16 April 2009
 
All Hazards


(Hazard)
 
The pelting gray rain has finally stopped.
 
It seems we have been under it for a week, not just three days of the dim chill damp. I know the water is needed, and this has been a good quality rain, steady soaking rather than a torrent. This rain will fill up the thirsty aquifer below, rather than pouring off our parking lot, into the storm drains, down the Four Mile Run and eventually into the Chesapeake and the world ocean beyond.
 
The is an issue here, on the edge. Big Pink sits on the lip of the Virginia Piedmont, literally on the fall line between the volcanic mineral understructure to our soil and the sandy base of the Coastal Plain that starts at the bottom of the hill.
 
Loosely, the fall Line runs along the edge of the Four Mile Run here in central Arlington, and it is all downhill across Route 50 to the broad brown Potomac.
 
Streams used to be important here, but no so much anymore. Lubber Run, our nearest park, runs down to join Four Mile Run near the Ball-Sellers House, the oldest frame building still standing, but more than half the natural original stream network has been replaced by a dense network of underground storm sewers.
 
During heavier downpours, the networks carry the runoff and pollutants into the drains and doesn’t leave much behind. Rain like we had this week was the good kind, even if it left me chill and sleepy.
 
We are in no danger of flooding, which has been a significant hazard elsewhere in the country.
 
New DHS Secretary Napolitano has been re-branding a lot of the bad stuff around us. The “terror threat” to something much more comforting. We are supposed to now call the acts of murderous monsters “Man Made Disasters.” The term is more in keeping with the “All Hazards Approach” to security, like re-branding the Global War on Terror” into “Overseas Contingency Operations.”
 
I was always in favor of the All Hazards approach; after all, if it is not one thing, it is probably another, and one should have plans for both.
 
The Federal Emergency Management Agency- think about the concept contained in those four words- exists to manage response to really bad stuff.
 
FEMA’s response to a hurricane on the Gulf Coast was a defining moment for the last Administration, which had focused largely on the threat of really bad people with large bombs.
 
People had already begun to come to their senses about all this, since most of the disasters that befall us are natural in origin. Concentrating overmuch on either end of the spectrum- human or natural in origin-  will make you dramatically unprepared for the eventuality on which you were not counting.
 
The FEMA State and Local Guide (SLG) provides emergency managers and other emergency services personnel with information on developing “risk-based, all-hazard emergency operations plans.”
 
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, if you had not thought about the big reorganization of the government lately.
 
The have an office of Spooks, just like all the big departments. They have been busy making assessments. The papers are all abuzz with one of them this morning, though the story has been building since January.
 
You will recall that the current Administration did not take office until the 20th of that month, so please don’t consider this a blast at anyone in particular. If anything, it makes it worse, since this is an example of how scary all these people are.
 
Anyhow, the DHS Spooks issued a report that warned law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.
 
A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines "rightwing extremism in the United States" as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.
 
Naturally, that got the hairs to stand up on the back of my neck.
 
The warning went on to say that the terrorists "… may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
 
The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff's departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The DHS bureaucracy swears it "will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months" to gather information on "rightwing extremist activity in the United States."
 
They specifically cited the potential problem of returning war veterans becoming alienated, and not being able to re-integrate in their communities. They might be a threat.
 
It is not the first I have heard about this kind of profiling, though where it all came from was not clear until this week. Last month, the chief of the Missouri highway patrol blasted a report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) that linked conservative groups to domestic terrorism.
 
The report had been compiled with the assistance of DHS, and warned law enforcement agencies to watch for "suspicious individuals" who may have bumper stickers for third-party political candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.
 
It further warned law enforcement to watch out for individuals with "radical" ideologies based on Christian views, such as opposing illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes. An unhealthy fascination with the Constitution was also referenced.
 
I think it was in the context of those First and Second Amendment people you see running around. You know, the ones who think they can say what they want when they want to, and believe their right to firearms is enshrined in the founding documents.
 
I’m pretty laid back in my politics and don't exactly feel threatened. I take an “all hazards” approach to the government, and stopped putting bumper stickers on my vehicles long ago for purely aesthetic reasons. But it did get me to thinking.
 
In the Great Depression in Europe, one of the political pressure groups  in Weimar Germany was the Stahlhelm ("Steel Helmet") organization. This was the largest of several groups of WWI combat veterans who banded together based on their social views. Generally speaking, they agreed on one thing, which was that the troops had been sold down the river by craven politicians. They thought that their considerable sacrifice had been for nothing, and they had been stabbed in the back.
 
German society had been buffeted by hyper-inflation and social unrest between Socialist and Fascist bully groups. Stalhhelm had nearly a half-million members at its peak. By 1930, it was the largest paramilitary organization in Weimar Germany.
 
The nascent Brownshirts reached out to them early on, and they were useful to the Nazis, until Hitler realized the old soldiers were loyal to the deposed Kaiser, not his new-fangled National Socialism, and got rid of them.
 
I don’t know if anyone at DHS has been reading up on their history and getting the willies. There are so many differences between that time and this that I think the proposition advanced by DHS is moot.
 
But that is not to say that the idea of a politicized veteran population hasn't crossed my mind.
 
We now have a combat force that has been at war for nearly seven years; a small component of the population with a unique and somewhat elite perspective. It is not a homogenous group, but it is one that shares values that are increasingly distant from the elected government and the mainstream society.
 
In the Post WW II age, nearly every adult male had military service and all adults and children had sacrificed to some degree to defeat the fascist powers.
 
I venture into terra incognita here, but my guess is that there are more undocumented workers in the States than there are GWOT-era vets. You would think that the young veteran population would not be the one you would care to see marginalized, wouldn't you?
 
It is probably no big deal, and I suspect it is DHS's ham-handed attempt to come to grips with the idea that there are some people who are not happy with where things are going.
 
I’m happy as a clam, really. Big Pink has a new parking lot and the run-off is not that bad. No one is saying that democracy is in danger, except the government itself. Maybe a little more surveillance is in order to see what is up. Tim McVey was a veteran, right?
 
Still, the problem with authoritarian governments is that they tend to be authoritarian, benevolent or not. They are indeed all hazards to clear thinking.
 
That is why I hold on so dearly to the precise words of the Constitution, imperfect though they may be. It is way too late to be putting bumper stickers on the cars.
 
I'll be careful of saying that around DHS officials, though, or in the context of the NSA monitoring program. The new Administration has retained that as a matter of national security, just in case. It is part of an “all hazards” approach to all of us.
 
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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