[B5JMS] Attn JMS: What about now?

[b5jms-admin at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: Scott McNair <smcnair at gulftel.com>
Date: 10 Dec 2002 21:27:32 GMT
Lines: 23

I've been reading through the old lurker guides, picking up tidbits 
about my favorite show.  While reading the guide entry about Point of No 
Return, about 60% down I found this paragraph:

"Could it [martial law] happen right here, right now? No, because the 
surrounding climate isn't right. Could it happen if the conditions 
*were* right? Of course it could. We're not genetically or 
evolutionarily different from the Germans or the Russians or the Cubans 
or the Iraquis. If we think we'd never fall for that, we place ourselves 
in *exactly* the position of guaranteeing that we *will* fall for it. 
Because we won't recognize it when it happens. We can justify and 
rationalize it as something else."

(Refres: http://www.scifi.com/babylon5/lurk/guide/053.html)

Do you think the conditions are currently right for martial law?  I 
realize that something similar has been discussed to death already on 
this group, but it's not quite the same question, so I hope you'll 
indulge me.





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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 11 Dec 2002 05:26:10 GMT
Lines: 34

>Do you think the conditions are currently right for martial law?  I 
>realize that something similar has been discussed to death already on 
>this group, but it's not quite the same question, so I hope you'll 
>indulge me.

Well, let's see...American citizens (low-lifes, yes, but citizens nonetheless)
detained without questioning or formal charges, military tribunals reviewing
cases in secret without the right of appeal, a proposed system of gathering
everyone's private information for use by the government, tracking checkouts at
public libraries, going through purchases to determine who's taken various
kinds of lessons (including, most recently, suba diving lessons), asking high
schools to turn over addresses for students eligible for military service,
signing an overall action for overseas "hits" on possible targets that does not
specifically exclude American citizens as targets and thus generically includes
them, all but reversing the Freedom of Information Act, a declaration of
wartime emergency that has no clearly defined end-point, moves to weaken or
eliminate the Posse Comitatas act which prohibits the use of military in
domestic situations, the detainment at airports -- under the new terrorist
provisions -- of pepole whose only offense was to take part in protest marches
in Seattle and San Francisco, the loosening of search and seizure laws....

No, not at all, why do you ask?

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)