Emma Goldman, the turn of the century anarchist, is reported to have stated,“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Was she right? At least as far as presidential elections go?

John W. Whitehead recently wrote in Counterpunch, “The next president, much like the current president and his predecessors, will be little more than a figurehead, a puppet to entertain and distract the populace from what’s really going on.” Whitehead describes a shadow government. “A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by un-elected officials who are, in essence,running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.” (From: A Deep State of Mind - America’s Shadow Government and Its Silent Coup)

We are not speaking about shadow governments in a conspiratorial sense such as purported clandestine takeovers by the Mormons, the Illuminati, the Masons or even the Jews as accused in the non-nonsensical Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Whitehead continues,

“To be precise, however, the future president will actually inherit not one but two shadow governments.

“The first shadow government, referred to as COG or Continuity of Government, is made up of un-elected individuals who have been appointed to run the government in the event of a “catastrophe.” COG is a phantom menace waiting for the right circumstances—a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an economic meltdown—to bring it out of the shadows, where it operates even now. When and if COG takes over, the police state will transition to martial law.

“Yet it is the second shadow government—also referred to as the Deep State—that poses the greater threat to freedom right now. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government is the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our government.”

So, I invite you to read the article and think about whether or not Emma was right.

Note: As an adjunct to this article you may wish to read Thomas Frank’s “Forget the FBI Cache; Podesta Emails Show How American Is Run” in the 31 October edition of the Guardian and Gilbert Mercier’s “Globalization Expressway to Universal Slavery” in the 1 November edition of Counterpunch.