[[ I can't stand Obama. I think he's the worst thing to happen in my lifetime, but in order for him to declare martial law, he needs to first have the public behind him, which he does not, and also needs to have the military behind him, which I don't believe to be the case. ]]
Putting my tinfoil hat on for the reply...
If for some reason Obama went over the edge and declared martial law tomorrow, at least 30%, possibly up to 40% of the people would support him. My prediction, and I'm stickin' to it. So long az they gotz their EBT's and ObamaPhones, he's got their approval.
Perhaps he doesn't have the military behind him at the moment (by "military", I mean the support of the cadre of the highest general officers). But he and his people are certainly working on that. Women on subs, gays in the military, the purging of [Christian] religion from the military while at the same time the promotion of islam. And what about all those generals sayin' adios lately?
Maybe the assertions by the SEAL guy in the article _are_ over the top. Maybe they have no basis in reality.
But a LOT of things we've seen in the past five years would probably have seemed unbelievable a dozen years ago (or not even that long).
Only two years ago, if someone had said to you that the NSA was monitoring every phone call, every email, perhaps every credit card transaction in the country -- one would have laughed in their face. No one's laughing now.
Ten years ago, did we see police in so many places with the "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude that so many of them seem to have now?
Did we see the police at all levels literally no longer responding "as police" to many incidents, but as soldiers in fully-outfitted military gear?
Did we see formerly civilian federal agencies now armed to the teeth? Why in heck does the Railroad Retirement Board need its own SWAT team?
Remember the film "Seven Days In May"? (you can watch it free on the net)
In it, the protagonist colonel played by Kirk Douglas explains to the president about "capabilities" -- that is, moving things into place to facilitate specific action later on. In the movie, the capabilities were designed to support a coup against the civilian order.
The militarization of the police, the militarization of civilian agencies (presumably to bypass Posse Comitatus), combined with a national surveillance system beyond any previously assembled, represent "capabilities" of a sort.
Nothing concrete, yet.
But the capabilites are being moved into place.
Tin foil hat off now!