Declaring martial law in America would be redundant because there's already more than enough in place to curb dissent. For instance, whenever I explain how we the people need to tax the rich and cut the military budget so that revenue can be freed up for job creation (a Greenpeace version of FDR's New Deal is long overdue), I hear the following imbecilic excuses ...
1) The irrational fear of Stalinism: "If you redistribute the wealth, Stalin will crawl out of the ground like a zombie from a George Romero movie and conquer us all!"
The Cold War was based on a false choice: Free expression or free social services? It's as inane as asking do you want to go blind or deaf? Obviously, anyone in their right mind wants to see and hear. Likewise, all one has to do is visit Amsterdam to see firsthand it IS in fact possible to have BOTH free speech AND free, universal health care SIMULTANEOUSLY. Duh ..!
... and to think of all the time/money/energy WASTED by Cold Warriors ...
2) Moral relativism: "If being a war profiteer is, like, your thing, who are we to judge, man ..?"
Whether the Dallas Cowboys are superior to the San Francisco 49ers is a difference of opinion. Whether Brad Pitt is cuter than Johnny Depp is a difference of opinion. Whether Kirk is a better captain than Picard is a difference of opinion. Why? Because these things can't ever be proven -- you'll spend the rest of eternity trying to settle such arguments.
However, if I point out that over 17 billion is annually spent on the maintenance of America's 10,000 nuclear weapons of mass destruction, that's a fact. If I point to Hiroshima and Nagasaki while saying, "nukes should NOT be used (again)," that can't be denied. And if I point at a MC Hammer mansion owned by someone profiting from these WMDs -- then point at all the people suffering from homelessness -- and cry out, "NO MANSIONS, NO HOMELESS!" Well, you get the idea.
Unfortunately, the New Age crowd has a bigger audience than I do because a) it's quicker, easier and more seductive to ESCAPE via chanting, meditation, etc. than it is to hold the powerful accountable, and b) the rich are let off the hook whenever some damn hippie tells the poor to "look within" ...
God in Heaven, how I hate hippies.
3) Human nature: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions -- today, you'll tax the rich to create jobs, tomorrow, you'll become as bad as they are."
Murphy's Law -- the notion that if anything can go wrong, it will -- is cynicism, NOT science. There's no gland in the brain and no organ in the physiology labled "Human nature." What's next? We can't share the wealth because the boogeyman is under your bed? Unicorns, anyone?
Check out Riane Eisler sometime. Her bestseller, The Chalice and the Blade (now in 22 languages), is hailed as the most important anthropology book since Darwin's Origin of Species -- and she once said in an interview: "We are inherently violent, we are inherently caring, but what does that mean? That we have the genetic capacity for both of these behaviors."
Since we're capable of both, let's reward the caring and condemn the violent. I for one am against the death penalty and would only use non-lethal weapons in battle (superhero stories DO come in handy), so if I was the first black president (Obama doesn't count), I wouldn't commit genocide removing the wealthy from those MTV Cribs mansions -- I'd just knock 'em out. They'd wake up in a suburban three bedroom/two bath while their former mansion would become (depending on community necessity) a museum, college, hospital, day care center, retirement facility ...
4) Bootstraps: "Why bother asking anyone for anything when all you have to do is work hard enough ..?"
Horatio Alger was a child molester; the man who coined the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was an admitted pedophile, so don't ever tell a black man to risk getting hit by a car a la Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness just to get a job. CREATE JOBS, preferably eco-friendly ones.
Professor Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States said it best, "While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of 'rags to riches' were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control."
So there you have it. As the world gets smaller and the rich/powerful are backed further into a corner, I'm sure even more excuses will be made, but rest assured, I'll be there to debunk those as well. Investment is inevitable.
SOURCES:
http://www.jonathanblank.com/SDD/
http://www.truemajority.org/bensbbs/
http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_13.html?page=15&part=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr.
... THERE'S A STALKER ALERT IN EFFECT ...
http://www.saablofton.org/announcement.html
... I REPEAT, THERE'S A STALKER ALERT IN EFFECT ...