Good morning all! I saw this link posted on CNN's Y2K board, so I thought I'd pass it along. It's about Martial Law and "Urban Legends". Definitely polly, but worth a read.

http://www.snopes.com/spoons/legends/martial.htm

What's your opinion on it, please? (Personally, I'd like to know how the author KNOWS that their suggestions would be used instead of the actual sightings? Does the author have contacts with the Nat. Guard?) All in all, it's the author's opinion - no hard facts...

-- Deb (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), October 26, 1999

Answers

Every time we see these dumb luck stories we have to question them. Look at how lucky the person is to discover the signs and how it is done. Who is printing these signs and why doesnt anyone seem to know anything about it. Likewise it takes alot of people to go from ordering to making to shipping to warehousing of these signs. Why are there no stories coming from people in the stream?.

Common sense tells you these stories are false.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), October 26, 1999.

All you need to know is that the military had a major re-org in tandem with FEMA "leadership" recently for the express purpose of implementing martial law.

Several threads, one of them with something @ Martial Law Lite.

Too busy to link at the mo ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 26, 1999.

That assumes that secrets can't be kept. They can be. The Manhattan Project employed tens of thousands and consumed 1/8 of the electricity produced in the US during WWII. The country was crawling with German spies. Yet they apparently never had a clue.

-- Ralph Kramden (and@awaywego.com), October 26, 1999.

Ralph,

Yes, and they kept it secret by not shipping clearly marked, sensitive parts on Wally-World trucks.

That's where the whole thing breaks down for me. The gov't goes thru all the difficult hurdles to keep a secret (and I do think it's much harder to keep a secret now, than it was in the 1940's), and then, in the final stage, they ship the product out on a commercial carrier???? Last I heard, Walmart drivers do not require security clearance. they might as well set up a roadside stand, "Get your Martial Law signs! Red hot Martial Law signs! Hurry cause they're going fast!"

Please. If Martial Law is being planned, commercial truck drivers are just as in the dark as we are.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 26, 1999.

I doubt the truck story, but as Ashton and Leska point out, the military has been reorganized under FEMA for the express purpose of implementing martial law in time of "emergency," real or contrived. It's law. Defense Secretary Cohen took the time to tell us that we "should welcome tanks and troops on U.S. streets" - remember? It's all over but the screaming, at this stage.

There are many, many indications, over the last decade, indicating that a domestic militarized police state is being planned for. Stories, like the Walmart truck full of signs, are either our collective unconscious mind screaming "look at the signs!" or they are disinformation: an easily disprovable lie, to mask another lie. Something to ridicule, to discourage further investigation.

For those who say it couldn't be kept secret, well, how did the Nazi seizure of power keep it's secrecy? Does "the Night of Long Knives" ring a bell? They kept secrecy within their own organization; how much easier to keep secrets FROM PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), October 26, 1999.

Ralph:

Study the history book, pal. The Russians knew about it.

-- X (X@X.com), October 26, 1999.

What arrogance, to say, "if this were happening, we'd know."

There is abundant evidence of the coming police state in widely-published press releases - urban ledgends are not needed to "prove" there will be martial law; urban ledgends exist to give you something to laugh at, to dissipate your subconscious anxiety while you wait for the killing blow. The truth is, YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW. You are in full cooperation with your deceivers.

Thank you, for diminishing somewhat my obligation to grieve at the final event. For some it will be a well-deserved, and very rude awakening.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), October 26, 1999.

Who you talkin' to, Lib? Not me, I hope. I never said there wasn't Martial Law coming. I said that commercial truck drivers would be no more likely to know anything, than the rest of us. That's world away from saying that martial law is a myth.

As you said, martial law in a time of national emergency, is quite likely. I have no doubt in my mind that if things get ugly, the gov't is going to get ugly right back. However, hearsay and fantastical accusations do as much to decrease awareness as any gov't spin-meister can. It only takes a little of this for the people, as you say, who don't want to know, to say, "Ahhh! See there! It's only in the minds of the kooks that this is reality".

Either we are all responsible for our own awareness, or we're not. Can't have it both ways. Can't say it's a sin for the gov't to hand out disinfo, but it's ok, as long as it's "one of us" who spreads it.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 26, 1999.

Before I get flamed for my response I do NOT think martial law on US soil or losing any of our constitutional rights is acceptable. But ya'll have to remember those troops, if they come, are made up of american boys.

I do believe if I hang an american flag out front and invite all those nice boys inside for some coffee and soup (thin soup, gotta look poor ya know) and thank them up one side and down the other for coming by to check on us. I suspect I'll be being yes maam'd and no maam'd and having my water hauled for me. They will be AMERICAN boys and not happy to be doing what they have to. I don't think ONE of them would willingly harm someone, but they may if threatoned. Remember it will be OUR sons, and nephews and cousins who we will be dealing with.

-- Stacia (ClassyCwgl@aol.com), October 26, 1999.

Stacia,

YOUR problem is solved. I expect a lot of folks will think that the appropriate response to an unconstitutional globalist power-grab will be mere adaptation: to smile broadly, but otherwise keep one's mouth shut. How do you say "hope springs eternal" in German?

Both sides in the Civil War were made up of "American boys." Soldiers are of the character and calibre of the society from which they are drawn.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), October 26, 1999.

Stacia:

It was also "American Boys" who killed four students at Kent State.

-- Kevlar (Kevlar@city.now), October 26, 1999.

Stacia, you appear to assume that any and all troops operating under martial law will be made up of Americans. While I hope this will be the case if such an untoward event comes to pass, I doubt that it will be. Envision: "multi-national peace force". I'd suggest you hide your daughters, if you happen to have any.

-- PKM (.@...), October 26, 1999.

Too bad (apparently) very few of the posters to this thread have read P.A. Sorokin's "Man and Society in Calamity". This 1942 book is a landmark research compilation of what has actually happened throughout history when TSHTF over large areas/long periods of time. Remember, Y2K may have a unique CAUSE, but its probable EFFECTS (famine accompanied by civil disorder, and possible foreign military raids as well [if China/Russia/terrorists try anything]) have occurred innumerable times through the ages. What routinely happens in those circumstances is broadly well understood by those who have researched the subject even slightly. Instead of all this guessing, you people would be aware of the nearly universal phenomena in such times of 1) gov'ts becoming far more totalitarian, 2) gov'ts stealing all the food they can get their hands on, and 3) your formerly friendly/moral/honest/etc. neighbor overnight becoming a hardened looter. Anyone who can read this book and reach the conclusion that these routine occurrences in history will not be abundant here in the U.S. when Y2K hits (presuming it is at least an 8.0), well, they cannot have possibly understood the concepts in this book.

I invite anyone who has not read Sorokin to also 1) read the various nuclear-war/national emergency executive orders, and 2) to ponder the breakdown in morality in the U.S. (including gov't actions) over the past 70+ years. If you still at that point do not think that a substantial likelihood exists of widespread martial law (and private theft) that are in place for a long period of time, then you would probably still try to deny these were possible "here" even if you saw them happen in your own neighborhood shortly after rollover.

my site: www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), October 26, 1999.

I suspect that what they are trying to implement will be "martial law with a smiley face," if the scenario beckoning is greater than a 7 or 8. I suspect that they are planning for a wide variety of contingencies and are going to be cautious about applying measures that will be construed as overreactions: incrementally greater controls commensurate with incrementally higher levels of crisis.

What I mean is that there will be lots of soldiers standing around places like gas stations, banks, and food distribution centers in larger cities. They'll mind their own business if you mind yours. They will not be seeking out trouble or raiding homes--chances are they will raid the big grocery warehouses and/or grain silos (with promises of just compensation) LONG before they approach your buried stash. But if there is civil disturbance going on, well...no more smiley face.

If critically severe disruptions and dislocations last for more than a few months, we can expect the federal government to be all but impotent at excercising any kind of control whatsoever. Martial law will cease to matter because these young soldiers will desert in droves to spend their last days with loved ones at home. No need for the "revolution against tyranny" that some of us here call for because NO ONE WILL SHOW UP. Picking up the slack will be state and local governments and perhaps corporate leaders or gangster warlords--or maybe a strange alliance between these factions.

For interesting descriptions of setting in a post-crash US, read John Updike's _Toward the End of Time_. I think that is a very good description of what the aftermath of a "9" level calamity would be like. _Mad Max_ or _The Postman_ would be a "10" of course.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), October 26, 1999.