I am trying to use this forum to get an idea of how the week between Christmas and New Year's will play out. See my previous thread on martial law link.

There, the general opinion is that while the .gov .mil & .spy forces will be ready for action on December 28th, there will no action (closing interstates, etc.) unless there is a major act of terrorism or some other event(s) causing massive population excitement.

Everyone agrees that there will not be a "national state of emergency" or "national martial law". Instead, there will be 50 state-wide declarations of emergency, one for each state. Call this martial law-lite. In each state the govenor is the official civilian head, but it will be the .mil .gov & .spy that will be running the show.

There is one other way that TPTB may affect the population on the last week before roll-over. There may be an official announcement that remediation did not work. The population will be urged to go to the supermarket for 1-2 weeks of food. Fill your bathtubs. Good luck.

This would strip the supermarkets before rollover. Owners would have cash. There would be nothing there to loot during a blackout. The population would have a few more bits of food before TSHTF.

The downside is that it is unlikely that anyone would want to admit the scope of the failure. This makes it unlikely.

A varient is that there is an announcement that most power stations will be brought down for 2-4 days. [The argument is that even .gov .mil & .spy is scared of a nuclear meltdown]. Please buy groceries for this duration. This shows that the .gov cares. If the power or the economy does not come back in the week time frame it is the fault of .com.

So ...

1) Do you think there will be a "buy groceries" pre-announcement?

2) Do you think there will be a deliberate power down of the grid, especially nuclear power?

3) Do you think that .mil will be in position to seal the interstates/patrol cities on December 28th?

4) What sort of event will it take for .mil to actually seal the interstates/patrol cities before December 31st?

I am not a troll. I have been plugged in daily to this forum and to GN for the last 20 months. I have my own views. I would really appeciate hearing from others on these crucial issues.

-- David Holladay (davidh@brailleplanet.org), December 19, 1999

Answers

My link did not work. It is titled "Lets have a on-line poll about martial law starting on Dec. 28" Please could someone HTML-enabled provide a link?

-- David Holladay (davidh@brailleplanet.org), December 19, 1999.

I would not expect any of what you suggested. It's too late in the game IMO. I also think, that many, really do believe this will be a BITR.

The idea that anyone could say it's going to be a BITR has me wondering why/how? But hey that's life.

Action IMO will be taken as needed and not before, again why cause panic at the last minute?

-- Rich (Rluck@aol.com), December 19, 1999.

#1. no

#2. no

#3. no

#4. under no cirumstances will that happen

my 2 cents

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), December 19, 1999.

As I posted in another post, if there were going to be troops in the streets next week seems they would be prepping now on bases. It takes time to pack and deploy troops.

Does anyone who lives on a base or near a base have information that the troops are getting ready now for a deployment??

obo

-- Obo (susanwater@excite.com), December 19, 1999.

Hotlink_to_Poll

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0022oZ

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), December 19, 1999.

I agree with Dale Way of the IEEA: they will steam the ship straight into the iceberg, and see what happens. Maybe it's a guy thing.

-- Rider (Wake@Dawn's.Smile), December 19, 1999.

imho, it would be counter-productive for leaders self-interest to make any announcements this late in the game. Better to wait until tshtf and then feign surprise and ride to the rescue. So what if a few million are inconvenienced (like maybe dying) so long as they can emerge the heroes.

-- Bob Grove (mediatrix@mediatrixtours.com), December 19, 1999.

My answer is no to all the above. They will not do anything overtly until they can say it was a REACTION to unfolding events. TPTB this late in the game will do nothing to precipitate a panick, again as was mentioned in a previous post, they will sail the ship directly into the iceberg.

BTW, once the crisis begins, they won't have the manpower or resources to even begin to attempt population control except in very isolated local areas, maybe the downtown of a large city.

They know they couldn't pull it off and won't try.

-- Antennas Up (marshall2@iname.com), December 19, 1999.

I can't imagine "them" doing any of the things you listed.

However, it does seem that it would be easier for "them" to have martial law lite in effect PRIOR to problems. For that reason I would not be the tiniest bit surprised to hear that there had been a major "terrorist" attack or at least, a major threat which would give "them" a reason to deploy and declare a National Emergency.

Actually, if handled properly, this COULD be a good thing.....perhaps forestall some tragedies. How confident am I that "they" would handle it PROPERLY? Hahahahahha....... *sob*.....

-- Sheila (sross@bconnex.net), December 19, 1999.

1) Do you think there will be a "buy groceries" pre-announcement?

Not at the national level, but I think more cities and companies will tell their workers to prepare if they have not already done so. I base that opinion on the FEMA announcement to buy stuff now.

2) Do you think there will be a deliberate power down of the grid, especially nuclear power?

No, not in the US. There are too many politics involved. If it does happen, we'll hear about it *after* the fact, I think.

3) Do you think that .mil will be in position to seal the interstates/patrol cities on December 28th?

In some areas, they will be in position -- I'm hearing via email that members of the OH-TN-PA-KY guard will be on call and some units will assemble at the armories. Don't know which specific ones.

4) What sort of event will it take for .mil to actually seal the interstates/patrol cities before December 31st?

Oops! I took my crystal ball into the shop for a pre-holiday tune-up. I'll agree with what's been said: unplanned for event, e.g., terrorist attack. The gov't isn't going to start anything during prime retail season, based on the discussions we've had in other threads.

That's my $.02 for the day.

-- (ladybuckeye_59@yahoo.com), December 19, 1999.

I believe they will have the troops ready to deploy if needed. If they really think there will be no problems, this wouldn't be necessary.

Any type of announcement before hand will be an admission of lying to JQP and will create political backlash.

A remote possibility, have the troops in place to deal with a staged event on the 28th or 29th, and shut everything down, and give everyone 2 or 3 days to get home (not entirely possible, but most could accomplish this).

What type of incident?

-- Bill (bill@tinfoil.com), December 19, 1999.

You have figured out our plans. Now we will have to change them.

-- The Powers That Be (smarter@than.you), December 19, 1999.

1) Do you think there will be a "buy groceries" pre-announcement?

No. SOP for govt action is: Under no circumstanses do or say anything definitive that can be pinned on you later. I still hold to the 'nobody knows for sure' theory and our govt is the master at 'hold tight and pray it works out' theory of crisis management. Lets face it, why SHOULD they bother to say anything? Whats in it for THEM if they do? Thats exactly how they look at it.

2) Do you think there will be a deliberate power down of the grid, especially nuclear power?

No. No. No. They will find it politically easier to deal with a black out where they can blame people than a planned outage where they have to take credit/blame. The politicos believe that nukes are safe enough that they can bank on no serious accidents. If they do have accidenst that shut them down then the politicos get the fun of holding hearings and looking important. Thats FAR more politically benificial and safer than doing anything proactivly. I dont believe for a millisecond that they care at all about the masses having power.

3) Do you think that .mil will be in position to seal the interstates/patrol cities on December 28th?

No. 2+2=4, not 12. There just are NOT enough personel to do what you suggest. Only with cooperation could they even hope to begin such an operation. I believe it would take weeks, if not months to condition the public to accept such an action. The media blitz would be very very noticable.

4) What sort of event will it take for .mil to actually seal the interstates/patrol cities before December 31st?

See #3, but: Should they even try, it would take a large scale attack of some kind or MASSIVE rioting and social unrest.

Odds are right low in either case.

-- art (artwelling@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

I don't think there will be any sort of "buy groceries" announcement other than the often repeated phrase, "prepare for a 3-day storm".

I don't know enough about the nuts and bolts workings of the power companies to make an informed opinion of whether a power-down of the electric companies is a likely scenario.

It was reported on the AP wire last night that an alert has been issued for all U.S. points of entry due to the arrests of terrorists ..................one crossing the Canadian border, one in Phoenix, Arizona, one in southern California. It's probable that the military has been put on alert too.

As to what sort of event it would take for military intervention prior to the 31st, I would venture to say that any terrorist attack would warrant this type of action. A truly scary scenario would be simultanious terrorist attacks in different cities. One has to ask the question......was the terrorist caught crossing the Canadian border planning to attack a northwest city, while the terrorist caught in Arizona planning to attack a southwest city? Were they both part of a larger operation? How many more terrorists are still at large?

-- Linda (lindasue1@earthlink.net), December 19, 1999.

1) no

2) no

3) they are already prepared to do this, but will not be called out until after the rollover unless there is a catastrophic terrorist attack before, and not afterwards unless there are catastrophic failures and panic

4) conclusive evidence of danger from terrorism or weapons of mass destruction

I think there is a good chance that the Domestic Preparedness Response Teams will be deployed in some of the biggest cities. They may not be visible to the public, but they will be poised to respond within minutes in the event of an attack. The National Guard will not be deployed unless there are large groups rioting and looting to the extent that local police cannot handle it.

I think that as soon as the stock market opens after the rollover (Jan. 3 or 4?) we will see massive selloffs by investors who will be willing to take their profits now that they are in a new tax year. I also think it is likely that the circuit breakers will be triggered, and that the almighty Greenspin will speak within the first couple of days to bestow his infinite wisdom upon his herd once again.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), December 19, 1999.

1) No "buy groceries" pre-announcement other than what we already have (prepare for a 3-day storm)

2) No deliberate grid power down.

3) Yes to the extent that they will be assembled on their bases and on alert.

4) Mass riots, more than just clearing of grocery store shelves. Doubt it will happen.

Mikey2k

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), December 19, 1999.

Hmm, seems remarkably close to consensus. Amazing.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), December 19, 1999.

I do not think anything out of the ordinary is going to happen between Christmas and New Year's, other than some very moderate can goods purchases and that sort of thing by the average family. Nothing will happen until and if there are major Y2K breakdowns in January.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), December 20, 1999.