Posse Comitatus

The Posse Comitatus Act is alaw that does not allow the US military to act like police force in dealings with civilians. It is, in my opinion a very good thing. Enforcing laws is a very complicated specialized task and even though I suppose one might view a cop armed with a gun, dressed in a uniform, as only oen small step removed from a soldier, the two tasks entrusted to the two government employees are very different. Which makes this story I read on the Daily Kos rather interesting. It's by an author posting as gjohnsit and is available on their website in it's full length version. I just excerpted a couple of paragraphs for some food for thought:

If you want a glimpse of the near future of America, look no further than Samson, Alabama.Last March, Michael McLendon, a disgruntled worker from Pilgrim's Pride, a chicken processing company, went on a killing rampage that left 11 people dead. While a horrible tragedy in itself, the event was marked by something more unusual - federal Army troops from nearby Fort Rucker were brought into Samson and other surrounding areas to patrol the streets. This fact was largely ignored by the major media.

The reason why the troops were manning traffic stops in the small Alabama town, in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, was because the local sheriff asked for support from the military. The reason he couldn't handle the situation? Budget cuts in police enforcement.

What has this got to do with Michael McLendon and Pilgrim's Pride? In 2006, the giant chicken processor teamed up with Wall Street and borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to acquire a rival company. To pay for the buyout, and the executive bonuses that came with it, it cut the wages of its workers. Soon after it found it couldn't pay for the debt and declared bankruptcy. This led to massive layoffs and devastation of the tax base of the community.

So who put together the deal that bankrupted Pilgrim's Pride? Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. The Merrill banker who made the deal was recently hired by JP Morgan Chase. JP Morgan was behind the financial derivatives that has bankrupted Jefferson County, Alabama over a sewer project.

Because of the financial disaster regarding the sewer project, sewer charges were raised to more than double the national average. Poor, working residents are being forced to chose between water and heat. Cuts in the sheriff's office are so severe that plans are being made to call in the National Guard for any breakout in civil order.

If this sounds suspiciously like the scenario of a 3rd world nation in Latin America, it only means that you are paying attention.

"For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."
— George Orwell