed somewhat, but it seems like the fight needs to be about separating those two groups and letting the various National Guard groups train where they may so that states can coordinate as they please while the Federal troops focus on dealing with foreign threats.

These kinds of training sessions need to happen: they just need to be made up of National Guard and state-based emergency management teams rather than "Fedzilla".

That probably is the way it should be, but the money for training and equipment comes from our tax dollars as doled back out to us from the Feds. The states, for the most part, can't/won't/don't spend the money to do these things.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I disagree with your example. There are damned few cases of "hate crimes" documented against the muslims here.

I wasn't talking about hate crimes, I was talking about public sentiment. Right now in popular culture muslims are one of the ethnic or racial groups that it's generally acceptable to denigrate, and we have folks on this site who do so frequently, and very few people, if any, who stand up and say anything about it. How many people on this site would, if all muslims were to be declared to be enemies of the state, stand up and say "wait a minute. They are Americans too." Darn few. Some would, but not many.

Which is exactly how people end up in concentration camps, because even though the average person may not have that kind of hatred, they also don't have a lot of inner conviction to stand up and say "that's wrong, I don't agree with this." especially when publicly speaking out gets you tarred with the same brush as a "sympathizer."


And the who is really unimportant, what is important is that the government be able to shape that sentiment at the time they decide they want to do something about it, or to be seen doing something about it. And for that they do not need to practice rolling out the barbed wire and coordinating the police.