Somehow I missed Barack Obama signing
his executive order for National Defense Resource Preparedness, May
16. Granted, he loves to sign these things late on Friday, when most
people are distracted by their plans for the weekend. That smacks of
duplicity at least, pissant cowardice maybe, and even despotism. The
order is rationalized by the Administration, and most of the
political punditry on both sides, as a perfunctory update of a
previous executive order, established by Clinton in 1994, as there
was in 1994 no Office of Homeland Security; mere governmental
busywork, crossing one's T's and dotting the i's. In combination with
this President's authorization of the use of the military on American
soil, however, and the indefinite incarceration of American citizens without trial, in his
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), it begins to feel a lot
more like a despot's battle plan, even a tyrant's wet dream - slick
bureaucratic concupiscence, to control every last little thing. I
think it was right about that time, May 16, that he offered his
verbal support for gay marriage – enlivening support at the
base, inflaming one's enemies. The act of a cynical scumbag, distracting from his true agenda.
Not that Romney isn't right there with
him, even openly supportive of the idea of a surveillance, police
state. You think Romney would dismantle that multi-billion dollar
NSA facility Obama is building in the Utah (Mormon) desert, designed to spy on
domestic - American to American - Internet communications? He
practically pioneered the idea in practice, as Governor of
Massachusetts. Romney has set himself up as a fixer of problems. By
that, I imagine he means, as president, he would root out any
dissidents not in line with the
military-industrial-financial-technological empire – artists,
skeptics, conspiritorialists, and freeloader poor. He probably loves
Cass Sunstein, "Mr Sunshine," Obama's Harvard Law buddy, Director of
Information and Regulatory Affairs, who we have every reason to
suspect, has a whole network of moles, like Jonathan Gruber, feeding
information supported by this President. Mr Sunshine would outlaw
political speech not in line with Administration policy (like this blog), if he could
dispense with the subtlety without coming off like the reincarnation
of a Bolshevik or a Nazi.
I love that these guys, Obama and
Romney, come off as moderates.
Basically, this Executive Order cedes
control of just about everything in America to the President, through the
Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in the
event of a national security emergency. Conservatives, despite acting
like Obama is the anti-Christ, hardly squawked at all about it,
because the order doesn't specifically cede control of private
property to the President – even though it cedes control of all
food resources to the Secretary of Agriculture, all water
resources to the Secretary of Defense, all energy resources to
the Secretary of Energy, (etc), it effectively nullifies all private
contracts, and even sets the stage for forced labor and military
conscription. Conservatives didn't squawk about it much, because they
love the idea of control just as much as Obama and his ilk do, they
just want to be the ones who dispense it. Stoopid Americans.
So now, we have on the books, the right
of the government to invade it's own country, the right to
incarcerate it's own people without trial*, the right to force us
into industrial, technical labor, and military service wherever in
the world the government has decided there is a national security emergency, and the right to control with military/police force, the
domestic resources – food and water - most important to the biological
viability (resistance) of it's people. Necessarily, nowhere in this executive
order, is there any mention of the health and welfare of the American
people. Because this executive order, and the NDAA, are about the
maintenance and protection of the power of the State, which is
emphatically NOT about the people, as much as it is about those elite
who dominate America and the world. Meanwhile, the American people
are oblivious, distracted unto blindness by the myriad manifestations
of the techno-utopian Spectacle, captive to the constant,
overwhelming media flow of manipulated misinformation, most of them
perhaps incapable of doing anything meaningful to extricate
themselves.
And what really can be done, once one
has snapped oneself out of it? Not much. I was struck, recently,
reading a website dedicated to the idea of deep green resistance,
who's leading light is Derrick Jensen, at the profoundly callous
naiveté of the militant green. Really? Are these folks at all
familiar with the technical capacity of our American military and
police, not to mention all the redneck motorhead yahoos out there,
ready to defend their divinely ordained right to fuck the earth, with
the barrel of their beloved guns? Maybe we can bring down
civilization, if we can convince all those men and women with
military and police experience, and all those rednecks like the ones
I hung out with when I was young, that that is what is best for
America. But as far as I can tell, the VAST majority of Americans
think the earth is a place to be plundered of every last one of Her
resources, to maintain whatever standard of living any one American
has achieved, and desires. Militancy might be a viable and necessary
option in the aftermath or process of broad scale
social breakdown, to prevent either the government or men like the
Koch brothers from hiring goons and thugs to despoil your local
ecosystem, and enslaving people outright. But as long as this economy
is more or less humming along, there is little meaningful that can
be done, but learning the skills that will serve you and yours best,
in collapse. That is, mostly, reestablishing a relationship with and
concern for the earth, growing and building things, and getting along
with people.
I think it is treason, to vote for
either Obama or Romney in 2012. Because the Office of the Chief
Executive is no longer a President in the model of George Washington,
but a manager of corporate, financial, military empire, a director of
the police state, with the power and legal framework at his disposal,
to take over the country and dispense even with the illusion of
democracy. Remember that, the next time someone uses that tired old
platitude, “you can't complain if you don't vote,” revealing
themselves to be blindly obedient to one or another of two equally potential
tyrants. Local elections are something else entirely, where there may
be someone running who isn't basically about looting the earth or the
treasury, setting up their cronies to control things. Perhaps there
is a politician somewhere who has not given him or herself over to
the control of the state, who cares about local resilience. Maybe.
Even if there is, the gears of governance tend to corrupt absolutely,
where ever there is an absence of local oversight. Local oversight
being, at it's core, democratic governance of the people, by the
people, for the people.
* A federal judge nullified that
wording in the NDAA about indefinite detention. That is by no means
the last word. It will surely be decided eventually by the Supreme
Court. I anticipate that court upholding the indefinite detention of Americans without
trial. As far as I know, the right of our government to invade our
country has not been legally questioned. All of America's elite are
terrified of the American people.
5 comments:
If the government wants to come and take the food I've grown, so be it. And if in my haste some castor beans should happen to get mixed in with my other dry beans, oh well ;-)
I think even JMG is becoming slightly more dark in tone these days. It seems we are a few steps away from another dark age. The thing I fear the most is the reality that is being written into law. I've been in military prison custody before, and I swore I would never go back. It was a very short stay, but it was all I needed to know that being stuffed in a cage and forgotten about is not where anybody wants to be.
The scumbags that run shit want it to be the law that if they don't like what you think than you go away and are never heard from again. 1984 anybody?
JDW,
An excellent reason to start growing castor beans.
luciddreams,
Let go of the fear. Make it a point, anyway. Their dreams of control are a fantasy, and are soon to be shown as such. Making people disappear has been the modus operandi of scumbags since the dawn of civilization, 5,xxx years ago. Nothing's changed there, and won't as long as civilization exists. Which is why I harken back to an archaic age, before broad scale ag and the rise of cities, because civilization is inherently hierarchical and so, totalitarian, and cannot be any other way.
WHD said:
"civilization is inherently hierarchical and so, totalitarian, and cannot be any other way."
That's a pretty succinct point. However, it's brevity is misleading due to the fact that probably less than .1% of American's are capable of understanding it for many different reasons. In fact, I think this one point is worthy of it's own blog by you. I'd like to hear an elaboration if your taking requests.
luciddreams,
I accept the challenge. I will be happy to elaborate on that point in a new post soon.
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