Civil Defence

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Countryside : One Thread

There was a thread a few days ago asking whether the readers thought that Bush's implimentation of a "shadow government" was a good idea. Just a question to those that think it is a good idea: Is the strength of our nation resident in bureaucracies and the people that run them, or is our strength as a nation resident in its' citizenry? It would seem that most of those reading at this site would think that our nation's citizenry is more important that any of the government agencies. Why then is our Civil Defence program(admittedly a government program) almost non-existant while our tax dollars are being spent to save some bureaucrats in a "shadow government"? This is one area where the old Soviet Union is way ahead of us. They still have their Civil Defence maintained at Cold War levels whereas we (the citizens) are sitting ducks in any nuclear exchange scenario.

-- John Fritz (JohnFritz24@hotmail.com), March 06, 2002

Answers

The term Shadow Government maybe a little confuseing, It does not refer to a Secret or different government it Is refering to a secret location that aportion of the existing government can go to to conduct it's business in the event of a national emergency, After all you don't want every senator,congressman,etc. in the same place at the same time should a catastrophic attack occurr. If you have ever watched the History channel,TLC, or Discovery, back inthe 50's there was a secret government facility built underground in West Va. With a fully functional hotel & resort smack dab on top. Nobody knew it was there, until after the cold war was over. and it was de-classified. Now however it seems that a different type of enemy is upon us and we need to take similar measures, Same principal though!!

-- Stephen Coffman (marine3@alltel.net), March 07, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ