https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/america_meet_your_new_dictator_in_chief_the_presidents_secret_unchecked_powers
America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.”— David C. Unger, The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs
America, meet your new dictator-in-chief.
As the New York Times reports, “Newly disclosed documents have shed a crack of light on secret executive branch plans for apocalyptic scenarios—like the aftermath of a nuclear attack—when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies.”
The problem, of course, is that we have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency.
Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.
The seeds of this present madness were sown almost two decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20) provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”
Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president.
The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.
Essentially, the president would become a dictator for life.
It has happened already.
As we have witnessed in recent years, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.
The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.
Yet according to documents recently obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public.
It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security.
The war on COVID-19, the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration: all of these programs started out as responses to pressing national concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.
Deploying the same strategy it used with 9/11 to acquire greater powers under the USA Patriot Act, the police state—a.k.a. the shadow government, a.k.a. the Deep State—has been planning and preparing for such crises for years now, quietly assembling a wish list of presidential lockdown powers that could be trotted out and approved at a moment’s notice.
Indeed, the Trump Administration even asked Congress to allow it to suspend parts of the Constitution whenever it deems it necessary during the COVID-19 crisis and “other” emergencies. The Department of Justice (DOJ) went so far as to quietly trot out and test a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution.
We’re talking about lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level): the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die.
These are powers the police state would desperately like to make permanent.
In such a climate, the American president becomes dictator with permanent powers: imperial, unaccountable and unconstitutional.
Bear in mind that the powers the government officially asked Congress to recognize and authorize barely scratch the surface of the far-reaching powers the government has already unilaterally claimed for itself.
Unofficially, the police state with the president at its helm has been riding roughshod over the rule of law for years now without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.
Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.
The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.
As law professor William P. Marshall explains, “every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.”
Moreover, it doesn’t even matter whether other presidents have chosen not to take advantage of any particular power, because “it is a President’s action in using power, rather than forsaking its use, that has the precedential significance.”
In other words, each successive president continues to add to his office’s list of extraordinary orders and directives, expanding the reach and power of the presidency and granting him- or herself near dictatorial powers.
All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump and passed along to Joe Biden.
These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.
These are the powers that continue to be passed along to each successive heir to the Oval Office, the Constitution be damned.
This is what you might call a stealthy, creeping, silent, slow-motion coup d’état.
From Clinton to Bush, Obama to Trump, and now Biden, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same abuses over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but “we the people” are paying the price for it now.
We are paying the price every day that we allow the government to continue to wage its war on the American People, a war that is being fought on many fronts: with bullets and tasers, with surveillance cameras and license readers, with intimidation and propaganda, with court rulings and legislation, with the collusion of every bureaucrat who dances to the tune of corporate handouts while on the government’s payroll, and most effectively of all, with the complicity of the American people, who continue to allow themselves to be easily manipulated by their politics, distracted by their pastimes, and acclimated to a world in which government corruption is the norm.
Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.
If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.
After all, it is a tale that has been told time and again throughout history about how easy it is for freedom to fall and tyranny to rise, and it often begins with one small, seemingly inconsequential willingness on the part of the people to compromise their principles and undermine the rule of law in exchange for a dubious assurance of safety, prosperity and a life without care.
Unfortunately, the process of unseating a dictator and limiting the powers of the presidency is far from simple but at a minimum, it must start with “we the people.”
For starters, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we must recalibrate the balance of power.
Start locally—in your own communities, in your schools, at your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust, police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t listen to their constituents, and a system of government that grows more tyrannical by the day.
What we desperately need is a concerted, collective commitment to the Constitution’s principles of limited government, a system of checks and balances, and a recognition that they—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the police, the technocrats and plutocrats and bureaucrats—answer to and are accountable to “we the people.”
This will mean that Americans will have to stop letting their personal politics and party allegiances blind them to government misconduct and power grabs.
It will mean holding all three branches of government accountable to the Constitution (i.e., vote them out of office if they abuse their powers).
And it will mean calling on Congress to put an end to the use of presidential executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements as a means of getting around Congress and the courts.
In other words, we’ve got to start making both the president and the police state play by the rules of the Constitution.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-1984-orwells-vision-our-reality/5781788
COVID-1984: Orwell’s Vision, Our Reality?
“Is it just me, or does it feel like someone out there is using Orwell’s work, not as a warning, but as an owner’s manual?” GBNews host Neil Oliver asked in a May 7, 2022 monologue. He summarized a scene from George Orwell’s book, “Animal Farm,” in which the farm animals discover that the pigs are taking all the apples and milk for themselves.
When their selfish behavior is revealed, the pigs defend it saying it has been scientifically proven that pigs alone require milk and apples for good health. There’s nothing self-serving about their taking all the apples and milk for themselves. “Many of us don’t even like apples.”
Who’s Actually Following the Science?
This term, “science” has been repeatedly thrown in our faces and shoved down our throats over the past two years, while unfairly and irrationally separating the superiors from the plebs. “Science” has been used to strip us of medical rights and personal freedoms.
Now, “science” is touted as the justification for not eating real beef and getting used to insects, grubs and lab-grown protein alternatives instead. “Science” is also being weaponized to cajole us into accepting rolling blackouts and energy deprivation.
“Energy giant E.On recently sent pairs of polyester socks to customers with the message, ‘Energy down. CO2 down.’ Those literally in control of the power are telling people to wear more clothes to fend off the cold rather than have heating in their homes,” Oliver said.
‘1984’ — A Manual for Totalitarianism
In Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” we find both a Ministry of Plenty and a Ministry of Truth. Both names are the opposite of their true function. The Ministry of Plenty’s job is to maintain a consistent level of poverty while publishing fabricated production numbers for items that were never actually made, and the task of the Ministry of Truth is to memory-hole inconvenient facts and rewrite history daily to fit the political narrative.
In the U.S., the Biden administration has been telling us the economy is good, the GDP is strong1 and inflation is transitory,2 even though data clearly tell a different story. The first quarter of 2022 actually had a negative growth rate,3 consumer debt soared $52 billion in March,4 and inflation over the past year has been the fastest in four decades,5 with no end in sight.
Biden has even insisted that borrowing (read: printing) more money will reduce prices while not affecting the value of the dollar. To quote The Hill contributor Chris Talgo,6 “That is called, to borrow a Biden-ism, malarkey,” because “when the government prints or borrows trillions of dollars, the value of the dollar declines, and prices rise. That is called inflation.” It’s basic economics, but even that is being redefined at whim.
As if that weren’t Orwellian enough, at the end of April 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security created an actual “ministry of truth,” the Disinformation Governance Board, in blatant violation of the First Amendment (free speech).
The DHS is basically pretending as though the Constitution doesn’t exist anymore, yet no one can recall it being formally abolished. It should still be there — the supreme law of the land. But government is acting as though it’s been memory-holed, and no doubt hope you’ll just go along with it. It’s nothing short of insane-making, and perhaps that’s the intention.
Government Gaslighting
It’s very reminiscent of gaslighting,7 a form of emotional manipulation and abuse where the abuser creates a false narrative and step by step makes the victim question their sanity. Rewriting history is a key hallmark, as is refuting what is obvious fact. Silly examples might be commenting on your “black shirt” when the shirt you’re wearing is white, or insist you arrived an hour late when clearly, you were right on time, judging by every clock in the house.
While the victim may wonder if they’re losing their mind, it’s actually the people who do the gaslighting who typically have a mental health disorder. They tend to be pathological liars with strong narcissistic tendencies.
To protect yourself, psychologists recommend you get some distance from the perpetrator, save all evidence (so you can confirm the facts when you get unsure), and set firm boundaries for what you will tolerate and what you won’t. Lastly, you need to sever the relationship — something to keep in mind.
In his monologue, Oliver laments the poor turnout in the local elections, noting that most people are simply worn out by the abuse. Exhausted by the lies. Fatigued beyond care by the hypocrisy. Let this be a lesson to Americans — do not fall into apathy.
The answer is to replace the abusive leadership by voting in record-setting numbers. Get more involved, not less. You could volunteer as a poll worker, for example. It’s true, we’re being hit with phenomenally powerful psychological warfare, but remaining focused on the truth and refusing to get side tracked is your best defense.
Enemies of Freedom
Aldous Huxley was a contemporary and mentor of Orwell. In the 1958 interview above, Huxley discussed a series of essays he’d written called “Enemies of Freedom.” The series outlines “impersonal forces” that are “pushing in the direction of progressively less freedom,” and “technological devices” that can be used to accelerate the process by imposing ever greater control of the population.
With the advent of television, Huxley foresaw how an authoritarian leadership could become a source of ‘a one-pointed drumming’ of a single idea, effectively brainwashing the public. Beyond that, he predicted the technological capability to ‘bypass the rational side of man’ and manipulate behavior by influencing people on a subconscious level. This is precisely what we’re faced with today.
Huxley pointed out that as technology becomes more complex, it becomes increasingly necessary to form more elaborate hierarchal organizations to manage it all. Technology also allows for more effective propaganda machines that can be managed through those same control hierarchies.
Huxley cited the success of Hitler, noting that aside from Hitler’s effective use of terror and brute force, “he also used a very efficient form of propaganda. He had the radio, which he used to the fullest extent, and was able to impose his will on an immense mass of people.”
With the advent of television, Huxley foresaw how an authoritarian leadership could become a source of “a one-pointed drumming” of a single idea, effectively brainwashing the public. Beyond that, he predicted the technological capability to “bypass the rational side of man” and manipulate behavior by influencing people on a subconscious level. This is precisely what we’re faced with today.
Google and Facebook have both been collecting data on you for nearly two decades. They have created massive server farms that are capable of analyzing this data with deep learning and artificial intelligence software to mine information and generate incredibly precise details on just what type of propaganda and narrative is required to surreptitiously manipulate your beliefs and behavior.
Centralization Is the Engine of Huxley’s Dystopia
Huxley argued that to create the dystopian future presented in his books, you would have to centralize wealth, power and control, which is precisely what the technocratic and transhumanist-inspired globalist cabal have been doing. Their control grid is nearly complete.
One of the final nails in our collective coffin will be the rollout of a global digital identity system, as this will give them more or less total control over every human being on the planet. The World Health Organization is working on one. The European Union just announced the rollout of digital ID, and the U.K. government is drawing up legislation to make digital ID services more secure.8
While sold as the ultimate in speed and convenience, digital ID “poses one of the gravest risks to human rights of any technology that we have encountered.” The Expose warns:9
“Ultimately, social credit systems, such as those that are currently being developed in China, will be based on digital ID, thereby enabling or disabling our full and free participation in society.
By developing facial recognition and AI and machine learning technologies in parallel with systems for a Digital ID, we are not simply establishing an identity to access basic social services. Digital IDs will become necessary to function in a connected digital world …
Digital ID systems, as they are being developed today, are ripe for exploitation and abuse, to the detriment of our freedoms and democracies. You may be thinking that this would never happen in the West and it is only unique to China. But they already enforced it here without you realizing it, through COVID-19 Vaccine Passports.
Mandatory COVID passports have almost nothing to do with public health and everything to do with social control. Why? Because the COVID-19 injections do not prevent infection or transmission … Vaccine Passports make absolutely zero sense from a Public Health perspective. But they make perfect sense for enforcing a Digital ID and Social Credit system …
You’ll have to use your Digital ID to buy certain things, be granted access to places, and most probably to even access the mainstream internet. But, if you haven’t done what the Government has decided makes you a ‘good citizen,’ and kept up a good social credit score, you won’t be able to do any of those things.
Once Digital IDs have been normalized, they will be one of the greatest tools that Governments have ever had in their arsenal to both control and manipulate the public and remain in power, thanks to the huge amount of personal data they will generate.”
Decentralization Protects Freedom
If centralization is the prerequisite for Huxley’s dystopia, then decentralization is the way to protect against it. Today, the wisdom of this is on full display. I believe decentralization of the internet will be required to prevent censorship and manipulation in the future.
This means that websites and platforms are not stored in one central place that can easily be controlled and manipulated but, rather, widely distributed to thousands, if not millions, of computers all over the world. Because there is no central storage it can’t be removed.
Decentralized platforms allow the majority of power to reside with the individual. Technologies that can be easily misused to control the public narrative must also remain largely decentralized, so that no one person or agency ends up with too much power to manipulate and influence the public. Our modern-day social media monopolies are a perfect example of what Huxley warned us about.
The same goes for our food system and our economic institutions too. Today, we can see how the role of the central bank (in the U.S. known as the Federal Reserve) — a privately-owned entity with the power to break entire countries apart for profit — is forcing us toward a new global economic system that will impoverish and quite literally enslave everyone, with the exception of the cabal members themselves.
Like the ruling pigs in “Animal Farm,” they may insist they’re
“building back better” and working toward a “fairer and more equitable”
society, but if they get their way, they will be the only ones dining on
apples and milk in the farmhouse, while the rest of us own nothing and
subsist on rationed grubs.
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