I wonder how many people ever heard of the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce established on 23 January 2009? Obama has made it a domestic force in that people can serve in it to replace military personnel assigned to overseas duty. Burt Prelutsky describes the situation:

It is scary that this former community organizer and leftist friend and ally of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Machine and ACORN, has revised Bill Clinton’s 1992 Defense Department Directive 1404.10, which initially dealt with the overseas deployment of civilian personnel. In its current form, it states that the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce “shall be organized, trained, cleared, equipped, and ready to deploy in support of combat operations by the military; contingencies; emergency operations; humanitarian missions; disaster relief; restoration of order; drug interdiction; and stability operations.”

A well-armed, highly trained group of Americans to deal with unspecified contingencies, emergencies, stability operations and the restoration of order? It would seem to me that between the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Red Cross, Homeland Security and the various police forces and sheriffs’ departments, we already have such things pretty well covered. What is Obama so worried about? That one of those future Tea Parties will get out of hand? That law-abiding citizens who take the Second Amendment seriously might not agree to surrender their firearms? That some conservative writers and commentators might not be willing to knuckle under to the Left? That Republicans will have the audacity to actually run against Democrats in the 2010 elections?

I think a reasonable person might ask one or two reasonable questions of President Obama. One: Who does he have in mind to run this paramilitary organization now that Hermann Goering is no longer available, and, two, what color shirts will they be wearing? Black or brown?

One characteristic of dictators is that they establish a paramilitary force that is loyal to them personally rather than to the state. The reason is that the nation's traditional military may be unwilling to take action to forcefully resolve domestic political disputes. Hitler and Mussolini had their Brownshirts and Blackshirts, respectively. The Roman Emperors had the Praetorian Guard. Hugo Chevez recently tried to establish a paramilitary arm in Venezuela. This is normal operating procedure for dictators. Obama has Acorn, but he needs to establish a means for arming them. Hitler went through a similar process of disarming the public and arming the Brownshirts during the 1930's. Most people find it unthinkable that Obama could be a budding dictator. Germans probably felt that way about Hitler. To avoid alarming the public it is necessary that the would be dictator proceed in a stealthy manner. The time to stop budding dictators is before they get absolute control, while they can still be stopped by simply calling attention to their activities. Sadly, the MSM in America is no longer up to the job, as was the situation in Germany and Italy prior to WWII. Think about this: had you ever before heard of the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce?