However You Vote, The Secret Government Always Wins

[Suzanimal]

Much is made of voting and elections in the US. But what if voting means very little, if anything? What if a permanent government is really in control of Washington that is not affected by elections? The existence of a "deep state" is no conspiracy theory. In fact members of the permanent government operate in the open. What can be done to bring back liberty and accountability?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25N4tZmynQ

[Rad]

I've been thinking for a couple years now that the Deep State needs to be bought off and given something economically worthwhile to do to ween it off the US taxpayer. Seriously, isn't there anything better they could be paid to do besides voyeurism and war profiteering?

[Occam's Banana]

http://i.imgur.com/OzRJRrr.png

[euphemia]

I think it will take more than an election to regain control of our government. I thought this article was interesting:

Forecast: Distrust With a Chance of Revolution (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2016/01/26/forecast_distrust_with_a_chance_of_revolution_3747 76.html)

According to a recent Associated Press poll, the public lacks confidence in government. And by “lacks confidence,” I mean “really lacks confidence.” Specifically, “More than 6 in 10 respondents expressed only slight confidence — or none at all — that the federal government can make progress on the problems facing the nation in 2016.”

See more at the link.

[presence]

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/files/2008/04/diebold_pres.jpg

[Occam's Banana]

Here's the Boston Globe article that Ron referred to in the OP video:

Vote all you want. The secret government won't change.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html
Jordan Michael Smith (19 October 2014)

The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon

The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.

But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.

Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.

Glennon cites the example of Obama and his team being shocked and angry to discover upon taking office that the military gave them only two options for the war in Afghanistan: The United States could add more troops, or the United States could add a lot more troops. Hemmed in, Obama added 30,000 more troops.

Glennon’s critique sounds like an outsider’s take, even a radical one. In fact, he is the quintessential insider: He was legal counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a consultant to various congressional committees, as well as to the State Department. “National Security and Double Government” comes favorably blurbed by former members of the Defense Department, State Department, White House, and even the CIA. And he’s not a conspiracy theorist: Rather, he sees the problem as one of “smart, hard-working, public-spirited people acting in good faith who are responding to systemic incentives”—without any meaningful oversight to rein them in.

How exactly has double government taken hold? And what can be done about it? Glennon spoke with Ideas from his office at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. This interview has been condensed and edited.

IDEAS: Where does the term “double government” come from?

GLENNON: It comes from Walter Bagehot’s famous theory. [...]

[... continued at link: https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html ...]

[fr33]

In the past 15 days I have received 4 emails from Ron Paul asking me for money to change things through politics.

[Ronin Truth]

How about if you secret vote?

[Suzanimal]

Here's the Boston Globe article that Ron referred to in the OP video:

Vote all you want. The secret government won't change.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html
Jordan Michael Smith (19 October 2014)

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.

Made me think of this...

http://i.imgur.com/enSKCLz.png

[Ronin Truth]

Made me think of this...

http://i.imgur.com/enSKCLz.png

Love it, added to my armory, thanks. :D

+Rep!

“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.” -- Mark Twain

[presence]

Maybe elections should be important, but quite frankly I've always downplayed the importance of elections.

I've been on the recieving end of distorted [election] results.

Elections probably aren't nearly as important as they think.

Voting was a worthwhile venture to change people's minds.

Voting is a vehicle for getting information out.

This is not a conspiracy about a secret government this operates in broad daylight.

The elected positions are almost like a Potemkin Village of a pseudo-democracy while you have a permanent class in DC that runs actually things. (McAdams)

You know HL Mencken had a famous quote about elections, you know he didn't think too much of them either, he said, "An election is just an advanced auction on stolen goods."

Its very important what people think and do outside of government. Ultimately, its the philosophy of government that influences those in congress. They're not thinkers or philosophers. I work on the idea that we should change ideas and opinions. There are those of us that want to change peoples attitudes towards wanting very little government.

They put liberty in the Constitution; protection of our freedoms, but they never idolized the concept of democracy.

I think you have to change the nature of government. You shouldn't have anything up for sale. The government sould be expected to protect our freedoms of choice; our earning capicity; and our life, liberty, and property.

People are quite capable of working within a voluntary society and working out these problems.



rush/incomplete transcript; mostly Ron except potemkin village comment by McAdams