The Depopulation Plan

[Rizotto]

The interview below provides an interesting take on why so many women in western countries decided to not have children: social engineering.

(Personally, I would add that many women refuse to bring more children into such a violent & unjust world.)

"Erica Komisar joins The Winston Marshall Show to examine declining birth rates, motherhood, family formation and why growing numbers of young women are choosing not to have children. A psychoanalyst, clinical social worker, parent guidance expert and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, Erica Komisar discusses whether modern culture has weakened the maternal instinct and devalued nurturing as a form of power. She explores the divide between conservative and liberal attitudes towards marriage and children, Gen Z’s focus on wealth and fame, Hungary’s pro-natalist policies, and the economic pressures shaping fertility decisions. The discussion also covers anxious parenting, career success, relationships, marrying younger, the importance of family life and why parents may need to rethink what they teach children about happiness and fulfilment."

The TERRIFYING Reason Young Women No Longer Want Children | Erica Komisar

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s8WQxFpXXzs

[Sue (Ayt)]

Posted by Rizotto (here)
The interview below provides an interesting take on why so many women in western countries decided to not have children: social engineering.

(Personally, I would add that many women refuse to bring more children into such a violent & unjust world.)

"Erica Komisar joins The Winston Marshall Show to examine declining birth rates, motherhood, family formation and why growing numbers of young women are choosing not to have children. A psychoanalyst, clinical social worker, parent guidance expert and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, Erica Komisar discusses whether modern culture has weakened the maternal instinct and devalued nurturing as a form of power. She explores the divide between conservative and liberal attitudes towards marriage and children, Gen Z’s focus on wealth and fame, Hungary’s pro-natalist policies, and the economic pressures shaping fertility decisions. The discussion also covers anxious parenting, career success, relationships, marrying younger, the importance of family life and why parents may need to rethink what they teach children about happiness and fulfilment."

The TERRIFYING Reason Young Women No Longer Want Children | Erica Komisar

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s8WQxFpXXzs

Reminds me of an old poem from the 90's

Carrots on a Stick

My soul didn’t grow this life
Carrots on a stick were my reward
Rushing to it
Rushing through it
Too deaf to hear my unborn babies
Crying

[onawah]

From the St. James Bible, Luke 2:28-31Context
" 28But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. 29For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. 30Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. 31For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"

[sdv]

Posted by onawah (here)
From the St. James Bible, Luke 2:28-31Context
" 28But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. 29For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. 30Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. 31For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"

I tend to gloss over the prophetic aspect of Jesus and focus on the healing, sharing, acceptance, etc., so it is great to be reminded that there is another aspect ...! Translation and bias do tend to 'contaminate' most of what is in the Bible, but in the lines you quoted above, they only seem to have meaning (to me) in describing present day. Deliberately chosen reduced birth rate, reduced birth rate due to war, pollution and food/drink deliberately contaminated with toxic additives, women outsourcing pregnancy and childbirth and choosing to remain barren themselves ...

So many people calling themselves Christians and being guided by the Old Testament rather than the life and teachings of Jesus!

[Raskolnikov]

Ugliness Is Oppression - The Deliberate Destruction of Beauty

Anyone can see that beauty has become "problematic", and that it's quickly disappearing from all aspects of society: art, stories, characters, architecture, actors and actresses, clothing, etc. etc. But what even IS beauty? And why does ugliness disturb us so much? And most importantly, why is ugliness replacing beauty?

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5Zq5XSHKI

0:00 - Beauty is disappearing
8:08 - "Beauty" Standards are not Beauty
11:31 - The Definition of Beauty
13:58 - "Sexy" is not Beauty
18:19 - Beauty Is Realistic Imitation
20:04 - Imitation vs. Self-Insert
21:34 - Order and Harmony
25:40 - Beauty is Aspirational
29:02 - Magnitude and Dignity
32:49 - The Elevation of UGLY
38:51 - Why Ugliness Disturbs Us
41:44 - Why We Need Beauty
46:54 - The War Against Beauty
48:50 - Marxist Aesthetics
51:22 - "Authenticity"
54:59 - Serving Envy
58:00 - The War on Objective Good
1:00:40 - Deliberate Demoralization

(timestamps visual, actual in YT description)

[Rizotto]

Posted by sdv (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
From the St. James Bible, Luke 2:28-31Context
" 28But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. 29For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. 30Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. 31For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"

I tend to gloss over the prophetic aspect of Jesus and focus on the healing, sharing, acceptance, etc., so it is great to be reminded that there is another aspect ...! Translation and bias do tend to 'contaminate' most of what is in the Bible, but in the lines you quoted above, they only seem to have meaning (to me) in describing present day. Deliberately chosen reduced birth rate, reduced birth rate due to war, pollution and food/drink deliberately contaminated with toxic additives, women outsourcing pregnancy and childbirth and choosing to remain barren themselves ...

So many people calling themselves Christians and being guided by the Old Testament rather than the life and teachings of Jesus!

Interesting. But I would like to add that in many European countries, at least from the middle ages onward, there was a well-organized method of lowering the birth rate. It was the trendy monastic lifestyle. Monks and nuns vowing celibacy, and working within their own communities to (mostly) sustain themselves. That was accepted by the christian church rulers of the time, as each of these celibates vowed from the onset total obedience to the church and the pope. Their work also contributed to the communities at large by providing help & refuge for the poor, and some education. So, centuries before birth control was available, this was the socially acceptable way to avoid the harsh life of peasants barely able to support their large families under a feudal system.

It appears that despite the monasteries, famines and plagues, Europe became overpopulated, in the sense that many farming communities were starving, as there wasn't enough land available for the grown-up children. So there eventually was a mass migration to north America, sponsored by the nobility and the church, of empoverished working class people and even convicts. (At least that's part of Canada's history.) This was followed with more monasteries, especially in the traditionally Catholic areas. I personally know of grandmothers whose married life was spent working on farms and giving birth to numerous children, and were so exhausted that they admonished their daughters to not marry, join the convent!

Personally I appreciate the fact that birth control has now become widely available, and that the right to choose alternate lifestyles became socially acceptable for women. It's a nicer way to live, for everybody. People now have the freedom to choose their spiritual beliefs and social circles. It's no coincidence that catholic monasteries have now become mostly empty.

I'm all for people having large families if that's what they want, and if they can provide for them. But what's concerning are these increasing criticisms directed at women who wish to remain single, a criticism seldom directed at men. Also, concerning is the claim that western countries are in population collapse. No we're not. We're living longer higher quality lives.

And look how hard a certain cabal is trying to produce mass depopulation, by means of the clot shot, warfare, engineered economic collapses, etc.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Planned Parenthood only kills babies in the western world. Then sells the body parts. Then imports the third world to replace the dead babies.

That's an organized, authorized GENOCIDE - a real one.

[Raskolnikov]

Dr. Charles Hoffe exposes the chilling truth behind the UN’s Agenda 2030—a successor to Agenda 21—which aims to reduce the global population to just 500 million.

That’s the elimination of 15 out of every 16 people on Earth.

How? Through coercive medical mandates.

The WHO—a UN subsidiary—has used vaccines to sterilize populations in Brazil, Mexico, India, Kenya, and elsewhere. Now, the COVID shots follow the same playbook:

Pfizer’s biodistribution study showed mRNA particles accumulating in the ovaries, risking permanent female infertility.

Young people—near-zero COVID risk—were forced to take these shots under threat of losing education, careers, and basic freedoms.

The vaccines never stopped transmission, proving mandates were never about "public health."

This was never a mistake. It was deliberate. History repeats itself.

The same actors, the same tactics. Depopulation is the goal.


Source: https://www.bitchute.com/video/B9x54ER0l2br


https://substack.com/@stopthoseshots/note/c-329426491

[Vicus]

Elderly outnumber young children for first time in history - census-

RT
Fri, 04 Sep 2026



The demographic reversal is putting growing pressure on pension and healthcare systems, particularly in Europe.

The world's elderly population has overtaken the number of young children for the first time in human history, according to a new US Census Bureau report. Europe, already the world's oldest region, is at the forefront of the trend.

People aged 65 and over accounted for 10.5% of the global population in 2025, surpassing children aged five and younger for the first time, the bureau said in its An Aging World: 2025 report.

The reversal has been driven by longer life expectancy and falling birth rates. The Census Bureau said sustained fertility below replacement level can create a "fertility trap," as the number of potential parents eventually declines.

Around 132 million babies are now born worldwide each year, down from a peak of roughly 142 million in the early 2010s, according to UN data. Africa accounted for roughly 47 million births in 2024, reflecting an increasingly uneven global trend.

The decline has been particularly pronounced in Europe. Just 3.55 million babies were born in the EU in 2024, nearly half the 6.8 million recorded in 1964. The bloc's fertility rate has fallen to a record low of 1.34 children per woman.


The demographic shift is set to accelerate. The global population is expected to grow by more than 2 billion by 2060, while the number of people aged 65 and over will rise by around 1.15 billion, according to the US Census Bureau.
The elderly are projected to account for 19.6% of humanity by then, up from 10.5% today. In Europe, their share is expected to rise from 21% to nearly 31%, the report said.

The shift will put further strain on government budgets as fewer workers and taxpayers support a growing number of retirees. The Census report estimates that across Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, increased government healthcare spending over the next decade will amount to 2.6% of GDP, twice the projected 1.3% growth in revenues.


At the same time, European governments are ramping up military spending as they cite the perceived threat from Russia. EU defense expenditure is projected to reach €454 billion this year, up around 75% since 2021.

The OECD warned in June that higher military spending would force governments to make "tough choices" over spending priorities, particularly in heavily indebted countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, and the UK. It said larger defense budgets would compound existing pressures from growing pension and healthcare costs.

The competing demands are already shaping European politics. Belgium has tightened pension and welfare rules, while Germany is taking on more debt to fund its military buildup and France is constraining non-defense spending.

In Britain, the Conservatives this week proposed welfare cuts to fund an additional £10 billion ($13.5 billion) in annual military spending, including reductions in housing support and the restoration of a cap on child benefits.


Comment: The current world population is 8,313,393,591 as of Sunday, September 6, 2026. Just like the COVID experiment and gender swapping butchery, there will magically appear 'ways' to eliminate population. War works, as does starvation and proximity to Israel.

https://www.sott.net/article/508268-...history-census

[syrwong]

For the last three years, there have been reports every week of well-known people dying suddenly. It is easy to infer that ordinary Chinese people are also dying suddenly, across all ages. More than 90% (I would even think 95%) of people in mainland China have taken three shots. The killing effect is more pronounced after a few years.

The Chinese would be a major target for depopulation. The Anglo-Saxon Mission suggests so, and the sudden introduction of the one-child policy in 1979 after Deng took power, without any good reason, also points to it.

[sdv]

Posted by Vicus (here)
Elderly outnumber young children for first time in history - census-

RT
Fri, 04 Sep 2026



The demographic reversal is putting growing pressure on pension and healthcare systems, particularly in Europe.

The world's elderly population has overtaken the number of young children for the first time in human history, according to a new US Census Bureau report. Europe, already the world's oldest region, is at the forefront of the trend.

People aged 65 and over accounted for 10.5% of the global population in 2025, surpassing children aged five and younger for the first time, the bureau said in its An Aging World: 2025 report.

The reversal has been driven by longer life expectancy and falling birth rates. The Census Bureau said sustained fertility below replacement level can create a "fertility trap," as the number of potential parents eventually declines.

Around 132 million babies are now born worldwide each year, down from a peak of roughly 142 million in the early 2010s, according to UN data. Africa accounted for roughly 47 million births in 2024, reflecting an increasingly uneven global trend.

The decline has been particularly pronounced in Europe. Just 3.55 million babies were born in the EU in 2024, nearly half the 6.8 million recorded in 1964. The bloc's fertility rate has fallen to a record low of 1.34 children per woman.


The demographic shift is set to accelerate. The global population is expected to grow by more than 2 billion by 2060, while the number of people aged 65 and over will rise by around 1.15 billion, according to the US Census Bureau.
The elderly are projected to account for 19.6% of humanity by then, up from 10.5% today. In Europe, their share is expected to rise from 21% to nearly 31%, the report said.

The shift will put further strain on government budgets as fewer workers and taxpayers support a growing number of retirees. The Census report estimates that across Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, increased government healthcare spending over the next decade will amount to 2.6% of GDP, twice the projected 1.3% growth in revenues.


At the same time, European governments are ramping up military spending as they cite the perceived threat from Russia. EU defense expenditure is projected to reach €454 billion this year, up around 75% since 2021.

The OECD warned in June that higher military spending would force governments to make "tough choices" over spending priorities, particularly in heavily indebted countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, and the UK. It said larger defense budgets would compound existing pressures from growing pension and healthcare costs.

The competing demands are already shaping European politics. Belgium has tightened pension and welfare rules, while Germany is taking on more debt to fund its military buildup and France is constraining non-defense spending.

In Britain, the Conservatives this week proposed welfare cuts to fund an additional £10 billion ($13.5 billion) in annual military spending, including reductions in housing support and the restoration of a cap on child benefits.


Comment: The current world population is 8,313,393,591 as of Sunday, September 6, 2026. Just like the COVID experiment and gender swapping butchery, there will magically appear 'ways' to eliminate population. War works, as does starvation and proximity to Israel.

https://www.sott.net/article/508268-...history-census

To be honest and upfront, I think the exponential growth in the human population is not sustainable and not good for the planet, nor our solar system. If there is now a negative growth in our species, is that not a good thing? Admittedly there will be disruption in the short term and the biggest challenge will not be too many old people but the disruptions the dying capitalist system and hegemonic power struggle will cause.

China and other places in that region have been experimenting with building greener cities. EVs are reducing noise and air pollution in these built-up areas. The present mayor in New York has recognized the need for more green spaces in the city. But this is piecemeal work ... we need to fix our cities so that we get the benefits of population concentration and maintain a healthy environment.

The development of robots in China is remarkable, and robots are replacing humans for repetitive basic work tasks that do however require precision and accuracy. I am sure there are more ways that robots can be trained to do work to make up for the loss of a large labour force. Doing that for farming is not a good idea, unless machines can be trained to notice and analyse the condition of the soil and the presence or signs of pests and the difference in the quality of crops in patches (a farmer looks for the cause).

We do need to completely transform our relationship with materialism and how we value people and things, and what we regard as inalienable human rights. When our species first emerged, what did the planet provide for us ... clean air and water, food, shelter, plenty of space to move on when natural disasters interfered with clean air and water and plentiful food and shelter, and time to sit and share stories. Humans are very inventive so we worked out ways to build shelters with natural materials instead of hunkering down in caves, and then worked out how to manufacture materials to build bigger and more durable shelters, etc. But, by going down that road we have lost touch with our humanity and we have long reached the stage where a reset is needed. The knowledge and means and abilities are there, and you can find a plethora of declarations and resolutions in international institutions (reduce population growth without genocide, stop pollution, etc.) plus innovative ways of growing food, cleaning up pollution, building more environmental friendly homes and workspaces, etc. being tried all over the planet. But still the two great enemies of healthy living are not only still operational but are threatening the entire human population. Capitalism and Western-style democracy. Capitalism and Western-style democracy feed on each other and require ever-growing populations to survive. Their dangers are well known, including crowd think, dumbed down populations, pillaging and polluting the environment, consumerism, wars ...

The number of humans on this planet must be reduced to save the planet and the species. (Long term we will need to get off the planet and out of the solar system to survive because our sun is not eternal.) How we do that is the problem. And every international institutions that has been created to ensure our long-term survival has been compromised. We do not need great leaders to fix the problem ... we need a transformation of hearts and minds across the planet so that communities naturally make choices that not only ensure immediate rewards (secure food, water, shelter) but also ensure a future for our species and planet. We do not need a human culling. We have long known how to reduce the population in a way that improves quality of life for all, and we have always had the means to do more and do better with less people, even before robots and the development of AI. And, yes, plentiful clean energy has always been available from many sources ... there is no one magic bullet but there have always been many existing ways to use energy more efficiently and sustainably, and the ideas for producing plentiful clean free energy have been around for a long time, but deliberately suppressed. This is madness!

I think China is the only country in the world that has deliberately tried to reduce population growth. It abandoned that policy, but has left a plethora of information that would be very useful to the whole world in understanding and finding solutions to and for the risks and benefits of how to reduce population growth without the destruction of war and genocide and deliberate famines, etc. A great reset or natural evolution? Both require human intervention, but I do not think all of humanity will ever choose one and unite around that one choice. Apologies for the pessimism but I think it is realistic pessimism.

[Raskolnikov]

A two minute explanation of Agenda 2030 (formerly 21)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=I6AxjOjcpzY

Transcript:
"Agenda 21 is kind of a code name for a master plan originated at the United Nations to change the political and economic system of the world to one of total collectivism. And in order to do that people must not be allowed to have independence. They must be dependent on the state for everything, otherwise they won't, they won't be easily controlled by the state. That means they can't have private property, mostly. They cannot have land of their own. They have to live in preferably high-rise apartments, that are provided to them by the state as a benefit, so to speak, "Oh good! We got a free apartment!" But they want, these people at the top want all humans to be dependent on the largesse of the state. That means that they don't want anybody living out in the boonies. Anybody that's got a couple of acres of land and his own water supply and can grow his own food and that kind of thing, or have some sheep or some chickens, these people are a threat to the collectivist society because they aren't going to go to the politicians and say, "Please feed me, please clothe me, please give me shelter." They tend to be independent. That's the secret behind agenda 21. They want people out of the country. They want corporations out there growing all the food and that kind of thing but they don't want anybody living out there because that way they cannot be controlled. In order to control mankind we have to get them all into the big cities, we have to rack them up and stack them up, get them dependent on the state for their food, their shelter, their electrical power, their water, everything. That's the dirty secret behind agenda 21."

[sdv]

Posted by Raskolnikov (here)
A two minute explanation of Agenda 2030 (formerly 21)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=I6AxjOjcpzY

Transcript:
"Agenda 21 is kind of a code name for a master plan originated at the United Nations to change the political and economic system of the world to one of total collectivism. And in order to do that people must not be allowed to have independence. They must be dependent on the state for everything, otherwise they won't, they won't be easily controlled by the state. That means they can't have private property, mostly. They cannot have land of their own. They have to live in preferably high-rise apartments, that are provided to them by the state as a benefit, so to speak, "Oh good! We got a free apartment!" But they want, these people at the top want all humans to be dependent on the largesse of the state. That means that they don't want anybody living out in the boonies. Anybody that's got a couple of acres of land and his own water supply and can grow his own food and that kind of thing, or have some sheep or some chickens, these people are a threat to the collectivist society because they aren't going to go to the politicians and say, "Please feed me, please clothe me, please give me shelter." They tend to be independent. That's the secret behind agenda 21. They want people out of the country. They want corporations out there growing all the food and that kind of thing but they don't want anybody living out there because that way they cannot be controlled. In order to control mankind we have to get them all into the big cities, we have to rack them up and stack them up, get them dependent on the state for their food, their shelter, their electrical power, their water, everything. That's the dirty secret behind agenda 21."

This agenda is not going to work in my country, and I suspect in many other places, as ownership of a piece of land, big or small, and your own home and your own small business is very important to the people. No way are they going to hand that over and be herded into high-rise apartments. And, if Gaza is an experiment for the global elite, then surely they have seen that their plan is not going to be as easy as they think? Especially the tech elite, most politicians and the billionaire classes in the US live in a bubble. Many middle class people have fully bought into the beliefs of that bubble. If there is divine justice, it is those people who are either going to die ignorant or wake up to the reality of the majority of the world. How many people will they kill and imprison, and how many places will they destroy to protect their delusions? I do not know. But I am pretty sure that people on PA have a plan, just in case!

[Raskolnikov]

Posted by sdv (here)
This agenda is not going to work in my country, and I suspect in many other places, as ownership of a piece of land, big or small, and your own home and your own small business is very important to the people. No way are they going to hand that over and be herded into high-rise apartments. And, if Gaza is an experiment for the global elite, then surely they have seen that their plan is not going to be as easy as they think? Especially the tech elite, most politicians and the billionaire classes in the US live in a bubble. Many middle class people have fully bought into the beliefs of that bubble. If there is divine justice, it is those people who are either going to die ignorant or wake up to the reality of the majority of the world. How many people will they kill and imprison, and how many places will they destroy to protect their delusions? I do not know. But I am pretty sure that people on PA have a plan, just in case!

I hope you're right sdv. I just keep thinking of David Icke's "Totalitarian Tiptoe" and all the "little" things that keep falling into place. Oil refineries being destroyed, supply chains being delayed, farmers paid not to produce or put out of business, Bill Gates and other billionaires as well as governments and ngos buying up the land, the poisoning of the land with glyphosate and God-knows what else raining down from the skies 24/7 making the land barren and unliveable. So even if we remain in the country, how viable is it for survival if the soil is dead and you can't grow food or find safe water to drink? Maybe a data center can help. Factor in the weaponization of weather, everything from fires and earthquakes to hurricanes and floods, and a total surveillance/social credit score system being rolled out without a hitch while they distract us with flock cameras and never-ending wars. The fact that G. Edward Griffin is calling that the dirty secret behind the agenda, to herd us into 15-minute total surveillance type cities, speaks volumes to me. I stand in awe at the scope of their design. And yet I still stand with you. Most here on Avalon will never succumb to such ends. We're old and wise enough to choose liberty over bondage at all costs.

Not sure I see Gaza as a cautionary tale for aspiring totalitarians. It appears to have been a complete success, population exterminated from prime real estate so they can build casinos and high rises and sacrificial temples.

[Raskolnikov]

"What good is a government that can survive the end of the world if the people it was created to serve cannot...continuity of government becomes little more than continuity of power."

The Doomsday Government: Preparing for the End of the World, Not the End of Power

What begins as an exceptional measure becomes the norm. What is justified as temporary becomes permanent. What is introduced as a safeguard against danger becomes another instrument of government control.



Condensed for space and ease of reading
(The Rutherford Institute) “Monsters in movies are us, always us, one way or the other... Monsters are us, the dangerous parts of us. The part that wants to destroy. The part of us with the reptile brain. The part of us that’s vicious and cruel. We express these in our stories as these monsters out there.”—John Carpenter

This time of year, there is no shortage of monsters to frighten us. Hollywood has given us vampires, zombies, mad scientists, masked killers and creatures that emerge from the darkness to prey upon the unsuspecting. But perhaps the most frightening monster of all is the government that has become so accustomed to wielding extraordinary power that it cannot imagine a future in which that power is diminished.

Enter the Doomsday Plan. Imagine it: The power grid goes down. Supply chains collapse. Communications fail. Cities are plunged into darkness. Ordinary Americans are left scrambling for food, water, medicine and shelter. Not to worry, though. The government has a plan for the coming apocalypse.

Unfortunately, the plan seems to have more to do with keeping the police state operational than keeping the American people alive. In what sounds like a plot lifted straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, the Pentagon has unveiled an initiative designed to keep the war machine running even if a catastrophic war devastates the country’s civilian infrastructure. Under an initiative called FORTRESS, the military is preparing major installations across the United States to operate independently for at least 90 days in the event of a catastrophic disruption. The plan includes portable nuclear reactors, independent power grids, stockpiles of fuel and ammunition, backup communications systems and arrangements for civilian factories to switch over to wartime production.

The Pentagon calls this preparedness. The rest of us might reasonably wonder: what good is a government that can survive the end of the world if the people it was created to serve cannot?

This is the dark absurdity at the heart of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Kubrick’s 1964 satire about a collection of military commanders, politicians and bureaucrats who bring the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation while congratulating themselves on their strategic brilliance. As civilization faces extinction, the men in charge begin discussing how a select portion of the population might survive underground in mineshafts, eventually emerging to rebuild civilization. Naturally, the planners envision themselves among the survivors.

The resemblance to the present day is difficult to ignore. Indeed, it sometimes seems as though the Trump administration has been watching every dystopian film and Cold War nightmare ever made and mistaking the villains for role models. George Orwell’s 1984 gave us a surveillance state that watches everything and everyone. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World imagined a population conditioned into compliance. John Carpenter’s They Live exposed a society manipulated by hidden powers, while Escape from New York envisioned an America where whole populations could be abandoned to incarceration and decay.

These works were supposed to serve as warnings. Yet the machinery of government increasingly resembles the very dystopias they cautioned against: mass surveillance, militarized policing, automated systems of control, a presidency claiming ever-expanding authority, and now elaborate preparations to keep the military functioning in the event of societal collapse.

Of course, governments have a responsibility to prepare for emergencies. No reasonable person would argue otherwise. But there is a world of difference between preparing to protect the nation and preparing to preserve the power of those who govern it. That distinction matters, especially when the same government that prepares for catastrophic war also helps create the conditions in which such wars become not only likely but imminent.

For decades, presidents of both political parties have pursued policies of military expansion, foreign intervention, escalating confrontation and permanent national emergency. The result has been an increasingly militarized national-security state that operates with fewer meaningful restraints and demands ever greater sacrifices from the American people.

We have been told that these extraordinary powers are necessary to keep us safe. Yet the government’s answer to nearly every crisis—war, terrorism, civil unrest, economic instability, public health emergencies—has been more government power, more military involvement, more surveillance and fewer constitutional protections.

Now the Pentagon is planning for a world in which the civilian infrastructure that sustains ordinary Americans may no longer function. What happens then? The government’s answer, at least in the newly announced FORTRESS initiative, is to make sure the military can continue fighting. But what about the rest of us? If the electric grid collapses, who will restore power to civilian communities? If hospitals lose electricity, who will keep patients alive? If food and medicine stop moving through the country, who will feed the population? If communications fail, how will families find one another? And if civil institutions cease functioning, who will ensure that emergency military authority does not become a permanent substitute for constitutional government?

This is precisely the kind of future the Pentagon is anticipating. Consider the Pentagon’s chilling training video, Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity, made public in 2016. The video envisions a world of sprawling urban centers overwhelmed by poverty, disease, unemployment, overcrowding, failing infrastructure, environmental disasters and civil unrest. It is a bleak portrait of the world as military planners fear it might look by 2030. In this vision of the future, cities become battlegrounds and the citizenry are viewed as the enemy.

As we warned nearly a decade ago, the military's vision of the future raises a disturbing possibility: that the people trapped in failing cities could come to be viewed less as citizens in need of protection than as obstacles to military operations. As the video warns, there will be a need to “drain the swamps.” Only in this dystopian future, “we the people” risk becoming inhabitants of the swamp that military forces are preparing to clear out.

That is a dangerous way for any government to view the people it is supposed to protect. It is particularly dangerous for a nation whose founders explicitly rejected martial law and enacted constitutional bulwarks to guard against the rise of a police state. Yet this is where the country has been heading for years. We’ve witnessed the steady militarization of domestic law enforcement, the expansion of surveillance networks, the deployment of military equipment into American communities, and repeated efforts to blur the line between policing and warfare.

Under the Trump administration, those boundaries have been tested even further through domestic military deployments, aggressive immigration enforcement and expansive claims of executive authority in the name of national security. The message is increasingly unmistakable: the military is increasingly being presented as the solution to every domestic crisis. Yet this is also why the Pentagon’s latest Doomsday preparations cannot be considered in isolation from the government’s longstanding continuity-of-government plans.

For decades, federal officials have maintained arrangements intended to preserve essential government operations during a catastrophic emergency, including secure facilities, alternate command centers, succession procedures and protected communications systems. These preparations are hardly limited to military installations. Even Trump’s controversial White House ballroom project includes plans for fortified underground facilities, bomb shelters, secure communications and medical facilities, ostensibly to ensure that the presidency can continue functioning during a national emergency.

The government is making elaborate preparations to preserve its leadership and military capabilities in the event of catastrophe. Some of these measures are practical: a functioning government is essential to coordinating rescue operations, maintaining order and rebuilding after disaster. But continuity-of-government planning also raises a constitutional question that is too often overlooked: what exactly is being preserved?

The Constitution establishes a government of limited, divided powers, accountable to the people and constrained by law. Preserving that government means more than ensuring that the president can issue orders, military commanders can communicate and federal agencies can continue operating. It means preserving the checks and balances that prevent power from becoming absolute. It means preserving Congress, the courts, due process, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right of the people to challenge government abuses. It means ensuring that an emergency does not become an excuse to dispense with the very constitutional restraints that distinguish a republic from a dictatorship. Otherwise, continuity of government becomes little more than continuity of power.

That danger is hardly theoretical. The government has already spent the better part of the past quarter-century normalizing powers once considered extraordinary. For instance, the 9/11 attacks gave rise to the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance, secret courts, indefinite detention, expanded executive authority and a sprawling homeland-security apparatus. The emergency was supposed to be temporary. Instead, the machinery created in response to that emergency became a permanent fixture of American life. Successive presidents inherited those powers, defended them and expanded upon them. The same pattern has been repeated with other crises, legitimate and manufactured.

What begins as an exceptional measure becomes the norm. What is justified as temporary becomes permanent. What is introduced as a safeguard against danger becomes another instrument of government control. The public is told to trust the government to use these extraordinary powers responsibly. Yet the Constitution was not written on the assumption that those in power could always be trusted. It was written because they cannot be trusted.

This is the lesson that government officials, regardless of political affiliation, seem determined to ignore. The founders understood that concentrated power is dangerous even when exercised by people claiming the best intentions. They also understood that military power, unless strictly constrained, could become an instrument of domestic tyranny. That is why civilian control of the military, the separation of powers, due process and the protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights are not inconveniences to be discarded whenever the government declares an emergency. They are safeguards against the abuses that emergencies make possible.

Yet what happens to those safeguards in the kind of catastrophic scenario the Pentagon is preparing for? When the infrastructure has collapsed. Communications are severely disrupted. Civilian agencies are overwhelmed. Courts may be unable to function normally. Congress may struggle to convene. Local governments may lack the resources to meet basic needs. Meanwhile, the military retains independent power, communications, supplies and operational command.

Under those conditions, who gets to make the decisions? Who determines which communities receive assistance, which areas are secured, which movements are restricted, and which orders must be obeyed? Who decides when the emergency is over? And who has the power to say no?

The greater the crisis, the greater the temptation to abandon constitutional limits in the name of survival. And the more power the government acquires during an emergency, the less willing it tends to be to surrender that power afterward. The government has become so consumed with preserving its power that it can plan for almost everything except its own accountability and restraint.

That is what makes the Pentagon’s doomsday planning so unsettling. The problem is not that the military wants to keep the lights on during a national catastrophe. The problem is what happens when keeping the machinery of war functioning becomes the overriding measure of national survival. A nation is so much more than its military installations, its command centers, its weapons systems or its political leadership. A nation is its people. It is families, neighborhoods, communities, schools, churches, hospitals and the countless institutions of civil society that make freedom possible. It is also the constitutional principles that prevent those entrusted with power from becoming masters over those they were appointed to serve.

Without those things, there may still be a government. There may still be a military. There may even be a president issuing orders from some fortified command center. But there will be little left of the republic the Constitution was intended to establish.

So where does that leave us?

President Trump and his self-serving administration of war hawks have squandered so much of our resources, our goodwill on the world stage, and our role as a champion for liberty and justice. Now having pushed us to the apocalyptic brink of devastation, they’re building bunkers to save their own necks while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves.

Enough is enough. “We the people” should be demanding a government that works to prevent catastrophe, protects civilian life, respects constitutional limits and remembers that its continued existence is not an end in itself. And if they won’t march in lockstep with our expectations, throw the whole lot of them out.

Because as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the danger comes when the government forgets that it exists to serve the people, not the other way around. A government that survives by abandoning the people and the Constitution has not saved the country. It has merely saved itself.

The Constitution was not written to ensure that the government would survive at any cost. It was written to ensure that freedom would survive a tyrannical government.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/go...e-end-of-power