Readiness Exercise of 1984
The Readiness Exercise created by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North as a plan to create stability in national defense. Mainly these camps were said to be used against dissenters and other groups, including illegal immigrants. There was fear, at the time, that the government was using this power to have an excuse to instill martial law over all at anytime, whatever their reason may be. New World Order conspiracists thought this to be a very frightening thing because this government now has the power and means to imprison US citizens.
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FEMA's Involvement
These conspiracy theories that are around the Readiness Exercise are the same as the FEMA conspiracies. FEMA conspiracists believe that the Readiness Exercise of 1984 was giving power to the FEMA group to have military power in the United States. The Federal Emergency Management Agency would be the ones in charge of these camps. The people these camps were made for was obviously unknown, dissenters and illegal immigrants are very general for the most part. The government was just clearing their bases and hoping that in the case of an emergency they would be prepared and not have to worry about the nation and the governments effectiveness."The exercise was to test FEMA's readiness to assume military authority in the event of a 'State of Domestic National Emergency' concurrent with the launching of a direct United States military operation in Central America" (Martin, 1995).
Conspiracist's Views
When conspiracists see something like these camps that are being created around the nation, they see that the government is taking over all freedoms and rights of citizens. These camps to them are more than just the government trying to be prepared for anything and everything that could happen. This act is seen as the government starting a new reign over the people and a revolution of having no personal rights.
FEMA camp conspiracists still believe that these cams exist and the government is constantly ready to imprison dissenters and other enemies of the Nation. |
Outcomes
Overall the people who believed this was a New World Order conspiracy were mainly just in fear that President Reagan and his administration were taking over by having means to arrest and detain large masses of citizens. This program was enough to scare people because of how vague it is. The Readiness Exercise of 1984 said that the government had the power to install martial law, arresting dissenters and possibly illegal immigrants. Because this does not describe why there would be sudden amounts of immigrants and dissenters that would need to be imprisoned people were in fear that the government was also about to do other things that the citizens would not approve of.
Reagan and his administration were really just trying to keep the nation safe, ensuring that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the military forces of the United States were prepared to do things, if need be.
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Weapon Distribution?
People also believed that these camps were a way of the government distributing many weapons to FEMA and some other militias. This is a strange accusation for many reasons. The bases that were being turned into concentration camps or prisons were previously armed forces bases. this would mean that there were already weapons there and in the area for the armed forces. If the government wanted to allow FEMA to carry weapons they would have done so. There would not have been much dispute about it because it would be similar to brining FEMA into the armed forces, much similar to the coast guard. FEMA is an emergency administration that exists to keep the nation safe from whatever it may be, arming a defense administration does not seem to be too much of a big deal in a nation with enemies, especially in a time period like this.