Why is FEMA Sending National Phone Alerts?

The Biden cabinet is reportedly planning to meet regarding "continuity of government" – which began as a plan to suspend the U.S. Constitution under FEMA – citing the possible government shutdown.

Detail of “Continuity of Government” (2020) by the author. See PDF from art show and on the platform formerly known as twitter.

Give me absolute control
Over every living soul …

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St. Paul
I've seen the future, brother
It is murder

— Leonard Cohen, “The Future”

Re: the phone emergency alerts today.

A few thoughts. ABC says, don't panic, it's only a test. So, I guess panic when they tell you to.

* It's being done by FEMA, which is the agency charged with "continuity of government" -- plans to outright suspend the Constitution of the US. These plans came to public view during the Iran-Contra affair, with the Iran-Contra Committee eventually apparently going into secret session to discuss continuity of government after Jack Brooks raised it at the hearings on July 13, 1987:

REP. BROOKS: Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the “continuity of government” in the event of a major disaster?

BRENDAN SULLIVAN (Oliver North’s lawyer): Mr. Chairman?

SEN. INOUYE: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch on that, sir?

REP. BROOKS: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American Constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

SEN. INOUYE; May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.

I later wrote about how that was the day I became a radical.

I wrote the above earlier today and then realized that CNN reported recently, on Sept. 29: “President Joe Biden is expected to convene his Cabinet early next week to discuss continuity of government after a potential shutdown begins Sunday, four administration officials familiar with the plans told CNN.”

The “continuity of government” programs were largely ignored for decades, though I and a few others would raise them periodically. Then, in 2020, they were celebrated as a way that the establishment could ward off Trump and even more stringent measures were advocated by major media.

* Reminds me that computer pioneer Richard Stallman warned that portable phones were “Stalin’s Dream”. The capacity to declare emergencies, to put everyone on edge when you say so, to distract is a major lever in a system aiming to control people.

* Russia is also having a test at around the same time. This may fit into the view that tensions and war on each side is actually logrolling. The US and Russian governments get to fearmonger their own publics to maintain their positions of privilege and control. The threats of US-Russia clashing regarding Ukraine are highly functional in memoryholing the derangement regarding pandemic policies and mass propaganda.

* Keith McHenry notes: “I don't recall a national alert happening on TVs, radios and cell phones all at the same time so maybe this is just because we have entered a digital age. Also why is the intel agency covertly pushing the zombie apocalypse conspiracy theory?” Which is a great point about alerts in the past not being national — I don’t recall that either, but would be happy to learn otherwise. They clearly had the capacity with TV and radio networks to do that. And they clearly have the capacity to do local with phones, which do happen. Alas, I’ve not looked at the government's alleged zombie plan, but it’s even been reported on by CNN.

To me, there is an emergency: a seeming overriding desire to escape from constitutional norms, standard discourse and democratic processes. That’s what we need to send an alert about.