Evidence That Bush Will Cancel Elections & Declare Martial Law

A 'national emergency' will provide Bush the raw power he needs to cancel the elections and hold on to even greater executive power. Over the course of his criminal and illegitimate regime, George W. Bush has assumed powers that in cases of a 'national emergency' make of him an absolute ruler beyond the powers of the Congress or the Courts. It has all been locked up rather neatly and planned well in advance. A 'decider' by self-proclamation, Bush conveniently 'decides' what is and what is not a 'national emergency. He is the sole arbiter.

The 'mechanism' by which Bush consolidates all his power is called Executive Directive 51 [See: White House, National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51 ]. Signed into law on May 4, 2007, it specifies the 'procedures' to be taken in the wake of a 'catastrophic emergency' --'any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions'.

The Bush administration is prepared to move upon the slightest pretext. What is called the 'TOPOFF' exercise 'games' a Code Red alert. An "actual terrorist attack" of the type envisaged under TOPOFF 3 leads to a Code Red Alert, creating conditions for the suspension of civilian government.

If we simply go to red ... it basically shuts down the country.

--Tom Ridge, CBS News Interview, December 2003

The 'civilian government' would be closed down, taken over by an Emergency Administration.

Long before Bush had signed the measure, FEMA had begun the construction of a 'gulag archipelago' of FEMA concentration camps that were most certainly built with this outcome in mind. They are complete and await a first train load of domestic victims of Bush's Fourth Reich.

Fema: Concentration Camps or Death Camps?

At hearings of a congressional sub-committee in New Orleans, FEMA official Glenn Cannon acknowledged that it had been considering the use of trains to transport large numbers of people to camps and various locations around the United States. The revelation was ominous as this use of trains is associated with Adolph Hitler's hellish Third Reich. The camps and the mass transportation of people to them is a cornerstone in Bush's elaborate and detailed preparations for a declaration of martial law. To every citizen of the US --whether incarcerated in a hellish concentration camp or not --the declaration of martial means but one thing: an absolute dictatorship!

The various scenarios have main points in common: Bush will, upon any pretext, declare a national emergency, cancel the elections, and impose martial law. With martial law comes absolute power, a ruthless crack down on dissent, mass arrests and mass incarcerations. A 'pre-text' is never an obstacle to would-be dictators. With the Reichstag Fire, Hitler proved that 'pretexts' are easily manufactured.

The most likely and most obvious scenario has already been run up the flag pole by GOP's un-official propaganda minister --Rush Limbaugh. What Limbaugh has in mind is a classic Nazi tactic: a riot by agent provocateurs for which 'liberals' and Democrats will be blamed. If the riots are violent, Bush will cite them as the only pretext he will need to declare 'martial law' and, having already placed himself in charge of 'emergency planning', Bush will have completed his coup d'etat. In a state of 'emergency', he will cancel the elections and rule by decree.

One can be certain that if Democrats will not provide Bush the pretext he needs to declare martial law, the GOP will do it themselves and blame the 'left'. A clue to GOP thinking may be found in the history of the GOP convention in New York. Then Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge designated the GOP convention a 'national security special event'. As a result, the security operation was run by the US Secret Service. It took a 'zero tolerance' approach, meaning 'any protest' would be busted up. If Bush's future is on the line, you can count on the GOP to support even more drastic measures.

The 'election' of 2004 was but a harbinger of worse things to come. In a nation that claims to be 'of the people and for the people', a 13-block swath of New York City was closed off to the public. In 2004, the GOP needed only steal key precincts in one or two key states. While the nation escaped an outright declaration of martial law, it did not escape the Bush's continuing assault upon the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers.

In 2004, Democratic politicians issued stern warnings that demonstrators who wished to gather in Central Park avoid confrontations that would facilitate a GOP crack down or feed GOP efforts to 'whip up the right wing base'. Never-the-less, ham-fisted tactics by the Bloomberg administration were seen by many to be the main reasons for protest.

There were fears the election of 2004 would be canceled. For all the good they did, they might as well have been.

It's only reasonable to assume that as the prospects for a Democratic victory in November brighten, the countervailing prospects for a manipulation of the electoral process grow simultaneously more ominous. So?. . . What do we do?

I think the answer is obvious, frankly, and organic. I propose a general strike, to begin immediately concurrent with the announcement of any cancellation, postponement and/or abridgment of the Presidential Elections scheduled for November 2, 2004; such strike to terminate when, and only when, elections are successfully completed and fairly counted.

If you work, simply don't go in. If you're a student, simply don't go to school. If you're a stay-at-home mom or dad, simply stay-at-home with your kids. Don't shop, don't drive, don't eat at restaurants. Don't do anything, except subsist. Unless another person's life is in your immediate professional hands, cease doing what you normally do until such time as the powers-that-be come to their senses and remember that whatever power they claim necessarily derives from the people.

--What to do if the election is cancelled or postponed, AudieMcCall

Keep in mind that the passage above was written before the elections of 2004. We know now that Bush stole 2004, as, in fact, he stole the White House with a felonious, riotous assault in Florida organized and paid for by the Bush for President campaign.

There is a greater chance that Bush will simply cancel the elections this time around. Bush doesn't have the luxury of stealing the election; his name will not be on the ballot. The US is caught in the circular logic by which the GOP/right wing justifies a panoply of atrocities. Having left the nation no peaceful means by which it might express the popular will, Bush will cite 'violence' as justification for even more extreme measures. This is the death cycle of Democracy.

Bush will need a 'riot' in order to declare martial law and will require martial law to justify his crackdowns on dissent and 'civil disturbance'. The right wing's relationship to dissent mirrors that of Bush's relationship to 'terrorism'. Bush, in fact, is nothing without terrorism and his policies can be shown to be the cause of it. Thus --he will and does manufacture it! [See: Terrorism is always worse under GOP regimes.]

Meanwhile, Bush pushes forward on a broad front --conducting 'martial law exercises', conveniently putting himself in charge of 'emergency planning'. Kellogg/Brown and Root has built a 'gulag archipelago' of concentration camps across America as Rush Limbaugh calls for 'riots' at the Democratic Convention.

Mark Crispin Miller: Endgame -- Bush & Cheney's desperate measures -Parts 1 and 2

The GOP, adrift since the end of the McCarthy era, nevertheless managed to hold on to power due to the timely assassinations of key Democratic leaders --primarily those named Kennedy, those of color, those who opposed a crooked establishment. LBJs decision not to seek a second term brought the 'Great Society' to an end. Jimmy Carter was effectively nullified with troubles in Iran and a GOP focus group word which stuck: 'stagflation'. In fact, Carter's economic record was better than ANY GOP President since World War II. The GOPs hold on power defies science and statistics. It is best explained by a few well-chosen words. 'Crookery' and 'thuggery' are among them.

By the time Bush Jr sought the White House, it was clear that the GOP needed an external threat equal to that of 'communism'. Wars on porn, drugs and Murphy Brown paled compared to the hysteria that could be fanned with something like 'communism'. The convenience and timing of 911 defies statistics. It remains yet another highly improbable 'catalyzing event' that had been wistfully desired by NEOCONS in the Project for the New American Century paper entitlted 'Rebuilding America's Defenses'.

Homeland security is one piece of a broader strategy [which] brings the battle to the enemy... But while one key to defense is offense, it is not the entirety of our security picture. For we also need a “defense in depth” as part of the strategic whole. That means even as we pursue terrorists overseas, we work at home to prevent infiltration by terrorists and their weapons; to protect our people and places if infiltration occurs; and to respond and recover if an attack is carried out. This is embodied in our strategy of building multiple barriers to terrorist attacks.

[Transcript of complete March 2005 speech of Secr. See:Michael Chertoff]

Thus, Bush will cite an 'external threat' as the pretext to assume the powers he needs and will use to wage war --not on terrorists --but upon dissent here at home. There is a word for this: tyranny!

Additional resource

• Ray McGovern | The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King
• The Idiot Son of an Asshole

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How the GOP Will Benefit From Impending Economic Collapse

Republicans benefit from the fact that recessions are class conscious, affecting worse those who can least afford them. An era of highly leveraged US economic expansion and empire is about to come crashing down and swept away. Count on the GOP to make out like bandits.

It seems like ages ago, the US was at peace, there was a budget surplus, the economy was growing, and the unemployment rate was very low. But not everyone was happy. There was an entire group of people who harbor not good, but ill will; an entire class wished for bad times and got it.

Until now, China had an interest in keeping the US ponzi scheme propped up --they sold billions to US citizens via Wal-Mart, the economic Kudzu that ate America. But since a Chinese sub popped up undetected in the middle of the US fifth fleet, it has been apparent that the honeymoon is over. China now leads the world in dumping dollars. Everywhere, it seems, it has become a habit.

If this were mere recession staring back at us from a fun house mirror, it might be shrugged off. After all, the GOP has always loved recessions and benefited from them. A clue is found in the work of conservative Austrian-born economist Joseph Schumpeter who regaled his Harvard students in the mid-1930s with a pithy observation about how economic depressions actually benefit certain social and economic classes.

Chentleman, [sic ] you are vorried about the depression. You should not be. For capitalism, a depression is a good cold douche.

--Joseph Schumpeter, Economist, Harvard University Lecture, circa 1930s

A pattern emerged with the ascension of Ronald Reagan: the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Unfair tax cuts have a lot to do with that, but, also, the nature of recessions themselves. Everyone who is not an initiate into the cult of gopperism gets douched. The administrations of Reagan, Bush and Bush are like lab experiments that prove the hypothesis: GOP policies are designed to benefit an increatingly tiny elite or, as Bush called it, "my base."

This is no mere recession but complete collapse. Mephistophes has come knocking.

As feared, foreign bond holders have begun to exercise a collective vote of no confidence in the devaluation policies of the US government. The Federal Reserve faces a potential veto of its rescue measures.

Asian, Mid East and European investors stood aside at last week's auction of 10-year US Treasury notes. "It was a disaster," said Ray Attrill from 4castweb. "We may be close to the point where the uglier consequences of benign neglect towards the currency are revealed."

The share of foreign buyers ("indirect bidders") plummeted to 5.8pc, from an average 25pc over the last eight weeks. On the Richter Scale of unfolding dramas, this matches the death of Bear Stearns.

Rightly or wrongly, a view has taken hold that Washington is cynically debasing the coinage, hoping to export its day of reckoning through beggar-thy-neighbour policies.

--Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Foreign investors veto Fed rescue, UK Telegraph

Bush, meanwhile, seems unconcerned, perhaps, like Nero, fiddling as Rome burns. Then again, the GOP 'class' has always benefited from US recessions, depressions, and other economic catastrophes.

1. Recessions, though not caused by declining stock markets, are always accompanied and often predicted by a plunging stock market. Republicans sell out at the peak, taking their profits. Enough selling will trigger the plunge; less knowledgeable investors begin to follow suit from fear but too late. Last man out loses.

2. Having taken their profits on the upside, a depressed market is but an opportunity for the rich Republican to get back in at lower prices. Guess who sells at the lower price: the poor schmuck who is 180 degrees out of phase and can only dream of being a rich Republican. In reality, those he aspires to join are exploiting him.
3. Very knowledgeable investors make money "selling short", buying "put options". These investors get peak prices for stocks even as the price declines. Illegal insider information is executed with "calls" and "puts." The perpetrators of 911, for example, made millions, possibly billions, selling short the stocks of UA and AA. I defy anyone to come up with an 'innocent' explanation. The recipients of those profits had guilty foreknowledge of 911. The name 'Buzz' Krongard comes in connection with a known terrorist organization: the CIA.
   
   Now --a planned financial meltdown might have presented the same opportunities. Historically, 'elites' have always emerged richer, stronger from recessions.
   On the other side of Ronald Reagan's recession of some two years, the rich had gotten richer while the middle class was all but wiped out. The ill-effects of that recession are still seen in the decline of middle class neighborhoods, the permanent loss of manufacturing base and the jobs it created.The profits and volume were most certainly outside norms, proof that those executing the options had precise foreknowledge of the attacks. Those making those profits had "guilty knowledge" of the attacks; they were at the very heart of a murderous conspiracy.
4. Unemployment always goes up in a recession. At the end of a longer recession, companies have the luxury of hiring from a larger labor pool at lower wages and/or salaries. Some companies --citing hard times --may reduce benefits, cut vacation or sick time.
   Big business must hate good times; it is only during times of full employment that workers have any leverage at all. Offhand I can think of only two times in history that have come close: the Clinton years, and, interestingly, Europe after the Black Death. The labor supply had been depleted by plague. Employers were often forced to accede to worker demands for better conditions, money, a place to live! Serfs had been freed and it marked the beginning of the end for Feudalism and set the stage for 'corporate feudalism', an age in which we still labor and suffer.
5. Admittedly, many businesses go belly-up during recessions. While lip service is given to 'free markets' and Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', die hard robber barons hate the 'free market'. They prefer 'monopoly' when they can create one and 'oligopoly' when they can't. Free competition among many sellers is the last thing they want. Recessions are welcomed. It's the 'cold douche', a ruthless flush, so beloved by Schumpeter and the robber barons of American capitalism.
6. Don't expect recessions to bring down prices. More often, higher prices are the light that is seen at the end of the long, dark tunnel. In other words, those businesses fortunate enough to survive a 'downturn' are in the enviable position of raising prices on the other side. Higher prices benefit businesses that manage, even with government help, to stay in business during a recession. So much for laissez-faire capitalism.
   Those fortunate businesses now make more money per unit produced and will do so with fewer employees. The world is not so kind to everyone else, primarily smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, freelancers, and worker bees.
   Prices, we learned in Economics 101, are determined by supply and demand. If the demand is such that the market is quite willing to pay any price for it (prescription drugs, gasoline, certain rents) then demand is said to be inelastic.

7. At the expense of over-simplifying, consumer demand is the arbiter of price only in markets characterized by diffuse competition. Recessions militate against a market of this sort, weeding out all but 'privileged' businesses, primarily those with juicy government contracts or GOP cronies in office. Only in the textbook model, is it assumed that the oligopolist's market demand curve becomes less elastic at prices below a certain point. In markets characterized by the continuing decline in the number of 'sellers', it is obvious that there are fewer motivations for oligopolists to reduce prices. In such a market, the oligopolist (an aspiring monopolist) makes more money selling fewer units at higher prices than could be earned selling more units at lower prices. How many people are out of a job makes no difference to the American right wing for whom Scrooge is their abiding inspiration.

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

—Scrooge

It is now time to address the concerns of Scrooge. The American right wing, consulted as they are by slick, suited Madison avenue whiz kids will never call the American gulag of FEMA camps by the names 'work houses' or 'prisons'. By any name, they are presumably open and ready for those who fall through the gaping cracks. A perpetually depressed economy is a good source of slave labor. Who benefits? KBR? Halliburton?

Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of Bush's "unlawful enemy combatants." Americans are certain to be among them.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."

Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.

Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.

The bill also strips habeas corpus rights from detained aliens who have been declared enemy combatants. Congress has the constitutional power to suspend habeas corpus only in times of rebellion or invasion. The habeas-stripping provision in the new bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will likely say so when the issue comes before it.

Although more insidious, this law follows in the footsteps of other unnecessarily repressive legislation. In times of war and national crisis, the government has targeted immigrants and dissidents.

--American Prison Camps Are on the Way, Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet.

There is more on the prospects of work camps, concentration camps, the illegal, unconstitutional war on dissent, and slave labor in America:

• Bear Stearns may be worse than LTCM collapse
• Jeff Randall: A world addicted to easy credit must go cold turkey
• How Bear Stearns ran out of the necessities
• Army Regulation 210-35 PDF format
  
• Bush Diplomacy: Predator Planes Are Conducting Assassinations by Air | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet
• Pacific News Service: 10 Year U.S. Plan for detention camps
  
• Bush’s Mysterious ‘New Programs’ (Alternet.org)
  
• REX 84 - FEMA’s Plan for Martial Law in America.
  
• KBR awarded Homeland Security Contract worth $385 Million.
  
• Sex Trade in Bosnia
  
• Ohio Patriot Act
  
• Ohio Patriot Act Legislature
  
• Oregon Life in Prison
  
• Camp Locations
• Life in Prison for Illegally Downloading Music?
• It’s not the first time a Bush has tried to overthrow the Government.
• Romney = Racist ?
• U.S. Taxpayers “Iced” (literally) for $36M

American Concentration Camps

In Bush's Orwellian dictatorship, a 'terrorist' is anyone Bush decrees a 'terrorist'. As the article points out, US dissidents are always targeted by the right wing. The Bush regime --having set aside habeas corpus --has the right wing's best chance ever of putting away the Bill of Rights for good. Bush has already done so on paper, by decree! "Stop throwing the Constitution up to me," he is reported by two witnesses to have screamed! "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" Americans must dissent or risk being thrown into FEMA work camps forever. Bush believes that disagreement with him is 'treasonous'. I deny his authority to define 'treason' upon his unlawful, unconstitutional decree. His proclamation is, therefore, null and void, still-born bullshit!

Bush, having made free Americans traitors by illegal decree, Bush is a real traitor to the very foundation of US law: the Constitution. His war of naked aggression against Iraq, resulting as it has in the deaths of millions of civilians, is a capital crime under Geneva, to which the US is a party, affirmed by US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441, and, likewise, the Nuremberg Principles. Let's get on with the trial of George W. Bush for capital crimes.

"During the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America, as labor unions organized and gathered power, as socialism grew in popularity among working and other oppressed peoples, industries owned by Rockefeller, Morgan, Harriman, Carnegie, and others, began hiring their own police forces and goon squads to infiltrate labor unions and spy on the political and personal activities of union organizers for the purpose of bringing arrests and convictions and eliminating all socialist activity in the nation. The most notorious example was the Homestead Strike of 1892, when Pinkerton agents killed several people while enforcing the strikebreaking measures of Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie."

--Carolyn Baker, PhD, US Government Targets American Dissent - Part I

It has been quipped: a conservative is never so miserable as when times are good. Certainly, miserable grinches got what they wished for. The surplus was pissed away in a series of Bush tax cuts benefiting only the very rich. Now, when the US faces the very real prospect of utter collapse, millions will be thrown out of work. What is to be said of an entire class of people who are happiest when others are miserable? I leave that to another article…

Another “benefit” of a recession is that it purges the excesses of the previous boom, leaving the economy in a healthier state. The Fed's massive easing after the dotcom bubble burst delayed this cleansing process and simply replaced one bubble with another, leaving America's imbalances (inadequate saving, excessive debt and a huge current-account deficit) in place. A recession now would reduce America's trade gap as consumers would at last be forced to trim their spending. Delaying the correction of past excesses by pumping in more money and encouraging more borrowing is likely to make the eventual correction more painful. The policy dilemma facing the Fed may not be a choice of recession or no recession. It may be a choice between a mild recession now and a nastier one later.

--Does America need a recession?

But there is, after all, only one thing wrong with the economy: our government! If Republican partisans on the Supreme Court would see fit to allow one, a free and fair election may redress this grievance. If not, then the people will have no choice but to effect the remedies recommended by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, specifically that part about how the people may 'abolish' the government whenever it breaks its covenant.

Addendum

The plunging dollar has taken a beating lately on international markets. But at least one wealthy investor may be set to profit from the dollar's decline: Dick Cheney.

Back in June 2006, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine reported that Cheney's financial advisers were apparently betting on a rise in inflation and on a decline in the value of the dollar against foreign currencies.

Cheney and his wife, Lynne, the magazine noted, had between $10 million and $25 million in American Century International Bond (BEGBX). As Kiplinger pointed out, the fund "buys mainly high-quality foreign bonds (predominantly in Europe) and rarely hedges against possible increases in the value of the dollar. Indeed, its prospectus limits dollar exposure to 25 percent of assets and the fund currently has only 6 percent of assets in dollars, according to an American Century spokesman."

Assuming Cheney still holds the fund, he has done well: BEGBX returned 8.3 percent in 2006 and 9.9 percent in 2007. And if he was counting on a dollar decline, of course, he's done well in that regard, as well: in recent days, the dollar has continued to plunge to new all-time lows against the euro. The dollar has also fallen to 12-year lows against the yen. The weak dollar trend looks set to continue as the Fed continues to slash interest rates.

Economists have noted that the weak dollar stems from America's titanic fiscal deficits, which have soared as a result of the disastrous Iraq War.

It's notable that Cheney once claimed that "deficits don't matter." But by banking on a declining dollar, it's clear that even Cheney knows this is bullsh*t and that deficits do indeed matter.

-- MARC MCDONALD, Is Dick Cheney Set To Profit From Dollar's Drop?

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