"The Hunger Games" depicts a future North America now known as Panem (Latin for bread) run by a despotic, un-elected President Snow a character akin to Pol Pot, former leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Rather than the 50 states we're all familiar with; the country has been divided into 13 districts and a Capitol, from where the government controls everything: where you live to how much food and clothing you'll be allotted. Seventy five years in the story's past, the districts had rebelled resulting in the total annihilation of District 13 and occupation of the remaining 12 Districts by government forces known as "Peacekeepers". When the rebellion is crushed, the Capitol institutes what becomes known as "The Hunger Games" where 'tributes' two boys and two girls from each district aged 12 -17, are selected by lottery to compete in a nationally televised death match, ending with one survivor known as the 'Champion'.
About now you're wondering where I'm going with this analogy of fiction begetting reality. In our country we have a law referred to as the "Posse Comitatus Act". This act was the result of Congressional compromise which led to the swearing in of President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, though he neither won the popular vote or the requisite number of representatives in the electoral college. To pull off this compromise Republican leaders in the Southern States demanded and received the above titled act as compensation for their acquiescence. In essence the act says that under no circumstances are federal troops to be deployed as a occupying force on our shores.
Why did the Southern States want this bill so badly? Because following the Civil War's end in 1865, our nation entered into a period known as Reconstruction.
Part of this so called 'Reconstruction' was the long term stationing of federal troops(Peacekeepers?) as a occupying force that the rebellious Southern States had chafed under for 10 years following wars end. Added to the bill in 1956 by Congressional act was the Air Force, with the Navy and Marine Corps following suit by D.o.D. directive, not Congressional legislation. So theoretically D.o.D. could without Congressional approval reverse this voluntary restriction of force application. Also not included under this law are the National Guard or the Coast Guard, as neither are under direct control of the Department of Defense. Coast Guard is now under direction of the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Guards are directed by governors in their respective states.
So why the civics and history lesson?
In our nations last defense spending bill the Posse Comitatus Act was suspended.
With the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan our Air Force and CIA have to reposition their vast fleet of sophisticated unmanned drone aircraft. Guess where? Here. The Air Force now wants the Federal Aviation Administration to rubber stamp their request to fly drones in civilian American airspace. Why?
In the novels, the Capitol and District 13 use an insidious weapon referred to as "hovercraft", deadly silent predators able to surveil, then swoop in on the un-suspecting from above, either obliterating or abducting their human prey in the paralyzing grasp of a mechanical claw.
As yet our drones, at least that I'm aware of, do not have the "abduction" capability so vividly rendered by Ms. Collins in "The Hunger Games", but they've clearly proven to be more than capable with regard to the locating and liquidation of the unknowing.
Our question then becomes:
"Why is our Capitol in Washington D.C. setting the table, so to speak, for the possible surveillance and occupation of American cities and states by federal military forces?"
If we are shackled to a government which is thoroughly controlled by two firmly entrenched parties of thieves then how do we as a citizenry respond?
If we are shackled to a government which is thoroughly controlled by two firmly entrenched parties of thieves then how do we as a citizenry respond?
American Reality Party
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