Hola! almost forgot DD, I've got to know what books by Ronald Reagan,Ford, the Bush's? ANd you know we may agree on more than you think buddy,Yea "E Plurbis Unim" and giving people an opportunity to work,learn, and advance is what it's all about que no? I know there's no feeling in the world like the pride one feels when working your ass off for your family and knowing that it was a job well done! Now could be the time when we as a nation can as the old saying goes "turn lemons into lemonade"
Con Ganas Ranas

Fulano my friend,

I'm more than a little confused. What has kept opportunity away from people to work up until this disaster? And what has kept them, up til now, from learning how to work? Has there been some law passed, or perhaps a Supreme Court decision, outlawing people from going to school, or knocking on doors searching for work since I was employed?

And is Halliburton not hiring?

But it does appear to me, that you agree with the same old addage I believe, that the best social program ever invented is a job.

Fulano: You can get almost any book written by those men, and there will be something in there about work and welfare. Reagan called it workfare. When he was the Gov. of California he had a program like that. He wanted to do it when he got to Washington, and people like Jesse Jackson hit the ceiling over it, saying how degrading it was to make people work for a welfare check. You can also go through old newpaper and magazines at your library. Another possiblity is send an E mail directly to "Booklady" and perhaps she can give you the titles of books off the top of her head that will have the passages that you are looking for. Another possible source will be Nixon and Reagan's libraries. I don't know how far you are from either of them. You are not going to have to look hard to find where they have talked about the subject or written on it.

You are 100% correct about the emotional pick-up, and feeling of accomplishment that comes from a job well done. There is nothing that will make people feel better about themselves than the feeling of accomplishment that an earned paycheck brings with it.

Hang in there Fulano, some of the things you have written today could have been written by the late Barry Goldwater.

Armed Mexican Troops Invade US
Eyewitnesses: Under cover of aid, combat ready soldiers roll into Texas

Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson | September 8 2005

COMMENT:
This is absolutely a conditioning exercise to get the American people to accept the presence of foreign troops on American soil. The Globalists who are hell-bent on destroying this country are exploiting the horrible tragedy on the Gulf Coast to finally do what they've wanted to do for years: crush American soverignty. For years Alex Jones has been investigating the joint exercises held by US and foreign troops and has witnessed these forces training and preparing for this moment when they would be able to invade by invitation.


Two separate credible sources known to Alex Jones have reported that armed combat ready Mexican troops have entered Texas.

The Associated Press reported today that unarmed Mexican troops were being escorted by the US army to help relief efforts for hurricane Katrina.

However, the report was only specific to one convoy. The convoys reported to Alex Jones are said to be fully armed with Heckler & Koch German assault rifles.

The first sighting occurred at 12:30 on Highway 183 traveling towards Austin. The eyewitness described at least ten vehicles, four jeeps (other witnesses described them as Humvees) and six combat trucks brimming with armed Mexican troops wearing body armor, helmets and rifles. The troops riding in the jeeps were wearing holstered hand guns.

The vehicles were not being escorted by the US army or any other government vehicles and the vehicles were festooned with insignia reading 'Mexico MP's' and the Mexican flag.
RELATED:
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The Nazification of America--Step Three

Mexican military enters Texas for first time since 1846

Pact would allow U.S. troops into Canada during emergency

Exclusive Photos from Operation Urban Warrior

More Exclusive Photos from Operation Urban Warrior

Mexican Troops Aid Katrina Efforts





The second sighting of a similar nature occurred north of Austin on I35 near Georgetown Texas.

Prison Planet contacted Congressman Ron Paul's office whose district is in Texas and the Congressman's response was, "any Mexican troops here period is illegal and unconstitutional.

Another source known to Alex Jones called the Austin Police Department and they said that they knew about the armed troops. The police asked if the troops had threatened the caller. The caller said they threaten the sovereignty of the country and the police laughed and hung up.

DPS Spokeswoman Lisa Block was the only person to answer any questions on the issue and she said that the main convoy of 45 vehicles, that was escorted by the Us Army and Texas state police, arrived in San Antonio at around 4:30pm on Thursday at the San Antonio Air Force Base formerly known as Old Kelly, now known as Kelly USA.

Alex Jones stated that there were multiple convoys scheduled to enter Texas today. Block stated that she had no knowledge of that. Regardless of how many Mexican troops are here or whether they are indeed armed as witnesses have stated, there's absolutely no need for them. Aid is literally cramming warehouses in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. The problem is that FEMA will not deliver it to the estimated 10,000 victims of Katrina, who have refused to leave New Orleans. FEMA already stated three days ago that these people would not receive any food or water. Many of these residents are middle class homeowners who would not have their families broken up in the first days of the rescue as the authorities demanded or more often they refused to leave their beloved pets behind. A small percentage are opportunistic criminals who want to continue looting.

Subsequently Prison Planet contacted the Larado border patrol station and asked the officer who answered the phone what his name was. He would only say that it was 'Robbie'. We asked if the Mexican troops that entered the US today were armed and he said "of course they are, what's the big deal." We then asked for his superior and were transferred to deputy chief Bill Jenkins and asked him if any of the convoys crossing into the US from Nuervo Larado were armed and he, in an agitated tone, said, "negative, negative, negative."

The bottom line is that we need answers and we need them now. We are in the process of contacting the Mexican consulate in Austin, FEMA and the FBI. Everyone else should contact them until we get some answers.

The amount of energy being expended in shepherding and handling the Mexican troops is greater than any aid they can render. We don't need their help.

The very notion that these troops are entering Texas to provide aid directly contradicts the fact that Alex Jones personally visited Austin Convention Center and saw piles of food and clothes lined up for refugees.

In other areas, aid is desperately required because FEMA has been deliberately sabotaging relief efforts. The LA Times reported today that "scores of police and volunteer firefighters from around the nation, as well as trucks loaded with donated water, were even now being prevented from entering New Orleans while troops conduct house-to-house searches."

FEMA has also been cutting communication lines. Sheriffs in several counties of New Orleans have set up armed guard patrols to prevent FEMA from further actions of sabotage.

FEMA has therefore intentionally created the climate for the justification of foreign troops entering the US.

Regarding the convoys, the Associated Press article stated,

"Army press office employee Francisco Aguilar said he did not have details of the convoy's precise location. It originally was scheduled to arrive in Houston to provide food for evacuees, but apparently had been rerouted to Dallas."

If the army does not know the location of the convoys or why they are heading for Dallas, beside the fact that they are armed, isn't that an issue of national security?

The fact that the Mexican soldiers are armed reminds us of a July 2004 incident where Mexican soldiers interrupted the funeral in Mexico of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq (pictured).

Mexican soldiers confronted US marines and blocked their path because the Marines were carrying two replica ceremonial rifles.


The Mexicans won't allow Marines to carry toy guns in their country and yet have the audacity to cruise through Texas armed to the teeth with assault weapons and nothing is done.

Mexican troops have also been caught on numerous occasions firing on US border patrol agents and civilians.

This is part of a steady conditioning process to make Americans accept foreign troops. Alex Jones has attended numerous urban warfare drills where US Marines are made to train with foreign troops.

Scottish residents complained in September 2003 after armed Ukrainian soldiers under NATO set up checkpoints and pulled families out of their cars during an exercise.

Security agreements have been signed allowing foreign troops to enter the US and vice versa. This is part of the incremental push to use foreign troops on US soil to order US citizens around in times of emergency.

The US has today asked NATO to provide a bigger response in the relief effort, opening the doorway for many more foreign troops to enter the US.

Today's Associated Press article is wrong in stating that this is the first time Mexican troops have entered the US since 1846. Alex Jones has personally attended urban warfare training drills across the country where Mexican troops have been present.


This is the only photo currently being carried by AP/Reuters showing the Mexican convoys. This is a convoy near Laredo, heading to San Antonio. it is important to make the distinction that some conveys such as this one are not armed but some, according to our eyewtinesses, are armed with assault rifles.

Why do the Mexican troops need guns? What message does that send?


If the troops are only going to Dallas and San Antonio, and not New Orleans, then why do they need to be armed?

Our sources were alarmed and frightened to witness the movement of armed Mexican soldiers in America with one stating, "Alex, we are in trouble."

Despite this, Reuters is currently running an article which claims that people are honking car horns, cheering and waving as the convoy makes its way along the border.

The convoys entered via the border city of Nuevo Laredo last night, an area that has seen violent running battles between Mexican police and the brutal los Zetas gang that has killed officers and kidnapped US citizens. The town of Nuevo Laredo is basically under a state of siege, causing the US to close their consulate in the city on August 8th, after bazookas, grenades and machine guns bombarded nearby buildings. Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona declared a state of emergency and the death toll just in the last few months has reached 600 but the mainstream media is largely ignoring the story.

We are asking people to call the state police to interdict and determine if these forces are indeed armed and if their guns have ammunition or if their weapons are ceremonial (which is doubtful).

We have already tried calling the contact number in the AP story, the Governor's office, the Pentagon and Northcom with absolutely no response. The AP article admits that the army does not know where the convoys are. It is important that we pinpoint the exact locations of these convoys and demand immediate disarmament of the Mexican soldiers.

Please spread this information far and wide. To all people in Texas or Louisiana, please try and get photos of the Mexican troops and e mail them to prisonplanetweb@hotmail.com.

Mexican Troops On US Soil

Associated Press | September 8 2005
By Olga R. Rodriguez

Mexican army convoys and a navy ship laden with food, supplies and specialists traveled to the United States Wednesday to help in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. It was a highly symbolic journey marking the first time Mexico's military has aided its northern neighbor.

A convoy of 45 vehicles and 196 soldiers arrived at the border city of Nuevo Laredo Wednesday night. It was to cross into U.S. territory early today, Gen. Francisco Ortiz Valadez told reporters as his men refueled at a local gas station.

He said the troops would help evacuee operations in San Antonio.

"Our mission is to give aid to the civilian population affected by the disaster," Ortiz said.

Federal police briefly blocked the highway in both directions as the convoy arrived at the gasoline station.

Radio talk shows and newspapers in Mexico buzzed with excitement over news that this country, long on the receiving end of U.S. disaster relief, was sending a hurricane aid convoy north.

The convoy represents the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846, when Mexican troops briefly marched into Texas, which had separated from Mexico and joined the United States.

The effort includes military specialists, doctors, nurses and engineers carrying water treatment plants, mobile kitchens, food and blankets.

"This is just an act of solidarity between two peoples who are brothers," said Ruben Aguilar, a spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Army press office employee Francisco Aguilar said he did not have details of the convoy's precise location. It originally was scheduled to arrive in Houston to provide food for evacuees, but apparently had been rerouted to Dallas.

All of the convoy's partici pants will be unarmed. In July 2004, Mexican troops interrupted the funeral of a Mexican- born Marine killed in Iraq. They objected to the nonworking, ceremonial rifles carried by two Marines who came from the United States for the ceremony.

Mexico later apologized but said it has an obligation to enforce a ban on foreign troops carrying weapons in its territory.

The convoy has "a very high symbolic content," said Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University. "This is a very sensitive subject, for historic and political reasons."

The relief mission was controversial for some Mexican lawmakers, who said the president should have sought Senate approval before sending troops abroad. But the Fox administration said no such approval was needed for aid missions. But it nevertheless later asked permission and the Senate approved it.

The government was planning to send a second, 12-vehicle aid convoy to the United States sometime this week and has sent a Mexican navy ship equipped with rescue vehicles and helicopters to the Mississippi coast.

Bush surrounds Louisiana with armed Mexican troops

Total Information Analysis | September 9 2005

As the White House unsuccessfully insists on seizing control of the Louisiana National Guard to institute full-blown martial law in New Orleans, it has brought in foreign troops moving on the Western and Eastern borders of the state. RELATED:
Armed Mexican Troops on US Soil





Washington Post/AP Thursday, September 8, 2005; 4:31 PM is peddling the government line that the soldiers are unarmed, but does note that the Mexican Navy has brought hardware to the Mississippi Gulf Coast:
LAREDO, Texas -- A Mexican army convoy of nearly 200 people crossed the border into the United States on Thursday to bring aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina, becoming the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846.

Mexico's first disaster aid mission to the United States was greeted at the border by dignitaries from both countries.
[...]

The Mexican government already was planning another 12-vehicle aid convoy for this week. It has sent a Mexican navy ship toward the Mississippi coast with rescue vehicles and helicopters.

But Alex Jones is reporting from several sources the troops in Texas are armed! From PrisonPlanet.com :

Two separate credible sources known to Alex Jones have reported that armed combat ready Mexican troops have entered Texas.

The Associated Press reported today that unarmed Mexican troops were being escorted by the US army to help relief efforts for hurricane Katrina.

However, the report was only specific to one convoy. The convoys reported to Alex Jones are said to be fully armed with Heckler & Koch German assault rifles.

The first sighting occurred at 12:30 on Highway 183 traveling towards Austin. The eyewitness described at least ten vehicles, four jeeps (other witnesses described them as Humvees) and six combat trucks brimming with armed Mexican troops wearing body armor, helmets and rifles. The troops riding in the jeeps were wearing holstered hand guns.

The vehicles were not being escorted by the US army or any other government vehicles and the vehicles were festooned with insignia reading 'Mexico MP's' and the Mexican flag.

The second sighting of a similar nature occurred north of Austin on I35 near Georgetown Texas.

[...]
The following Louisiana authorities must be alerted about the threat of armed foreign troops brought into the country by the Bush Administration.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco: 1-866.310.7617, (225) 342-0991, (225) 342-7015 or (225) 925-1938.

Louisiana State Police: (225) 925-4755, (225) 925-6118,

Louisiana National Guard: 225-925-7524.

Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness: 225-925-7500

Gazpacho, when I talk about opportunities I'm speaking of the present situation when many are out of a job due to this disaster and also some who are unskilled in construction,or whatever the circumstance is. If we as a nation can provide a vehicle for people to prosper and get off the unemployment or welfare roles, or to learn a skill and become proud taxpayers so much the better. We need some kind of a plan to get our heads above water. no pun intended!

Are Your Eyes Open YET???

The Disaster Agency. (FEMA)





from The 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time by Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen.

The plague of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters that beset America during the late 1980s seemed to mystify the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). While victims pleaded for attention, the bureaucracy charged with handling disaster relief fumbled and stalled. Alas, if only catastrophe had taken a more familiar form - say, nuclear war, border-storming "aliens", or rampaging radicals - FEMA would have known precisely what to do: Slam subversives into national detention centers, declare martial law, suspend the U.S. Constitution, and govern from underground bunkers until the apocalypse is contained and mopped up.

Most Americans had never even heard of this obscure government agency before syndicated columnist Jack Anderson reported in October 1984 that FEMA had prepared bizarre "standby legislation" that would, in the event of a national crisis, "suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise." In any self-respecting banana republic, such a document might be called a blueprint for a coup d'état. FEMA called it "national security" planning.

Cold War delirium only partly explains FEMA's preoccupation with junta-minded plotting during the Reagan era. To understand how a disaster relief agency came to think of itself as a "junior CIA or FBI," as one critic put it, it's helpful to consider the mind-set that launched the Reagan Revolution. In 1981, Ronald Reagan and his arch-conservative troops marched into Washington determined to extinguish a conflagration that had, in fact, long since burned itself out. In the eyes of the president's aging posse, however, the flaming hippies, militant minorities, and draft-dodging radicals of the sixties and early seventies continued to pose a clear and present danger.

Thus was born FEMA. Or, more accurately, thus was it born again. Jimmy Carter had established the agency as a catchall for natural-disaster relief and civil defense planning. But under Reagan, FEMA immediately went off the deep end, eyeing peaceful demonstrators as potential bomb-throwing terrorists.

To head the agency, Reagan and presidential counsel Edwin Meese III (later U.S. attorney general) tapped their old friend "General" Louis O. Giuffrida, a stealth-obsessed ex-California National Guard officer who preferred to be addressed according to his former rank in that organization. Giuffrida was eminently qualified for what Reagan and Meese had in mind. Prepared for all contingencies, he had himself deputized so he could pack a sidearm at the office.

During the late sixties and early seventies, Giuffrida had served as Governor Reagan's terrorism advisor and at Reagan's request founded the California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI), a school for police and military commandos. To quote an early CSTI instruction manual: "Legitimate violence is integral to our form of government, for it is from this source that we can continue to purge our weaknesses."

Giuffrida and Meese (then Governor Reagan's chief assistant) helped develop a plan to purge California of its militant and peaceful protesters. Operation Cable Splicer, a variation of the Army Garden Plot, a "domestic counterinsurgency" scheme, spied on suspected radicals and marshaled maximum force to squash riots and legitimate demonstrations alike.

But if the early seventies were heady days for military and civil defense planners, the budding 1980s turned out to be a veritable renaissance for cold warriors. As Reagan warned complacent Americans about the Evil Empire and the communist horde (which was bivouacked just south of Texas, the Gripper claimed), the Pentagon prepared plans for World War IV - mere World War III preparations being hazardously short-sighted. Gitiffrida, meanwhile, battened the hatches at FEMA. Signs were posted warning employees that SECURITY IS EVERY BODY'S BUSINESS. A new phone system was installed to record (each number dialed, and memos were circulated reminding staffers that personal phone calls were verboten: "Calling to say you will be home late could result in a fine or separation from the job," advised one memorandum.

FEMA-sponsored conferences obsessed over the possibility of "radical environmentalists" teaming up with terrorists and doing unkind things to nuclear power plants. In fact, FEMA's R & D work made the CIA's LSD dabbling look like a 4H project. According to Donald Goldberg, who helped research Jack Anderson's column, government scientists advised FEMA on mob control techniques such as "injecting terrorists with stimtilants and tranquilizers to manipulate their actions in times of crisis, or zapping them with microwaves to alter their perceptions."

Given the dense trench-coat atmospherics, it was probably inevitable that one Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North would find a home away from home in Giuffrida's FEMA. As White House National Security Council liaison to FEMA, the Iran-Contra point man reportedly collaborated with Giuffrida in drawing up secret wartime contingency plans, possibly including the scheme to commandeer the Bill of Rights. Although North denied helping draft such a plan, Congressional Iran-Contra investigators never adequately grilled him on the matter. When Texas representative Jack Brooks asked North about his work for FEMA, Senate panel chairman Daniel Inouye gavelled Brooks to silence, insisting that the question dealt with classified matters. Such was the persuasiveness of FEMA's national security stamp.

FEMA's wartime crisis strategy was tested in a series of simulated war games conducted in conjunction with Pentagon maneuvers. In early 1984, FEMA, military, and other government officials met in portentous secrecy to plan a "readiness exercise" code-named Rex-84.

FEMA coordinated Rex-84 with the military's Night Train 84 operations, which deployed thousands of troops in Honduras near Contra supply bases in April 1984. The FEMA portion of the simulation involved an international crisis, presumably a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, which supposedly would set off "uncontrolled population movements" (as one declassified FEMA memo described it), with hordes of "refugees" swarming over the Mexican border into the United States.

According to an August 1985 article in Penthouse magazine co-authored by Goldberg, during the exercise FEMA would round up some 400,000 fictional "aliens" in a six-hour period and detain them (or, rather, simulate rounding up and detaining them) in military camps throughout the United States. FEMA apparently justified the concentration camps by presuming that terrorist moles would be peppered among the refugees.

But as Goldberg noted, the Mexican border's daunting terrain made an influx of gate crashers on the order of hundreds of thousands highly unlikely. In fact, more than one critic has suggested that Rex-84 was really a drill to practice rounding up crowds of American citizens. It would have been a game plan not unlike Cable Splicer or Garden Plot, designed to quash public protests in the event of a controversial government deed - an invasion of Central America, for example.

Indeed, Giuffrida had once considered tossing Americans into concentration camps. In a 1970 paper written as an army student, Giuffrida devised a hypothetical plan for incarcerating black radicals, describing how to build and run detention camps.

That Rex-84 dealt with more than merely apprehending illegal immigrants is certain. A heavily censored FEMA memo obtained by the Miami Herald described the Alpha Two phase the exercise, as a test of "emergency legislation, assumption emergency powers... etc." In other words: martial law.

The joint FEMA-military martial law plan was more than a simulation. Shortly before the Rex-84 drill, the Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff had prepared an internal document itemizing the military's purported authority to proclaim martial law in times of crisis, take over local policing, and even run the courts. It was a dubious claim at best. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the military from operating in the United States, a prohibition backed by Supreme Court precedent.

But Giuffrida was already on record as a martial law booster. In a 1972 CSTI course manual on civil disorder, Giuffrida described martial law as "the legal means available to control people during a civil disorder," including "the replacement of All civil government by the military."

The "standby" emergency legislation that columnist Anderson exposed prescribed nothing less than an American police state. Called the Defense Resources Act, the draft plan would presumably gather dust on the shelf until a time of crisis, when it would be presented to a preoccupied Congress for speedy approval. In fact, the benevolently titled legislation granted the president near-dictatorial powers, including the authority to censor communications, ban antigovernment strikes, nationalise industry, seize private property for "the national defense," and authorize loyalty oaths to the state.

To augment the Defense Resources Act, FEMA prepared a draft presidential executive order to be invoked by the commander in chief during an "emergency". The order would put FEMA in charge of all government agencies. According to the Miami Herald, the executive order activated the aforementioned legislation, thereby removing Congress and constitutional democracy from the equation entirely.

Alas, FEMA's ambitious plans were truncated shortly after the Rex-84 games, when Attorney General William French Smith complained about the agency's attempted power grab. In a letter addressed to North's boss (and fellow Iran-Contra player), Robert McFarlane, Smith warned that FEMA was trying to anoint itself "emergency czar." And, as Smith demurred, FEMA's generous definition of crisis encompassed "'routine' domestic law emergencies." Smith's objections apparently killed the draft executive order.

Though the full scope of the Rex-84 games remains obscure, the Ollie North connection is particularly interesting, given that North was simultaneously working with the Pentagon and the CIA on plans for combat forces in Central America. Was FEMA plugged into the Iran-Contra scandal coordinated by North? Because Congress chose not to pursue that avenue of Contragate, we don't know for certain. However, allegations have been made. Daniel Sheehan, crusading (perhaps recklessly so) attorney with the Christic Institute law firm, suspected that Rex-84 served as cover for illegal arms shipments to the Nicaraguan Contras. Citing unnamed sources (including one described as a member of FEMA's legal division), Sheehan claimed that FEMA distributed "hundreds of tons of small arms and ammunition" to civilian militiamen in "state defense forces" in the United States.

From the early days of the Reagan administration, FEMA had prodded state legislatures to form state defense forces, which would act as paramilitary police in the event of a national crisis. Militia in several states were recruited by placing ads in Soldier of Fortune-style magazines. In several instances state defense forces subsequently had to be purged of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other unsavory characters.

According to Sheehan, FEMA's plan was to distribute the guns and ammo to state defense forces as part of the Rex-84 war games. The militiamen would return only half of the artillery and would smuggle the remainder to the Contras, thereby circumventing the congressional ban on lethal aid to the Nicaraguan guerrillas.

Though the scheme certainly sounds like a "neat idea" worthy of the North brain trust, it's hard to imagine how even FEMA could justify parcelling out guns and ammo for the sake of a war simulation. Because Sheehan never got a chance to argue his case in court (a judge threw out the Christics' sweeping lawsuit, calling it "frivolous"), his theory has to be filed under the category of "interesting speculation."

Other speculation about FEMA having its fingers in the IranContra cookie jar revolves around a tip to Senate investigators in 1983 that C-130 and C-141 cargo planes were bound for Texas. Because the planes were rigged with troop seats, Senate staffers suspected that they were secretly ferrying troops to Central America. FEMA insisted the flights were part of its supersecret "continuity of government" (COG) program, and utterly refused to discuss the matter further.

FEMA made COG another of its obsessions. Under COG, FEMA has the last word in national eschatology. While mundane natural disaster plans gathered dust during the 1980s, FEMA beefed up its rather fanciful strategies for surviving a nuclear war, with emphasis on survival of the federal government. And the rest of us? Well, as Reagan's deputy undersecretary of defense put it: "Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors, and then throw three feet of dirt on top .... If there are enough shovels to go around, everyone is going to make it."

Under the aegis of FEMA, top government brass have the benefit of rather more lavish excavations, with the crown jewel being a top-secret underground fortress built during the early 1950s (and predating the elaborate James Bond movie sets) at a cost of more than $1 billion. The Facility, as it is known, is a sort of nuclear winter White House situated beneath the solid granite of Mount Weather in Bluemont, Virginia, forty-five miles west of Washington. It has been described as an "underground city", complete with roads and a battery-powered subway. It boasts office buildings and hospitals, private apartments and dormitories, and a power plant and artificial lake illuminated by fluorescent light. Rounding out the science fiction furnishings are a color video phone system and one of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

In the event of a major nuclear or other catastrophe, surviving feds would run the country from The Facility as well as from FEMA's underground command center in Olney, Maryland, and up to fifty regional bunkers salted throughout the nation. There's even an underground Pentagon more than six hundred feet below solid granite just north of Camp David.

Unfortunately, during a national catastrophe the feds administering the former United States might not be familiar names to you. FEMA's COG scheme involves about three thousand unelected, unaccountable people recruited and trained by FEMA "to serve in executive positions in the federal government in time of national security emergency."

FEMA under Giuffrida never had a chance to retreat to its mole-man cities, govern by remote control, or even demonstrate the uses of legitimate violence." Giuffrida resigned in 1985, reportedly under pressure from Pentagon and FBI officials who saw in the ambitious "general" a more imminent emergency: their endangered fiefdoms.

MAJOR SOURCES:

Chardy, Alfonso. "North Helped Revise Wartime Plans." Miami Herald, 9 July 1987.

Emerson, Steven. "America's Doomsday Project," U.S. News &World Report, 7 August 1989.

Goldberg, Donald, and Indy Badhwar. Penthouse, August 1985.

Peck, Keenen. "The Take-Charge Gang." The Progressive, May 1985. Poundstone, William. Bigger Secrets. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986.

Sheehan, Daniel P. Affidavit of Daniel P. Sheehan. 12 December 1986.

What was the question again?

Hells Bells Ninas,

You made me soil me pants last night when I read about the invasion of the Mexican army. I couldn't even sleep, worried about the federales kicking down my front door this morning.

I suspected for a long time that many members of this board were delusional, but this has to take the cake.