SHADOW ACTORS IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

In the United States, the term “shadow government” refers to the hidden policy-making process where key decisions are made behind the scenes by a plutocracy. To study this process involves naming and investigating the ensemble of powerful institutional and individual actors operating in the private sphere of socio-economic relations, and their relationships to those in formal governmental policy-making positions.

Most prominent among the institutional shadow government actors is the world’s most powerful private organization, Wall Street’s think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is the promotional arm of the Ruling Elite in the United States of America. With almost 5,000 members, CFR’s roster includes top government officials, renowned scholars, business executives from top corporations, acclaimed journalists, prominent lawyers, and distinguished nonprofit professionals.They usually enter the official formal government as “in and outers,” build up connections among the powerful, while working for top corporations, then go into government for a few years in top positions, later returning to the corporate world with enhanced power, additional relationships, greater prestige and more access to wealth. The “in and outers” operate throughout government, but usually focus on taking over the foreign policy, financial, national security, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies of the federal government: State, Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice Departments as well as the CIA/National Intelligence Agency bureaucracies. Each year, CFR organizes nearly one thousand events providing a forum for members to engage with and gain insight from experts in international affairs. Members have in-person access to world leaders, senior government officials, members of Congress, and prominent thinkers and practitioners in academia, policy, and business, many of whom are members themselves. Candidates for membership must be nominated in writing by a current CFR member and seconded by a minimum of three (maximum of four) other individuals. CFR seeks quality, diversity, and balance in its membership. Criteria for membership include intellectual achievement and expertise; degree of experience, interest, and current involvement in international affairs; promise of future achievement and service in foreign relations; potential contributions to CFR's work; desire and ability to participate in CFR activities; and standing among peers.

In the U.S., the shadow government represents the capitalist class made up of extremely wealthy plutocratic families-its hierarchal values and vested interests, not rank and file Americans. Looked at in a narrow fashion, promotion of specific interests and influence peddling by government officials is the result of this process. Viewed from a systemic perspective, the overall interests of the capitalist class as a whole are promoted. The shadow government and its key actors wield power and influence, often in secret and outside the law, without reference to the consent of the governed, and therefore the process is corrupt. It is the opposite of democracy.

Shadow Control

Shadow control consists largely of the placement of shadow agents in key positions in all of the institutions that are to be controlled. Since they cannot reveal their true role, they are also somewhat constrained in the actions they can take. What they do has to fit their jobs and not conflict in an obvious way with the mission of the organization, even if they head it. Some of the main targeted institutions are the following:

1. Top and key lower positions in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Key judges, especially presiding judges who assign cases.
2. Staff positions under the top positions, such as the congressional staff members who really run Congress.
3. Intelligence agencies. The CIA, NSA and various military intelligence divisions. Actually, almost every department of government has an intelligence function, and that function is the Shadow Government's main point of control of the department.
4. Military organizations, law enforcement, and taxing agencies, especially the IRS. Not only federal, but also state and local, at least in the major cities.
5. Major banks, insurance companies, pension funds, holding companies, utilities, public authorities, contractors, manufacturers, distributors, transport firms, security services, credit reporting services. Forbidden by law from maintaining dossiers on citizens not the subject of criminal investigation, the agencies get around the restriction by using contractors to maintain the data for them, and have amazingly detailed data on almost everyone.
6. Major media. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations. Together, they control the National Election Service, which in turn controls the outcome of computerized elections. They suppress coverage of certain subjects, and are the channel for the Shadow Government's propaganda and disinformation campaigns.
7. Communications networks. Telephone, telegraph, cable and satellite. The Shadow Government can bug any communication they wish, without bothering with a court order, and they regularly monitor dissidents and other key figures. Major holes in their control here are the Internet and public-key encryption, which the Shadow Government is trying to suppress. Although the Internet can be monitored, it cannot be effectively controlled, and it is emerging as a major threat to Shadow control.
8. Organized crime. Despite occasional convictions, they are now mostly treated as a profit center and as the executors of the dirty jobs. They are also the providers of vices for the corrupt members of government, which vices are also used to blackmail and control people.
9. Education. Universities and public education. Universities are the least effectively controlled components, but still important, largely for recruitment. Main aim here is to divert student activists into unproductive channels, or to get students so involved in careerism that they ignore the important issues.
10. Civic, political, and labor organizations. The two major political parties. Political action committees. League of Women Voters. Trade and professional associations, such as the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association. Labor unions.
11. International organizations. The United Nations, NATO, the IMF. Multinational corporations.
12. Governmental and nongovernmental institutions of other countries. Doing many of the same things there that are being done in the United States, especially in the more advanced countries.

Periodic elections in the U.S. are mainly a reassurance ritual to make working class people believe that they have a say in government. The reality is that democracy is in serious trouble and the ultimate source of this problem is the power of the shadow government and the pro-corporate, pro-capitalist policies it and its favored politicians promote.