Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana.
I doubt if Donald Trump is familiar with that quote, but he should be. The past includes a plan for the mass incarceration of dissidents approved by a man Trump claims to admire; an amiable blockhead named Ronald Reagan. I worked for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services in Sacramento when Reagan ran the show between naps.
While Trump is a blockhead, he's not an amiable blockhead. He pouts too much to be an amiable blockhead. Yet Trump and Reagan have one thing in common other than blockheadedness: the nature of their hired help. Trump has his basket of deplorables; Bannon, Miller, Spicer, Conway and company. Reagan had 138 of his basket cases indicted on federal charges.
One of Reagan's deplorables was the late Luis O. Giuffrida, Reagan's first director of Federal Emergency Management Agency and a transplant from his days as governor.
In the late 70s Giuffrida was the director of something called the California Specialized Training Institute in San Luis Obispo. CSTI is a sort of state agency grad school for middle management cops, firefighters and emergency services officials. It also became a training facility for countering domestic unrest under a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration during Nixon's presidency, including planning for the mass incarceration of rioters, known dissidents, and left wing loudmouths with enough influence to cause problems for the law 'n order adminstration.
Part of my Office of Emergency Services gig was giving a talk at CSTI every month about state and federal resources available to cities and counties during disasters; earthquakes, floods, that sort of thing.
You might find this a bit tedious, unless you're a conspiracy buff in a tinfoil hat, but if you're interested in a course of action an ill-advised President Trump may take, you might be interested in precedents from the Nixon and Reagan administrations:
"The following text comprises footnote 23 in Chapter 8 of The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall, South End Press, updated edition 2002.
In 1980, with the advent of the Reagan administration, FEMA was used as the vehicle for creation of a quasi-secret, centralized "national emergency" entity, headed by a federal "emergency czar." Appointed into the latter position was Louis O. Giuffrida, the former national guard general and counterinsurgency enthusiast who had built up the California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI) and contributed heavily to the Garden Plot and Cable Splicer plans of the late 1960s and early '70s, before going on to serve as a government consultant during the repression of [the American Indian Movement] and during the 1979 "counterterrorism conference" held in Puerto Rico, among other things.
While FEMA's charter called for planning and training activities concerning "natural disasters, nuclear war, the possibility of enemy attack on U.S. territory, and incidents involving domestic civil unrest," Giuffrida focused his agency's energy and resources entirely upon the last category.
By January 1982, this emphasis had led to the preparation of a joint FEMA-Pentagon position paper, entitled "The Civil/Military Alliance in Emergency Management," which effectively voided provisions of the 1877 Posse Comitatus Act prohibiting military intervention in domestic disturbances.
In 1985, Giuffrida quietly resigned, taking most of his crew with him when he went. Since then, FEMA has been more-or-less back-burnered, its core political activities incorporated under the mantle of the FBI.
For further information, see Reynolds, Diana, "FEMA and the NSC: The Rise of the National Security State," Covert Action Information Bulletin, No. 33, Winter 1990."
But wait. There's more.
HOUSE
UNIT FINDS MISCONDUCT AT U.S. EMERGENCY AGENCY
The Associated Press
July 26, 1985
WASHINGTON — A House committee unanimously adopted a report today that accused Louis O. Giuffrida of misconduct in directing the nation's disaster relief agency and recommended further investigation by the Justice Department.
Mr. Giuffrida announced Wednesday that he was resigning effective Sept. 1, but he contended that there was no connection to the Congressional investigation nor to one by the Justice Department.
The Science and Technology Committee, on a voice vote, approved the findings of its investigations subcommittee, which spent 18 months looking at Mr. Giuffrida's direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
No further action is required by Congress, but Representative Harold L. Volkmer, Democrat of Missouri, the subcommittee chairman, said, ''I hope and trust that the Department of Justice will be vigilant in carrying out the recommendations that the report contains.''
The emergency agency coordinates relief efforts when the President declares a region a disaster area. It also trains emergency personnel, coordinates civil defense and works on contingency plans for any national emergency. The agency, which has 2,600 employees, has been headed by Mr. Giuffrida since February 1981.
The report said there were conflicts in testimony and a Justice Department review for possible perjury.
The report found mismanagement by Mr. Giuffrida and others in several areas, including favoritism in contracts on which there was no bidding, approval of renovations for personal living quarters, travel at Government expense by Mr. Giuffrida's wife, acceptance of political dinner tickets from a contractor and questionable payments to a contractor.
Some of the charges also involved Fred J. Villella, the No. 3 official of the agency until he resigned last August.
The report said Mr. Giuffrida should repay $5,091 for airline tickets for his wife, who accompanied him to Mexico City and on an 18-day trip to Europe.
The report found ''overwhelming evidence'' that Mr. Giuffrida and Mr. Villella had been responsible for ''extravagant, excessive and unnecessary'' modifications in an agency building to turn it into living quarters for Mr. Villella.
The Associated Press
July 26, 1985
WASHINGTON — A House committee unanimously adopted a report today that accused Louis O. Giuffrida of misconduct in directing the nation's disaster relief agency and recommended further investigation by the Justice Department.
Mr. Giuffrida announced Wednesday that he was resigning effective Sept. 1, but he contended that there was no connection to the Congressional investigation nor to one by the Justice Department.
The Science and Technology Committee, on a voice vote, approved the findings of its investigations subcommittee, which spent 18 months looking at Mr. Giuffrida's direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
No further action is required by Congress, but Representative Harold L. Volkmer, Democrat of Missouri, the subcommittee chairman, said, ''I hope and trust that the Department of Justice will be vigilant in carrying out the recommendations that the report contains.''
The emergency agency coordinates relief efforts when the President declares a region a disaster area. It also trains emergency personnel, coordinates civil defense and works on contingency plans for any national emergency. The agency, which has 2,600 employees, has been headed by Mr. Giuffrida since February 1981.
The report said there were conflicts in testimony and a Justice Department review for possible perjury.
The report found mismanagement by Mr. Giuffrida and others in several areas, including favoritism in contracts on which there was no bidding, approval of renovations for personal living quarters, travel at Government expense by Mr. Giuffrida's wife, acceptance of political dinner tickets from a contractor and questionable payments to a contractor.
Some of the charges also involved Fred J. Villella, the No. 3 official of the agency until he resigned last August.
The report said Mr. Giuffrida should repay $5,091 for airline tickets for his wife, who accompanied him to Mexico City and on an 18-day trip to Europe.
The report found ''overwhelming evidence'' that Mr. Giuffrida and Mr. Villella had been responsible for ''extravagant, excessive and unnecessary'' modifications in an agency building to turn it into living quarters for Mr. Villella.
-o-
Seem familiar?
Anyway, Mr. Giuffrida died in 2012 at age 92. The California Specialized Training Institute still exists as a function of the Office of Emergency Services and is mainly concerned with natural and man-made disasters, with half its annual budget coming from FEMA. If the OES staff has plans for the mass imprisonment of rioters, dissidents or just plain left wing loudmouths, it isn't broadcasting them.
But given the nature of the current administration in Washington, and the OES dependency on federal funding, it just might.
And yes, it can happen here.
#
# #
Send
comments, critiques, corrections and hate mail to
tomatomike@aol.com
It always do. -- Lowell D.
It always do. -- Lowell D.
_____
Damn.....
What do you expect when you elect a movie star and a game show host
to the office of president? I think you just answered that question.
-- Lynda
_____
I
like to think that Reagan will be remembered for this sentence he
probably never uttered: "Nice meeting you...What's
my name again?" -- Gerard
_____
We really had no choice in the latest election. Both Clinton and Trump were from the bottom of the heap. That said, Hillary and that thing she lives with were just to connected to the bottom of the barrel for my taste. She is one of the most vile creatures living. I have no words for Trump. I worry about my children and grandchildren on what the future will bring. -- Carol
_____
We really had no choice in the latest election. Both Clinton and Trump were from the bottom of the heap. That said, Hillary and that thing she lives with were just to connected to the bottom of the barrel for my taste. She is one of the most vile creatures living. I have no words for Trump. I worry about my children and grandchildren on what the future will bring. -- Carol
