Martial law supposedly implemented in the US

[Greg Broiles]

At 04:34 PM 10/16/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:

>As Pravda said, the U.S. is (effectively) under martial law. It's just 
>that our colonels and generals are politicians in D.C. Notice how "states 
>rights" has vanished as an issue? Someone finds white talcum powder and 
>the FBI and FEMA are called in. Everything is being federalized.

If Pravda had written "police state", I wouldn't disagree. Perhaps 
something was lost in the translation.

I'm surprised that Guiliani's early proposal that elections be postponed 
and that he remain in charge of NYC for some indeterminate period of time 
hasn't aroused more anger - or his abandoned suggestion that the term limit 
rules he backed be modified or eliminated to allow him to stay in power - 
or his use of the fear of terrorism to enact (by fiat, apparently) other 
rules he thinks generally beneficial, e.g., special benefits for carpoolers 
and special restrictions on single-occupant private motor vehicles. That 
doesn't have shit to do with security, but lots to do with taking advantage 
of the chaos and flux to implement his own vision of society unhindered by 
anything as old-school as voting or written laws.

And Ashcroft's no different - proposing that we point a new warrantless 
Internet-sized information hose at the FBI when they seem to have trouble 
bothering to test evidence they're handed more or less on a silver platter 
where it should be clear that lives are at stake.

It's when the shit hits the fan that you find out what people are really 
made of and what they really think, instead of the marketing crap made 
available during nicer times.


--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles at well.com
"We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids