by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:
I have done my best to alert MAGA Americans to the difficulty of regaining control of the US government. For decades the US government and its policies have been controlled by the organized interest groups that fund political campaigns. Regardless of the candidates voters elect, the legislation enacted and the federal government’s policies are the work of lobby groups. Among the powerful lobbies are the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, Big Pharma, Wall Street, and agri-business.
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American voters are repeatedly disappointed that little ever changes regardless of who they elect. Sometimes an administration can achieve changes in a few areas, as Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan did in reducing tensions with the Soviet Union. But even these achievements were overturned by subsequent administrations in response to the military/security complex’s demand for an enemy to secure their profit and power. Without an enemy, why does the US need a military budget that exceeds the GDP of most countries on earth? (for example, according to the World Bank, the GDP of South Africa in 2023 was $389.7 billion; Argentina $646 billion, Belgium $529 billion; Hungary $212 billion; Norway $485 billion; Pakistan $338 billion; Sweden $585 billion; Thailand $515 billion.) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=ZA-AR-BE-HU-AU-MX-KR-NO-PK-SE-CH
The resistance to change is because the interests of what constitutes the American Establishment is institutionalized. American social and governmental institutions have become homes of The Establishment. It was 64 years ago on January 17, 1961, that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the five-star general in charge of the Normandy invasion, at the end of his second term warned Americans about the increasing power of the military-security complex.
As a congressional staffer in both House and Senate I experienced the power almost daily. I still remember the day when I was on the floor of the US Senate and Strom Thurmond, the fourth longest serving senator in US history, tapped me on the shoulder. A vote was before the Senate whether to partially pay for a reduction in marginal income tax rates by reducing a military appropriation. Senator Thurmond said to me: “Don’t ever let your senator vote for a reduction in military spending. If he does, he won’t be reelected, and you will be out of a job.” He brought clarity to me that survival as a senator meant accommodating the profits of the armaments corporations, not the living standards of the taxpayers.
Thurmond, who served in the Senate for almost half a century, was no novice. He was educating me that whatever the interest of Wall Street and the financial sector in lower tax rates, their power was less than that of the military/security complex. As sometimes there were conflicts between the interests of lobby groups, it was important for a Senate staffer to know the hierarchy of power rankings.
Having experienced all this first hand, I warned readers that the US Senate is an Establishment-owned institution, and that the US Senate has the power to deny federal office to a president’s nominations. I explained that this establishment power over an incoming administration could render it impotent.
Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence. As a member of the House, she was a strong critic of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, legislation that I am convinced is unconstitutional and the foundation of a police state. Fear of non-existent “Muslim terrorist threat,” hyped by a whore media, made insouciant Americans accept the foundation of a police state. In 2020 together with Rep. Thomas Massie, the only independent member of the House today, she introduced a bill to repeal the entire Patriot Act, a police state measure imposed on us by the Republican regime of Bush/Cheney, the worst in modern American history until Biden.
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