counterpunch | No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow
government is here to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI
reveal, this shadow government—also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group”—may well have played a part in who will win the White House this year.
To be precise, however, the future president will actually inherit not one but two shadow governments.
The first
shadow government, referred to as COG or Continuity of Government, is
made up of unelected individuals who have been appointed to run the
government in the event of a “catastrophe.” COG is a phantom menace
waiting for the right circumstances—a terrorist attack, a natural
disaster, an economic meltdown—to bring it out of the shadows, where it
operates even now. When and if COG takes over, the police state will
transition to martial law.
Yet it is the second shadow government—also
referred to as the Deep State—that poses the greater threat to freedom
right now. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations,
contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling
the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government is the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our government.
The Deep State, which “operates according to its own compass heading
regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections
and the entire concept of a representative government.
So who or what is the Deep State?
It’s the militarized police, which have joined forces with state and
federal law enforcement agencies in order to establish themselves as a
standing army. It’s the fusion centers and spy agencies that have
created a surveillance state and turned all of us into suspects. It’s
the courthouses and prisons that have allowed corporate profits to take
precedence over due process and justice. It’s the military empire with
its private contractors and defense industry that is bankrupting the
nation. It’s the private sector with its 854,000 contract personnel
with top-secret clearances, “a number greater than that of
top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government.” It’s what
former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to as “a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies”:
the Department of Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security, the
CIA, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the Executive Office of the
President via the National Security Council, the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, a handful of vital federal trial courts, and members
of the defense and intelligence committees.
