Paramilitary Police State and the Loss of Personal Liberties

Interesting Video on Psychology and Group Think

November 27, 2010

Points and Figures - Interesting video. Where is the line between good and evil? It seems to me that governments can cross that line far easier than individuals. Communism has killed millions. Nazi’s and Fascists have executed millions. The Spanish Inquisition. The Romans executed millions. The tyranny of government has been a constant throughout the ages.

There are some graphic images of the Abu Gharib prison in it. I don’t mean to demean the American soldier, because I believe that Americans have done more to further the cause of freedom than any other soldier from any other country in the history of mankind. It is a recent example of group think that can be illustrated.

Milgrom’s experiment post Holocaust is pretty compelling. He conducted it in the 1950′s. It is taught in business school to illustrate what happens with groupthink. Groupthink is a very interesting psychological phenomena.

In the old catholic church, they recognized groupthink could happen. The cardinals appointed one priest to be the “devil’s advocate” that openly disagreed with the Pope.

Bear what the TSA is doing these days and think about this video. Repression and violation of human rights starts with a small logical step. My guess is there is a lot of groupthink going on in the halls of the TSA. I also saw a lot of groupthink in the Bush administration, and see it in the Obama administration.

Groupthink also explains why frat boys do some really stupid stuff. After engaging in debauchery, they must look back and think, “Who thought that was a good idea?”.

Professor Ron Burt has done some pretty neat stuff applying this to the business world. In business, torture of people doesn’t occur. But screwing up business plans and not meeting the needs of your customers does happen. In a business case, the business loses money or goes under. When it’s big government, they can’t go out of business.



Cass Sunstein, a friend of President Barack Obama from their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school, and who has been writing about group polarization since the 1990s, was appointed Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama Administration in January 2009. It is interesting to note that he is author of 'Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide', copyright 2009. In this book, Sunstein says: "When people find themselves in groups of like-minded types, they are especially likely to move to extremes. And when such groups include authorities who tell group members what to do, or who put them into certain social roles, very bad things can happen. This is a general fact of social life: Much of the time, groups of people end up thinking and doing things that group members would never think or do on their own. When people talk together, what happens? Do group members compromise? Do they move toward the middle of the tendencies of their individual members? The answer is now clear, and it is not what intuition would suggest: Groups go to extremes. More precisely, members of a deliberating group usually end up at a more extreme position in the same general direction as their inclinations before deliberation began. This is the phenomenon known as group polarization."

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Of Course They Will (Fire on U.S. Citizens)

March 4, 2011

SHTFPlan.com - In previous opinions we’ve discussed the possibility of US law enforcement and military assets being deployed to Main Street at the onset of any major crisis. Discussions by our comment contributors included all manner of thought on such a scenario, with arguments for and against the possibility that troops, police and private contractors would, if ordered to, fire on US citizens.

As we’ve seen in the middle east over the last several weeks, and are seeing in real time in Libya today, once military is deployed things can spiral out of control very quickly.

Revisiting the question in a recent article, Zero Hedge contributor Cognitive Dissonance asks Would US Police/Troops Fire Upon US Citizens?:

So while I can’t answer the title’s question for you I can offer my own opinion as to whether or not Americans will be fired upon. The short answer is that of course they will. Why would you think otherwise when US history offers up dozens of examples to choose from. The powers that be are ego maniacs, the elites have hundreds of years of experience controlling the masses, and the masses are mostly living their lives in denial. I consider it inevitable that when the uprisings begin and they turn really ugly that those who are paid to protect the powerful and their assets will follow orders and do precisely that.

Once again you can’t see this from your own point of view because you most likely won’t be the one holding the riot gear and facing the screaming mobs. While I’m certain some within the police, military and National Guard will follow their heart and refuse to fire or even follow orders if doing so means hurting their fellow citizens, in effect declaring conscientious objector status, they will for the most part be a small minority and will be quickly weeded out of the ranks by the second or third round of protests.

Considering the insanity the police and troops will be facing as well as the economic collapse that threatens them as well, the police/troops will rally around each other and protect their own closed community using whatever means necessary. Throw in the mercenaries, the agent provocateurs, the psyops campaigns, the meddling from the various intelligence agencies and the only question I have is not if but when and how much.

Someone in the comment section the other day said that since the military is now an all volunteer fighting force, the standard of conduct has been raised and no one in the military would ever fire on their fellow citizens. While I would love to believe this, I see it from a different point of view. Those in the military want(ed) to be in the military, thus they were more likely to buy into military groupthink and its attendant mind control and propaganda. Rest assured that long before any uniformed service person (police or military) is asked to confront their fellow citizens they will be subjected to a barrage of intensive conditioning and will be propagandized to the nth degree.

In my opinion, to believe that the various forces arrayed against the protesting public won’t fire on them is to continue to believe in American exceptionalism and more specifically in the desire of the rich and powerful to finally see the error of their ways and thus immediately cease and desist from further exploitation and pillage. If this is the case, if this is what you believe, then all I can say is that you live in a dream world Neo.

As with Libya and Bahrain, when the control infrastructure of the power elite is threatened, they will take whatever steps are necessary to maintain power.

Certainly, as mentioned, there will be those, likely in the tens of thousands, who will simply refuse orders and go home to take care of their families – after all, society would have to be falling apart if military personnel are being deployed. Likewise, however, there will be just as many, if not more, who simply have no clue that they are the pawns of Kings and Queens fighting to the death on the Grand Chessboard. When the order is given, they will gladly follow. Military planners are quite astute when it comes to these types of planning strategem, so it is quite likely that National Guard and other military units will be deployed cross-state, into areas where they will have no friends or family. The fact that you speak English will not matter.

The domestic contingency plans are clearly documented, and we know for a fact that the National Guard is Training For Riot Control and Mass Detentions, while the Pentagon and Military Are Actively War Gaming ‘Large Scale Economic Breakdown’ and ‘Civil Unrest’, so this is not as unlikely as many would hope or believe. The plethora of Presidential Executive Orders designed to respond to national emergencies should lay to rest any idea of this not being a realistic possibility.

The ultimate question of how far government policing intervention is willing to go remains to be seen. But given what we’ve seen throughout history, our recommendation is to simply stay home and get out of the way if at all possible, otherwise you risk the real possibility of being thrown into a refugee reeducation camp or worse.

Army Wants Rapid-fire Rubber Bullets for Crowd Control

What is the army getting ready for? Riots...where? When was the last time the US Army was called out for crowd control? Clearly the army is planning for something.

February 17, 2011

New Scientist - The US army is planning to field "rubber bullets" for machine guns. Military officials claim the ammunition will allow them to more effectively quell violent protests without loss of life, but human rights campaigners are alarmed by the new weapon.

[Editor's Note: The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits direct military involvement in civilian law enforcement, except “in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.” Constitutional authority gives the president and Congress the right to suspend Posse Comitatus during emergencies. Statutory exemptions, such as those encompassed by the Stafford Act 42 U.S.C §5122 and the Insurrection Act 10 U.S.C. § 331-333, permit active military law enforcement in situations that include, but are not limited to, threats of domestic insurrection and weapons of mass destruction.]

The final design for the XM1044 round has not been selected, according to an order placed on the Federal Business Opportunities website last month, but the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been working on a ring aerofoil projectile for some years. The round is a hollow plastic cylinder 40 millimetres across, looking something like a short toilet-paper roll. In flight its shape generates lift, giving it a longer range.

The army's existing crowd-control rounds are single shots fired from handheld grenade launchers with a range of about 50 metres -- the XM1044 would double this range. It would be supplied in belts for the Mk19 grenade launcher, a truck-mounted weapon that can fire almost six rounds per second. The Mk19 has been exported to some 30 countries, including Egypt.

"The US army has a requirement for a rapid-fire non-lethal capability," says Ken Schulters, project manager for close combat systems at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. "All currently fielded non-lethal ammunition is single shot."

Firing rapidly at long range is likely to be dangerously inaccurate, says Angela Wright of Amnesty International.

"Such a weapon system would allow for a burst of non-accurate fire at a crowd, with high risk of hitting bystanders, ricochets and of hitting vulnerable areas of the body," she says.

Despite being hollow and plastic, if a round were to strike someone in the head, it could severely injure or kill them, she adds.