THE OVERTON WINDOW (39 page)

Government Memo:
“The Modern Militia Movement,” Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), issued in February 2009:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13290698/The-Modern-Militia-Movement-Missouri-MIAC-Strategic-Report-20Feb09-

Inside our fictional memo is a reference to a government program called “REX-84.” According to published reports at the time, this program involved emergency actions that would be implemented in the event of a national crisis. In 1986, the Associated Press reported on a FEMA directive that described a REX-84 exercise preparing for the detention of more than 400,000 Central American refugees in ten military detention centers located across the country.

A
Miami Herald
story from 1987 again addressed REX-84, this time reporting that Oliver North had worked closely with FEMA to develop a contingency plan should America face a major crisis, like nuclear war or insurrection. That plan called for actions such as the “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the United States over to FEMA, appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.”

In a “heavily censored FEMA memorandum” that was obtained by
The Herald,
the REX-84 exercise was described as calling for the “activation of ‘emergency legislation, assumption of emergency powers … etc.’ “A source familiar with the exercises said North was aware of the simulations and collaborated with FEMA and the Pentagon in producing them. While the simulations were in progress, the Pentagon staged the first of several annual large-scale military exercises in Honduras, deploying thousands of troops near contra supply bases.

“A Pentagon spokeswoman, Capt. Nancy LaLuntas, declined to discuss contingency plans or details of the FEMA-Pentagon exercises, citing ‘security reasons.’ Yet she confirmed that the exercises, code-named Rex 84 Alpha and Night Train 84, took place April 5-13, 1984. FEMA
spokesman Bill McAda also confirmed the simulations and, like LaLuntas, declined to give details.”

These days, REX-84 is part of the everyday language of conspiracy theorists, and for good reason: There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that any of these exercises resulted in anything other than embarrassment for the government. On the other hand, given our government’s reaction to catastrophe in the past (i.e., the forced internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans in 1942), it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to understand that all of us need to be vigilant and ensure that the only document we look toward in the next crisis is the Constitution.

REX-84:

Associated Press,
“Administration Denies Existence of Detention Camps for Illegal Aliens,” December 16, 1986,
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ueAlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UPwFAAAAIBAJ&d q=rex-84&pg=6740%2C4955414

See also:
Alfonso Chardy, “Reagan Advisers Ran ‘Secret’ Government”
Miami Herald,
July 5, 1987.

See also:
Alfonso Chardy, “North Helped Revise Wartime Plans”
Miami Herald,
July 19, 1987.

To illustrate how public perception and behavior can be shaped over time, we used the story of bottled water, a product which seemed to come upon us out of nowhere to become a huge industry that’s nearly ubiquitous. How did it happen? Read
Bottlemania
for a great primer.

The marketing of bottled water:
For the spirit of this scene, see Elizabeth Royte,
Bottlemania: The Marketing of Bottled Water and
Why We Bought It
(Bloomsbury, 2008),
http://books.google.com/books?id=LwUUAQAAIAAJ

More from Chapter 3:

Tsunami warning system inadequate:
Laura Smith-Spark, “Indonesia Tsunami System ‘Not Ready,’”
BBC News,
July 19, 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5191190.stm

Virtually the entire speech that Arthur Gardner gives in the boardroom is based on fact; of course, in keeping with his character, he presents his own version of those facts. Here are a few specific examples:

Committed $8 trillion to those that engineered the financial crisis:
David Goldman, “The $8 Trillion Bailout,” CNNMoney .com, January 6, 2009,
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/06/news/economy/where_stimulus_fits_in/index.htm

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme:
Jeff Poor, “Cramer: Social Security a Bigger Ponzi Scheme than Madoff’s,”
Business & Media Institute,
December 18, 2008,
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081218091211.aspx

A hundred thousand billion dollars:
Also known as “$100 trillion,” this is a chilling estimate of our unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities. Pamela Villarreal, “Social Security and Medicare Projections: 2009,”
National Center for Policy Analysis,
June 11, 2009,
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba662

Nationalizing General Motors:
Kimberly S. Johnson, “GM to reorganize in government-led bankruptcy,”
AP Foreign,
June 1, 2009,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8535026

$17 billion in underfunded union pensions:
Nick Bunkley, “Automaker Pensions Underfunded by $17 Billion,”
New York Times,
April 6, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/business/07cars.html

We’re borrowing $5 billion a day from Asia:
Statement of C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Institute for International Economics, February 2-4, 2005,
http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2005hearings/transcripts/05_02_3_4.pdf

In Chapter 10 we meet Molly’s mother for the first time as she gives a speech at the bar. Much of what she references is accurate, including:

“The happy union of these states …”:
James Madison, edited by Gaillard Hunt,
The Writings of James Madison
(New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910): 357,
http://books.google.com/books?id=V7jGAAAAMAAJ

“The most basic question is not …”:
Thomas Sowell,
Knowledge and Decisions
(New York, NY: Basic Books, 1980): 79,
http://books.google.com/books?id=4kqTMrEKWXoC

Carroll Quigley’s book
Tragedy & Hope
makes a few appearances in this novel, and for good reason: the premise that he outlined, Mutually Assured Destruction, is now a reality. But it’s not just military destruction that we’ve got to worry about, it’s economic destruction as well. Economies have become so intentionally intertwined that a collapse anywhere else in the world has major ramifications for us. Quigley’s book is a must-read if you want to really understand the theories of a man who was inspirational to many leaders, including President Bill Clinton.

Carroll Quigley:
Carroll Quigley,
Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
(G.S.G. & Associates, 1975),
http://books.google.com/books?id=KQZxAAAAIAAJ

Herbert Croly:
Herbert Croly,
The Promise of American Life
(New York, NY: The MacMillan Company, 1909),
http://books.google.com/books?id=EoxIAAAAYAAJ

Thomas Jefferson: “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God”:
Willard Sterne Randall,
Thomas Jefferson: A Life
(New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1993): 275,
http://books.google.com/books?id=jxh4rGiz7GgC

35,000 registered lobbyists:
Jerry Kammer, “A Steady Flow of Financial Influence,”
Copley News Service,
August 25, 2006,
http://
www.pbs.org/now/shows/234/money-politics.html

Spent almost $3.5 billion last year:
Oxford Analytica, “Lobbyists’ Sway in Washington,” April 13, 2010,
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/12/lobby-politics-elections-washington-business -oxford.html

The incredible 67,000 page tax code:
“67,204-Page Code Confounds Taxpayers, yet Congress Sits By,” USAToday.com, April 4, 2007,
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/04/post_7.html

IRS involved in the health care legislation:
Kim Dixon, “U.S. budget office: 4 million likely to pay health fine,”
Washington Post,
April 22, 2010,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/22/AR2010042204286.html

Treasury enforced Prohibition laws:
“Narcotic Bill Now Law: Hoover Signs Measure Creating a Bureau in the Treasury,”
The
New York Times,
June 15, 1930,
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30910F73D5C14738DDDAC0994DE405B80 8FF1D3

“The power to tax involves the power to destroy”:
“The Supreme Court: The Power to Tax,” Time, March 17, 1958,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,863135,00.html

100,000 federal employees owe back taxes:
Devin Dwyer, “Tax Scam Uncle Sam? You Oughta Be Fired! Says Utah Rep. Chaffetz,”
ABC News,
March 18, 2010,
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Tax/100000-federal-employees-owe-irs-back-taxes/story?id=10125860

Treasury Secretary owes back taxes:
Jonathan Weisman, “Geithner’s Tax History Muddles Confirmation,”
The Wall Street Journal,
January 14, 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123187503629378119.html

John Adams: “A government of laws …”:
David McCullough,
John Adams
(New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2001): 378,
http://books.google.com/books?id=GHMnz8G0GTcC

“No lie can live forever”:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James Washington,
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
(New York, NY: Harper-Collins, 1986): 230,
http://books.google.com/books?id=k8uPHtrU8BsC

In Chapter 11 we hear from spirited conspiracy theorist Danny Bailey for the first time. Danny is the kind of guy who likes to string together a variety of facts in an attempt to make something crazy sound plausible.
His speech is important because it shows how selected facts and truths can be used as the foundation for an overall thesis that is entirely fictional.

Bailey starts by citing some unemployment data that differs significantly from the official government estimates. Those statistics, and a lot more, can be found at a website called
Shadow Statistics
that is run by economist John Williams.

Real unemployment past 20%:
John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics,
Shadowstats.com
,
http://www.shadowstats.com/
alternate_data/unemployment-charts

The job ad that Danny cites is a great example of how fact can fuel conspiracy thinking. Is there really a job ad posting for an “Internment and Resettlement Specialist”? Yes—and it’s right there on the public goarmy .com website. Why would they list such an incriminating job publicly? Simple … because it’s not incriminating at all. The Army has detention facilities all over the world that need to be staffed. If they posted a job opening for an “Experienced Sniper” would people jump to the conclusion that they want to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil? Of course not, yet that’s what some people immediately think when they read “Internment Specialist.”

Internment and Resettlement Specialist:
Job listing posted at
goarmy.com
,
http://www.goarmy.com/JobDetail.do?id=292

25% of world’s prisoners in U.S.:
Jim Webb, “Why We Must Fix Our Prisons,”
Parade,
March 29, 2009,
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html

Army Regulation 210-35:
Civilian Inmate Labor Program,
http://
www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf

In 1987, as Oliver North was testifying before a Congressional Committee on the Iran-Contra affair, the
Miami Herald
ran a series of articles detailing North’s participation in emergency-response contingency planning. In a piece published July 5, 1987, the
Herald
wrote about a memo outlining emergency plans that apparently bore a resemblance to a college paper written by the then-FEMA director:

“The scenario outlined in the Brinkerhoff memo resembled somewhat a paper Guiffrida had written in 1970 at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., in which he advocated martial law in case of a national uprising by black militants. The paper also advocated the roundup and transfer to ‘assembly centers or relocation camps’ of at least 21 million ‘American Negroes.’”

“A memo from 1970 …”:
Alfonso Chardy, “Reagan Advisers Ran Secret Government,”
Miami Herald,
July 5, 1987.

Agitator Index (ADEX): Earl Ofari Hutchinson,
“The Dangerous New FBI,” June 4, 2002,
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/06/04/cointelpro/print.html

You may be a terrorist:
“Missouri Report on Militias Draws Fire,”
The Associated Press,
March 14, 2009,
http://www.fox4kc.com/wdaf-story-militia-report-031409,0,5591136.story

Last declared war in 1945:
“The Declaration of War: One for the History Books?” National War College, 1998,
http://www.dtic
.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA441475&Location=U2&doc= GetTRDoc.pdf