Though exact claims about the purpose and nature of the camps vary from one
crank to another, a common trope is that they will be used to detain dissenting US citizens after the consolidation of the
North American Union in preparation for the establishment of a
one-world government. The camps allegedly come complete with boxcars for moving people around and plastic coffins for burying them. (Why not just burn the corpses
Nazi-style? Or, since the proponents of this theory also seem to think
environmentalists are the root of all evil, wouldn't the bad guys be using biodegradable boxes? ...what? They've got to be environmentalists - boxcars are a form of
mass transit. Wake up, sheeple!)
FEMA, naturally, is the shadow government which will run the show after the puppet government dissolves through a series of executive orders issued by
the President. The idea that FEMA could pull off enough of a masterstroke to seize power is surprisingly widespread, considering their massive display of incompetence during
Hurricane Katrina.
There are several videos purporting to show footage of the camps, as well as shots of ominous-looking fences and webpages listing locations of over 800 camps, allegedly all fully guarded and staffed full-time despite being completely empty.[SUP]
[1][/SUP][SUP]
[2][/SUP] In addition to the utter implausibility of such a massive conspiracy being kept totally silent,[SUP]
[3][/SUP] the evidence is damaged somewhat by the fact that the videos and pictures actually depict everything from National Guard training centers to
Amtrak repair stations to
North Korean labor camps.[SUP]
[4][/SUP]
The FEMA camp
conspiracy theory has been alluded to by
Republican leadership candidate
Michele Bachmann, though she did not say FEMA.[SUP]
[5][/SUP]
Glenn Beck, who to his credit later backpedaled and hosted a debunking segment featuring a government shill guest from
Popular Mechanics, promoted the theory as well.[SUP]
[6][/SUP] Still, the theory remains popular among the
survivalist community and the
militia movement, and there's no shortage of adherents on the Internet.
So far the only flaw in this otherwise brilliantly executed conspiracy was the mistake of publicly advertising jobs to work at the camps.[SUP]
[7][/SUP] It's always the small details the conspirators slip up on.
The idea that the US government is planning to intern masses of people has some history: In the 1980s, opponents of
Ronald Reagan's Central America policy on the left thought that FEMA was planning a mass roundup of them just before the imminent U.S. invasion of "
Nee-ka-hah-gua." Barely skipping a beat, it became a theory on the right-wing
black helicopter/militia circuit in the '90s, among
Alex Jones followers and
truthers in the 2000s, and today by the more insane opponents of the Obama administration