The Dark Wraith, a charming and entertaining Intertubes personality, relates an encounter with one of his students, a determined but math challenged Army regular. DW wonders if he should be concerned to hear from his student that activities on the base include training for dealing with domestic riot control, under the auspices of Homeland Security regulation/protocol.

We've noted before that the words and deeds of many in our military are highly inducive to donning the foil, and certainly things like the death of Constitutionally enshrined rights don't help matters. It's clear we should reasonably expect serious problems with at least some of our voting machines, and few here doubt that should civil unrest follow the announcement of "surprising turnarounds" in Democratic leaning districts that benefit Republicans, Bush and Rove would use any and all means to enforce the "results."

I go back and forth on what I believe Americans are capable of doing, and I doubt that there would be serious riots if the Republicans retained or expanded control of one or both Houses. As much as I dream of the Revolution, and as seriously as I take reports about "record levels" of voter anger and switching of party affiliations, I just don't think folks will get up off their butts and occupy DC if the machines award Republicans two more years of control. There are many reasons why I believe this, not the least of which has to do with the simple fact that most Americans aren't willing to lose a home or job to spend a month participating in civil unrest. Being a corporate wage slave severely limits participation, imho.

So what do you think? Is DW being overly paranoid, and overstating the importance of a training exercise that merely reflects the new military/police reality of our post-Patriot Act nation? Or is there so much anger and desire for change that there is a possibility of social unrest should results not reflect popular will? Are there other reasons to be concerned with regular Army folks training for civilian riot control, such as DW's commenters suggest? Or should I just lay off the coffee and enjoy the sunshine?

In these times, it's often hard to know.