Secret camps and guillotines, oh my!

[Paladin]

Secret camps and guillotines? Groups make birthers look sane

Steven Thomma McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Fri, Aug. 28, 2009 Miami Herald

WASHINGTON — Is the federal government building secret camps to lock up people who criticize President Barack Obama?
Will it truck off young people to camps to brainwash them into liking Obama's agenda? Are government officials planning to replicate the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, using the guillotine to silence their domestic enemies?

No. The charges, of course, are not true.

However, the accusations are out there, a series of fantastic claims fed by paranoia about the government. They're spread and sometimes cross-pollinated via the Internet. They feed a fringe subset of the anger at the government percolating through the country, one that ignites passion, but also helps Obama's allies to discount broader anger at the president's agenda.

In one, retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson says the government has prepared 1,000 camps for its own citizens. He also says the government has stored 30,000 guillotines to murder its critics, and has stashed 500,000 caskets in Georgia and Montana for the remains.

Why guillotines? "Because," he wrote in a report obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, "beheading is the most efficient means of harvesting body parts."

In a second warning, the Web site Worldnetdaily.com says that the government is considering Nazi-like concentration camps for dissidents.

Jerome Corsi, the author of "The Obama Nation," an anti-Obama book, says that a proposal in Congress "appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany."

Another Web site, Americanfreepress.net, says the proposal "would create a Guantanamo-style setting after martial law is declared."

There's no evidence of such a plan.

In truth, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., has proposed a bill that would order the Homeland Security Department to prepare national emergency centers — to provide temporary housing and medical facilities in national emergencies such as hurricanes. The bill also would allow the centers to be used to train first responders, and for "other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security."

In another ominous warning, a group called the Oathkeepers boasts that it wouldn't cooperate if the government orders dissidents locked up.

"We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext," the group says in its list of top principles.

Oathkeepers is built around the idea that its members — active and retired military, police and firefighters — all have taken an oath to defend the Constitution, not the federal government.

Whether inspired by the group or not, the message of loyalty to the Constitution has been heard in many of the angry protests in town hall meetings this summer against a proposed health care overhaul — often side by side with the suggestion that the health care proposal is unconstitutional.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., also is worried about the federal government and children, saying a bill expanding the AmeriCorps volunteer service could lead to mandatory camps for young people.

"There is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service," Bachmann told a Minnesota radio station.

"And the real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

[Pottapaug1938]

If Rep. Bachmann told me that the weather was going to be sunny today, I'd grab my raincoat.

[Unidyne]

Okay, lets's take a look at two of these folks:

Ted Gunderson first came to attention during the McMartin Preschool child molestation case when he made claims that the children were the victims of Satanic ritual child abuse. (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelrep ... sp?pid=361). He also links "high ranking government officials" and/or the Illuminati as being part of this "Satanic network", even though he's yet to provide any evidence backing his claims.

Jerome Corsi is the author of several "hit" books including "Unfit For Command" (which trashed John Kerry) and "Obama Nation" (same for Barack Obama), He's also been kicked out of Kenya while "gathering evidence" that Obama was born there. He's also co-written a gushing book on the Minutemen movement (those gun-toting yahoos who stalk the US/Mexico border) with Jim Gilchrist (with a forward by Tom Tancredo) (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelrep ... sp?aid=730). He also co-wrote "Black Gold Stranglehold", which claims that crude oil is "abiotic" (that is, created by the Earth in a continuous manner and not a fossil fuel) (http://peake.blogspot.com/2005/08/saint ... -real.html) so, to him at least, all this talk of "peak oil" is both a hoax and a conspiracy.

He's also been quoted as making anti-Muslim and anti-Catholic statements on-line, has been playing "buddy-buddy" with the racist right (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/1 ... 19034.html) and has been accused of plagiarism by fellow right-wing-nut Debbie Schlussel (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelrep ... p?pid=1518).

"American Free Press" is a far right rag which has roots from "The Spotlight", the organ of Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby. They're also a breeding ground for 9-11 "truthers".

In short, the Obama presidency is like a Christmas present for all these political screwballs. They don't have to prove anything to the "true believers", since the more outrageous it sounds, the more believable it seems.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Every new administration is a gift to the business of being a self promoter.

It used to be how many of your-self published screeds you sold. Now it's how many visits your blog or site gets and how many eyeballs have stumbled on to your YouTube video.

[Thule]

In one, retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson says the government has prepared 1,000 camps for its own citizens. He also says the government has stored 30,000 guillotines to murder its critics, and has stashed 500,000 caskets in Georgia and Montana for the remains.

Tsk tsk. 30,000 guillotines and only 500,000 caskets. That works out to less than 17 people per guillotine. Such a waste...

[BBFlatt]

In one, retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson says the government has prepared 1,000 camps for its own citizens. He also says the government has stored 30,000 guillotines to murder its critics, and has stashed 500,000 caskets in Georgia and Montana for the remains.

Tsk tsk. 30,000 guillotines and only 500,000 caskets. That works out to less than 17 people per guillotine. Such a waste...

Cheap disposables, made in China no doubt. They get dull after only about a dozen uses and they're not worth sharpening. Pity customers 13 through 17.

[Brandybuck]

That works out to less than 17 people per guillotine. Such a waste...

Even if you allow a full half hour for a reading of the charges and a playing of the Gitmo theme song ("You Got no Rights 'Cuz This is Cuba, Doo Dah") for each customer, and a half hour for lunch, that still only works out to one working day per guillotine.