Realistically here people, what do you really think that the odds of martial law being declared here are? All of our troops are overseas, the NG sure couldn't do much by themselves here. About the only thing that I think that the NG could do would be to shut down the freeway/highway system to civillian traffic. I think Klinton would love to declare martial law 'for our own good' but I can't see it being implemented too well. Won't last long if it is declared considering how many gunowners are in this country...Thoughts?

-- Just the facts (warrior@lord.com), April 27, 1999

Answers

"Martial law" won't be called Martial Law in the Clinton lexicon.

He'll create a new name that sounds helpful - perhaps "Patriot Initiative?"

The dipshit public will swallow it.

As his past patten suggests, he'll heap layers of other orders, propaganda and spin into a crescending level until the inevitable call for martial law will be demanded by the people in fear.

Until that time, look for more atrocities in society whether covertly sponsored or not, to continue the upswell of public opinion to de-arm Americans. Look for implementation of "snitch" type programs wherein neighbors and friends can turn in suspected "troublemakers" to authorities. Look for increased spin and emotional string-pulling along with snippets of Y2K and societal truth to frighten folks into "contributing' to the safety of the nation.

Martial law is difficult in a society wherein the people distrust government and are self-reliant. Today's society is dependant on the government to tell them where it's okay to piss. Clinton will successfully maneuver the public towards demanding martial law, just as he maneuvered NATO and the American people to push for a ground war with our troops in Kosovo, depicting himself as the unwilling bride to go along with NATO and public opinion. The same will happen with phased-martial law.

Get ready. It's coming.

-- INVAR (gundark@sw.net), April 27, 1999.

If America were being led by Gengis Khan, INVARiably stupid would think he was a Socialist.

"All of our troops are overseas"

You must be a GI, right?

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 27, 1999.

Texas has the world's largest fleet of heavily armed pickup trucks. Just let them DC sissypants come on down and show their face!

-- Texas Gun Nut (lock@and.load), April 27, 1999.

I would say it is all but certain. The more important question is "when will it be revoked"..................

-- Dave Walden (wprop@concentric.net), April 27, 1999.

the current military won't do martial law the way he wants. He will declare a state of emergency and start defining right and wrong HIS way.

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 27, 1999.

Don't roast INVAR about Genghis Khan. GK was in effect a totalitarian dictator, though he performed the 13th century equivalent of making the trains run on time. Thus, a proto-Socialist, indeed. Even the body counts, compared to other great 'socialists' of the 20th century, might be comparable. However, where GK and Klinton REALLY part company, however, is on THIS score:

"He was, in these early years of the thirteenth century, incomparably the greatest general in Asia and probably in the world.

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), April 27, 1999.

INVAR,

This is getting boring repeating this - once again, I couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm beginning to get suspicious (isn't that what us paranoid whackos are supposed to do?) that you can read my mind.

We WILL have martil law (by whatever name) when the "majority" of America demands it, and they will.

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), April 28, 1999.

My guess is that at the first sign of panic the talk by the government will begin. Now...I'm not sure if it's the government that will panic first or the public but either way...the government will panic and we'll have some kind of military law imposed before the turn.

Mike ================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), April 28, 1999.

Agree it's coming... agree people will "demand" it...just look at how the Columbine tragedy is being milked for gun control...also think it will be sooner than people think...looking for a catalyst to manipulate the "need" for it. Why else the Urban Warfare games? And by the way,... who said it will be American soldiers implementing martial law? Can you say NATO?

-- Mumsie (Lotsakids@home.com), April 28, 1999.

It is indeed disheartening to see how whenever the term "martial law" is mentioned on this forum, IQ's suddenly drop to near zero.

It'll never happen. Repeat, never happen. This whole subject is just another product of Doomer fear brokers.

Martial law could conceivably could happen in Japan, where gun ownership is nearly nil. But it won't, because they aren't so gullible/vulnerable to fear mongers as we are here in the U.S. But in this nation, where gun ownership is by far the highest on the planet? Get real. The government could be tempted to do so, but only if public sentiment were to be whipped to fever pitch by DOOMER FEAR-MONGERING AND MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNS.

You people are victim to the same self-inflicted delusion that leads you to believe that the whole world is going to sit idly by while a computer glitch robs them of their way of life, without any remedy available. "Oh, we're helpless! Helpless! it's going to happen, and there's nothing we can do! Oh woe!"

Maybe you folks are of the variety, that if you should happen to trip and fall into a mud puddle, you would sit there and bemoan your muddy state. I, and people like me, would get up, brush ourselves off, and get on with the business of life.

The U.S. government understands that gun ownership and the spirit of independence in the U.S. are both at high levels. A declaration of martial law would be an invitation to trouble. And would be unnecessary to boot, unless people were to get in a frenzy due to information they were fed by unscrupulous individuals (who might they be?? Y2k supply salesmen and their shills, perhaps?? a bunch of whom regularly inhabit this forum, it is obvious to any rational observer)

So, how to avoid any martial-law events in the U.S.? File 13 with the paranoid doomer stuff, that's how. Quit trying to scare the public with unrealistic paranoia. Just that simple.

-- Chcicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), April 28, 1999.

100% Just how far zipperman will go ,I don't know. But you can bet your sweet butt he'll go as far as he is allowed to.

-- SCOTTY (BLehman202@aol.com), April 28, 1999.

Chicken Little... take a reality pill. Martial Law will probably occur but not for the reasons you think. It will be to assist relief organizations who are trying to help people in need. Yes, they will provide a "presence" to deter looters in major urban areas but if you think it will be to prevent a patriotic uprising against our way of life... get a grip.

Take a look around you now... how many people get it? We live in a country of sheep and couch potatoes. Look at how many people are being led down the garden path of denial with visions of a 10,000 DOW?

And please, spare me the Texas pickup truck metaphor and how your gonna save us all with your testosterone powered bazookas...

As a Viet Nam vet with more time in the payline than you have counting your chickens, you should realize that most guys with guns could never pull the trigger on someone in uniform because it goes against our grain as Americans. They still represent the law and all that it stands for. But on the other hand, GI Joe has orders to protect and defend the USA, and the backing of the USA to shoot, if necessary. Quite a different motis operendi for pulling the trigger. Hating "cops" is one thing... but even Texans are smart enough not to shoot them, no matter how mad they are.

You can beat your chest and saber rattle all you want but this country is being lulled into submission with the most skillful brainwashing we have ever seen. Right now there are little people in Wash. DC saying "I can't believe this policy of not doing anything is really working... who'd have believed it!" Well it's working all right.

With only 2% of the country preparing, all your patriotic friends must be in your garage because they're not doing much across America.

Yes, we will have Martial Law of some kind but unfortunately, the days of patriotic uprisings exist only in history books.

Keith Nealy Producer, "Y2K Wake Up Call"

-- Keith Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), April 28, 1999.

I don't want to be part of a big argument about politics or anything; I would just like to post my own opinion on the matter. I don't forsee martial law being declared on a large scale. Not because of Klinton/Clinton/NWO/Y2K, but because of numbers. The military could definitely enforce martial law on a large city; easily. They would be very hard pressed to lock down an entire state (one of the bigger ones anyway). Imagine the military trying to enforce a curfew over the entire state of California. Finally, I believe it to be all but impossible for the government to think that they can enforce martial law over the entire United States. The government can declare martial law all it wants, but could they walk the walk? Maybe in some regions like D.C., Omaha, Colorado Springs, the Pentagon, Some larger cities or state capitals.

-- A.P. (grim2k@hotmail.com), April 28, 1999.

A.P., you got that right. Anytime I hear someone shrilly braying "MARTIAL LAW!!", my kook-o-meter starts jumping.

-- Morgan (morgan96@netscape.net), April 28, 1999.

I don't think we have the numbers to declare Martial Law throughout the country. And I agree, it will be called something else. I can see the NG distributing food and water in the cities AFTER they have quelled the burning and looting. I don't see us folks in rural America being bothered about it. But I do think they may declare curfews, etc for awhile. Where I live in the woods, we would probably just ignore it and go about our business of surviving and hopefully helping our neighbors. It doesn't take y2k to start a riot in the cities, so there will be riots once the welfare checks stop, or the water is turned off.

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), April 28, 1999.

In an efort to avoid waste of bandwidth, please see also these threads:
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000NKQ
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=000fIn Links as follows:

Thread started by Hardliner in January titled, "A Few Facts and Opinions about Martial Law."

this a LONG thread but is WELL WORTH the read for the debate that occurred there. Read it VERY CAREFULLY and then come back informed on the subject.

Just what, exactly, is martial law

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 28, 1999.

If you read the thread Chuck - a night driver suggests you'll find some interesting points.

Martial Law does not mean a soldier on every corner. We already have UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS (many), so why is Marshall Lawm as INVAR describes it very far behind or hard to believe?

For Taz, those "in the back woods" proably will be "left alone" for a while and dealt with later as time goes on - they (we) will be in the far minority of the complying masses. I still don't think Marshall Law will be tolerated IN THE LONG RUN, but its easy to believe it will be tried.

When INVAR, Greybear, Scotty, et al agree on something - you had better pay attention.

"It Can't happen here" must be somewhere in the top 10 of famous wrongheaded statements ever made.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), April 28, 1999.

This is from Michaelhyatt.com:

Do you think we could face martial law in 2000?

Yes, I definitely think it is a possibility. A lot of it depends on how much contingency planning gets done between now and the end of the year. Frankly, I'm growing less optimistic with each passing day.

It has been my contention from the beginning that if our citizens are

given full and accurate disclosure about Y2K, including the fact that we are not going to get all of our mission-critical systems fixed on time;

told that there will be disruptions in some of our critical infrastructure; and

encouraged to make reasonable contingency plans in their personal lives and communities;

then we will get through the technological failures, whether they be small or great, and keep from making the situation worse by adding to it the very real risk of public panic. In fact, this is precisely what I told Congress last fall.

Unfortunately, the Clinton Administration has done the exact opposite of what I suggested.

Instead of giving us full disclosure, they have overstated progress on numerous occasions and launched an aggressive campaign of disinformation.

Instead of warning us about the inevitability of disruptions, they have assured us that Y2K will be no worse than a "bump in the road," nothing more than the equivalent of a three-day winter storm.

Instead of encouraging contingency plans, they have repeatedly characterized people like me as doomsayers and people who prepare as survivalist wackos.

Their job has been realitively easy, given the fact that most Americans are addicited to prosperity and do not want to contemplate the notion that their precious little lives might be disrupted. The media have also been a willing accomplice with their never-ending attempts to link Y2K with various conspiracy theories, end time prophecies, and financial scams. When you brought up Y2K a few months ago, people seemed to be genuinely concerned; now they merely chuckle. It is no longer fashionable to take it seriously.

As a result, they are going to end up contributing to the very thing they have said that they are trying to prevent: panic. From my perspective, the only thing that will prevent this now is an abrupt, change of policy.

If the Administration continues on their present course, I'm afraid it will blow up in their faces later this fall. If that happensand let's pray that it doesn'tthen martial law will appear to be the lesser of two evils and the only reasonable choice. In fact, the public will demand it. I just hope this wasn't the strategy all along.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), April 28, 1999.

[snipped from Hardliner's thread titled, "A Few Facts and Opinions about Martial Law." ]

If Y2K (or any other force or event for that matter) renders the civilian government impotent, hang on for the cavalry. They will do all that they can, as soon as they can, and in that scenario, the military will be the government. I personally do not know of a Flag officer in our military who, on his worst day, wouldn't be a far superior leader for our nation than "Slick", on his best day.

I am betting my life, as well as the lives of my family, on the belief that a military supported Clinton Empire is nothing more than a very disturbing bad dream. If "Slick" should be foolish enough to pit his "alphabet" troops against the real military, that highway outside Kuwait City would look like a sunday school picnic by comparison.

[/snip]

~C~

-- Critt Jarvis (middleground@critt.com), April 28, 1999.

In passing, I have heard estimates of 500,000 troops for a real "occupation" of Kosovo... this for a place the size of a midwestern state. I seriously doubt the United States could muster enough ground forces to enforce martial law on a region, let alone the entire country. As we have learned the hard way, it is incredibly difficult to "pacify" a unfriendly civilian population unless you have overwhelming superiority and the willingness to use it without mercy. While the U.S. government may intervene in the financial system, or attempt to limit some personal freedoms through emergency powers, martial law is logistically impossible.

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), April 28, 1999.

"And use it without mercy": Read this article posted right after the Littleton massacre:

http://www1.christianity.net/ct/8T9/8T9030.html

This will tell you why the general population, though armed to the hilt, will do nothing while the troops will wipe out everyone in their path!

-- winna (??@??.com), April 28, 1999.

For those of you who don't believe the imposition of some kind of military law could be imposed I call your attention to my city only a few years ago.

We were very, very grateful when the National Guard finally rolled in. We brought them flowers and food and praise and we did this with the regular peace officers too.

The city is LA. One of the largest, most sprawling cities in the country.

Now, I never said "martial law." That was never, ever declared here in LA. It was an emergency situation that brought the Guard into the city. An "emergency situation". That's all that need be declared and the public will welcome the additional help.

In the cities you don't need to cover every single block and you don't need to just have the military involved. There are a lot of other people in this country that put guns on and go to work. All you have to do is have cooperation, personnel placed in strategic positions, and strike teams ready to move at the first sign of unrest. Most people will be too frightened to exit their homes anyway. Most people will obey the law.

I don't expect a house to house round up of weapons (although I'm sure it will happen in certain areas because it did happen here in LA). I don't expect a large portion of the population to revolt against the occupation. I expect the exact opposite.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the National Guard and the Reserves are from communities too. They aren't cyborgs without free will who will carry out orders blindly that go against peaceful citizens. They are people with families and fear and a sense of duty.

Contrary to some opinion and rumor, LA is not Kosovo. The military will not be involved in a ground action which requires a fight against heavy weapons, land mines, and well dug in troops. You don't need 500,000 troops in LA to keep the peace. The L.A.P.D and the Sheriffs Dept. don't even come close to that number on a good day. You just need to have most people obey the law and enough of a contingent to make those that think about breaking the law reconsider. Those that decide it's worth the risk would have broken the law anyway, they'll just have justice enforced by a heavier hand.

Most people will be hunkered down, frightened and hungry. However, once the troops move in they'll come out of their homes and maybe even share a little something with the troops on the corner.

However, there may be real problems if the troops over stay their welcome, and act in a manner which is unprofessional and against the will of the majority. Then, all bets are off.

Mike =================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), April 28, 1999.

I think that, with one exception, most are missing the mark here on the feasability of martial law. Neither Stalin nor Hitler needed zillions of troops to keep the populace firmly under their control. The recipe for control (in no particular order) was:

Establish a personality cult.

Use one part of the population to police the other through, for example, informants.

Have a divided and fractious opposition for use as national enemies and/or scapegoats.

Keep certain influential groups prosperous-and therefore slavishly loyal. "Make the trains run on time".

Pit whatever 'have nots' there are against whatever 'haves' there are.

Maintain a climate of fear and/or terror.

Persecution, torture, etc. should be administered randomly to give the illusion that the state is always watching everywhere. For example, the infamous "knock in the middle of the night" gambit.

Show trials.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift by now.

-- Jeremiah Jetson (laterthan@uthink.y2k), April 28, 1999.

Oh, and of course, the disarming of the populace.

-- Jeremiah Jetson (laterthan@uthink.y2k), April 28, 1999.

It seems to me that if Y2K disruptions are severe enough to warrant martial law, those same disruptions would make enforcement of it pretty much impossible.

-- Doug (no.mail@please.com), April 28, 1999.

You people need to to re-read the Defence Dept memo leaked here a few weeks back:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000iVe

Martial law is all very exciting, but the military doesn't seem to think it's much of a priority.

The good news: they won't oppress us.

The bad news: they may not be able to help us much.

-- (Bam@bama.bama), April 28, 1999.

Chicken Little: Are you so sure we are so heavily armed in the US? I was just listening to talk radio, and they were saying that the Swiss have the most guns per capita, and the lowest crime rate. Countries that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons on their persons, also have lower crime rates.

-- madeline (runner@bcpl.net), April 28, 1999.

gotta agree with Decker on this one - the logistics simply not doable...the question in my mind is whether or not billy jeff and his boys comprehend that simple fact. They could end up trying something out of military ignorance - and if we've seen one thing in the Kosovo mess it's that billy jeff and his cronies are extremely ignorant when it comes to the military.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 28, 1999.

---I think ya'all poo-poohing the possibilities of martial law are just not going far enough in your "what if's" in figuring out how to pull it off. A few posters here have given you some hints. Datum 1 and some more: Bigbro knows he screwed up bad(with y2k), and there's some other nwo socialist long term planning going on. But, there's a silver lining to y2k for them-Y2k is a great way to control the population, because of complete control of available water and food supplies. Play ball, turn in a gun, get a bucket of water--or something like that. Most urban areas will be completely controllable after a few days at most because of water availability problems--which can be artificially produced as well, with a dozen guys with guns and some good broadcast media spin. And also, it's just unfortunate the vast majority of folks don't seem to take the possibility of tanker planes dropping a TREMENDOUS amount of biological or chemical agents over huge areas, there again negating that over whelming number of civvies with guns deal. It's easy, the gov is on record as having done it ALREADY, from tankers or ground based. It's there, it's real, it happened, deal with it. Geez there's so many ways. The "war" in kosovo could be over within 4-5 days tops if we used some of the stuff we have on a country wide basis, and that's not using nukes, just really cheap to mass produce genetically modified biologicals. They have stuff from just getting enough sickness to get readings for testing purposes, to stuff that will just kill you DEAD and everything in between. And don't think they couldn't get the pilots or crews to do the drops, that's just ridiculous, 99% of soldiers (or cops) will always just follow orders, any army, any country, anywhere, anytime. Dresden firebombings. Hiroshima. "Free-fire" zones in nam. Bulldozing bunkers in iraq, buring alive thousands at a time. On and on--zillions of examples. That's their JOBS, geez loweez! All bigbro needs is a psychopathic agent provocateur or outright saboteur or six on the payroll(and who wants to bet they DON'T have them?), create an "incident", or something similar, blame it on the bad guy of the day, and poof you got civvies clamoring for martial law-toss in a few million more hysterical anti self protection "citizens" "it's for the children"etc, stir in more mass media spin, take away the water and food, even artificially, and you have "control". The control doesn't have to be absolute, just enough is all. The following is called "mopping up" in .mil parlance--happens every war. Just step back for a minute and look at the situation through an organized gang and gang leaders eyes--ask yourself how you would stay in power if you already had control of EVERYTHING now? Doesn't seem to be so overwhelming hard when you look at it from their point of view. Anyone ever been to one of the old giant mass protests when it got turned into a riot? Always(back then) seem to be a few weird rabble rousers who would show up-no one ever saw them before-guys with crecuts and three day old beards and army jackets and the odd peace symbol necklace-all of a sudden these guys would chunk a rock or molotov, and the cops would let loose with gas. And those guys would beat feet back into the crowd. I mean, get real, big bro.org and .mil intell been doing this stuff forever. Now just switch that response from teargas to belt fed full auto's, then bump that up one more step or two. Easy to control crowds or mobs, at least to the 90+% level. Quickly. How many abrahams tanks does it take to get your attention? watchoo gonna do, pop at it with yore scattergun? Anyway, that's why I think it's so probable, because "they" know they can keep bumping up the pressure to any level required-any level. Doesn't the illegal stupid war in kosovo show this? bigbro kills whomever he pleases--because no one can stop him, and he's a meglaomaniac, and will not give up his power. He's insane, he's not rational, and he cares not for your life, or your childrens. He will BURN YOU ALIVE if he so chooses. And he can afford to ignore the remote hiding rural folk just because HE CAN. It won't make much difference, at least initially. He gets huge county sized pockets of resistance-no problem! Just fly over at many thousands of feet in the appropriate area and poison everything. Release a news broadcast of an unfortunate fire at a chemical plant or something-any spin will do behind quarantine signs. You can't shoot down planes at 10,000+feet with any sort of rifle, even at 1,000 feet it's hard to do. Sure, there's a ton of nifty ways to fight back, that's topics I won't want to get into, but the numbers are on the organized terrorists side, especially if they control the media, the money, the water, the food and the big mass weapons. Anyone know of such a terrorist?

-- zog (zog@avana.net), April 29, 1999.

Most of us watch too many movies. Extras in uniform are cheaper than real guards -- and hence, far more plentiful.

If you took any handful of "in the name of preventing crime"-type laws that exist today, and showed them to an American even 50 years ago, they wouldn't believe it.

The most ardent communist of 50 years ago would not believe the progress that line of thinking has made in our society today. They probably would have thought that couldn't be done without taking over the country by force. They were wrong.

No soldier came to my door to take my arsenal away. No government announced its plans to take over the world and make me a slave. Nothing like that. But hundreds of laws were made and executive orders were signed which essentially were contrary to what most Americans thought was going on, or realized was at issue.

It's not a takeover from the outside, where jackboot thugs kick in your door. (Except sometimes. Keep your kids out of view of the windows.) It's a paperwork takeover from the inside. With all the smiling charm of a corporate takeover that then hacks a company into pieces, fires its employees and sells off its assets to its competitor -- it's legal; it's nothing personal; it's just business. No swords, no guns, no barbaric behavior.

Martial law wouldn't be called that, and it wouldn't be presented as that. It would be called something benign, the news would show people complying and coming up with new ways to do things that complied, to play 'follow the leader' with the people (sheep?) in the audience. It would be to 'help' us and 'protect' us.

We are already in a state of emergency -- we have been for years. We are already subject to laws that would make your blood run cold -- it's simply that they are not being enforced right now. We have already made it very difficult to get a gun legally if you are not qualified (though guns, like drugs and border passage, are often easier to get illegally than legally). We have already outlawed certain types of armament -- or in most cases, simply pressured manufacturers not to make it available to the public.

We already do not "own" anything; we hold a title to it; the feds own it, if they care to exercise that ownership you will see. We are already not people of the state of our birth; we are U.S. Citizens, and subject to anything the feds say, above and beyond what the local (state) government might say. We are already numbered from birth, and tracked in detail in a myriad of ways.

None of this came with an M-16 on the corner or a black-clad soldier keeping watch on my family. None of this came with an announcement of martial law. Yet, it accomplished many of the goals, and set the stage for more dramatic changes in the future. And I grew up with this, so it doesn't seem like something that should be fought, it seems like an expected 'way it is.'

To control a country's well-being, you need to control the money.

To control a country's social-response, you need to control the media.

To control a country's future, you need to control education.

I think they have it wrapped up already. It's just a matter of time. But it's never going to be the jackboots on every corner, perhaps on some borders of big cities and states, but not so prolific. Why should it? It doesn't need to be.

We are like the proverbial frog. You know it is said, if you put a frog in water and heat it gradually to boiling, it will not figure out it needs to get OUT until it is dead. Because the change was gradual. As it has been with us. Patience is all that was required.

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 29, 1999.

"I think they have it wrapped up already. It's just a matter of time. But it's never going to be the jackboots on every corner, perhaps on some borders of big cities and states, but not so prolific. Why should it? It doesn't need to be."

Exactly my thinking PJ.

You don't need to have hundreds of thousands of troops. You only need a climate of fear and most will go along willingly because they want and need "protection".

Mike ===============================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), April 29, 1999.