--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > authfriend wrote: <snip> > >> And has anybody heard of this "martial law" provision > >> she speaks of? I certainly haven't. > > > > You mean Wolf didn't mention it? > > > > http://www.cbpp.org/7-28-06bud-stmt.htm > > > And if this house rule had been the case it would have been > part of the headlines that day. But it wasn't.
Nobody said it was the case. It was *threatened*, remember? > >> Note Sherman says the information was provided in confidence > >> so he cannot reveal the sources. > > > > No, that isn't what he said. He said conversations > > one member has with another on the House floor are > > not supposed to be made public unless the other member > > gives permission. That's just a general rule, a bit of > > protocol. > > > Oh come on now, I paraphrased him. Same thing. Not in this context. It's the difference between some very important word being given to Sherman in secret, and members flapping their gums irresponsibly on the House floor. He didn't want to embarrass whoever had been indulging in absurd hyperbole about blood in the streets and lions eating children in Los Angeles parks. He wasn't darkly warning that the administration was planning to impose martial law if the bill wasn't passed; he was complaining about members who were trying to gin up panic. BIG difference. > > And he did *not* say, contrary to Alex Jones's misquote, > > that the folks who were talking about this said they > > had been *told* there would be martial law. Rather, > > they were speculating on their own hook about the worst > > that might happen, as I went on to suggest might have > > been the case. > > > > Here's what he said they were saying: > > > > "The market would drop by 4000 points, blood would flow > > in the streets, and lions would be devouring children > > in the parks of Los Angeles. > > > > "I know that some comments like that were made. I didn't > > take them seriously. I know some would. I thought it was > > just overblown effort to create a panic in order to pass > > a bad bill." > > > Of course they're going to say things like this because they > were being pressured into rushing a bill to passage. One > which needed a good couple of weeks of debate. But which also needed to be passed much more quickly than that. Nobody's claiming people weren't hitting the panic button. The issue is whether the members were threatened by the leadership or the White House with full-scale martial law if they didn't pass the bill, as your initial claim suggested: "Wolf raises issues with the bailout and the threat of martial law if the bill didn't get passed (a totally unacceptable threat, people)" That appears not to have been the case. There was no "unacceptable threat," merely members speculating wildly about what might happen at some point in the future if there was widespread civil disorder as a result of complete economic collapse. <snip> > > I just listened to him again on the House floor, and > > in fact he was talking about what members were saying > > to one another, as I said above, not that there was > > some threat issued from on high about martial law. > > > > He was just annoyed by the panic atmosphere. Obviously > > some of the members were overdoing it. > > > And that it was "fear mongering." They were being pressured > into passing the bill. Right. But not by an administration threat to impose martial law if they didn't. > >>> Two things scared them: the Dow's plunge after > >>> they failed to pass the bill, and the fact that > >>> all of a sudden the calls they were getting from > >>> constituents were denouncing them for *not* > >>> passing the bill, because of the damage the plunge > >>> did to people's 401(K)s. > >>> > >> The stock market goes up and down like a yo-yo. > > > > Not 770 points in one day, it doesn't. It's big > > news if it goes down a couple of hundred points. > > This was a shocker. > > > Not really, its the knee jerk of the Wall Street Casino. It was a much bigger knee jerk than anybody was comfortable with. It went down > over 700 points again today. And barring a calamity it will > probably recover a bit this week. If not then the bailout > really as I claimed anyway a fiasco. It was clearly to > bailout the rich and not the public. That's a different issue altogether. There's very legitimate fear that the economy is going to collapse completely, globally, and nobody wants that to happen, obviously. <snip> > >> And do you really think they read (and understood) all > >> 451+ pages? > > > > How do you get that from what I wrote? > > > Judy, that was a question. A rhetorical question. "Do you really think..." assumes the answer is yes. <snip> > >> But this is the Bush administration. Remember all of > >> those executive orders he put into effect? I wouldn't > >> trust them with anything. > > > > I don't trust them either, but some things are just > > impossibly loony. It wouldn't make *sense* to impose > > martial law unless there were some real threat of > > civil disorder. > > > People in this country are such apathetic boobs that I don't > think they'd revolt even if their lives depended on it. But > if they thought the people were going to revolt they might > *try* to impose martial law. I suspect they know as well as you do that there's little likelihood of real civil disorder, at least not unless things deterioriate catastrophically for folks in their daily lives. We're a long way from that yet. Which just makes my point: For the administration to threaten martial law if the bill wasn't passed, when there's no threat whatsoever of civil disorder, would be impossibly loony. <snip> > > But I was right to suspect that there was no threat > > from the top to impose martial law as punishment for > > not passing the bill. Sherman never suggested such > > a thing, either on the floor or with Jones. > > > They passed the bailout so we'll never know. It would have > been interesting to see what would have happened if they > didn't pass it, doncha think? Sure. But it wouldn't have involved invoking martial law. > >> Anyway, my mistake to even engage in a conversation about > >> this when you won't watch Wolf's video to see how this was > >> discussed and apparently only hold a "virtual opinion." > > > > I haven't commented on anything Wolf said. You said > > she said something about Sherman, so I went and found > > out what Sherman said. It's up to you to decide whether > > she represented it correctly. > > That's a cop out. Uh, no, it's not. I never challenged her; I challenged *you*. For all I know, she explained it as I did, and you misinterpreted what she said. Bottom line: There was no threat by the administration to impose martial law on the country in retaliation for not passing the bill. To even entertain such a notion--whether it was you or Wolf or both--is nonsensical.
