Martial Law?

THIS IS A PROVOCATIVE POST!
This is a provocative post! I hope it will receive additional responses within the next few days. Perhaps next time a "more provocative" title will attract "the Knowers" more quickly? Just an idea . . .

That said, now, can I contribute some profound thinking on the subject at hand? Would that I could; however, the present domestic and international situations have left me so sad that I can scarcely be coherent. We Americans have lost a great many things impacting detrimentally on our way of life - and stand to lose even more. What can we do . . . besides vote? It has long been my personal contention that the only reason the Vietnam War did not continue for months - if not years - longer is because of the numbers of people who took to the streets. It's always an option. [/color]

Anti-war demonstrations took place not only during the Vietnam war. They occurred in Europe of late '30s, and their participants urged their governments to abstain from war against Hitler. Are you sure that these people were right, and Sir Winston Churchill erred?

Hey Olddog I couldn't agree more the times they are a changin and the future seems bleak. This is all starting to remind me of the McCarthy era to a certain degree. Not only do we have the war to worry us we have a secret government to worry about not to mention a complacent Congress.

Welcome to A2K, olddog. Couldn't agree with you more - for the sake of a thousand or so votes here in the Sunstroke State we wouldn't be in this mess.

well, well steissd, aren't you one right wing hardliner... congratulations. protests against war with hitler??? wouldn't you be akin to ari fleischer by any chance? spreading propaganda where the mainstream stops?

I do not work for the White House, I just express my opinion.

There is a difference between basically "all-student" protests and those encompassing many groups from the mainstream populace. The group Turning joined were principally Marxists.

http://eagle3.american.edu/~jr3778a/1945page4.htm

"Students very often are the most publicized element, and very often they engage in the most dramatic actions because they are young and free and more ready to take risks because they are young and free. If that movement doesn't go beyond students, then it doesn't go very far.-Howard Zinn, Historian

Student protest has a long history in Europe and Asia, dating back at least to the 19th century. American campuses were slower to simmer, with the first sparks coming over economic issues in the 1930's and 1940's. It was only as American universities opened up to a more diverse student body, in the 1960's, that a true student movement took hold. By the late 1960s, the social consensus in America had been upset by the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the women's movement, the emerging gay rights movement, and changing cultural mores regarding everything from tastes in music to attitudes toward sex. College students played important roles in all of these movements, and the college campuses became battlegrounds as students attempt to express their feelings, concerns and ideas.

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[I've lost this URL - sorry. If it's important, I'll find it.]

" During the 1930's, the world could smell a war brewing. Italy was under fascist rule, Stalin controlled the Soviet Union, and the Nazi party had come to power in Germany. The academics and scientists in England tended to be pacifists in the face of impending world conflict. Alan Turing fell in with this crowd, joining a Cambridge organization known as the Anti-War Council. Turing described it in a letter to his mother as a program "to organize strikes among munitions and chemical workers when government intends to go to war. It [raises] a 'fund to support the workers who strike ...' * Interestingly, the summer before Turing came to Cambridge, he had attended an army officers' training course, a program in which he did quite well, especially in the areas of drill and tactics. "

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I don't understand why people equate protesting misguided government policies with appeasing Hitler.

olddog:

Martial law isn' something new in the States. We had it during all the race riots in the 1960s in Chicago. What about LA?

I sense that you're a Democrat/

I rarely post in a political forum as my mind is having trouble grasping, and evaluating, all the relevant issues simultaneously, as they must be as they are interwined and have cause and effect relationships on each other.

But martial law? I think not. Curtailed and de facto changed civil rights? To be sure, and it is up to all of us to pull back from that direction and get back to a 'square one' philosophy and insistence about our civil rights.

Having said that, IF some kind of monstrous attack were to occur on "our soil" anywhere, even overseas such as Guam, martial law might be considered as an expediant option. Vigilance, ever vigilance.

Welcome to a2k. Your reputation proceeds you, olddog. Interesting question.

sumac:

What exactly are we looking for? Don't the Israelis also keep a alert eye out for terrorists and yet...............they are constantly being blown up by the suicidal terrorists.

Provocative post indeed, Olddog. I shall revisit this page later today ... gotta go out and justify the investment I've made in tools, but will be back when Real Life distractions have been once again been shoved into the background.



timber

Yes, martial law can come here.

Here's an interesting story, although perhaps apocryphal: I used to live across the street from a woman named Dovie Beams (I'm not sure of the spelling) who for years and years was mistress to Fernando Marcos (this I AM sure of.) Dovie was expelled from the Philippines when Imelda Marcos either first found out about her husband's relationship or had enough, one or the other -- and when Dovie returned to the U.S. she told the FBI that Marcos and Nixon were plotting for ways for Nixon to declare martial law in America and implement all that goes with it (including suspension of democratic elections.) The deal was, according to DB, that Marcos would declare martial law (which he did) and they'd see what happens, since the Phillipine Constitution very closely mirrors our own. During this time, again according to Dovie, tons of money was being sent to the Phillipines for military use against the North Vietnamese, but most of that money went into Swiss bank accounts for Marcos and Nixon. Finally, said Dovie, the plan was undone by Watergate. As I said, I have no proof of this other than Dovie's word (I don't think she was smart enough to make all this up, honestly) but it makes for an interesting scenario, don't you think?

I don't personally entertain a very favorable opinion of Mr. Ashcroft, so, although i doubt that the jokers currently running the dog and pony show up there on Pennsylvania Avenue could cobble together a good scenario for martial law, i am not comforted. I do believe that it is possible that the trend which Ashcroft and the more extreme supporters of the "Religious Right" (what an oxymoron!) are tending toward is holy war against the vile and satanic muslim, which will require, unfortunately, a suspension of our civil rights, but only so long as it takes to destroy the Islamic threat and establish a godly republic on Columbia's brave shores (for those among our readership who are crippled by superstition and therefore revere ignorance as an ideal state for a christian, the use of the word Columbia here refers to the United States, not the country from which we stole Panama).

Urban legends make interesting reading.

Asherman I am not exactly clear about what you refer to as an urban legend. There is not doubt that the Nixon administration undertook drastic measures to circumvent the constitution of the United States. The Executive Branch under Nixon used the IRS, the CIA, the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics to shore up his power and thus be reelected. Do you not remember the popular name for the Nixon presidency, the Imperial Presidency forcing military attendant to where Swiss Army Uniforms because they were more, well let us say ceremonial.

We cam close to losing our country under the Nixon leadership and it was his disregard for the constitution of the US and his narcissistic belief in his own judgment that caused this.

We are going to war with Iraq, a war that may trigger WWIII, because this president wants it, his cabinet wants it, and they are even considering a domestic CIA in addition to the FBI . I do not think it is so farfetched to think that the citizenry is in grave danger.

And where was the President today, speaking about his goals on how to create a religious based government initiatives at a conference of the religious right today. He has yet to comment on the NATO problem.

Asherman I am not exactly clear about what you refer to as an urban legend. There is not doubt that the Nixon administration undertook drastic measures to circumvent the constitution of the United States. The Executive Branch under Nixon used the IRS, the CIA, the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics to shore up his power and thus be reelected. Do you not remember the popular name for the Nixon presidency, the Imperial Presidency forcing military attendant to where Swiss Army Uniforms because they were more, well let us say ceremonial.

We cam close to losing our country under the Nixon leadership and it was his disregard for the constitution of the US and his narcissistic belief in his own judgment that caused this.

We are going to war with Iraq, a war that may trigger WWIII, because this president wants it, his cabinet wants it, and they are even considering a domestic CIA in addition to the FBI . I do not think it is so farfetched to think that the citizenry is in grave danger.

And where was the President today, speaking about his goals on how to create a religious based government initiatives at a conference of the religious right today. He has yet to comment on the NATO problem.