[Vision2020] Martial Law by Executive Order

[Paul Rumelhart]

Some information on President Obama's National Defense Resources 
Preparedness Executive Order of March 16.  I hadn't heard of this until 
just today.  It's frightening how things like this happen quietly in 
Obamas "transparent" government.

>From 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-garrison/martial-law-under-another_b_1370819.html


  Martial Law by Executive Order

Jim Garrison
President, Wisdom University; Author, 'America as Empire'

President Obama's National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive 
Order of March 16 does to the country as a whole what the 2012 National 
Defense Authorization Act did to the Constitution in particular -- 
completely eviscerates any due process or judicial oversight for any 
action by the Government deemed in the interest of "national security." 
Like the NDAA, the new Executive Order puts the government completely 
above the law, which, in a democracy, is never supposed to happen. The 
United States is essentially now under martial law without the 
exigencies of a national emergency.

Even as the 2012 NDAA was rooted in the Patriot Act and the various 
executive orders and Congressional bills that ensued to broaden 
executive power in the "war on terror," so the new Executive Order is 
rooted in the Defense Production Act of 1950 which gave the Government 
powers to mobilize national resources in the event of national 
emergencies, except now virtually every aspect of American life falls 
under ultimate unchallengeable government control, to be exercised by 
the president and his secretaries at their discretion.

The 2012 NDAA deemed the United States a "battlefield," as Senator 
Lindsey Graham put it, and gave the president and his agents the right 
to seize and arrest any U.S. citizen, detain them indefinitely without 
charge or trial, and do so only on suspicion, without any judicial 
oversight or due process. The new Executive 
order<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness> 
states that the president and his secretaries have the authority to 
commandeer all U.S. domestic resources, including food and water, as 
well as seize all energy and transportation infrastructure inside the 
borders of the United States. The Government can also forcibly draft 
U.S. citizens into the military and force U.S. citizens to fulfill 
"labor requirements" for the purposes of "national defense." There is 
not even any Congressional oversight allowed, only briefings.

In the NDAA, only the president had the authority to abrogate legitimate 
freedoms of U.S. citizens. What is extraordinary in the new Executive 
Order is that this supreme power is designated through the president to 
the secretaries that run the Government itself:

. The Secretary of Defense has power over all water resources;
. The Secretary of Commerce has power over all material services and 
facilities, including construction materials;
. The Secretary of Transportation has power over all forms of civilian 
transportation;
. The Secretary of Agriculture has power over food resources and 
facilities, livestock plant health resources, and the domestic 
distribution of farm equipment;
. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has power over all health 
resources;
. The Secretary of Energy has power over all forms of energy.

The Executive Order even stipulates that in the event of conflict 
between the secretaries in using these powers, the president will 
determine the resolution through his national security team.

The 2012 NDAA gave the Government the right to abrogate any due process 
against a U.S. citizen. The new Executive Order gives the government, 
through the Secretary of Labor, the right to proactively mobilize U.S. 
citizens for "labor" as the government deems necessary and to coordinate 
with the Secretary of Defense to maintain data to coordinate the 
nation's work needs in relation to national defense.

What is extraordinary about the Executive Order is that, like the NDAA, 
this can all be done in peacetime without any national emergency to 
justify it. The language of the Order does not state that all these 
extraordinary measures will be done in the event of "national security" 
or a "national emergency." They can simply be done for "purposes of 
national defense," clearly a broader remit that allows the government to 
do what it wants, when it wants, how it wants, to whomever it wants, all 
without any judicial restraint or due process. As Orwell famously said 
in /1984/, "War is peace. Peace is war." This is now the reality on the 
ground in America.

Finally, the 2012 NDAA was hurried through the House and Senate almost 
like a covert op with minimal public attention or debate. It was then 
signed by the president at 9:00 PM on New Year's Eve while virtually 
nobody was paying attention to much other than the approaching new year. 
This new Executive Order was written and signed in complete secret and 
then quietly released by the White House on its website without comment. 
All this was done under a president who studied constitutional law at 
Harvard.

It is hard to know what to say in the face of such egregious disregard 
for the integrity of what America has stood and fought for since its 
founding. It is hard in part because none of us thought such 
encroachments would ever happen here, certainly not under the watch of a 
"progressive" like Obama.

At one level, the prospect for war with Iran is probably an immediate 
justification. But the comprehensiveness of the Executive Order, like 
that of the 2012 NDAA, speaks to something much deeper, more sinister. I 
would suggest that this Order, like the NDAA, has been in the works for 
some time and is simply the next step in the logic of the "global war on 
terror." Our political elites have come to consider democracy an 
impediment to effective governance and they are slowly and painstakingly 
creating all the democratic legalities necessary to abridge our 
democratic rights with impunity, all to ensure our "security." Of such 
measures do republics fall and by such measures tyrants emerge.

The only thing that really remains is the occasion to test the new rules 
of the game. Perhaps that will be war with Iran, perhaps some contrived 
emergency, or perhaps, as long as the public and media remain asleep, no 
occasion will be necessary at all. It will just slowly happen of its own 
accord and we, like the frog in the pot of slowly boiling water, will 
just sit there and be consumed by our own turpitude.
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