IPFS News Link • Government
The Permanent War Government: Who's Really Calling the Shots in Washington?
• by John W. And Nisha WhiteheadThat is no longer a rhetorical question.
As America's war with Iran lurches from escalation to ceasefire to renewed threats of military force, Americans are being asked to trust that someone, somewhere, knows what they are doing.
But who?
This is the constitutional crisis hiding in plain sight.
The question is not merely whether Donald Trump is fit to lead. The question is whether any president still leads in any meaningful constitutional sense once the permanent war government gets moving.
The Iran war is merely the latest test case.
If the war machine keeps moving even when the public cannot tell who is steering it, then what remains of constitutional government?
This is the nightmare Rod Serling warned about in Seven Days in May.
Released in 1964, Seven Days in May imagined a dramatic military coup: generals plotting in secret to overthrow an unpopular president because they believed they knew better than the American people what was best for the nation.
The coup is eventually foiled. The republic is saved. The Constitution survives.
At least on screen.
In the real world, the plot has thickened and spread out over decades.
The old fear was that the military might seize power from the civilian government.
The modern reality is that the permanent government does not need to seize power.
It already has it.
The coup no longer requires generals in smoke-filled rooms plotting to overthrow the president at midnight. It does not require tanks on Pennsylvania Avenue or soldiers storming the Capitol. It does not even require an official suspension of the Constitution.
All it requires is secrecy, fear, endless war, executive power, emergency declarations, classified intelligence, compliant courts, cowardly legislators, corporate profiteers, militarized police, and a public too distracted, exhausted or frightened to resist.
That coup has been underway for decades.
It is the coup that occurs when Congress surrenders its war powers to the president.
It is the coup that occurs when presidents of both parties wage war without meaningful constitutional authorization.
It is the coup that occurs when intelligence agencies spy on the American people and then hide behind national security.
It is the coup that occurs when federal agencies arm themselves like military units.
2 Comments in Response to The Permanent War Government: Who's Really Calling the Shots in Washington?
The profit obtained by FRBNY's auctions of Treasury securities, THAT HAVE BEEN PURCHASED BY THE FED WITH BOGUS BOOK-ENTRY CREDIT ENTERED INTO A TREASURY LEDGER MAINTAINED BY A FED FISCAL AGENT OF THE GOVERNMENT -- [INFLATIONARY] -- WITH A PLEDGE TO REDEEM IN GOLD OR IN LAWFUL MONEY, has never been audited. Ref. 31 USC §462 and 31 CFR §375.3. .
The coup has abrogated Article I, Section 8, clause 11-16 forbidding a Standing Army, at the whim of a tyrant, sometime after 1946. Another coup abrogated the Sovereignty of Citizens of the Republic by Article I, Section 8, clause 1, [and Section 9, cl 4], by the 16th Amendment in violation of Article VI, clause 2. Having a private firm issuing a Legal Tender on the credit of the Citizens, for $39T profit, is not authorized by the Constitution. The profit obtained by FRBNY's auctions of Treasury securities has never been audited. Ref. 31 USC §462 and 31 CFR §375.3.