Congress, Police States, Insurgencies, and Lessons Not Learned
The January 6th Committee rages on, and does its best to provide a solid foundation for a domestic insurgency here, forgetting that the US has never won a 4GW war against a domestic insurgency...
From Glen Greenwald: "In its ongoing attempt to investigate and gather information about private U.S. citizens, the Congressional 1/6 Committee is claiming virtually absolute powers that not even the FBI or other law enforcement agencies enjoy. Indeed, lawyers for the committee have been explicitly arguing that nothing proscribes or limits their authority to obtain data regarding whichever citizens they target and, even more radically, that the checks imposed on the FBI (such as the requirement to obtain judicial authorization for secret subpoenas) do not apply to the committee.
As we have previously reported and as civil liberties groups have warned, there are serious constitutional doubts about the existence of the committee itself. Under the Constitution and McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases interpreting it, the power to investigate crimes lies with the executive branch, supervised by the judiciary, and not with Congress. Congress does have the power to conduct investigations, but that power is limited to two narrow categories: 1) when doing so is designed to assist in its law-making duties (e.g., directing executives of oil companies to testify when considering new environmental laws) and 2) in order to exert oversight over the executive branch.
What Congress is barred from doing, as two McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases ruled, is exactly what the 1/6 committee is now doing: conducting a separate, parallel criminal investigation in order to uncover political crimes committed by private citizens. Such powers are dangerous precisely because Congress’s investigative powers are not subject to the same safeguards as the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. And just as was true of the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that prompted those Supreme Court rulings, the 1/6 committee is not confining its invasive investigative activities to executive branch officials or even citizens who engaged in violence or other illegality on January 6, but instead is investigating anyone and everyone who exercised their Constitutional rights to express views about and organize protests over their belief that the 2020 presidential election contained fraud. Indeed, the committee's initial targets appear to be taken from the list of those who applied for protest permits in Washington: a perfectly legal, indeed constitutionally protected, act."
And the fact that this nonsense can go on, absolutely unconstitutional and frankly illegal, in the plain language of the cases cited above, is rather amazing, given that the Senate is nominally 50-50 R/D, and the House Democrats hold a 4 vote majority. Numerous Biden measures and nominations have been stopped dead in their tracks, and the Republicans let these theatrics go on? Granted, it's a hell of a show, and it keeps the halves of the country which buy into this at each other's throats, and the attention diverted from some real national policy issues - which most people reading this could just rattle off... But the Dumbo-Crats, But the Reeeee-Publicans, their (obviously) scripted Punch-and-Judy battles keep, with the usual media collusion, attention away from real concerns - all of which are in the hands of the Administrative State, the National Security State, the Efficient Government, which exist by delegation of powers from Congress, but which defy any sort of real oversight and control. On the contrary, Congress defers to *them*, and that shows the real power dynamic in place - so that the slashing teeth and spittle-flecked jaws of Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are actually those of the agencies they - on paper - employ, but the roles of master and servant are reversed. Whoever said that "Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant, and a fearsome master" expresses this perfectly. What we have is an Administrative State that has become the real government, which sets policy and runs things just like the British Civil Service has done for the past 200 years - see "National Security and Double Government", by Prof. Michael J Glennon, at https://fletcher.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/pubs_glennon-michael-national-security-double-government.pdf - in effect, a military government: https://www.fff.org/2020/12/11/the-national-security-establishment-is-in-charge/ - and "American Democracy" is but a hollow shell over this body.
And this problem isn’t going to be solved through the democratic process of elections, because the people chosen by that process have no real power to change anything or set any real policy. They can put on a great show - fighting like cats over the Kavanaugh nomination - and then go into the Senate chamber and pass over $100 billion more of American taxpayer money to the National Security State than was asked for, almost $900 billion in all, on a bipartisan 97 to 3 vote. It’s pretty clear from this vote - and many others - who is really running the show, and it’s not anyone who got in power by elections. And the Administrative State abides by the Constitution only when convenient to its purposes and intents - although Congress is now becoming as lawless.
How to change this is unclear - the institution of a police state, leading to a violent domestic insurgency is one possibility, but people with nothing to lose can become quite dangerous. And the United States has never won a war against an insurgent movement on its home territory, although many countries have been shot to pieces in the process. Lessons Learned doesn't seem to be something the Administrative State does well, if at all, and it would be much less possible in a war without fronts, on its home soil. And then there comes the problem of whom to negotiate with to bring the thing to an end. So a police state would end up being a form of national suicide, at least for the central government, and for as many state governments which colluded with it. And the trouble with all wars is that they cost money and resources - it takes a tax base to finance a war, or other countries willing to lend funds and troops, and they'd want a return on their investment which they'd be unlikely to get. Even China, for that matter, and without places to sell their goods, they'd be in trouble - even collapse, themselves. Good counterinsurgency doctrine demands that states do the exact opposite of what the US government is now doing.
Another possibility is a Soviet Union-style collapse - in essence, the US goes back to being the country created by the Articles of Confederation - a confederation of quasi-independent republics, where the national government is outward looking, only, dropping most of the Administrative State in the ditch. This is what would happen in quick order if the petrodollar went away, and there was a debt default - government servants are loyal only so long as they are paid, after that, their allegiance goes to the highest bidder - if there are any bidders at all. If I were to bet on the most probable outcome, this would be it. But we shall see what happens...
It's "legal" until someone presses lawsuits to stop it, or until we the people remove the authorities to continue it. The latter seems likely in November. If legal action is initiated Monday, it probably wouldn't be decided before November.