Under Wraps

Trey Smith

The speed of launch of this coordinated action ordering a million people to stay in their homes means that the plan and personnel were almost certainly already organized and in place. This was a test. And the government now knows it can quickly launch a shut-down and military occupation of a major city without being asked "embarrassing questions": Who ordered it? Based on which laws? Was there any discussion about its implementation with someone representing the people of Boston? What are the criteria for completely suspending all our rights?

In the future, as Dave [Lindorff] points out, the government will certainly use this tactic again and will probably cite "public safety" as the reason. But when is public safety threatened and who decides that? Is "public safety" threatened by, for example, a general strike or a huge demonstration? As far-fetched as that might seem even today, it's important to remember that public safety was also the reason cited for the simultaneous national actions dismantling the Occupied movement -- a demonstrably and avowedly peaceful protest that posed no threat to anyone.

The history of this country is littered with "expanded use" of repressive tactics. They do it once in a situation people can tolerate or even support and then they start doing it for all kinds of broader reasons, including quashing protest and opposition movements. This was the hallmark of the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration is, if anything, even more aggressively repressive than its predecessor.
~ from The Marathon Bombings, Privacy and the Question "Why?" by Alfredo Lopez ~

The way the whole situation played out is rather mind boggling, if you think about it. Initially, once the "suspects" had been identified, authorities were looking for two young men on the run. After the elder one died in a shootout with police, what we were left with was a solitary "suspect" -- presumably wounded -- on foot somewhere in or near the vicinity of Watertown, MA. One teenager, possibly with a gun or two, and yet the hunt for this one person was the justification for closing down an entire metropolitan area!

As Lopez reasons, it is patently obvious that a plan to shutdown a major urban area was just waiting for a situation in which it could be deployed. That is the ONLY way this whole situation makes a lick of sense.

When we experience devastating storms, it takes the government quite a while to get the relief effort going. In the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, many residents were still waiting for the first wave of relief DAYS after the storms rolled through. Yet, in this particular instance, the federal government got its act together very quickly. Everything was put in place in a matter of HOURS.

Ask yourself this question: Since climatic events are a seasonal occurrence year in and year out, while "terrorist" attacks on US soil occur very infrequently, how is it that the feds can pull together all their resources so quickly for the latter, but seem like bumbling fools when it comes to the former?

~

John Grant, a compatriot of Alfredo Lopez and Dave Lindorff at This Can't Be Happening, adds this to the conversation.

I’m certainly glad the two alleged bombers are dead or in custody. But the fusion of forces that accomplished that feat scares the hell out of me for two reasons: One, 4/19 feels like a point-of-no-return in the steady growth of a contagious variety of 21st century surveillance police state, and two, the fact I’m politically critical of this growing monster puts me on a potentially very slippery slope toward being declared by some officious operative in some secret cell an enemy of this police state. All it might take is becoming a bit more effective as a political organizer.