Wednesday, October 8, 2008
REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA): “We were told the only way they pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified. Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against the bill, on Monday, that the sky would fall, the markets would drop 2,000 or 3,000 points the first day and another couple thousand the second day. And a few members were even told that there would be Martial Law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear mongering. Unjustified. Proven wrong. We’ve got a week. We’ve got two weeks to write a good bill. The only way to write a bad bill? Keep the pressure on.”
The question is, who pressured Congress to pass the $700 billion dollar bailout or risk Martial Law?
To my knowledge, only Vice President Dick Cheney surfaced to make a rare appearance on Capitol Hill just hours before the final House vote. If Congress passed the $700 billion dollar bailout bill under duress and the threat of Martial Law, then the government of the United States of America is no longer a functioning Democracy.
We have morphed into a government by fiat.
From the Left 
Christopher – Thanks for blogging this. It may turn out to be a criminal act that reaches beyond the protective umbrella of Executive Privilege.
In a way, I almost wish they’d try it. I have that much confidence that our Armed Forces would refuse to implement it.
The downside of that would be the almost sure end of the United States, the same way that the attempt at martial law ended the USSR. But at least we’d finally have the showdown with that smirking piece of shit.
I honestly believe if Bush and Cheney tried a stunt like Martial Law after what they’ve put us through the past eight years, they would find themselves meeting the same fate as did Mussolini.
But like Jolly Roger said, I too think the upheaval would be the end of the USA. I think the country would fracture into several parts.
It’s entirely within the realm of reason that such a state break-up is the inevitable result of the great experiment called America.
You had more guts than me posting this. Like I said, I got the story a few days ago, but I was loathe to post it because my paranoia’s been growing and I read too many conspiracy theory sites last week that said people like us are going to be taken out starting October 1st. I’m really fucking nervous. If we’ve got House members saying this shit, it’s bad. I hope this poor guy doesn’t get Wellstoned.
I’m going to post about it now, though. It does need to get out there.
This is some fucked up shit.
How did you get wind of Rep. Berman’s floor speech? Where the hell is the media?
OMG – there’s more!!!
troops deployed for crowd control?
I also knew about this because Amy Goodman reported it, but many debunked it as standard procedure. Well, I don’t think so any more.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the “War on Terror,” the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.
Remember too, Bush bought 100,000 acres of primo land in Paraguay over the largest fresh water aquifer in South America.
I blogged about the purchase sometime ago.
If things get rough, he’s got safe harbor and it isn’t in Crawford.
He’s also got the 100 million – or was it billion – our House & Senate just handed to him as a buh-bye gift. But perhaps he has no intention of going buh-bye.
I wonder if the shrub will party on his bailout money like the traitors at AIG?
I say bring it on. I repeat. Bring. It. On.
At this point, if we don’t stand up to the thugs who want to rain tyranny down upon us, then what does it say about us?
At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand and say “enough.”
It’s very intriguing to me how all the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together.
The story of threatening Martial Law and now this.
When Did We Become Prisoners?
http://www.towleroad.com/2008/10/mccain-calls-am.html
McCain at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania: “Across this country, this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners…”
Here’s the thing. If this shit goes down, it’s not like we get to fight them en masse, necessarily. It’s more like the CIA will send out folks to hit resister types, like bloggers, for example, in the middle of the night. I doubt i could fight my way out of something like that. Of course we are somewhat small fish but if they get a few hundred of us, we’ll start shutting up, won’t we?
They can also starve us, cut off our water, turn off our electricity, and more. We are to a great extent at their mercy. I wish it was as simple as fighting them, or storming the castle. I doubt that it will be, though, if this comes to fruition.
I am not surprised to learn about this but it does explain why several Democrats looked like startled rats when they spoke to the media shortly before the vote. As far as worrying about Martial Law and the CIA, just remember one thing. There are more of us than there are of them. Large scale control is extremely difficult and labor intensive. I think it would last about a month.
Brigadoon, thanks for helping allay my fears somewhat. To those of us who have seen this coming for over 2 years now, you’d think it’d be less scary. Not so!
I just hope you are right. And I hope they give it up. But seeing that Cheney and shrub are insane, I don’t know.
J. Marquis at his blog “Major Conflict” ( at http://majorconflict.blogspot.com/2008/10/strange-days.html ) posts an excellent article by syndicated columnist Amy Goodman. It is about those troops you mention being deployed here in America. They’re known as the CCMRF, or nicknamed the “sea-smurfs”. The article is about the creation of an active-duty military force that could indeed be used to suppress public protest right here at home.
I have this ugly feeling there is huge shitstorm brewing up right under our noses.
Paraguay might not be too safe a place for Bush. Bush has committed crimes against humanity, including genocide, torture, and a war of aggression. Given the declining power of the US, some third country with more pull might demand that Paraguay extradite Bush to face criminal charges under international humanitarian law.
To be honest, I kissed Democracy goodbye in the 2000 election– you remember it was hanging on a chad, when W decided he’d best get the Supreme Court to decide the election?
When they openly decided to not count the votes, I figured democracy was a goner. It’s pretty much been downhill since then– the illegal war, the Patriot Act, Warrantless Wiretaps, Homeland security run amuck.
While Wall Street just got bailed out- we just recently lost $2 trillion in retirement $.
Meanwhile today, McCain said at a political rally :
My Fellow Prisoners, instead of citizens.
You know that Cheney is behind this crap. Curious that no before has mentioned what was said behind close doors to cause the “deer in the hadlights” look on many congressional faces.
So if Rep. Sherman is telling the truth, why didn’t the Congress hold a press conference in primetime to announce a member of the Bush administration threatened to invoke Martial Law? This Congress is the definition of cowardice. They’re not worthy to be ground up and fed to zoo lions as food.
The US has been ruled by diktat since the Imperial Presidency was proclaimed by FDR in May of 1941, when he declared that we were in a state of ‘Unlimited National Emergency”.
That proclamation, never rescinded, led to concentration camps and the illegal confiscation of the wealth of Japanese Americans, to the witch-hunt’s and McCarthyism, to attacks and invasions of Korea, Cuba, Guatemala, Vietnam, the Dominican Republican, Chile, Laos, Cambodia and a dozen other countries. Now, under Clinton and Bush two successive genocides have ripped Iraqi society to shreds and are overflowing into Afghanistan and Pakistan. It led to the Paytriot Act, FISA and a concentration camp in Guantanamo, and now to the grand theft of $700 billion dollars.
That added to the trillions more squandered this year will increase the national debt for $8.2 billion in January to about $15 billion dollars by December.
That debt will destroy the economy and with that will come increased authoritarianism. Whoever gets elected on November 4th will become the new Imperial President and the foremost enemy of working people in this country and the Middle East. It’ll be Obama in a landslide.
It’s Martial Law.I will post the stuff for you.