Posted on 10/21/2014 6:23:16 AM PDT by Whenifhow
... 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.
Snip
IDEAS: Do we have any hope of fixing the problem?
GLENNON: The ultimate problem is the pervasive political ignorance on the part of the American people. And indifference to the threat that is emerging from these concealed institutions. That is where the energy for reform has to come from: the American people. Not from government. Government is very much the problem here. The people have to take the bull by the horns. And that’s a very difficult thing to do, because the ignorance is in many ways rational. There is very little profit to be had in learning about, and being active about, problems that you can’t affect, policies that you can’t change.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon
Transcript of interview on the page
So, why are things DRAMATICALLY WORSE under Obama?
Its called self-sustaining bureaucracy.
Created over many decades by a Congress more concerned about being re-elected than accepting responsibility for governing.
Someone else may have a different take, but first thing that came to mind is that he is so obviously not qualified, not engaged, etc, etc.
Sure there are other things too, like the looming economic situation, which was there before (jobs going overseas) Obama, but not as bad. Obama has made things much, much worse.
“So, why are things DRAMATICALLY WORSE under Obama?”
Because he’s found much more devastating ways to use the bureaucracy to bypass Congress. He’s set new parameters for Presidential power in this area that will unfortunately be used by successive presidents.
I wonder if this Salon reporter enjoyed being told how government is the problem.
“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.”
And he continues to provide examples of Obama’s inability to effect change although he tried because of this secret government.
Although I believe each alphabet in the government has its own agenda and marching orders, the White House Administration does manage and order them.
The idea that there is a longterm plan in effect is probable. Why would any company, business or nation for that matter not have a longterm plan to insure its viability.
This reads more like an apologia for Barak Hussein Obama and his massively inflated ego and highly demonstrated incompetence in all things managerial and governmental.
Successive Democrat Presidents. The press will savage a Republican who acts like Obama.
Neither party cares about Americans.
Actually for obola ... it's modus operandi.
Because so much more of their agenda got implemented behind the shield of “any criticism is racist”.
This was an excerpt, so please check out the rest on the page.
This paragraph was just before what was excerpted in the post:
“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.”
No mention of the real shadow government - the decades-long entrenched bureaucracy of social services and their non-government handmaiden, the American society of the perpetually aggrieved.
Oh boy. Not even 10 am and a “shadow government” story. Tin foil on aisle 3.
“Its called self-sustaining bureaucracy.
Created over many decades by a Congress more concerned about being re-elected than accepting responsibility for governing.”
**************
Absolutely correct IMO.
The Security State controls so much less than the Social Bureaucratic State.
Bureaucracy is the key to sustaining government. The Roman empire continued for centuries after it was officially ended due to the persistence of an ingrained bureaucracy.
Spiritual wickedness in high places keeps the ball rolling to hell.
Why has our last conservative P not stood up and said something about the direction the country is headed?
Because he built on the foundation laid before him as Obola does.
They are all globalists and they realize the only way to create their new world is to destroy the old one
Recommended first acts by President Cruz:
1) Repeal all previous Presidential Orders.
2) Fire and replace with solid conservatives every political position in government. Personnel is policy.
3) Ask each Cabinet Secretary to analyze their Department and come with a list of spending and projects to stop. Stop the spending, and make Congress sue the President to continue to implement stupid policy.
4) Pull every lever of government ever pulled by Liberals, but pull it harder for conservatism. When challenged, point to liberal manipulation, and retort that you are just doing what they do.
5) Judges.
6) Attack the priority list he published yesterday with legislation and presidential action.
President Cruz may only have 4 years. So he has to act fast to turn the country around. Even if he loses after 4 years, the great effects of hard right change will be long lasting.
You mean like icing the F-22, a superb air-superiority fighter, in favor of the F-35, a "multi-role" fighter that will have billions of dollars poured into "fixing" it?
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