Why do dogs bury bones?

For the same instinctive reason that dogs bury bones, mankind has anticipated and planned for disaster and done what it could, within reason and capacity beyond mere survival, to deal with it so as to live and fight another day. We know this because we would not have been a viable species today had we not done that.

I get to this subject because I was looking around the net and kept coming up with the almost verbatim-identical evil conspiracy theory about FEMA. The premise of this thought is that FEMA was designed, under the guise of planning for disaster, to provide a ready-to-hand vehicle for the President and his crowd to take over the country in a legal, dictatorial coup. It's a non-party political idea; presidents of both parties have borne the brunt of its accusation. It's a pretty scary thought and a hugely scary theory. And, like the idea that aliens built the pyramids, that there's a commie under every bed, that we ought to just take out President Chavez, there's a bunch of folks out there who seem to fervently believe it. And that's vewy, vewy scawy.

Here's a sample of what I'm talking about: http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/fema_executive_orders.htm and
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=108968 and
http://users.rcn.com/zap.dnai/nwo-001.htm and
http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v84/__show_article/_a000084-000021.htm and the Townsman's blog http://www.jumplink.net/blog/Sept2005/sept1105.htm

Some of these, for example that last one, seem quite rational, if either toward the left or right "wing" of thinking. Take the Townsman's posts, for example: http://www.jumplink.net/blog/pposts.htm. Left leaning, but you wouldn't put him up their with the alien fairies. There are others who seem like the type to live out in the mountains, boobytrap their property and play war games. Did these people always believe in the monster in the closet?

That said, there are others, some of whose sites look like something better at home under a huge crystal, really try to connect the dots in a tantalising way. At least in such a way as to not be blatantly implausible, and even if highly improbable. See, e.g.: http://www.halexandria.org/dward287.htm

What all of that says to me is that there may be too much secrecy surrounding all the FEMA mystique, and some kind of "expose" might be in order. Some kind of independent and empowered investigation that can find facts and not follow suspicions. It wouldn't hurt if we knew what was going on behind the FEMA scenes, would it?

And maybe it has already been done. I don't have the time or tools to look into this anymore than I have. I would point out that there is a wiki-sober look at the subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_of_Government_plan

I'm not particulary worried about it, myself. I am worried that someone else who is a "true believer" may do something stupid, like the Oklahoma bombing. It is the kind of theory that would, I'd suspect, send the marginal paranoids right off their perch.

I'm not worried because, first, if it was all so easy as described, wouldn't Bush have already used it in 2001? Moreover, if it was so essential to his control of the country, would he have put low-level functionaries in charge of FEMA? And finally, if FEMA really did have all the powers at hand to do whatever it wanted, wouldn't the Katrina aftermath and the Rita foremath have gone a bit more efficiently and effectively?

Bah. The world's full of crazies. And how do I get these pesky pink elephants off my computer screen?