by Dragon for viewzone 2012

The Latest Executive Order

An Executive Order for National Defense was released as part of the Friday afternoon data dump, 16 March, by the White House. By Saturday morning, the internet was flooded with commentators denouncing it as peacetime martial law. [Examples here]

The claim is made that this Executive Order gives the government the authority to seize whatever it wants, whenever it wants. The intensity of fear and apprehension varies, as does the number of lines of print devoted to the subject. What does not vary, though, is that apparently none of them have really read it with intention of understanding it.

I venture to speculate that many of them, perhaps even a majority of them, have not read it at all. They merely rearrange the words that someone else wrote and deliver the same message.

To read the Executive Order with the intent to understand would require that they set aside their anti-Obama bias and actually READ what is written. If they read what is written, it is not at all what people are saying it is.

If one reads this Order from the man-on-the-street perspective, one may arrive at some level of acceptance and understanding. To really understand what the Order is intended to accomplish, one needs to read it from the ruler perspective. I'm going to try to make my voice heard above the chorus of outrage as we examine this document from a larger, more comprehensive, viewpoint.

The origins date back to the 1950s

A common lament is that our industrial base is gone. The United States was once a self-sufficient country. That was back in the 50s, before the corporations began shifting our manufacturing to locations where labor was plentiful and cheap. What you eat, what you wear, what you drive comes mostly from other countries. You know this. You don't need me to tell you this. But I have to call your attention to this for this fact is central to our discussion of and understanding of the recent Executive Order.

The Executive Order is an update and reaffirmation of an existing law that has been on the books since 1950. Back then, we had the recent experience of the Second World War and the shadow of the approaching Korean War was already being felt. So it seemed prudent and necessary that the national economy be strong enough and resilient enough to provide for the needs of the citizens and the military in time of conflict or other national emergency.

Who is going to argue against that?

No known connection, but there was a Democrat in the White House back in 1950.

So we did the Korean war games and the nation's manufacturing base was strong enough to provide all that the soldiers needed with no shortage of consumer goods here at home.

Those days are looong gone!

We can't do that today. Sure, our weapons manufacturing base is still intact. But where does the Pentagon go to obtain other things that a soldier needs? I don't know where the ordinary GI gets his socks from, but mine come from Pakistan. Shoes? China. (In fact there is a city in China called Datang that claims to manufacture 95% of all the socks in the world!) Or Thailand. Tires? Is there only one domestic tire manufacturer left? I'm thinking of Cooper Tires. Depending on foreign suppliers for tires leaves us vulnerable to blockades, boycotts, or buyouts from a hostile country.

Without tires, the planes don't fly and the trucks don't roll, military and civilian. I don't have to draw you a picture of the effect of an interruption in supply would do.

The United States is a net importer of food. We import food from all over the world now, including, again, China.

Money for bombs?

Oh, yes. How do we pay for the war, if the national emergency is a war? Right now, we are indebted to other nations, notably China. We have financed our undeclared wars with borrowed money. In WWII, we supplied our own money. We even loaned money to other countries. We were that strong. We had a huge industrial and agricultural base. We can't do now what we did back then.

That's what the recent Executive Order is all about.

The 1950 law stated that national security requires us to maintain an industrial and agricultural base sufficient to supply our needs in time of warfare or other national emergencies. The law says we gotta do that. Over the decades, that law was ignored as the corporations were allowed, even encouraged, to move their manufacturing outside our borders. That's why we have a "rust belt" now. That's why we have such a high percentage of un-employed and under-employed workers.

The law was on the books. There was no enforcement of the law. So now, here comes the President with an Executive Order, saying, in effect, we have to do this. And directing the secretaries of various government agencies to take whatever steps are needed to get this done.

What is being done here is re-invigorating our industrial base under the flag of national security. The President has to take an indirect route to attain that objective because the obstructionist Republicans will do whatever it takes to keep him from being re-elected.

National security is something they can't object to. Bringing jobs back to America is a worthy and oft-stated goal of his, and it is regrettable that he has to do it this way. But that's the way things are in D.C. right now. After the next election with a clear majority in the Senate and the House, the work of re-building the country can proceed more smoothly.

Let's look at some of the E.O.'s provisions

Sec. 104. Implementation. (d) The Secretary of Commerce, in cooperation with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and other agencies, shall:

(1) analyze potential effects of national emergencies on actual production capability, taking into account the entire production system, including shortages of resources, and develop recommended preparedness measures to strengthen capabilities for production increases in national emergencies; and

(2) perform industry analyses to assess capabilities of the industrial base to support the national defense, and develop policy recommendations to improve the international competitiveness of specific domestic industries and their abilities to meet national defense program needs.

Nothing scary there. Analyze the effect of potential hazards to production capability and be ready to meet the challenge.

Energy is a critical need and that is taken into account in this E.O.

Sec. 203. Maximizing Domestic Energy Supplies. PART III - EXPANSION OF PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY AND SUPPLY

That's a great idea even without the impetus of a national emergency. If supply goes up, prices go down.

Sec. 301. Loan Guarantees. (a) To reduce current or projected shortfalls of resources, critical technology items, or materials essential for the national defense, the head of each agency engaged in procurement for the national defense, as defined in section 801(h) of this order, is authorized pursuant to section 301 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2091, to guarantee loans by private institutions. (b) Each guaranteeing agency is designated and authorized to: (1) act as fiscal agent in the making of its own guarantee contracts and in otherwise carrying out the purposes of section 301 of the Act; and (2) contract with any Federal Reserve Bank to assist the agency in serving as fiscal agent.

If a manufacturer needs a loan to expand production to meet military and civilian needs, this E.O. authorizes the appropriate agency to guarantee loans from private institutions.

The denouncers are almost unanimous in their use of the word "seize" to describe the government's new authority to meet its needs. I've read the whole document, and I did not see the word "seize" in there.

I'm hoping that after this is set in motion there will be a realization on the part of the President that agricultural production and food processing are also critical to our national security. I have high expectations for a positive interpretation of this provision, too:

Sec. 102. Policy. The United States must have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency.

'Technological superiority' can only be achieved by first having educational superiority. In 1960, we were first in the world in literacy. Read the mis-spelled Teabagger signs and you will see how far down from that we've come. The actual rating would depress you.

Now at the end of the document there is this:

Sec. 803. Authority. (a) Executive Order 12919 of June 3, 1994, and sections 401(3) (4) of Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988, are revoked.

Go here and you will find that document:

http://www.answers.com/topic/executive-order-12919

It is an Executive Order signed by President Bill Clinton. It is almost word-for-word the same document. The government has not seized a single asset under this Executive Order. No one took notice of it back then. The difference is that now we have the internet, and every keyboard jockey with nothing to say can find a place to say it.

The other difference is that Bill Clinton only wrote it down. This president will make it happen.

Dragon

COMMENTS:

I'm glad someone finally read the document before writing about it. Most of the stuff on other web sites like rense.com are full of paranoia that is politically motivated, i.e. anti-Obama. While I will never forgive the man for lying about the health care he promised us, or for being a whimp, I do understand the need for this Executive Order.

For example, any number of natural disasters or even something like an Electro Magnetic Pulse bomb, could disable our infrastructure to the point where we would be living on local resources only. How would we get the food, water and medical help that the surviving population would need?

Certainly there has to be some authority that would mobilize people to organize a "work around" for these resources. We'd need people to grow food, to help pass along the food to different communities and to be an example for people helping people. Because you and I know that people will not do this on their own -- they are too paranoid and self-centered. We would all die of starvation or of shooting each other if we were left on our own to survive.

I hope the order is never enacted, but if it is then it will be our only means of survival and hopefully will avoid total anarchy and the very real inhumanity to man that characterizes our species. Thank God someone has the foresight to plan ahead.

We may actually see this happen soon. I hope not. But it looks more likely than not right now.

Walter G.

Not me! I have a supply of ammo and guns for just such a situation. I will take care of anyone trying to make me or my family do anything we do not want to do. We have a supply of food and water enough for our needs. Go get your own and stay off my land when the big one happens. Obama is a Communist and Socialist.

anonymous

OK. I live in Boston, Massachusetts. Back in 1978 we had a big blizzard that paralyzed the whole city. The shops were empty of food and all the people in apartments were without food or power for like a week. It was total chaos. I remember going to a supermarket and seeing that it had already been looted, windows broken and everything inside was gone. People didn't help their neighbor like you would think. So I can relate to the comments of Walter.

Sh77A

This is just an attempt by Obama to grab more power so he can make this country like Russia or China. Every time he does something it takes away our freedom, anyone can see that. We need to get him out of the office this next time around. But the Republican party needs to get someone better than the current choices. IMHO

Brker88

I am really, really surprised that Viewzone printed something as cerebral as this, an article representing a radically new frontier of thought (compared to any normal radical “norms,” that is, which Viewzone represents), a frontier that I have observed even Viewzone backpedaling against with a certain ferocity. Has the tide of absolutely non-thinkable thoughts finally overwhelmed even thee, O’ Viewzone? Does it mean there could be hope for the whole world? We can only continue observing to see. Might it be okay even for me to burst out of the closet soon? Naaaaa, surely not.

R.W.