12.02.10

Cult of EMP Crazy — The Congressional Nuisance

Posted in Crazy Weapons, Extremism at 9:30 am by George Smith

UPDATED

If there is an alternative illustrative definition to the word persistent in the dictionary, it is the Cult of EMP Crazy.

It is a fringe group of GOP politicians and staffers who are the most extreme among the extremists. They encapsulate the worst aspects of our political culture (the new normal, in other words) — stubborn ignorance and the relentless pursuit of personal agendas and idee fixe at the expense of their constituents.

The Federation of American Scientists informs that GOP House members Roscoe Bartlett (Maryland) and Trent Franks (Arizona) have introduced legislation “[to] require the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report on the foreign development of electromagnetic pulse weapons.”

This at a time when the GOP has vowed to block all legislation in the Senate for the duration of the lame-duck Congress, or until it gets what it wants.

And so, while the majority of the government tries to focus (or at least create an illusion of focus) on the pressing issues of restoring the economy, reducing mass unemployment, and keeping the jobless spending a little over the holiday season, two GOP congressmen have written H.R. 6471, a piece of nuisance legislation aimed at squeezing a report out of the intelligence community on the threat of very frequently notional electromagnetic pulse weapons.

Why? Because such a report would afford more opportunity to warn of electromagnetic pulse doom — the US-civilization-ending catastrophe Roscoe Bartlett has regularly announced is coming upon us … for at least the last ten years.

Bartlett and Franks are kooks … as is everyone in the Cult of EMP Crazy. Bartlett is also an anthrax-denier, a member of another fringe group which strongly believes Bruce Ivins was not the perpetrator of the bioterror attacks which killed five.

He has previously introduced legislation in an attempt to compel the intelligence community to divulge whether the anthrax mail attacks had foreign involvement.

His colleague, Trent Franks, is a notorious birther — one of those who does not believe the president is an American citizen.

Franks has also implied that African-Americans had it better under slavery.

More recently, in Congress he was chosen to be one of the recipients of the Team B report issued by Frank Gaffney — another member of the Cult of EMP Crazy, and notorious Islamophobe/retired military man, William “Gerry” Boykin.

The Team B report purported to show how, domestically, sharia law was being used to subvert the nation — possibly at White House Iftar dinners.

In short, there is nothing to recommend the legislation of Bartlett and Franks.

It is reprehensible work from hardened political nuisances, designed only to keep the issue alive in Congress. Or to perhaps give Bartlett a report which he can use in future attempts to create more legislation promoting defense against electromagnetic pulse attack and ballistic missiles.

Bartlett has never been successful. Most recently, Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski wiped out pet legislation from him aimed at promoting hardening of the nation’s infrastructure against EMP attack. This blog mentioned it last week here.

Despite the lack of success, the Cult of EMP Crazy is never idle. It has produced videos for YouTube, a yearly conference at Niagara Falls, a movie on electromagnetic pulse doom, innumerable opinion pieces for the nation’s newspapers, a relentlessly flogged science-fiction book and — recently and most stupifyingly — a cable TV special starring — Roscoe Bartlett.

A video of Roscoe Bartlett’s latest attempt, in June, to get defenses against electromagnetic pulse doom instituted is here on YouTube.

He stands before an apparently almost empty room.

Like previous legislation, Bartlett’s HR 6471 will probably not get very far. However, the Congressman will inevitably return next year, at the earliest opportunity, with more pestering potential legislation on the menace of electromagnetic pulse attack.

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Since Roscoe Bartlett has been at his cause for so long, one might legitimately ask what is the man’s legacy?

Striking fear into people who are not particularly perceptive is one of his signal achievements. Over the past few years it’s not difficult to find such who write things like what I’m about to excerpt. Bartlett’s unstinting work aimed at describing the total end of US civilization in an instant is particularly resonant within the Christian right.

Here’s a symptomatic piece, from around the web and inspired by the Heritage Foundation which works in lockstep with Bartlett on the matter, picked up in the Google news tab this week:

The time to [mount a defense against EMP] was actually yesterday, but since yesterday is gone, the time to prepare and prevent an EMP attack is now!

My point in reporting this information to you is not to cause you fear or distress. I want us not to despair, but to prepare. Be armed with knowledge, and make your own disaster plan. You may consider stockpiling food, water, guns, ammunition and other supplies as best as you’re able. This is not always easy, since many of us don’t have the space or money to be able to stockpile very much. Plus, we have no way of knowing how much we would need and for how long.

Regardless, we know that this world is a dangerous and deadly place and always will be. The only source of true, eternal “safety??? is in God through Jesus Christ. In the event of something like an EMP attack, the Lord is more than able to give us what we need and even to keep us alive against all odds, but even if we do perish, those of us who cling to Him know we’ll be A-OK in the very end.

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The puckishly named website, youngerthanroscoe.com, states that — among many other things — Bartlett, who won re-election at 84 in November, has been around longer than PEZ candy, parking meters and penicillin.

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