PHILOSOPHY, PREPS, AND MARTIAL LAW

Yikes! Another sub-freezing day! I don't think it is supposed to get above 32. But what can you expect for the first week of January? What's that you say? It's not January? It's December! Egad. It's gonna be a cold Winter. It makes me think of the parable of the ten virgins mentioned in the new Testament. You know the story I'm sure. The ten virgins were awaiting the coming of the bride groom. He was coming a bit late and though they all carried lamps, five had brought extra oil and five had not. The lamps were burning low and the five wise virgins who had brought extra oil merely filled their lamps and waited but the five foolish virgins couldn't get any oil from the five wise virgins so they had to go find an oil vendor and buy some more. While they were gone to buy more oil the bridegroom came and went into the house with the five wise virgins and closed the door. The five foolish virgins couldn't get in so they knocked and asked for admittance. The bridegroom called to them from the other side of the door and said "I never knew you." I wonder if the people who just look out for number one are the five foolish virgins.

I just wonder what we will have to go through to get folks to drop the game of this crazy country and start looking out for each other. The truck owner has to join forces with the machinery owner who has to join forces with the land owner who has to join forces with the seed owner who has to join forces with the gardener to get a crop in and harvested and the people fed. It just has to work that way.

For those interested in current bubbles going in here in the land of the not-so-free, I got word this morning from a guy on the East Coast that a guy where he works sold all hit guns for cash. He needed CASH so he sold all his nice new guns. Here in the blogosphere we have a blogger who already predicted this kind of stuff happening. If you want to know what is going on, read the survival blogs

Here is a report from a reader who knows a thing or three. Name and location are taken out for privacy.
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Hi Michael,

Hope this Saturday evening finds you and yours doing well and staying warm. It's mid 30's my part of the South and not too bad of a day and evening.

Wanted to share a few memories I have of being in a place when Martial Law was imposed. I was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Republic of the Philippines in 1972 and 1973. I had already seen the brutality of the PC (Philippines Constabulary) who were armed troops carrying automatic weapons and grenades clipped to their cammies. They were having a pretty bad problem with people wanting to over throw the government and there was a lot of random killing going on in the out laying islands and places.

Anyway, I was working a swing shift and at about 6pm Ferdinand Marcos came on the radio and declared martial law. At that time he imposed an 11pm - 6am curfew for everyone (off base anyway) and a demand to surrender all civilian held guns. I think this was probably Wednesday or Thursday. He had barrels put out on each street corner and all the civilians were directed to drop off their rifles and pistols in those barrels before noon on Saturday. After noon on Saturday anyone caught with a rifle, pistol or shotgun would face a mandatory death sentence. That's on the spot execution. I saw a lot of guns go in to those barrels. They were not kidding and there was no chance of going to court to plead your case.

Being wild GI's and enjoying running the bars and hanging out with bar girls we attempted to sneak around the curfew a couple of times. The bars would close but we would still be inside with the lights down and music off. The PC did a bar to bar check and all of us that they caught were handcuffed and delivered back to the base (we didn't get in serious trouble but were told it would be jail time if it happened again).

So, in one swoop he suspended civil rights. He also took control of the radio and TV stations and had control over everything broadcast. He eventually, before I left at the end of 73 lightened up on the curfew but never restored the right to bear arms to the citizens. Further, he brought in armored personnel carriers with 30 and 50 cal mounted machine guns in to town and they patrolled town and also outside the base gates.

It was one scary time. I was in the process of trying to buy a WWII BAR at a really good price. Hadn't quite figured out how I was going to get it home, but when he dropped the hammer all deals were off.

The PC used HF radio voice transmissions to list their "pick up" or "arrest" list so, since we were collecting HF Morse and voice signals from Vietnam it was easy to tune them in and keep track of them. Of course this was very illegal since it's against national treaties to spy on your host nation but this was important stuff. I saw a lot of the guys I know disappear after their names popped up on the list. They were usually on a plane out of the country within an hour or two of showing up. Most of them were charged with things like not paying bar tabs or stiffing a bar girl out of her money or getting them pregnant but all that stuff carried jail sentences and the jails there were not the kind of place you would want to spend time.

Since all the bodies of the dead GI's from Vietnam came through the Philippines for processing before returning to the states there were a lot of flights out that held a lot of aluminium coffins and some really scared guys in some quick set up jump seats. They (the PC) never did figure out why they couldn't come up with the GI's when they came to the base with warrants.
Anyway, the PI is a much smaller country than ours but I can relate to the terror of having every right taken away from you. When they say "give up your guns or die" they mean it and I don't think I'd want to be one to tempt fate.

It could happen here, just the same way.

Thanks for what you do!
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We go on, doing our best to make sense in a crazy world. Prep like crazy and try like hell to stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net