<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two \u2018sides\u2019 of mainstream politics are not fighting against one another,\u00a0they\u2019re only fighting against you<\/a>. Their only job is to keep you clapping along with the two-handed puppet show as they rob you blind and tighten your chains while your gaze is fixed on the performance.\u201d<\/em>\u2014Caitlin Johnstone<\/p>\n A failed assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. An incumbent president withdrawing his re-election bid at the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0hour. A politicized judiciary that fails to hold the powers-that-be accountable to the rule of law. A world at war. A nation in turmoil.<\/p>\n This is what controlled chaos looks like.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s election-year referendum on which corporate puppet should occupy the White House has quickly become a lesson in how the Deep State engineers a crisis to keep itself in power.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get so caught up in the performance that you lose sight of what\u2019s real.<\/p>\n This endless series of diversions, distractions and political drama is the oldest con game in the books, the magician\u2019s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the\u00a0Reichstag Fire<\/a>\u00a0all over again.<\/p>\n It was February 1933, a month before national elections in Germany, and the Nazis weren\u2019t expected to win. So they engineered a way to win: they began by infiltrating the police and granting police powers to their allies; then Hitler brought in stormtroopers to act as auxiliary police; by the time an arsonist (who claimed to be working for the Communists in the hopes of starting an armed revolt) set fire to the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building, the people were eager for a return to law and order.<\/p>\n That was all it took:\u00a0Hitler used the attempted \u201ccoup\u201d as an excuse to declare martial law and seize absolute power in Germany<\/a>, establishing himself as a dictator with the support of the German people.<\/p>\n Fast forward to the present day, and what do we have? A discontented citizenry, a disconnected government, and a Deep State that wants to stay in power at all costs.<\/p>\n So what happens? Trump has a near miss, Biden bows out, and politics becomes exciting to the masses again.<\/p>\n It works the same in every age.<\/p>\n This is how the police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House.<\/p>\n You know who will lose? Every last one of us.<\/p>\n After all, politics today is not about Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n Nor is it about abortion, healthcare, higher taxes, immigration, or any of the other buzzwords that have become campaign slogans for individuals who have mastered the art of telling Americans exactly what they want to hear.<\/p>\n Politics today is about one thing and one thing only: maintaining the status quo between the Controllers (the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the corporate elite) and the Controlled (the taxpayers).<\/p>\n Indeed, it really doesn\u2019t matter what you call them\u2014the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex\u2014so long as you understand that no matter which party occupies the White House in 2025, the unelected bureaucracy that actually calls the shots will continue to do so.<\/p>\n In other words, no matter who wins this next presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we\u2014the permanent underclass in America\u2014will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.<\/p>\n Consider the following a much-needed reality check, an antidote if you will, against an overdose of overhyped campaign announcements, lofty electoral promises and meaningless patriotic sentiments that land us right back in the same prison cell.<\/p>\n FACT: According to a scientific study by Princeton researchers, the\u00a0United States of America is not the democracy that it purports to be, but rather an oligarchy<\/a>, in which \u201ceconomic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy.\u201d<\/p>\n FACT: Despite the fact that the\u00a0number of violent crimes in the country is down substantially<\/a>, the lowest rate in sixty years, the\u00a0number of Americans being\u00a0jailed<\/em>\u00a0for nonviolent crimes such as driving with a suspended license continues to skyrocket<\/a>.<\/p>\n FACT: Thanks to an\u00a0overabundance of 4,500-plus federal crimes and 400,000-plus rules<\/a>\u00a0and regulations, it is estimated that the\u00a0average American actually commits three felonies a day<\/a>\u00a0without knowing it. In fact, according to law professor John Baker, \u201cThere is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime<\/a>. That is not an exaggeration.\u201d<\/p>\n FACT: Despite the fact that we have\u00a038 million Americans living at or below the poverty line<\/a>,\u00a013 million children living in households without adequate access to food<\/a>, and\u00a01.2 million veterans relying on food stamps<\/a>, enormous sums of taxpayer money continue to be doled out on\u00a0wasteful programs<\/a>\u00a0that do little to improve the plight of those in need.<\/p>\n FACT: Since 2001 Americans have spent\u00a0$93 million every\u00a0hour<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>for the total cost of the nation\u2019s so-called war on terror.<\/p>\n FACT: It is estimated that\u00a05 million children in the United States have had at least one parent in prison<\/a>, whether it be a local jail or a state or federal penitentiary, due to a wide range of factors ranging from overcriminalization and surprise raids at family homes to roadside traffic stops.<\/p>\n FACT: According to a Gallup poll,\u00a0Americans place greater faith in the military and the police<\/a>\u00a0than in any of the three branches of government.<\/p>\n FACT: At least\u00a0400 to 500 innocent people are killed by police officers<\/a>\u00a0every year. Indeed,\u00a0Americans are now\u00a0eight<\/em>\u00a0times more likely to die in a police confrontation<\/a>\u00a0than they are to be killed by a terrorist.\u00a0Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness<\/a>\u00a0than in a terrorist attack. Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be made financially liable for their wrongdoing.<\/p>\n FACT: On an average day in America,\u00a0over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT<\/a>\u00a0teams. Most of those SWAT team raids are for a mere warrant service. There has been a\u00a0notable buildup in recent years of heavily armed SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies<\/a>\u00a0such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Education Department.<\/p>\n FACT: For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government: the surveillance state. This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC. The government\u2019s \u201ctechnotyranny<\/a>\u201d surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that it\u2019s hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins. They have become one and the same entity. The police state has passed the baton to the surveillance state.<\/p>\n FACT:\u00a0Everything<\/em>\u00a0we do will eventually be connected to the Internet. By 2030 it is estimated there will be\u00a0100 trillion sensor devices connecting human electronic devices<\/a>\u00a0(cell phones, laptops, etc.) to the Internet. Much, if not all, of our electronic devices will be connected to Google, which openly works with government intelligence agencies. Virtually everything we do now\u2014no matter how innocent\u2014is being collected by the spying American police state.<\/p>\n FACT: Americans know virtually nothing about their history or how their government works. In fact, according to a study by the National Constitution Center,\u00a041 percent of Americans \u201care not aware that there are three branches of government<\/a>, and 62 percent couldn\u2019t name them; 33 percent couldn\u2019t even name one.\u201d<\/p>\n FACT: Only\u00a0six out of every one hundred Americans<\/a>\u00a0know that they actually have a constitutional right to hold the government accountable for wrongdoing, as guaranteed by the right to petition clause of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most troubling fact of all is this: we have handed over control of our government and our lives to faceless bureaucrats who view us as little more than cattle to be bred, branded, butchered and sold for profit.<\/p>\n As I make clear in my book\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and in its fictional counterpart\u00a0The Erik Blair Diaries<\/em><\/a>, if there is to be any hope of restoring our freedoms and reclaiming control over our government, it will rest not with the politicians but with the people themselves.<\/p>\n One thing is for sure: the reassurance ritual of voting is not going to advance freedom one iota.<\/p>\n Constitutional attorney and author\u00a0John W. Whitehead<\/strong>\u00a0is founder and president of\u00a0The Rutherford Institute<\/a>. His most recent books are the best-selling\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/a>, the award-winning\u00a0A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State<\/a>, and a debut dystopian fiction novel,\u00a0The Erik Blair Diaries<\/a>. Whitehead can be contacted at\u00a0st***@ru********.org<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n