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PatrickHenry
03-09-2008, 06:01 AM
This is a topic that Alex Jones addresses pretty consistently.

The term "forced labor" is generic for prison camp.

Now, if someone has committed a crime, I have no issue with the government housing them and having them work, with a fixed date for release.

If the crime is dissent, however, the government is the criminal.

And ethnicity should have nothing to do with internment.

The US has done this before, in WW2, to Japanese-Americans. It was recognized as being wrong, and the government later issued an apology. But it was impossible to restore the lives that were disrupted, and the fortunes and property siezed.

We generally think of the camps administered by the Nazis, the Soviets, the Communist Chinese, the Imperial Japanese when thinking of "forced labor."

Most of us are appalled by the conditions and the arbitrariness of the forced labor camps, wherever they have been. And we deny that they could ever be a policy of the United States government. Few are aware that 4 million German POWs were used as forced labor for several years after WW2 in what was euphemistically termed, "reparations labor."

But is it realistic that the US could not go this dierction?

There is evidence that the US has been preparing gulags for its residents as far back as 1987, with the program known as REX-84. It was inadvertently revealed in testimony regarding the Iran-Contra affair, but quickly hushed up by my own Democratic Party Senator, Daniel Inouye.

Now Alex Jones alleges that there is a series of government prison camps being set up in anticipation of the next false-flag attack that will justify martial law. Those of us who would dare to protest the descent of the Republic into a tyrannical Empire would be packed off to these camps to be guarded by military units.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/32647/
This article references the $385 million no-bid contract awarded to Halliburton subsidiary, KBR for such detention camps. It also references the concept of forced labor and a document found here: http://www.usapa.army.mil/pdffiles/r210_35.pdf

Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said, "Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They've already done this on a smaller scale, with the 'special registration' detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo."

Labor camps

There also was another little-noticed item posted at the U.S. Army website, about the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This program "provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations."

The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid action revision" on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.

On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the attorney general to "establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and "make available … the services of United States prisoners" to various government departments, including the Department of Defense.

I know the usual suspects on this forum will either let this pass without comment or give assent to any government program that quashes dissent.

Or they will ridicule such a topic as a conspiracy theory. That's why I placed it in this forum. I am certain that the government of the United States DOES engage in conspiracy. And I want to theorize as to which of my rights they seek to undermine and overthrow next.

AlanC
03-09-2008, 08:08 AM
Well Patrick, you be sure and let us know as soon as anyone tries to lock you up for dissent. I will be the first one there with my guns to make sure it doesn't happen or to break you out.

But Alex Jones? Please. He makes Rush Limbaugh sound like Edward R Murrow.

The use of civilians convicted of crimes, real ones, to provide labor at Federal facilities does not equate with jailing dissenters.

When someone really is out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking. But, when you start running from shadows, well then, it becomes anything from mildly amusing to downright harmful.

PatrickHenry
03-09-2008, 08:27 AM
Hmm.. reminds me of something Drocket said a few days ago..

How many of us would have thought in 1999 that our nation's commitment to civil liberties and long-held principles like habeas and civilian justice systems would be so undermined by 2008?

Alan, I would hope that many thoughtful Americans would view protests against martial law as defensible. And that citizen pressure would disallow mass arrest and detention.

Somehow I am not as confident as I would have been a few years ago.

And Alex references mainstream news stories and documentation that are often ignored by those who should be the guardians of our civil liberties.

AlanC
03-09-2008, 02:51 PM
Patrick, we probably agree on any resistance to martial law barring some sort of total breakdown of civilian authority. People still complain about the Federal government not stepping in during the aftermath of Katrina and taking over.

They don't realize that they do not really want them to have that authority.

But I have heard several of Alex Jones bradcasts. His ability to carry on continuous rambling rants is unmatched. Its better to listen to a recording of what he says and then when he slips up and actually gives a source, you can stop him and go check it out. He has a problem with paraphrasing things to have them sound the way he wants them to instead of just giving you the accurate version.

I have found little there to justify spending any time listening to the man.

PatrickHenry
03-10-2008, 09:54 PM
The US is not a nation of laws anymore.

It is a nation which is ruled by the Executive Branch doing whatever it chooses.

Osborn F. Enready
03-10-2008, 10:04 PM
Patrick said:
The US is not a nation of laws anymore.

It is a nation which is ruled by the Executive Branch doing whatever it chooses.

Amen brother, and it matters not which corrupt party is at the helm....

“There ought to be limits to freedom. We're aware of the site, and this guy is just a garbage man.”
-George W. Bush, commenting on the website www.gwbush.com

“If this were a dictatorship, things would be a lot simpler. As long as I was the dictator. Heh heh heh.”
-George W. Bush, 2000-Dec-18, in Washington DC, on the occasion of a public appearance with Democratic Congressional leaders

“To realize the full possibilities of this economy, we must reach beyond our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and building new networks among nations and individuals, and economies and cultures: globalization. It's the central reality of our time.”
-Bill Clinton, State of the Union address, 2000-Jan-27

“I'll rule this country by executive order if Congress won't adopt my agenda.”
-Bill Clinton, 1998-Jul-4

“We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans...that we forget about reality.”
-President Bill Clinton, quoted in USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A, “NRA change: `Omnipotent to powerful'” by Debbie Howlett

“You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say.”
-Bill Clinton, May 29, 1993, The White House

“I don't believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution.”
-President Clinton, March 10, 1997

“The president has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.”
-Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on “Larry King Live.”

“Write down the name of that motherfucker. When I'm back in office, he's a dead man.”
-Bill Clinton, to a campaign worker, as reported by Samuel Wilson, a former political worker in Clinton's second campaign for governor, in an interview with Capitol Hill Blue's Doug Thompson, regarding a local townsperson encountered on the campaign trail who called Clinton a “two-bit politician”

“When people kill us, they should be killed in greater numbers. I believe in killing people who try to hurt you. And I can't believe we're being pushed around by these two-bit pricks.”
-Bill Clinton, quoted by George Stephanopoulos in his book All Too Human, regarding his Somalia deployment misadventure

“I'd like to kill all of these sons of bitches and just be done with it.”
-Bill Clinton, in a White House staff meeting during the impeachment process, as reported by Doug Thompson in his Capitol Hill Blue column of 1999-Apr-8

“From now on, every state in the country will be required by law to tell a community when a dangerous sexual predator enters its midst.”
-Bill Clinton, 1996-May-17 (included for irony)

“[...] it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root; F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.”
-William Safire, on the phrase and concept of "New World Order", in the New York Times, February 1991

“I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy.”
-Henry Kissinger, appearing on CNBC, 2000-Dec-13


People who still buy into this bi-partisan means fair nonsense are simply fooling themselves, and selling out the country.

Mayberry
03-12-2008, 04:28 AM
Hiya Pat! I kinda have to disagree with you a bit on this one. Habeus has only been disallowed for those to whom it never applied in the first place. Foreign nationals were never guaranteed this. And as far as the Executive branch doing as much as it chooses...... the same can be said for the Legislative branch. Congress no longer represents the interests of their constituents, only the lobbyists and their special interest groups. Average Joe has been thrown under the proverbial bus.

PatrickHenry
04-07-2008, 07:40 AM
Let's see...

Actually, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed by the President does in fact allow for Americans to be held without charge if they are declared "enemy combatants" by the President.

On January 17, 2007, Attorney General Gonzales asserted in Senate testimony that while habeas corpus is "one of our most cherished rights," the United States Constitution does not expressly guarantee habeas rights to United States residents or citizens.

As such, the law could be extended to U.S. citizens and held if left unchecked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus#War_on_Terror

As Robert Parry writes in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel:
“Applying Gonzales’s reasoning, one could argue that the First Amendment doesn’t explicitly say Americans have the right to worship as they choose, speak as they wish or assemble peacefully.

Ironically, Gonzales may be wrong in another way about the lack of specificity in the Constitution’s granting of habeas corpus rights. Many of the legal features attributed to habeas corpus are delineated in a positive way in the Sixth Amendment...”

To date, there have been a number of confirmed cases in which non-American civilians have been incorrectly classified as enemy combatants.

So the potential is certainly there. Let us pray that we get a President in the near future who values our traditions of liberty more than his (or her) agenda. Because protest could result in the tyranny of the state telling us we may not dissent on pain of detention without charges.

preservanation
04-07-2008, 11:42 AM
You had me till this...This article references the $385 million no-bid contract awarded to Halliburton subsidiary, KBR for such detention camps.Over played your hand a bit, don't you think?

PatrickHenry
04-07-2008, 06:35 PM
You had me till this...Over played your hand a bit, don't you think?
How's that? Because KBR was recently spun off by Halliburton?

Or because you don't think our honest government would ever let out no-bid contracts to a multinational corp? :evil:

What do you mean be "overplayed your hand?" :ponder:

Maybe you failed to follow the link...here ya' go... http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B62C8724D%2DAE8A%2D4B5C%2D94C7%2 D70171315C0A0%7D&dist=SignInArchive&param=archive&siteid=mktw&dateid=38741%2E5136277662%2D858254656

Easy90
04-09-2008, 10:24 PM
"Actually, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed by the President does in fact allow for Americans to be held without charge if they are declared "enemy combatants" by the President." (Patrick Henry)

No kidding? Well, PH, I can see how that might worry you a bit then. LOL! How come the Dimocratics are allowing that "edict" to stand? Or, are they a part of the vast conspiracy to deprive you of your Constitutional rights too?

PatrickHenry
04-10-2008, 01:40 AM
"Actually, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed by the President does in fact allow for Americans to be held without charge if they are declared "enemy combatants" by the President." (Patrick Henry)

No kidding? Well, PH, I can see how that might worry you a bit then. LOL! How come the Dimocratics are allowing that "edict" to stand? Or, are they a part of the vast conspiracy to deprive you of your Constitutional rights too?Yer goddamn right they are!