Total Madness: General Selected Writings by Various Authors.

The Federal Reserve-A Corrupt Institution by Louis T. McFadden, Rep. of Pensylvania

2010-07-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

This text is from a booklet, published before zip codes, entitled "Congressman Louis T. McFadden on the Federal Reserve Corporation: Remarks in Congress, 1934". It is merger of two different speeches, one in 1932 and another, given after FDR became president. It was released by The Forum Publishing Company of Boston, Massachusetts. Facsimile or Text of the original 1932 speech from the Congressional Record

On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, AND TREASON.
The petition for Articles of Impeachmentas thereafter referred to the Judiciary Committee and has
YET TO BE ACTED ON.
So, this ELECTRONIC BOOKLET should be reprinted, reposted,
set up on web pages and circulated far and wide.
Congressman McFadden
on the Federal Reserve Corporation
Remarks in Congress, 1934
AN ASTOUNDING EXPOSURE
Reprinted by permission 1978 Arizona Caucus Club

Congressman McFadden's Speech
On the Federal Reserve Corporation

Quotations from several speeches made on the Floor of the House of Representatives by the Honorable Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania. Mr. McFadden, due to his having served as Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee for more than 10 years, was the best posted man on these matters in America and was in a position to speak with authority of the vast ramifications of this gigantic private credit monopoly. As Representative of a State which was among the first to declare its freedom from foreign money tyrants it is fitting that Pennsylvania, the cradle of liberty, be again given the credit for producing a son that was not afraid to hurl defiance in the face of the money-bund. Whereas Mr. McFadden was elected to the high office on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, there can be no accusation of partisanship lodged against him. Because these speeches are set out in full in the Congressional Record, they carry weight that no amount of condemnation on the part of private individuals could hope to carry.

The Federal Reserve-A Corrupt Institution

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation's debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over.

"This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Fed and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.

"Some people who think that the Federal Reserve Banks United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lender. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into states to buy votes to control our legislatures; there are those who maintain International propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us into granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime.

"These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this Country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this Country to finance Japan in a war against Russia. They created a reign of terror in Russia with our money in order to help that war along. They instigated the separate peace between Germany and Russia, and thus drove a wedge between the allies in World War. They financed Trotsky's passage from New York to Russia so that he might assist in the destruction of the Russian Empire. They fomented and instigated the Russian Revolution, and placed a large fund of American dollars at Trotsky's disposal in one of their branch banks in Sweden so that through him Russian homes might be thoroughly broken up and Russian children flung far and wide from their natural protectors. They have since begun breaking up of American homes and the dispersal of American children. "Mr. Chairman, there should be no partisanship in matters concerning banking and currency affairs in this Country, and I do not speak with any.

"In 1912 the National Monetary Association, under the chairmanship of the late Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, made a report and presented a vicious bill called the National Reserve Association bill. This bill is usually spoken of as the Aldrich bill. Senator Aldrich did not write the Aldrich bill. He was the tool, if not the accomplice, of the European bankers who for nearly twenty years had been scheming to set up a central bank in this Country and who in 1912 has spent and were continuing to spend vast sums of money to accomplish their purpose.

"We were opposed to the Aldrich plan for a central bank. The men who rule the Democratic Party then promised the people that if they were returned to power there would be no central bank established here while they held the reigns of government. Thirteen months later that promise was broken, and the Wilson administration, under the tutelage of those sinister Wall Street figures who stood behind Colonel House, established here in our free Country the worm-eaten monarchical institution of the "King's Bank" to control us from the top downward, and from the cradle to the grave.

"The Federal Reserve Bank destroyed our old and characteristic way of doing business. It discriminated against our 1-name commercial paper, the finest in the world, and it set up the antiquated 2-name paper, which is the present curse of this Country and which wrecked every country which has ever given it scope; it fastened down upon the Country the very tyranny from which the framers of the Constitution sough to save us.

PRESIDENT JACKSON'S TIME

"One of the greatest battles for the preservation of this Republic was fought out here in Jackson's time; when the second Bank of the United States, founded on the same false principles of those which are here exemplified in the Fed was hurled out of existence. After that, in 1837, the Country was warned against the dangers that might ensue if the predatory interests after being cast out should come back in disguise and unite themselves to the Executive and through him acquire control of the Government. That is what the predatory interests did when they came back in the livery of hypocrisy and under false pretenses obtained the passage of the Fed.

"The danger that the Country was warned against came upon us and is shown in the long train of horrors attendant upon the affairs of the traitorous and dishonest Fed. Look around you when you leave this Chamber and you will see evidences of it in all sides. This is an era of misery and for the conditions that caused that misery, the Fed are fully liable. This is an era of financed crime and in the financing of crime the Fed does not play the part of a disinterested spectator.

"It has been said that the draughtsman who was employed to write the text of the Aldrich bill because that had been drawn up by lawyers, by acceptance bankers of European origin in New York. It was a copy, in general a translation of the statues of the Reichsbank and other European central banks. One-half million dollars was spent on the part of the propaganda organized by these bankers for the purpose of misleading public opinion and giving Congress the impression that there was an overwhelming popular demand for it and the kind of currency that goes with it, namely, an asset currency based on human debts and obligations. Dr. H. Parker Willis had been employed by Wall Street and propagandists, and when the Aldrich measure failed- he obtained employment with Carter Glass, to assist in drawing the banking bill for the Wilson administration. He appropriated the text of the Aldrich bill. There is no secret about it. The test of the Federal Reserve Act was tainted from the first.

"A few days before the bill came to a vote, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, wrote to Senator John W. Weeks as follows:
New York City,
December 17, 1913

"'My Dear Senator Weeks:

"'Throughout my public life I have supported all measures designed to take the Government out of the banking business. This bill puts the Government into the banking business as never before in our history. "'The powers vested in the Federal Reserve Board seen to me highly dangerous especially where there is political control of the Board. I should be sorry to hold stock in a bank subject to such dominations. The bill as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency. "'I had hoped to support this bill, but I cannot vote for it cause it seems to me to contain features and to rest upon principles in the highest degree menacing to our prosperity, to stability in business, and to the general welfare of the people of the United States.
Very Truly Yours,
Henry Cabot Lodge.'"

"In eighteen years that have passed since Senator Lodge wrote that letter of warning all of his predictions have come true. The Government is in the banking business as never before. Against its will it has been made the backer of horse thieves and card sharps, bootlegger's smugglers, speculators, and swindlers in all parts of the world. Through the Fed the riffraff of every country is operating on the public credit of the United States Government.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

"Meanwhile and on account of it, we ourselves are in the midst of the greatest depression we have ever known. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, our Country has been ravaged and laid waste by the evil practices of the Fed and the interests which control them. At no time in our history, has the general welfare of the people been at a lower level or the minds of the people so full of despair.

"Recently in one of our States, 60,000 dwelling houses and farms were brought under the hammer in a single day. 71,000 houses and farms in Oakland County, Michigan, were sold and their erstwhile owners dispossessed. The people who have thus been driven out are the wastage of the Fed. They are the victims of the Fed. Their children are the new slaves of the auction blocks in the revival of the institution of human slavery.

The Scheme of the Fed

"In 1913, before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Mr. Alexander Lassen made the following statement: "The whole scheme of the Fed with its commercial paper is an impractical, cumbersome machinery- is simply a cover to secure the privilege of issuing money, and to evade payment of as much tax upon circulation as possible and then control the issue and maintain, instead of reducing interest rates. It will prove to the advantage of the few and the detriment of the people. It will mean continued shortage of actual money and further extension of credits, for when there is a shortage of money people have to borrow to their cost.' "A few days before the Fed passed, Senator Root denounced the Fed as an outrage on our liberties. He predicted: 'Long before we wake up from our dream of prosperity through an inflated currency, our gold- which alone could have kept us from catastrophe- will have vanished and no rate of interest will tempt it to return.'

"If ever a prophecy came true, that one did. "The Fed became law the day before Christmas
Eve, in the year 1913, and shortly afterwards, the German International bankers, Kuhn, Loeb and Co. sent one of their partners here to run it.

"The Fed Note is essentially unsound. It is the worst currency and the most dangerous that this Country has ever known. When the proponents of the act saw that the Democratic doctrine would not permit them to let the proposed banks issue the new currency as bank notes, they should have stopped at that. They should not have foisted that kind of currency, namely, an asset currency, on the United States Government. They should not have made the Government [liable on the private] debts of individuals and corporations, and, least of all, on the private debts of foreigners. "As Kemerer says: 'The Fed Notes, therefore, in form, have some of the qualities of Government paper money, but in substance, are almost a pure asset currency possessing a Government guarantee against which contingency the Government has made no provision whatever.'

"Hon. L.J.Hill, a former member of the House, said, and truly: "They are obligations of the Government for which the United States received nothing and for the payment of which at any time, it assumes the responsibility: looking to the Fed to recoup itself.'

"If this United States is to redeem the Fed Notes, when the General Public finds it costs to deliver this paper to the Fed, and if the Government has made no provisions for redeeming them, the first element of unsoundness is not far to seek.

"Before the Banking and Currency Committee, when the bill was under discussion Mr. Crozier of Cincinnati said: 'The imperial power of elasticity of the public currency is wielded exclusively by the central corporations owned by the banks. This is a life and death power over all local banks and all business. It can be used to create or destroy prosperity, to ward off or cause stringencies and panics. By making money artificially scarce, interest rates throughout the Country can be arbitrarily raised and the bank tax on all business and cost of living increased for the profit of the banks owning these regional central banks, and without the slightest benefit to the people. The 12 Corporations together cover y and monopolize and use for private gain- every dollar of the public currency and all public revenue of the United States. Not a dollar can be put into circulation among the people by their Government, without the consent of and on terms fixed by these 12 private money trusts.'

"In defiance of this and all other warnings, the proponents of the Fed created the 12 private credit corporations and gave them an absolute monopoly of the currency of these United States- not of the Fed Notes alone- but of all other currency! The Fed Act providing ways and means by which the gold and general currency in the hands of the American people could be obtained by the Fed in exchange for Fed Notes- which are not money- but mere promises to pay.

"Since the evil day when this was done, the initial monopoly has been extended by vicious amendments to the Fed and by the unlawful and treasonable practices of the Fed.

Money for the Scottish Distillers

"Mr. Chairman, if a Scottish distiller wishes to send a cargo of Scotch whiskey to these United States, he can draw his bill against the purchasing bootlegger in dollars and after the bootlegger has accepted it by writing his name across the face of it, the Scotch distiller can send that bill to the nefarious open discount market in New York City where the Fed will buy it and use it as collateral for a new issue of Fed Notes. Thus the Government of these United States pay the Scotch distiller for the whiskey before it is shipped, and if it is lost on the way, or if the Coast Guard seizes it and destroys it, the Fed simply write off the loss and the government never recovers the money that was paid to the Scotch distiller.

"While we are attempting to enforce prohibition here, the Fed are in the distillery business in Europe and paying bootlegger bills with public credit of these United States. "Mr. Chairman, by the same process, they compel our Government to pay the German brewer for his beer. Why should the Fed be permitted to finance the brewing industry in Germany either in this way or as they do by compelling small and fearful United States Banks to take stock in the Isenbeck Brewery and in the German Bank for brewing industries? "Mr. Chairman, if Dynamit Nobel of Germany, wishes to sell dynamite in Japan to use in Manchuria or elsewhere, it can drew its bill against the Japanese customers in dollars and send that bill to the nefarious open discount market in New York City where the Fed will buy it and use it as collateral for a new issue of Fed Notes- while at the same time the Fed will be helping Dynamit Nobel by stuffing its stock into the United States banking system.

"Why should we send our representatives to the disarmament conference at Geneva- while the Fed is making our Government pay Japanese debts to German Munitions makers?

"Mr. Chairman, if a German wishes to raise a crop of beans and sell them to a Japanese customer, he can draw a bill against his prospective Japanese customer in dollars and have it purchased by the Fed and get the money out of this Country at the expense of the American people before he has even planted the beans in the ground. "Mr. Chairman, if a German in Germany wishes to export goods to South America, or any other Country, he can draw his bill against his customers and send it to these United States and get the money out of this Country before he ships, or even manufactures the goods.

"Mr. Chairman, why should the currency of these United States be issued on the strength of German Beer? Why should it be issued on the crop of unplanted beans to be grown in Chili for Japanese consumption? Why should these United States be compelled to issue many billions of dollars every year to pay the debts of one foreigner to another foreigner? "Was it for this that our National Bank depositors had their money taken out of our banks and shipped abroad? Was it for this that they had to lose it? Why should the public credit of these United States and likewise money belonging to our National Bank depositors be used to support foreign brewers, narcotic drug vendors, whiskey distillers, wig makes, human hair merchants, Chilean bean growers, to finance the munition factories of Germany and Soviet Russia?

THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN RANSACKED

"The United States has been ransacked and pillaged. Our structures have been gutted and only the walls are left standing. While being perpetrated, everything the world would rake up to sell us was brought in here at our expense by the Fed until our markets were swamped with unneeded and unwanted imported goods priced far above their value and make to equal the dollar volume of our honest exports, and to kill or reduce our favorite balance of trade. As Agents of the foreign central banks the Fed try by every means in their power to reduce our favorable balance of trade. They act for their foreign principal and they accept fees from foreigners for acting against the best interests of these United States. Naturally there has been great competition among among foreigners for the favors of the Fed.

"What we need to do is to send the reserves of our National Banks home to the people who earned and produced them and who still own them and to the banks which were compelled to surrender them to predatory interests.

"Mr. Chairman, there is nothing like the Fed pool of confiscated bank deposits in the world. It is a public trough of American wealth in which the foreigners claim rights, equal to or greater than Americans. The Fed are the agents of the foreign central banks. They use our bank depositors' money for the benefit of their foreign principals. They barter the public credit of the United States Government and hire it our to foreigners at a profit to themselves.

"All this is done at the expense of the United States Government, and at a sickening loss to the American people. Only our great wealth enabled us to stand the drain of it as long as we did.

"We need to destroy the Fed wherein our national reserves are impounded for the benefit of the foreigners. "We need to save America for Americans.

SPURIOUS SECURITIES

"Mr. Chairman, when you hold a $10.00 Fed Note in your hand, you are holding apiece of paper which sooner or later is going to cost the United States Government $10.00 in gold (unless the Government is obliged to go off the gold standard). It is based on limburger cheese (reported to be in foreign warehouses) or in cans purported to contain peas (but may contain salt water instead), or horse meat, illicit drugs, bootleggers fancies, rags and bones from Soviet Russia (of which these United States imported over a million dollars worth last year), on wines whiskey, natural gas, goat and dog fur, garlic on the string, and Bombay ducks.

"If you like to have paper money- which is secured by such commodities- you have it in Fed Note. If you desire to obtain the thing of value upon which this paper currency is based, that is, the limburger cheese, the whiskey, the illicit drugs, or any of the other staples- you will have a very hard time finding them.

"Many of these worshipful commodities are in foreign Countries. Are you going to Germany to inspect her warehouses to see if the specified things of value are there? I think more, I do not think that you would find them there if you did go.

"On April 27, 1932, the Fed outfit sent $750,000 belonging to American bank depositors in gold to Germany. A week later another $300,000 in gold was shipped to Germany. About the middle of May $12,000,000 in gold was shipped to Germany by the Fed. Almost every week there is a shipment of gold to Germany. These shipments are not made for profit on the exchange since the German marks are blow parity with the dollar.

"Mr. Chairman, I believe that the National Bank depositors of these United States have a right to know what the Fed are doing with their money. There are millions of National Bank depositors in the Country who do not know that a percentage of every dollar they deposit in a Member Bank of the Fed goes automatically to American Agents of the foreign banks and that all their deposits can be paid away to foreigners without their knowledge or consent by the crooked machinery of the Fed and the questionable practices of the Fed.

[Ed. Note- Problem with next paragraph in original] "Mr. Chairman, the American people should be told the truth by their servants in office. In 1930, we had over a half billion dollars outstanding daily to finance foreign goods stored in or shipped between several billion billion dollars. What goods are these on which the Fed yearly pledge several billions of dollars. In its yearly total, this item amounts to several billions of dollars of the public credit of these United States?

"What goods are those which are hidden in European and Asiatic stores have not been seen by any officer of our Government but which are being financed on the public credit of the United States Government? What goods are those upon which the 17 United States Government is being obligated by the Fed to issue Fed Notes to the extent of several billions of dollars a year?

The Bankers' Acceptance Racket

"The Fed have been International Banks from the beginning, with these United States as their enforced banker and supplier of currency. But it is none the less extraordinary to see these these twelve private credit monopolies, buying the debts of foreigners against foreigners, in all parts of the world and asking the Government of these United States for new issues of Fed notes in exchange for them. "The magnitude of the acceptance racket as it has been developed by the Fed, their foreign correspondents, and the predatory European born bankers, who set up the Fed here and taught your own, by and of pirates, how to loot the people: I say the magnitude of this racket is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 9,000,000,000 per year. In the past ten years it is said to have amounted to $90,000,000,000.00. In my opinion it has amounted to several times that much. coupled to this you have to the extent of billions of dollars, the gambling in the United States securities, which takes place in the same open discount market- a gambling on which the Fed is now spending $100,000,000.00 per week.

"Fed Notes are taken from the U.S. Government in unlimited quantities. Is is strange that the burden of supplying these immense sums of money to the gambling fraternity has at last proved too heavy for the American people to endure? Would it not be a national [calamity to] again bind down this burden on the backs of the American people and by means of a long rawhide whip of the credit masters, compel them to enter another seventeen years of slavery?

"They are trying to do that now. They are trying to take $100,000,000.00 of the public credit of the United States every week, in addition to all their other seizures and they are sending that money to the nefarious open market in a desperate gamble to reestablish their graft as a going concern.

"They are putting the United States Government in debt to the extent of $100,000,000 a week, and with the money they are buying our Government securities for themselves and their foreign principals. Our people are disgusted with the experiences of the Fed. The Fed is not producing a loaf of bread, a yard of cloth, a bushel of corn, or a pile of cordwood by its check-kiting operations in the money market.

"Mr. Speaker, on the 13th of January of this year I addressed the House on the subject of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In the course of my remarks I made the following statement: In 1928 the member banks of the Fed borrowed $60,598,690,000. from the Fed on their fifteen-day promissory notes. Think of it. Sixty billion dollars payable on demand in gold in the course of one single year. The actual amount of such obligations called for six times as much monetary gold as there is in the world. Such transactions represent a grant in the course of one single years of about $7,000,000 to every member of the Fed.

"Is it any wonder that American labor which ultimately pays the cost of all banking operations of this Country has at last proved unequal to the task of supplying this huge total of cash and credit for the benefit of the stock market manipulators and foreign swindlers? "In 1933 the Fed presented the staggering amount of $60,598,690,000 to its member banks at the expense of the wage earners and tax payers of these United States. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the Fed advanced $58,000,000,000 to member banks.

"In 1930 while the speculating banks were getting out of the stock market at the expense of the general public, the Fed advanced them $13,022,782,000. This shows that when the banks were gambling on the public credit of these United States as represented by the Fed currency they were subsidized to any amount they required by the Fed. When the swindle began to fall, the bankers knew it in advance and withdrew from the market. They got out with whole skins- and left the people of these United States to pay the piper. "My friend from Kansas, Mr. McGugin, has stated that he thought the Fed lent money on rediscounting. So they do, but they lend comparatively little that way. The real discounting that they do has been called a mere penny in the slot business. It is too slow for genuine high flyers. They discourage it. They prefer to subsidize their favorite banks by making them $60,000,000,000 advances and they prefer to acquire assistance in the notorious open discount market in New York, where they can use it to control the price of stocks and bonds on the exchanges.

"For every dollar they advanced on discounts in 1928, they lent $33.00 to their favorite banks for whom they do a business of several billion dollars income tax on their profits to these United States.

The John Law Swindle

"This is the John Law swindle over again. The theft of Teapot Dome was trifling compared to it. What King ever robbed his subject to such an extent as the Fed has robbed us? Is it any wonder that there have been lately ninety cases of starvation in one of the New York hospitals? Is there any wonder that the children are being abandoned?

"The government and the people of these United States have been swindled by swindlers deluxe to whom the acquisition of American or a parcel of Fed Notes presented no more difficulty than the drawing up of a worthless acceptance in a Country not subject to the laws of these United States, by sharpers not subject to the jurisdiction of these United States, sharpers with strong banking "fence" on this side of the water, a "fence" acting as a receiver of a worthless paper coming from abroad, endorsing it and getting the currency out of the Fed for it as quickly as possible exchanging that currency for gold and in turn transmitting the gold to its foreign confederates.

Ivar Kreuger, the Match King!

"Such were the exploits of Ivar Krueger, Mr. Hoover's friend, and his rotten Wall Street bakers. Every dollar of the billions Kreuger and his gang drew out of this Country on acceptances was drawn from the government and the people of the United States through the Fed. The credit of the United States Government was peddled to him by the Fed for their own private gain. That is what the Fed has been doing for many years.

"They have been peddling the credit of this Government and the [signature of this] Government to the swindlers and speculators of all nations. That is what happens when a Country forsakes its Constitution and gives its sovereignty over the public currency to private interests. Give them the flag and they will sell it.

"The nature of Kreuger's organized swindle and the bankrupt condition of Kreuger's combine was known here last June when Hoover sought to exempt Krueger's loan to Germany of $125,000,000 from the operation of the Hoover Moratorium. The bankrupt condition of Krueger's swindle was known her last summer when $30,000,000 was taken from the American taxpayers by certain bankers in New York for the ostensible purpose of permitting Krueger to make a loan to Colombia. Colombia never saw that money.

"The nature of Krueger's swindle was known here in January when he visited his friend, Mr. Hoover, at the White House. It was known here in March before he went to Paris and committed suicide.

"Mr. Chairman, I think the people of the United States are entitled to know how many billions of dollars were placed at the disposal of Krueger and his gigantic combine by the Fed, and to know how much of our Government currency was issued and lost in the financing of that great swindle in the years during which the Fed took care of Krueger's requirements.

"A few days ago, the President of the United States with a white face and shaking hands, went before the Senate of behalf of the moneyed interests and asked the Senate to levy a tax on the people so that foreigners might know that these United States would pay its debt to them.

"Most Americans thought it was the other way around. What does these United States owe foreigners? When and by whom was the debt incurred? It was incurred by the Fed, when they peddled the signature of the Government to foreigners- for a Price. It is what the United States Government has to pay to redeem the obligations of the Fed.

Thieves Go Scot Free

"Are you going to let these thieves get off scot free? Is there one law for the looter who drives up to the door of the United States Treasury in his limousine and another for the United States Veterans who are sleeping on the floor of a dilapidated house on the outskirts of Washington?

"The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is here asking for a large loan from the people, and the wage earners and the taxpayers of these United States. It is begging for a handout from the Government. It is standing, cap in hand, at the door of the R.F.C. where all the jackals have gathered to the feast. It is asking for money that was raised from the people by taxation and wants this money of the poor for the benefit of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., the German International Bankers.

"Is there one law for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and another for the hungry veterans it threw off its freight cars the other day? Is there one law for sleek and prosperous swindlers who call themselves bankers and another law for the soldiers who defended the flag? "The R.F.C. is taking over these worthless securities from the Investment Trusts with United States Treasury money at the expense of the American taxpayer and the wage earner.

"It will take twenty years to redeem our Government. Twenty years of penal servitude to pay off the gambling debts of the traitorous Fed and to vast flood of American wages and savings, bank deposits, and the United States Government credit which the Fed exported out of this country to their foreign principals.

"The Fed lately conducted an anti-hoarding campaign here. They they took that extra money which they had persuaded the American people to put into the banks- they sent it to Europe- along with the rest. In the last several months, they have sent $1,300,000,000 in gold to their foreign employers, their foreign masters, and every dollar of that gold belonged to the people of these United States and was unlawfully taken from them.

Fiat Money

"Mr. Chairman, within the limits of the time allowed me, I cannot enter into a particularized discussion of the Fed. I have singled out the Fed currency for a few remarks because there has lately been some talk here of "fiat money". What kind of money is being pumped into the open discount market and through it into foreign channels and stock exchanges? Mr. Mills of the Treasury has spoken here of his horror of the printing presses and his horror of dishonest money. He has no horror of dishonest money. If he had, he would be no party to the present gambling of the Fed in the nefarious open discount market of New York, a market in which the sellers are represented by 10 discount corporations owned and organized by the very banks which own and control the Fed.

"Fiat money, indeed!

"What Mr. Mills is fighting for is the preservation, whole and entire, of the banker's monopoly of all the currency of the United States Government.

"Mr. Chairman, last December, I introduced a resolution here asking for an examination and an audit of the Fed and all related matters. If the House sees fit to make such an investigation, the people of these United States will obtain information of great value. This is a Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Consequently, nothing should be concealed from the people. The man who deceives the people is a traitor to these United States.

"The man who knows or suspects that a crime has been committed and who conceals and covers up that crime is an accessory to it. Mr. Speaker, it is a monstrous thing for this great nation of people to have its destinies presided over by a traitorous government board acting in secret concert with international usurers.

"Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers- but the truth is- the Fed has usurped the Government. It controls everything here and it controls all of our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.

"No man and no body of men is more entrenched in power than the arrogant credit monopoly which operated the Fed. What National Government has permitted the Fed to steal from the people should now be restored to the people. The people have a valid claim against the Fed. If that claim is enforced the Americans will not need to stand in the bread line, or to suffer and die of starvation in the streets. Women will be saved, families will be kept together, and American children will not be dispersed and abandoned.

"Here is a Fed Note. Immense numbers of the notes are now held abroad. I am told that they amount to upwards of a billion dollars. They constitute a claim against our Government and likewise a claim against our peoples' money to the extent of $1,300,000,000 which has within the last few months been shipped abroad to redeem Fed Notes and to pay other gambling debts of the traitorous Fed. The greater part of our money stock has been shipped to other lands.

"Why should we promise to pay the debts of foreigners to foreigners? Why should the Fed be permitted to finance our competitors in all parts of the world? Do you know why the tariff was raised? It was raised to shut out the flood of Fed Goods pouring in here from every quarter of the globe- cheap goods, produced by cheaply paid foreign labor, on unlimited supplies of money and credit sent out of this Country by the dishonest and unscrupulous Fed.

"The Fed are spending $100,000,000 a week buying government securities in the open market and are making a great bid for foreign business. They are trying to make rates so attractive that the human hair merchants and the distillers and other business entities in foreign land will come her and hire more of the public credit of the United States Government to pay the Fed outfit for getting it for them.

World Enslavement Planned

"Mr. Chairman, when the Fed was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here which would make the savings of the American school teacher available to a narcotic-drug vendor in Acapulco. They did not perceive that these United States was to be lowered to the position of a coolie country which has nothing but raw material and heart, that Russia was destined to supply the man power and that this country was to supply the financial power to an "international superstate". A superstate controlled by international bankers, and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure?

"The people of these United States are being greatly wronged. They have been driven from their employments. They have been dispossessed from their homes. They have been evicted from their rented quarters. They have lost their children. They have been left to suffer and die for lack of shelter, food, clothing and medicine.

"The wealth of these United States and the working capital have been taken away from them and has either been locked in the vaults of certain banks and the great corporations or exported to foreign countries for the benefit of the foreign customers of these banks and corporations. So far as the people of the United States are concerned, the cupboard is bare.

"It is true that the warehouses and coal yards and grain elevators are full, but these are padlocked, and the great banks and corporations hold the keys.

"The sack of these United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history.

"Mr. Chairman, a serious situation confronts the House of Representatives today. We are trustees of the people and the rights of the people are being taken away from them. Through the Fed the people are losing the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Their property has been taken from them without due process of law. Mr. Chairman, common decency requires us to examine the public accounts of the Government and see what crimes against the public welfare have been committed.

"What is needed here is a return to the Constitution of these United States.

"The old struggle that was fought out here in Jackson's time must be fought our over again. The independent United States Treasury should be reestablished and the Government should keep its own money under lock and key in the building the people provided for that purpose.

"Asset currency, the devise of the swindler, should be done away with. The Fed should be abolished and the State boundaries should be respected. Bank reserves should be kept within the boundaries of the States whose people own them, and this reserve money of the people should be protected so that the International Bankers and acceptance bankers and discount dealers cannot draw it away from them.

"The Fed should be repealed, and the Fed Banks, having violated their charters, should be liquidated immediately. Faithless Government officials who have violated their oaths of office should be impeached and brought to trial.

"Unless this is done by us, I predict, that the American people, outraged, pillaged, insulted and betrayed as they are in their own land, will rise in their wrath, and will sweep the money changers out of the temple.

"Mr. Chairman, the United States is bankrupt: It has been bankrupted by the corrupt and dishonest Fed. It has repudiated its debts to its own citizens. Its chief foreign creditor is Great Britain, and a British bailiff has been at the White House and the British Agents are in the United States Treasury making inventory arranging terms of liquidations!

Great Britain, Partner in Blackmail

"Mr. Chairman, the Fed has offered to collect the British claims in full from the American public by trickery and corruption, if Great Britain will help to conceal its crimes. The British are shielding their agents, the Fed, because they do not wish that system of robbery to be destroyed here. They wish it to continue for their benefit! By means of it, Great Britain has become the financial mistress of the world. She has regained the position she occupied before the World War.

"For several years she has been a silent partner in the business of the Fed. Under threat of blackmail, or by their bribery, or by their native treachery to the people of the United States, the officials in charge of the Fed unwisely gave Great Britain immense gold loans running into hundreds of millions of dollars. They did this against the law! Those gold loans were not single transactions. They gave Great Britain a borrowing power in the United States of billions. She squeezed billions out of this Country by means of her control of the Fed.

"As soon as the Hoover Moratorium was announced, Great Britain moved to consolidate her gains. After the treacherous signing away of American rights at the 7-power conference at London in July, 1931, which put the Fed under the control of the Bank of International Settlements, Great Britain began to tighten the hangman's noose around the neck of the United States.

"She abandoned the gold standard and embarked on a campaign of buying up the claims of foreigners against the Fed in all parts of the world. She has now sent her bailiff, Ramsey MacDonald, here to get her war debt to this country canceled. But she has a club in her hands! She has title to the gambling debts which the corrupt and dishonest Fed incurred abroad.

"Ramsey MacDonald, the labor party deserter, has come here to compel the President to sign on the dotted line, and that is what Roosevelt is about to do! Roosevelt will endeavor to conceal the nature of his action from the American people. But he will obey the International Bankers and transfer the war debt that Great Britain should pay to the American people, to the shoulders of the American taxpayers.

"Mr. Chairman, the bank holiday in the several States was brought about by the corrupt and dishonest Fed. These institutions manipulated money and credit, and caused the States to order bank holidays.

"These holidays were frame-ups! "They were dress rehearsals for the national bank holiday which Franklin D. Roosevelt promised Sir Ramsey MacDonald that he would declare.

"There was no national emergency here when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office excepting the bankruptcy of the Fed- a bankruptcy which has been going on under cover for several years and which has been concealed from the people so that the people would continue to permit their bank deposits and their bank reserves and their gold and the funds of the United States Treasury to be impounded in these bankrupt institutions.

"Under cover, the predatory International Bankers have been stealthily transferring the burden of the Fed debts to the people's Treasury and to the people themselves. They the farms and the homes of the United States to pay for their thievery! That is the only national emergency that there has been here since the depression began.

"The week before the bank holiday ws declared in New York State, the deposits in the New York savings banks were greater than the withdrawals. There were no runs on New York Banks. There was no need of a bank holiday in New York, or of a national holiday.

Roosevelt and the International Bankers

"Roosevelt did what the International Bankers ordered him to do!

"Do not deceive yourself, Mr. Chairman, or permit yourself to be deceived by others into the belief that Roosevelt's dictatorship is in any way intended to benefit the people of the United States: he is preparing to sign on the dotted line! "He is preparing to cancel the war debts by fraud!

"He is preparing to internationalize this Country and to destroy our Constitution itself in order to keep the Fed intact as a money institution for foreigners. "Mr. Chairman, I see no reason why citizens of the United States should be terrorized into surrendering their property to the International Bankers who own and control the Fed. The statement that gold would be taken from its lawful owners if they did not voluntarily surrender it, to private interests, show that there is an anarchist in our Government.

"The statement that it is necessary for the people to give their gold- the only real money- to the banks in order to protect the currency, is a statement of calculated dishonesty!

"By his unlawful usurpation of power on the night of March 5, 1933, and by his proclamation, which in my opinion was in violation of the Constitution of the United States, Roosevelt divorced the currency of the United States from gold, and the United States currency is no longer protected by gold. It is therefore sheer dishonesty to say that the people's gold is needed to protect the currency.

"Roosevelt ordered the people to give their gold to private interests- that is, to banks, and he took control of the banks so that all the gold and gold values in them, or given into them, might be handed over to the predatory International Bankers who own and control the Fed.

"Roosevelt cast his lot with the usurers. "He agreed to save the corrupt and dishonest at the expense of the people of the United States.

"He took advantage of the people's confusion and weariness and spread the dragnet over the United States to capture everything of value that was left in it. He made a great haul for the International Bankers.

"The Prime Minister of England came here for money! He came here to collect cash!

"He came here with Fed Currency and other claims against the Fed which England had bought up in all parts of the world. And he has presented them for redemption in gold.

"Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of compelling the Fed to pay their own debts. I see no reason why the general public should be forced to pay the gambling debts of the International Bankers.

Roosevelt Seizes the Gold

"By his action in closing the banks of the United States, Roosevelt seized the gold value of forty billions or more of bank deposits in the United States banks. Those deposits were deposits of gold values. By his action he has rendered them payable to the depositors in paper only, if payable at all, and the paper money he proposes to pay out to bank depositors and to the people generally in lieu of their hard earned gold values in itself, and being based on nothing into which the people can convert it the said paper money is of negligible value altogether.

"It is the money of slaves, not of free men. If the people of the United States permit it to be imposed upon them at the will of their credit masters, the next step in their downward progress will be their acceptance of orders on company stores for what they eat and wear. Their case will be similar to that of starving coal miners. They, too, will be paid with orders on Company stores for food and clothing, both of indifferent quality and be forced to live in Company-owned houses from which they may be evicted at the drop of a hat. More of them will be forced into conscript labor camps under supervision.

"At noon on the 4th of March, 1933, FDR with his hand on the Bible, took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the U.S. At midnight on the 5th of March, 1933, he confiscated the property of American citizens. He took the currency of the United States standard of value. He repudiated the internal debt of the Government to its own citizens. He destroyed the value of the American dollar. He released, or endeavored to release, the Fed from their contractual liability to redeem Fed currency in gold or lawful money on a parity with gold. He depreciated the value of the national currency.

"The people of the U.S. are now using unredeemable paper slips for money. The Treasury cannot redeem that paper in gold or silver. The gold and silver of the Treasury has unlawfully been given to the corrupt and dishonest Fed. And the Administration has since had the effrontery to raid the country for more gold for the private interests by telling our patriotic citizens that their gold is needed to protect the currency.

"It is not being used to protect the currency! It is being used to protect the corrupt and dishonest Fed. "The directors of these institutions have committed criminal offense against the United States Government, including the offense of making false entries on their books, and the still more serious offense of unlawfully abstracting funds from the United States Treasury! "Roosevelt's gold raid is intended to help them out of the pit they dug for themselves when they gambled away the wealth and savings of the American people.

Dictatorship

"The International Bankers set up a dictatorship here because they wanted a dictator who would protect them. They wanted a dictator who would protect them. They wanted a dictator who would issue a proclamation giving the Fed an absolute and unconditional release from their special currency in gold, or lawful money of any Fed Bank.

"Has Roosevelt relieved any other class of debtors in this country from the necessity of paying their debts? Has he made a proclamation telling the farmers that they need not pay their mortgages? Has he made a proclamation to the effect that mothers of starving children need not pay their milk bills? Has he made a proclamation relieving householders from the necessity of paying rent?

Roosevelt's Two Kinds of Laws

"Not he! He has issued one kind of proclamation only, and that is a proclamation to relieve international bankers and the foreign debtors of the United States Government.

"Mr. Chairman, the gold in the banks of this country belongs to the American people who have paper money contracts for it in the form of national currency. If the Fed cannot keep their contracts with United States citizens to redeem their paper money in gold, or lawful money, then the Fed must be taken over by the United States Government and their officers must be put on trial.

"There must be a day of reckoning. If the Fed have looted the Treasury so that the Treasury cannot redeem the United States currency for which it is liable in gold, then the Fed must be driven out of the Treasury.

"Mr. Chairman, a gold certificate is a warehouse receipt for gold in the Treasury, and the man who has a gold certificate is the actual owner of a corresponding amount of gold stacked in the Treasury subject to his order.

"Now comes Roosevelt who seeks to render the money of the United States worthless by unlawfully declaring that it may No Longer be converted into gold at the will of the holder.

"Roosevelt's next haul for the International Bankers was the reduction in the pay of all Federal employees.

"Next in order are the veterans of all wars, many of whom are aged and inform, and other sick and disabled. These men had their lives adjusted for them by acts of Congress determining the amounts of the pensions, and, while it is meant that every citizen should sacrifice himself for the good of the United States, I see no reason why those poor people, these aged Civil War Veterans and war widows and half-starved veterans of the World War, should be compelled to give up their pensions for the financial benefit of the International vultures who have looted the Treasury, bankrupted the country and traitorously delivered the United States to a foreign foe.

"There are many ways of raising revenue that are better than that barbaric act of injustice.

"Why not collect from the Fed the amount they owe the U.S. Treasury in interest on all the Fed currency they have taken from the Government? That would put billions of dollars into the U.S. Treasury.

"If FDR is as honest as he pretends to be, he will have that done immediately. And in addition, why not compel the Fed to disclose their profits and to pay the Government its share?

"Until this is done, it is rank dishonesty to talk of maintaining the credit of the U.S. Government. "My own salary as a member of Congress has been reduced, and while I am willing to give my part of it that has been taken away from me to the U.S. Government, I regret that the U.S. has suffered itself to be brought so low by the vultures and crooks who are operating the roulette wheels and faro tables in the Fed, that is now obliged to throw itself on the mercy of its legislators and charwomen, its clerks, and it poor pensioners and to take money out of our pockets to make good the defalcations of the International Bankers who were placed in control of the Treasury and given the monopoly of U.S. Currency by the misbegotten Fed. "I am well aware that the International Bankers who drive up to the door of the United States Treasury in their limousines, look down with scorn upon members of Congress because we work for so little, while they draw millions a year. The difference is that we earn, or try to earn, what we get- and they steal the greater part of their takings.

Enemies of the People They Rob

"I do not like to see vivisections performed on human beings. I do not like to see the American people used for experimental purposes by the credit masters of the United States. They predicted among themselves that they would be able to produce a condition here in which American citizens would be completely humbled and left starving and penniless in the streets.

"The fact that they made that assertion while they were fomenting their conspiracy against the United States that they like to see a human being, especially an American, stumbling from hunger when he walks. "Something should be done about it, they say. Five-cent meals, or something! "But FDR will not permit the House of Representatives to investigate the condition of the Fed. FDR will not do that. He has certain International Bankers to serve. They not look to him as the man Higher Up who will protect them from the just wrath of an outraged people.

"The International Bankers have always hated our pensioners. A man with a small pension is a ward of the Government. He is not dependent upon them for a salary or wages. They cannot control him. They do not like him. It gave them great pleasure, therefore, to slash the veterans.

"But FDR will never do anything to embarrass his financial supporters. He will cover up the crimes of the Fed.

"Before he was elected, Mr. Roosevelt advocated a return to the earlier practices of the Fed, thus admitting its corruptness. The Democratic platform advocated a change in the personnel of the Fed. These were campaign bait. As a prominent Democrat lately remarked to me; "There is no new deal. The same old crowd is in control."

"The claims of foreign creditors of the Fed have no validity in law. The foreign creditors were the receivers- and the willing receivers- of stolen goods! They have received through their banking fences immense amounts of currency, and that currency was unlawfully taken from the United States Treasury by the Fed.

"England discovered the irregularities of the Fed quite early in its operations and through fear, apparently, the Fed have for years suffered themselves to be blackmailed and dragoon ting England to share in the business of the Fed. "The Fed have unlawfully taken many millions of dollars of the public credit of the United States and have given it to foreign sellers on the security of the Debt paper of foreign buyers in purely foreign transactions, and when the foreign buyers refused to meet their obligations and the Fed saw no honest way of getting the stolen goods back into their possession, they decided by control of the executive to make the American people pay their losses!

Conspiracy of War Debts

"They likewise entered into a conspiracy to deprive the people of the U.S. of their title to the war debts and not being able to do that in the way they intended, they are now engaged in an effort to debase the American dollar so that foreign governments will have their debts to this country cut in two, and then by means of other vicious underhanded arrangements, they propose to remit the remainder.

"So far as the U.S. is concerned, the gambling counters have no legal standing. The U.S. Treasury cannot be compelled to make good the gambling ventures of the corrupt and dishonest Fed. Still less should the bank deposits of the U.S. be used for that purpose. Still less should the national currency have been made irredeemable in gold so that the gold which was massed and stored to redeem the currency for American citizens may be used to pay the gambling debts of the Fed for England's benefit. "The American people should have their gold in their own possession where it cannot be held under secret agreement for any foreign control bank, or world bank, or foreign nation. Our own citizens have the prior claim to it. The paper [money men] have in their possession deserves redemption far more than U.S. currency and credit which was stolen from the U.S. Treasury and bootlegged abroad.

"Why should the foreigners be made preferred creditors of the bankrupt U.S.? Why should the U.S. be treated as bankrupt at all? This Government has immense sums due it from the Fed. The directors of these institutions are men of great wealth. Why should the guilty escape the consequences of their misdeeds? Why should the people of these U.S. surrender the value of their gold bank deposits to pay off the gambling debts of these bankers? Why should Roosevelt promise foreigners that the U.S. will play the part of a good neighbor, 'meeting its obligations'?

"Let the Fed meet their own obligations.

"Every member of the Fed should be compelled to disgorge, and every acceptance banker and every discount corporation which has made illegal profits by means of public credit unlawfully bootlegged out of the U.S. Treasury and hired out by the crooks and vultures of the Fed should be compelled to disgorge.

Federal Reserve Pays No Taxes

"Gambling debts due to foreign receivers of stolen goods should not be paid by sacrificing our title to our war debts, the assets of the U.S. Treasury- which belong to all the people of the U.S. and which it is our duty to preserve inviolate in the people's treasury.

"The U.S. Treasury cannot be made liable for them. The Fed currency must be redeemed by the Fed banks or else these Fed banks must be liquidated.

"We know from assertions made here by the Hon. John N. Garner, Vice-President of the U.S. that there is a condition in the [United States such] would cause American citizens, if they knew what it was, to lose all confidence in their government.

"That is a condition that Roosevelt will not have investigated. He has brought with him from Wall Street, James Warburg, the son of Paul M. Warburg. Mr. Warburg, alien born, and the son of an alien who did not become naturalized here until several years after this Warburg's birth, is a son of a former partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., a grandson of another partner, a nephew of a former partner, and a nephew of a present partner.

"He holds no office in our Government, but I am told that he is in daily attendance at the Treasury, and that he has private quarters there! In other words, Mr. Chairman, Kuhn, Loeb and Company now has control and occupy the U.S. Treasury.

Preferred Treatment for Foreigners

"The text of the Executive order which seems to place an embargo on shipments of gold permits the Secretary of the Treasury, a former director of the corrupt, to issue licenses at his discretion for the export of gold coin, or bullion, earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank for international settlement. Now, Mr. Chairman, if gold held in trust for those foreign institutions may be sent to them, I see no reason why gold held in trust for American as evidenced by their gold certificates and other currency issued by the U.S. Government should not be paid to them. "I think that American citizens should be entitled to treatment at least as good as that which the person is extending to foreign governments, foreign central banks, and the bank of International Settlements. I think a veteran of the world war, with a $20.00 gold certificate, is at least as much entitled to receive his own gold for it, as any international banker in the city of New York or London.

"By the terms of this executive order, gold may be exported if it is actually required, for the fulfillment of any contract entered into prior to the date of this order by an applicant who, in obedience to the executive order of April 5, 1933, has delivered gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates. "This means that gold may be exported to pay the obligations abroad of the Fed which were incurred prior to the date of the order, namely, April 20, 1933.

"If a European Bank should send 100,000,000 dollars in Fed currency to a bank in this country for redemption, that bank could easily ship gold to Europe in exchange for that currency. Such Fed currency would represent "contracts" entered into prior to the date of the order. If the Bank of International Settlements or any other foreign bank holding any of the present gambling debt paper of the Fed should draw a draft for the settlement of such obligation, gold would be shopped to them because the debt contract would have been entered into prior to the date of order.

Crimes and Criminals

"Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of constitutional privilege.

"Whereas, I charge. . .Eugene Meyer, Roy A. Young, Edmund Platt, Eugene B. Black, Adolph Casper Miller, Charles S. Hamlin, George R. James, Andrew W. Mellon, Ogden L. Mills, William H. Woo W. Poole, J.F.T. O'Connor, members of the Federal Reserve Board; F. H. Curtis, J.H. Chane, R.L. Austin, George De Camp, L.B. Williams, W.W. Hoxton, Oscar Newton, E.M. Stevens, J.S. Wood, J.N. Payton, M.L. McClure, C.C. Walsh, Isaac B. Newton, Federal Reserve Agents, jointly and severally, with violations of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and whereas I charge them with having taken funds from the U.S Treasury which were not appropriated by the Congress of the United States, and I charge them with having unlawfully taken over $80,000,000,000 from the U.S. Government in the year 1928, the said unlawful taking consisting of the unlawful creation of claims against the U.S. Treasury to the extent of over $80,000,000,000 in the year 1928; and I charge them with similar thefts committed in 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933, and in years previous to 1928, amounting to billions of dollars; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally with having unlawfully created claims against the U.S. Treasury by unlawfully placing U.S. Government credit in specific amounts to the credit of foreign governments and foreign central banks of issue; private interests and commercial and private banks of the U.S. and foreign countries, and branches of foreign banks doing business in the U.S., to the extent of billions of dollars; and with having made unlawful contracts in the name of the U.S. Government and the U.S. Treasury; and with having made false entries on books of account; and

"Whereas I charge them jointly and severally, with having taken Fed Notes from the U.S. Treasury ansued Fed Notes and with having put Fed Notes into circulation without obeying the mandatory provision of the Fed Act which requires the Fed Board to fix an interest rate on all issues of Fed Notes supplied to Fed Banks, the interest resulting therefrom to be paid by the Fed Banks to the government of the U.S. for the use of the Fed Notes, and I charge them of having defrauded the U.S. Government and the people of the U.S. of billions of dollars by the commission of this crime, and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having purchased U.S. Government securities with U.S. Government credit unlawfully taken and with having sold the said U.S. Government securities back to the people of the U.S. for gold or gold values and with having again purchased U.S. Government securities with U.S. Government credit unlawfully taken and with having again sold the said U.S. Government security for gold or gold values, and I charge them with having defrauded the U.S. Government and the people of the U.S. by this rotary process; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully negotiated U.S. Government securities, upon which the Government liability was extinguished, as collateral security for Fed Notes and with having substituted such securities for gold which was being held as collateral security for Fed Notes, and with having by the process defrauded the U.S. Government and the people of the U.S., and I charge them with the theft of all the gold and currency they obtained by this process; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully issued Fed currency on false, worthless and fictitious acceptances and other circulating evidence of debt, and with having made unlawful advances of Fed currency, and with having unlawfully permitted renewals of acceptances and renewals of other circulating evidences of debt, and with having permitted acceptance bankers and discount dealer corporations and other private bankers to violate the banking laws of the U.S.; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having conspired to have evidences of debt to the extent of $1,000,000,000 artificially created at the end of February, 1933, and early in March 1933, and with having made unlawful issues and advances of Fed currency on the security of said artificially created evidences of debt for a sinister purpose, and with having assisted in the execution of said sinister purpose; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having brought about the repudiation of the currency obligations of the Fed Banks to the people of the U.S. and with having conspired to obtain a release for the Fed Board and the Fed Banks from their contractual liability to redeem all Fed currency in gold or lawful money at the Fed Bank and with having defrauded the holders of Fed currency, and with having conspired to have the debts and losses of the Fed Board and the Fed Banks unlawfully transferred to the Government and the people of the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully substituted Fed currency and other irredeemable paper currency for gold in the hands of the people after the decision to repudiate the Fed currency and the national currency was made known to them, and with thus having obtained money under false pretenses; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having brought about a repudiation of the n of the U.S. in order that the gold value of the said currency might be given to private interests, foreign governments, foreign central banks of issues, and the Bank of International Settlements, and the people of the U.S. to be left without gold or lawful money and with no currency other that a paper currency irredeemable in gold, and I charge them with having done this for the benefit of private interests, foreign governments, foreign central banks of issue, and the bank of International Settlements; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with conniving with the Edge Law banks, and other Edge Law institutions, accepting banks, and discount corporations, foreign central banks of issue, foreign commercial banks, foreign corporations, and foreign individuals with funds unlawfully taken from the U.S. Treasury; and I charge them with having unlawfully permitted and made possible 'new financing' for foreigners at the expense of the U.S. Treasury to the extent of billions of dollars and with having unlawfully permitted and made possible the bringing into the United States of immense quantities of foreign securities, created in foreign countries for export to the U.S. and with having unlawfully permitted the said foreign securities to be imported into the U.S. instead of gold, which was lawfully due to the U.S. on trade balances and otherwise, and with having lawfully permitted and facilitated the sale of the said foreign securities in the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully exported U.S. coins and currency for a sinister purpose, and with having deprived the people of the U.S. of their lawful medium of exchange, and I charge them with having arbitrarily and unlawfully reduced the amount of money and currency in circulation in the U.S. to the lowest rate per capita in the history of the Government, so that the great mass of the people have been left without a sufficient medium of exchange, and I charge them with concealment and evasion in refusing to make known the amount of U.S. money in coins and paper currency exported and the amount remaining in the U.S. as a result of which refusal the Congress of the U.S. is unable to ascertain where the U.S. coins and issues of currency are at the present time, and what amount of U.S. currency is now held abroad; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having arbitrarily and unlawfully raised and lowered the rates of money and with having arbitrarily increased and diminished the volume of currency in circulation for the benefit of private interests at the expense of the Government and the people of the U.S. and with having unlawfully manipulated money rates, wages, salaries and property values both real and personal, in the U.S. by unlawful operations in the open discount market and by resale and repurchase agreements unsanctioned by law, and

"Whereas I charge them jointly and severally, with having brought about the decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges in October, 1929, by unlawful manipulation of money rates and the volume of U.S. money and currency in circulation: by theft of funds from the U.S. Treasury by gambling in acceptances and U.S. Government securities; by service rendered to foreign and domestic speculators and politicians, and by unlawful sale of U.S. gold reserves abroad, and

"Whereas the unconstitutional inflation law imbedded in the so-called Farm Relief Act by which the Fed Banks are given permission to buy U.S. Government securities to the extent of $3,000,000,000 and to drew forth currency from the people's Treasury to the extent of $3,000,000,000 is likely to result in connivance on the part of said accused with others in the purchase by the Fed of the U.S. Government securities to the extent of $3,000,000,000 with U.S. Government's own credit unlawfully taken,-it being obvious that the Fed do no not intend to pay anything of value to the U.S. Government for the said U.S. Government securities no provision for payment in gold or lawful money appearing in the so-called Farm Relief bill- and the U.S. Government will thus be placed in a position of conferring a gift of $3,000,000,000 in the U.S. Government securities on the Fed to enable them to pay more on their bad debts to foreign governments, foreign central banks of issue, private interests, and private and commercial banks, both foreign and domestic, and the Bank of International Settlements, and

"Whereas the U.S. Government will thus go into debt to the extent of $3,000,000,000 and will then have an additional claim of $3,000,000,000 in currency unlawfully created against it and whereas no private interest should be permitted to buy U.S. Government securities with the Government's own credit unlawfully taken and whereas currency should not be issued for the benefit of said private interest or any interests on U.S. Government securities so acquired, and whereas it has been publicly stated and not denied that the inflation amendment of the Farm Relief Act is the matter of benefit which was secured by Ramsey MacDonald, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, upon the occasion of his latest visit to the U.S. Treasury, and whereas there is grave danger that the accused will employ the provision creating U.S. Government securities to the extent of $3,000,000,000 and three millions in currency to be issuable thereupon for the benefit of themselves and their foreign principals, and that they will convert the currency so obtained to the uses of Great Britain by secret arrangements with the Bank of England of which they are the agents, and for which they maintain an account and perform services at the expense of the U.S. Treasury, and that they will likewise confer benefits upon the Bank of International Settlements for which they maintain an account and perform services at the expense of the U.S. Treasury; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having concealed the insolvency of the Fed and with having failed to report the insolvency of the Fed to the Congress and with having conspired to have the said insolvent insititutions continue in operation, and with having permitted the said insolvent institutions to receive U.S. Government funds and other deposits, and with having permitted them to exercise control over the gold reserves of the U.S. and with having permitted them to transfer upward of $100,000,000,000 of their debts and losses to the general public and the Government of the U.S., and with having permitted foreign debts of the Fed to be paid with the property, the savings, the wages, and the salaries of the people of the U.S. and with the farms and the homes of the American people, and whereas I charge them with forcing the bad debts of the Fed upon the general public covertly and dishonestly and and with taking the general wealth and savings of the people of the U.S. under false pretenses, to pay the debts of the Fed to foreigners; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with violations of the Fed Act and other laws; with maladministration of the h evasions of the Fed Law and other laws; and with having unlawfully failed to report violations of law on the part of the Fed Banks which, if known, would have caused the Fed Banks to lose their charters, and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with failure to protect and maintain the gold reserves and the gold stock and gold coinage of the U.S. and with having sold the gold reserves of the U.S to foreign Governments, foreign central banks of issue, foreign commercial and private banks, and other foreign institutions and individuals at a profit to themselves, and I charge them with having sold gold reserves of the U.S. so that between 1924 and 1928 the U.S. gained no gold on net account but suffered a decline in its percentage of central gold reserves from the 45.9 percent in 1924 to 37.5 percent in 1928 notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. had a favorable balance of trade throughout that period, and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having conspired to concentrate U.S. Government securities and thus the national debt of the U.S. in the hands of foreigners and international money lenders and with having conspired to transfer to foreigners and international money lenders title to and control of the financial resources of the U.S.; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having fictitiously paid installments on the national debt with Government credit unlawfully taken; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the loss of the U.S. Government funds entrusted to their care; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having destroyed independent banks in the U.S. and with having thereby caused losses amounting to billions of dollars to the said banks, and to the general public of the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the failure to furnish true reports of the business operations and the true conditions of the Fed to the Congress and the people, and having furnished false and misleading reports to the congress of the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having published false and misleading propaganda intended to deceive the American people and to cause the U.S. to lose its independence; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with unlawfully allowing Great Britain to share in the profits of the Fed at the expense of the Government and the people of the U.S.; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having entered into secret agreements and illegal transactions with Montague Norman, Governor of the Bank of England; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with swindling the U.S. Treasury and the people of the U.S. in pretending to have received payment from Great Britain of the amount due on the British ware debt to the U.S. in December, 1932; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having conspired with their foreign principals and others to defraud the U.S. Government and to prevent the people of the U.S. from receiving payment of the war debts due to the U.S. from foreign nations; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having robbed the U.S Government and the people of the U.S. by their theft and sale of the gold reserves of the U.S. and other unlawful transactiving created a deficit in the U.S. Treasury, which has necessitated to a large extent the destruction of our national defense and the reduction of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy and other branches of the national defense; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, of having reduced the U.S. from a first class power to one that is dependent, and with having reduced the U.S. from a rich and powerful nation to one that is internationally poor; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the crime of having treasonable conspired and acted against the peace and security of the U.S. and with having treasonable conspired to destroy constitutional Government in the U.S.

"Resolve, That the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized and directed as a whole or by subcommittee, to investigate the official conduct of the Fed agents to determine whether, in the opinion of the said committee, they have been guilty of any high crime or misdemeanor which in the contemplation the Constitution requires the interposition of the Constitutional powers of the House. Such Committee shall report its finding to the House, together with such resolution or resolutions of impeachment or other recommendations as it deems proper.

"For the purpose of this resolution the Committee is authorized to sit and act during the present Congress at such times and places in the District of Columbia or elsewhere, whether or not the House is sitting, has recessed or has adjourned, to hold such clerical, stenographic, and other assistants, to requnce of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, to take such testimony, to have such printing and binding done, and to make such expenditures as it deems necessary."

After some discussion and upon the motion of Mr. Byrns, the resolution and charge was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

"Attacks on McFadden's Life Reported"

Commenting on Former Congressman Louis T. McFaddens's "heart-failure sudden-death" on Oct. 3, 1936, after a "dose" of "intestinal flue," "Pelley's Weekly" of Oct. 14 says:
Now that this sterling American patriot has made the Passing, it can be revealed that no long after his public utterance against the encroaching powers of Judah, it became known among his intimates that he had suffered two attacks against his life. The first attack came in the form of two revolver shots fired at him from ambush as he was alighting from a cab in front of one of the Capital hotels. Fortunately both shots missed him, the bullets burying themselves in the structure of the cab.

"He became violently ill after partaking of food at a political banquet at Washington. His life was only saved from what was subsequently announce as a poisoning by the presence of a physician friend at the banquet, who at once procured a stomach pump and subject the Congressman to emergency treatment."
/s/ Robert Edward Edmondson (Publicist-Economist)

New York, October 14, 1963

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports in June, 1961, greatly expanded trade in their "acceptance" securities market.

This market has already bankrupted the Nation in the 1930's, said Congressman McFadden. After bankruptcy comes the Referee, or DICTATOR!

President Andrew Jackson to the Bankers, 1831?: "You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out."

* * *

"Now's the day and now's the hour; See the front o' battle hour. Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die." -Robert Burns

INDEX

Acceptance racket costing the American people, 90 billions yearly
American Government made responsible to pay debts of one foreigner to another
Anti-hoarding campaign
Asset currency forced on the U.S.
Baltimore & Ohio R.R. asks for loan
Bankers' acceptance racket
Banks gambling $13 billions of the people's money & credit yearly
Bankers hate pensioners
Bank holiday declared by Roosevelt
Bankruptcy of the U.S.
Britain now financial mistress of the world
British shielding the Fed
British shielding robbery
Children the new slaves
Colonel Mandel House betrays America
Company stores
Concealing crimes and criminals
Country ravaged and laid wasted
Criminals and their crimes
Criminal offense against the Government
Deceivers are traitors
Dynamite for Japan at America's expense
Evading tax on circulation
European origin of the Fed
Federal Reserve corrupt
not government institution
twelve branches
currency unsound
has usurped the government
conspires to take away peoples title to war debts
debts transferred to the people by Roosevelt
pool of American confiscated bank deposits
Forcing small banks to buy stock
Foreign and domestic swindlers
Faithless government officials
Fiat money and Mr. Mills of the Treasury
Financing beans for Japan
distilleries in Europe
German brewers
Financial pirates
Financed Trotsky in promoting Russian Revolution
Finding the securities put-up for Fed loans
Five-cent meals for the people
Gambling counter have no legal standing
German exports to South America paid for by U.S. before shipment
Granting gift of $7 millions to every member of the Federal Reserve yearly
Greatest crime in history
Great depression brought on by evil practices of the Fed
Great Britain, partner in blackmail
Great haul for the International Bankers
Gold standard abandoned by Britain
Government in the banking business as never before
Government liable for debts of individuals and corporations in foreign lands
responsible for Federal Reserve notes issued by the Fed
the backer of bootleggers, smugglers, speculators and swindlers in all parts of the world
Highly dangerous powers of the Federal Reserve law
Horrors of the dishonest Fed
Hypocrisy of the embargo on the shipment of gold
Immense gold loans to Great Britain
Impractical, cumbersome machinery of the Fed
International Bankers, enemies of the people they rob
International propagandists
Internationalists spend half million dollars to get the Federal Reserve law through Congress
Ivar Krueger, match king
Killing our favorable trade balance
King's bank, a worm-eaten fraudulent institution
Kuhn, Loeb and Co. take over the U.S. Treasury
send a partner to run the Fed
Money for Scotch distillers
of Fed the money of slaves-not free men
Nature of the Ivar Krueger Swindle
Oakland County, Michigan, has bankrupt sale of 71,000 homes and farms
Our gold sent to Germany
Old struggle of Jackson's time
One law for bankers-another for Veterans
Paying bootleggers' bills
Paying no income taxes
Peddling our government's credit
People's gold wrongfully and illegally taken
People's right to know
Predatory interests of the centuries
President Hoover's friend (Ivar Krueger)
President Jackson's battle with the bankers
Promoted separate peace between Germany and Russia, World War I
Public credit of the U.S. used all over the world at our risk
Raising money for Kuhn, Loeb and Co.
Ramsey MacDonald, labor party deserter
Redeeming bad debts of the Fed
Re-discounting
Repeal the Fed
Resolution for audit of the Fed
Return to the Constitution
Roosevelt casts his lot with the usurers and money changers
destroyed the value of the American dollar
dictatorship
prepares to destroy the Constitution
reduces the pay of Federal employees
released bankers from debts and charge the people instead
servant of International bankers
his two kinds of laws
will not permit the Congress to investigate the condition of the Fed
Shortage of actual money
Senator Aldrich's bill used in the Federal Reserve law
Carter Glass gets his name on the bill
Lodge of Massachusetts opposes the bill
Root denounces the Fed
Spurious securities for good U.S. funds
State boundaries should be respected in connection with State funds
Throwing Veterans off B.& O. freight cars
Traitorous and dishonest officials
Trotsky breaks up Russian homes with American funds
Twelve private money trusts
Two-named paper wrecked every country where tried
U.S. being ransacked and pillaged
Unlawful usurpation of power by Roosevelt, in bank holiday, March 5, 1933
Wealth of U.S. exported to foreign countries with all profit to the Fed
We need to destroy the Fed,
Wilson administration establishes the worm-eaten King's bank
World enslavement planned
World riff-raff operating on the public credit of the U.S.

"Freedom must be won anew each generation"

end of file

Text of the original 1932 speech from the Congressional Record
Facsimile of the Congressional Record, 1932, pages 12595 and 12596

Back to Citizens for Better Government

Revised March 4, 2001

The Pilgrims Society

2010-02-20T04:56:00.000-08:00

[Joël van der Reijden has done some marvelously comprehensive research on the Gobal Elite. Visit his website: The Institute for the Study of Globalization Covert Politics.]

The Pilgrims Society | Membership list
A study of the Anglo-American Establishment

Pilgrims of Great Britain dinner, January 9, 1951. Logo and flags in background.		"There are several curious things about these Pilgrims functions. In the first place there is present at these dinners an array of notables such as it would be difficult to bring together under one roof for any other purpose and by any other society... Among the guests were John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, Thomas W. Lamont and other members of the House of Morgan... We are entitled to know what the Pilgrim Society is, what it stands for, and who these powerful Pilgrims are that can call out the great to hear a British Ambassador expound to Americans the virtues of a united democratic front." - John T. Whiteford asking very reasonable questions in his 1940 pamphlet 'Sir Uncle Sam: Knight of the British Empire'. "[The aim of the international bankers was] nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was
to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences." - Professor Carroll Quigley, 'Tragedy & Hope', p. 324. Can the Pilgrims, which Quigley never mentioned, verify his story of an Anglo-American Establishment?

Contents

	Intro
	The WASP elite
	Pilgrims history
	The Pilgrims network
	* Banks, law firms, insurance and other business
	* Media (and Operation Mockingbird)
	* Education
	* Cultural, scientific and revolutionary societies
	* Religion
	* Templar and Masonic orders
	* The big interests
	* The State Department vs. the DoD's Neoconservatism
	Pilgrims and Israel
	Pilgrims and international fascism
	Pilgrims, FDR and American fascism
	Anti-Eastern Establishment propaganda
	Pilgrims anomalies
	The propaganda is true?
	Globalist theory
	Conclusion

Sources for membership identification only appear in the membership list.

Intro
Most people have at least vaguely heard of the "Eastern Establishment". This is a reference to a group of people in the Northeast of the United States which to many appears to wield a disproportionate amount of influence over the nation's politics. This influence, which goes back even further than the days of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and J. P. Morgan, Sr. has been illustrated by the fact that a great number of individuals working in the senior positions of government have come from a number of New York-based banks, insurance companies and law firms, only to return to this group of banks and businesses after their public term came to an end. Often these individuals served in more than one administration, and together with a number of other peculiarities - think of controversial policies, suspected cover ups, ignored conflicts of interest, lack of media attention, etc. - some people have become suspicious of what at times appears to be almost like a permanent government. A 1962 newspaper column voiced these suspicions best:

"There is an establishment in the United States. The word "establishment" is a general term for the power elite in international finance, business, the professions largely from the Northeast, who wield most of the power regardless of who is in the White House.

"Most people are unaware of the existence of this "legitimate Mafia." Yet the power of the establishment makes itself felt from the professor who seeks a foundation grant, to the candidate for a cabinet post or State Department job. It affects the nation's policies in almost every area.

"For example, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, subsidized by Rockefeller interests since 1927 boasts a membership of at least 90 per cent establishment figures." [1]

The WASP elite
The origins of the Eastern Establishment is hardly part of accepted, official history. Authors writing about this topic have regularly been criticized; sometimes for seeing things that aren't there; sometimes for leaving out important aspects and missing the big picture. Some of the reasons that these discussions exist are quite obvious though:

1) there are large political and business interests involved here which like the way their system of private, behind-the-scenes conferences has evolved;
2) there's a small group of "insiders" and huge group of "outsiders", and because of their different lives they often are unable to understand, or refuse to understand, the other side.

What sets an elite apart from the regular population is influence: influence in domestic politics and economy, and influence in foreign politics and the world economy. This influence in many cases is hereditary, because within establishment circles it's as much about who you know as it is about what you know. In the modern age education is crucial, and in case of the Eastern Establishment of the United States, most members send their children to Yale, Harvard, or Princeton to get a law degree or a MBA. Members of the British establishment usually go to Oxford, with Cambridge coming in second. As soon as these young students graduate they are free to join the family bank or some other establishment business. Outsiders can join "the club" by going to the right schools and befriending other members of the establishment.

The Eastern Establishment is a so-called "WASP" establishment - meaning "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant". The term specifically refers to Americans of British descent, even
though there's a similar WASP establishment in Great Britain surrounding the royal family, which is closely associated with its American counterpart. The term WASP when applied to America's elite is somewhat inadequate. Usually its Anglo-Saxon descent and Protestant values are emphasized, followed by a general description of the historic influence of this group. Whenever the question comes up if this establishment still has great influence today few, if any, scholars come up with clear and definitive answers. Much further than throwing around terms like "Ivy League" and "old boys networks" they usually won't go. Now, anno 2008, let's change this and write down		The London Bush house, built in 1919 with funds provided by U.S. Pilgrim Irving T. Bush. Inscribed above the door is the text, "To the friendship of English Speaking Peoples". The two men represent the United States and Great Britain, holding a torch to symbolize their everlasting friendship.
a detailed list of characteristics which fully describes the traditional Eastern Establishment (or WASP elite).

It is a social elite centered around a number of universities, a group of banks, insurance companies and law firms, and a group of influential, privately-funded foundations and think tanks.
It is centered in and around New York, even though at any moment a large portion of this group is active within the government and non-government institutions in Washington.
There is a close relationship with the British aristocracy and the British royal family via diplomatic officials, individual contacts, and private clubs.
The dominant religion is Protestant, in particular the Episcopal (Anglican) and Presbyterian churches.
British branches of Freemasonry and Templar orders are popular.
This is the group behind the globalization process and members are generally great supporters of the United Nations and the sustainable development movement.
Catholic and especially Zionist interests are not very much appreciated.

You probably heard of some of these points before and you may or may not agree with them. So how can we prove to you that this list is true? To do that we need to begin our discussion on the Pilgrims Society.

Pilgrims history At the turn of 20th century a number of influential persons were interested in bringing the establishments of the United States and Great Britain closer together. The St. George's
Official Pilgrims logo. "Hic et Ubique" means "here and everywhere", apparently a reference to the idea that the United States and Great Britain should stand together side by side everywhere. The eagle represents the United States; the lion Great Britain.		Society in New York, the American Society in London, and the growing network of Anglo-American League branches in England (founded by a good number of later Pilgrims Society members), were seen as inadequate, so the idea arose to form a new, elitist society with branches in both London and New York. This became the Pilgrims Society, which organized regular meetings in such prestigious hotels as the Victoria, the Waldorf Astoria, the Carlton Ritz, and the Savoy. The idea of setting up what ultimately became the Pilgrims Society was first discussed by a number of Americans working in London. One of them was Lindsay Russell, a well-connected lawyer from New York, who regularly visited London in these days to set up his law firm Alexander and Colby. It was Russell who got together with General Joseph Wheeler (on a visit in London), General Lord Roberts, and Sir Harry Brittain. Together they organized the original meeting of the Pilgrims of Great
Britain at the Carlton Hotel on July 11, 1902. The meeting was a success and two weeks later Lord Roberts was elected president of the Pilgrims; Lord Grenfell and Admiral Hedworth Lambton became vice presidents. Two other vice presidents were Americans: Senator Chauncey M. Depew (Yale Skull & Bones 1856; lawyer to Cornelius Vanderbilt; member of J.P. Morgan's elite Corsair Club, together with William Rockefeller) and General Joseph Wheeler. Sir Harry Brittain became secretary and the Archdeacon of London, William MacDonald Sinclair, was elected chairman of the executive committee [2].

At the July 11 meeting the attendants also discussed their plans of setting up a branch in New York. Lindsay Russell and Chauncey Depew went back to the United States and approached such men as Bishop of New York Henry Codman Potter, J. P. Morgan, Sr., and former U.S. President Grover Cleveland (a good friend of the Morgan family and employed by them since at least the 1880s). Under the leadership of Bishop Potter, the Pilgrims of the United States organized their first formal diner on February 4, 1903. The two societies have been organizing meetings ever since [3].

The Pilgrims network
Over the years more and more influential persons joined the Pilgrims Society, including virtually all the well known bankers, robber barons and their associates. Going through membership lists of the Pilgrims of the United States you'll find the following families:

Astor	Duke	Mellon	Stillman
Aldrich	(Copeland) Du Pont	Meyer	Vanderbilt
Belmont	Gould	Morgan	Warburg
Baker	Harkness	Peabody	Watson
Carnegie	Harriman	Pyne	Whitney
Dillon	Lamont	Reynolds	*
Dodge	Lodge	Rockefeller	*
Drexel	Loeb	Schiff	*

Within the ranks of the British Pilgrims one comes across a great many Barons, Viscounts, Earls, Marquisses, and Dukes. Members of the British royal family have been patrons of the Pilgrims Society since its inception and regularly attend meetings. Here also well known banking families as Baring, Hambro, Harcourt, Keswick, Rothschild, Kleinwort, Loeb, and Warburg can be found, just as the heads of Barclays and the British managers of U.S. banks as Chase Manhattan and J. P. Morgan.

At the moment of this writing the membership list compiled by PEHI contains 1496 names, the vast majority of them from the United States (rough estimate: about 82% or 1227). Analyzing the biographies of these members doesn't just show that the Pilgrims are part of the WASP elite - they are the WASP elite. The following banks, law firms, and insurance companies have been headed by Pilgrims Society members - usually for generations:

Banks

American Securities Corp.	Federal Reserve	Kidder, Peabody and Co.	Morgan Joseph & Co. Inc.
Banker's Trust	Fidelity International Trust	Kleinwort Benson	New York Savings Bank
Bank of England	Fifth Avenue Bank	Kuhn, Loeb & Co.	N.M. Rothschild & Sons
Barclays Bank	First Boston Corporation	Lazard	Oppenheimer & Co.
Barings Bank	First National Bank	Lehman Brothers	Paine, Webber
Blackstone Group US/UK	Fourth Nat. Bank of N.Y.	Loeb, Rhoades & Co.	Rockefeller Center, Inc.
Bowery Savings Bank	Goldman Sachs	Manufacturers Hanover	Rockefeller Family & Ass.
Brown Brothers Harriman	Gotham National Bank	Marine Midland	Salomon Brothers
Bullock Fund	Hambro	Mellon Bank	S.G. Warburg
Chase National Bank	Harriman National Bank	J. P. Morgan & Co.	Shearson Loeb Rhoades
Chase Manhattan US/UK	International Banking Corp.	J. P. Morgan Chase	U.S. Trust Corp. of N.Y.
Chemical Bank	Irving Trust	Morgan Grenfell (UK)	*
Citibank	J. G. White & Co.	Morgan Guaranty Trust	*
Drexel & Co.	J. Henry Schroder & Co.	Morgan Stanley	*

Law firms and insurance companies

Breed, Abbott & Morgan

Carter, Ledyard & Milburn

Coudert Brothers

Cravath, Swaine & Moore

Davis, Polk & Wardwell

Debevoise & Plimpton

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy

Herbert Oppenheimer Nathan & Vandyk

Shearman & Sterling

Sullivan & Cromwell

Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts

AIG

Equitable Life Assurance Society

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

Mutual Life Insurance Life Insurance Co.

Lloyds of London

Royal Globe Insurance Group

Other businesses

Chrysler	Forbes *	ICI	R.J. Reynolds
Corning Glass Works	General Electric	Int. Nickel Co. of Canada	Rio Tinto
De Beers (Anglo-Am Corp)	General Motors	Jardine Matheson	U.S. Steel
Dodge	IBM	Phelps-Dodge	W.R. Grace & Co.

* other media companies not mentioned here

Looking at these tables, it is clear that the major banks of New York and London have been very prominent in the Pilgrims Society, closely followed by a group of influential law firms and insurance companies. A number of corporations have also had a considerable presence in the Pilgrims, comparable to some of the law firms and smaller banks. The most prominent of these might well be IBM, of the Watson family - but the founders and owners of Chrysler, Dodge, Jardine Matheson, W.R. Grace & Co., Reynolds, Corning Glass, and Forbes have all been Pilgrims. A vast range of other corporations have been represented by Pilgrims, but do not appear to have been part of the core of the Anglo-American establishment.

Media (and Operation Mockingbird)
Except for Forbes, we deliberately left out large media companies in this last section, as their presence in the Pilgrims Society and influence on society deserves to be discussed separately.

The New York Times and Time Magazine have been the news publications the most intimately tied to to the Pilgrims of the United States over the years. Since 1896 the New York Times has been owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, members of which have been generational members of the Pilgrims since the very beginning. Orvil E. Dryfoos, who married a daughter of Arthur Sulzberger and rose to president of the New York Times in 1957 and publisher in 1961, was another member of the Pilgrims. A number of outside Pilgrims held senior positions in the New York Times too over the years. Among them were John William Harding, George McAneny, Philip Du Val, Cyrus Vance and Charles H. Price II.

Time Magazine was set up by Henry Luce in 1923. Although he himself appears not to have been a Pilgrim, most of his associates were, including some of those who financed the founding of his magazine: J. P. Morgan partners Thomas W. Lamont and Dwight Morrow,
together with the Harriman and Harkness families. Among the Pilgrims that have held senior positions in Time Magazine are Paul Gray Hoffman (OSS-CIA), Philip G. Howlett, William J. Cross, Hedley Donovan, Donald M. Elliman, Jr., George A. Heard, Roy E. Larsen, Samuel W. Meek and Frank Pace, Jr. Henry Luce III became president of the U.S. Pilgrims in 1997. Another important Pilgrims-affiliated publication used to be the New York Herald Tribune, owned by the Reid family and dissolved in 1966. Whitelaw Reid, Whitelaw Reid II, Ogden Mills Reid, Ogden Rogers Reid and several other family members have all been members of the Pilgrims Society. In 1958, John Hay Whitney, a vice president of the U.S. Pilgrims, took over the newspaper from the Reids. Although not very prominent within the Pilgrims Society, some of Reader's Digest most senior and long		Pilgrims-dominated U.S. publications. Some outside media are still very much in line with the Anglo-American Establishment. In case of CNN it seems that billionaire country boy Ted Turner, with his one billion dollar grant to United Nations causes, really wants to be part of an establishment for which he doesn't have the background.
term managers have been Pilgrims, spanning the period from the 1940s to the 1980s. Among them were William John Cross, C. Robert Devine, Walter Wood Hitesman and Kent Rhodes.

News stations are considerably less prominent in the Pilgrims Society. One of the exceptions has been the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), located in Rockefeller Center and one of he most dominant broadcasting companies from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Morgan banker Owen D. Young founded the RCA in 1919. Young was chairman of General Electric, which took a controlling interest in the RCA. For the next fifty years, until 1970, the company was headed by James G. Harbord, Frank M. Folsom, and David Sarnoff. All these men, including Young, were members of the Pilgrims Society. In 1970, Sarnoff's son, Robert, took over the chairmanship of the RCA, but couldn't prevent the company from going into ...Read More

A Timely and Necessary Read for all Americans

2009-11-11T04:15:00.000-08:00

Amazon Book Review for "The Cult of the Presidency" - Gene Healy

4.0 out of 5 stars , May 26, 2008

By	Jeff K. (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

I have to admit it: I'm a presidential cultist. In 8th grade I memorized all the presidents with their years of service. In high school I read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, a book that inspired me during a particularly rough time in my life. To this day I follow politics like most men follow sports.

So it's not easy or natural for me to recommend a book that celebrates the likes of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge and deconstructs Woodrow Wilson, FDR, or my beloved TR.

Yet if you're like me, you have this nagging sense that something has gone terribly wrong. In a country founded on the anti-monarchical principle that government is "of the people," we have come to lust after a king - a man who will heal our hurts, save us from our enemies, educate our children, protect us from the weather, and guarantee our material comforts.

In this book, you'll learn how we got here. After starting out with the Founders and the debate over whether the nation's chief executive should have a title, you'll be introduced to the concept of Unitary Executive theory and its chief proponent, Professor John Yoo, who as a young lawyer in the post-9/11 Office of Legal Counsel, provided the intellectual firepower for George W's expansive view of presidential prerogative. You'll also meet Clinton Rossiter, whose book, The American Presidency, published in the 1950s, documented how such an expansive view was palatable to the American people who had come to expect their president to be World Leader, Protector of the Peace, Chief Legislator, Manager of Prosperity, and Voice of the People, among other things.

Along the way, you will gain an appreciation for the Quiet Ones - John Adams to Calvin Coolidge - and why, out of commitment to republican principles, they kept their mouths shut (for the most part). You'll see how the Progressive movement's program to take power away from political bosses and give it to "the people" has ironically resulted in creating the greatest political Boss of all. That same movement also gave us our first models of modern Heroic Presidents - TR and Wilson. Interestingly, while TR may have been the Luther, it was Wilson who was the Calvin - the great intellectual systematizer and practical political implementer of the theology of presidential power. "The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can," Wilson declared.

Journalists and scholars, who are, by trade, usually in the Progressive camp, are indicted for aiding and abetting the creation of this un-republican Big Man.

The book falls short of a true classic (and a 5-star rating) due to the following.

The author spills a lot of ink over the imperialistic sins of George W. Bush (3 of 9 chapters), which will unfortunately limit the book's shelf life once the current occupant leaves office. He failed to engage at least one of the standard presidential biographies. Anyone evaluating LBJ is obliged to engage Robert Caro's penetrating 3-volume study, and yet I didn't see one reference to it. There is also a fair amount of dieseling of the author's main point in the book's nearly 300 pages.

His discussion of Lincoln is surprisingly short. He justifies this on the premise that the chief executives from 1865 to 1901 reverted to the antebellum model, and thus Lincoln didn't permanently change the game. And yet all the executive over-reaches of power which the author decries were dramatically displayed in Lincoln. While one may explain this away as a singular historical moment, I have also suspected that Lincoln, and specifically, his Emancipation Proclamation poses something of a dilemma for Libertarians. While emancipation from slavery is certainly libertarian, it took a very un-libertarian Executive Order and a bloody civil war to achieve it. Whether it's by design or oversight, the lack of a thorough discussion of Lincoln and the impact his deification in the post-war North must have had on the young Roosevelt cousins and Wilson was a missed opportunity.

Despite his amassing the evidence of presidential abuses of power, the author's proposed remedies are surprisingly brief (5 pages) and timid - airing some thoughts about the proposed Separation of Powers Act and tinkering with the War Powers Resolution. The author prefaces his lack of solutions by noting that we are already too far gone: until we adjust our expectations of the presidency, no legislative solution will be sufficient to tame the creature we have created. Nevertheless, since we are dealing in the realm of ideas, the author could have taken the opportunity to be bolder.

These shortcomings are relatively minor given the depth with which the author has built his case and the importance and timeliness of his message. To those of you who are growing tired of your addiction to The Politico and RealClearPolitics.com, this book will be your first step toward sobriety.

Jokes to Offend Everybody

2009-08-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

> What do you call two
> Mexicans playing basketball?
> Juan on Juan
>
>
>
>
> What is a Yankee?
>
> The same as a quickie,
> but a guy can do it alone.
>
>
>
> What is the difference
> between a Harley and a Hoover ?
> The position of the
> dirt bag
>
>
>
> Why is divorce so
> expensive?
> Because it's worth
> it.
>
> What do you see when
> the Pillsbury Dough Boy bends over?
>
> Doughnuts
>
>
> Why is air a lot like
> sex?
> Because it's no
> big deal unless you're not getting any.
>
>
> What do you call a
> smart blonde?
> A golden retriever.
>
>
>
>
> What do attorneys use
> for birth control?
> Their personalities.
>
>
>
> What's the
> difference between a girlfriend and wife?
> 10 years and 45 lbs
>
>
> What's the
> difference between a boyfriend and husband?
> 45 minutes
>
>
>
> What's the fastest
> way to a man's heart?
> Through his chest with
> a sharp knife
>
>
> Why do men want to
> marry virgins?
> They can't stand
> criticism.
>
> Why is it so hard for
> women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and
> good-looking?
> Because those men
> already have boyfriends.
>
>
> What's the
> difference between a new husband and a new
> dog?
>
> After a year, the dog
> is still excited to see you
>
> Why do men chase women
> they have no intention of marrying?
> The same urge that
> makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving.
>
>
>
> Why don't bunnies
> make noise when they have sex?
> Because they have
> cotton balls.
>
>
> What's the
> difference between a porcupine and BMW?
> A porcupine has the
> pricks on the outside.
>
>
> What did the blonde
> say when she found out she was pregnant?
> "Are you sure
> it's mine?"
>
>
> Why does Mike Tyson cry during
> sex?
>
> Mace will do that to
> you.
>
>
> Why did OJ Simpson
> want to move to West
> Virginia ?
> Everyone has the same
> DNA.
>
> Why do drivers'
> education classes in Redneck schools use the
> car only on
> Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?
> Because on Tuesday and Thursday,
> the Sex Ed class uses it.
>
>
>
> Where does an Irish
> family go on vacation?
> A different bar.
>
>
>
>
> Did you hear about the
> Chinese couple that had a
> Blonde baby?
>
> They named him
> "Sum Ting Wong"
>
>
> What would you call it
> when an Italian has one arm shorter than the
> other?
>
> A speech
> impediment
>
>
>
> What's the
> difference between a southern zoo and a northern
> zoo?
> A southern zoo has a
> description of the animal on the front of the cage along
> with... "a recipe".
>
> How do you get a sweet
> 80-year-old lady to say the F word?
> Get another sweet
> little 80-year-old lady to yell *BINGO*!
>
>
>
> What's the
> difference between a northern fairytale and a southern
> fairytale?
> A northern
> fairytale begins "Once upon a time .."
> -
> A southern fairytale
> begins "Y'all ain't gonna believe this
> shit....
>
>

The Web of Power Hidden Behind the Invisible Matrix of Consensus Reality

2009-06-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I find a piece truly worthy of the Naked Underground. Initially, the idea of documentary improvisational ensemble in music was understood in exploring channels of fresh ideas through sound. But the concept unfolds in other areas as well, such as social and political thought. As thinkers and watchdogs dig deeper and deeper for answers beneath the surface of media and the common herd driven by inculcated consumer instincts, reasons why and how economic and political matrices and and synergy exist become established through channels of highly developed and refined ideas. Certainly biases, slants and spins exist and reliable and objective information is compromised with individual agendas. Yet, in the Naked Underground there is no standard but a dredging up of enough much that when washed away is sure to reveal glowing gems of truth.
I believe a blogger named Inspector Lohmann has such a gem. In this page you will find a well articulated concept about the well established agenda of how material wealth is preserved

The Web of Power Hidden Behind the Invisible Matrix of Consensus Reality http://inspectorlohmann.blogspot.com/2008/12/web-of-power-hidden-behind-invisible.html

Synergy: The Web of Power

The processes of corporate power do not work in isolation. The economic and legal mechanisms that allow the privatization of the commonwealth, externalization of costs, predatory economic practices, political influence-buying, manipulation of regulation and deregulation, control of the media, propaganda and advertising in schools, and the use of police and military forces to protect the property of the wealthy — all of these work synergistically to weave a complex web of power.

The Anatomy of Corporate Power

Activists seek to locate the “mechanisms” of power, but power is not a machine. Power, the ability to make decisions and control resources, is found in the dynamics of the relationship between people. Depending on how power flows and who wields it, political and economic decisions are made and resources flow between individuals, groups, and corporations. When society’s economic, political, and social structures become institutionalized, power tends to flow from people into institutions, but not back again. Power becomes centralized.

The flow of power to corporations is promoted by legal mechanisms such as corporate personhood, limits to liability, pollution permitting, and political campaign financing, and by institutional structures such as regulatory agencies, export credit agencies, and police forces and armies.

Together, these mechanisms and structures maintain networks of tightly-held power. Network analysis has shown that ninety percent of the 800 largest U.S. corporations are interlocked in a continuous network, with any one corporation within four steps of any other corporation in the network.

Analysis of think tanks and policy groups in the early 1990s showed that the Business Roundtable was interlocked most extensively, followed by the Business Council, the Conference Board, the Committee for Economic Development, Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Hoover Institution, Chamber of Commerce, and Heritage Foundation. Some of these institutions are being displaced by new ones. Interlocks are not the only source of power, and in any case, the precise measurement of power is impossible. But the enormous influence of these and other global alliances of corporate power is undeniable.

Corporations and corporate foundations fund think tanks which formulate policies which will be favorable to business. Corporate attorneys draft legislation which will make those policies the law of the land. Corporate political action committees pay for the election campaigns of the politicians who ensure that such legislation becomes law, and lobbyists make sure the politicians stay bought. Corporate executives are appointed to lead the regulatory agencies which enforce (or dismantle) the laws that aren’t favorable to business. National and multilateral trade and development agencies design and subsidize an international trading system dominated by the largest corporations. Governments and banks use public monies to subsidize and insure corporate investment.

The elite consensus rises above the competitive advantage of particular corporations, and is larger than any industry. What unites corporations and industry associations and the wealthy and powerful is a consensus to build and maintain power itself. Corporate power is dependent on legal, economic, and political mechanisms, structures, and processes which follow a few basic rules:

Privatize profits. Get as many subsidies as possible from labor, the public, and the environment. Get below-cost raw materials from the public domain. Let communities and governments pay for infrastructure. Lobby for tax breaks and tax credits. Privatize public resources and governmental services. The less visible the subsidies are, the better, but also support them with a constant repetition of the virtues of private enterprise, the rights of private property, and the equation of profits with happiness.

Externalize costs. Underpay your employees, even if it means hiring children overseas to work twelve hours a day. Don’t recycle your waste; don’t clean it up if it’s toxic; if you are caught, sue your insurance companies to make them pay. Minimize legal liability in general by claiming constitutional rights intended for natural persons.

Control information. Acquire every outlet of the broadcast media, and merge their programs. Acquire independent publishers and bookstores, and standardize what they publish and sell. Write text books from a corporate point of view, and distribute them throughout the public school system. Pay the salaries of teachers and professors and social activists until they are no longer aware that they are censoring themselves for a living. Restrain free speech as much as possible. Forbid it on private property such as shopping malls. Forbid your employees to organize or to use the workplace as a venue for civic life. Make information about corporate operations and government decision making difficult to obtain. Worship expertise and confuse data with knowledge.

Centralize political authority. Pay off injured employees and citizens to stay out of court, and make them agree to remain silent about the injury. If legal liability cannot be escaped, have it adjudicated in as high a court as possible. Do not appear in local or state courts if the case can be heard in federal court. Do not go to jury trial. If possible, preempt troublesome laws through the World Trade Organization, so that even national courts have less jurisdiction. Replace government and civic institutions with private corporations.

Centralize economic authority. Acquire or destroy small businesses, cooperatives, and other alternatives. Make the surviving corporations as large as possible, not for economies of scale (which were optimized many decades ago), but for the sake of centralizing authority and eliminating competition. Have a handful of corporations dominate every industry, and have them control the allocation of resources and the means and the ends of production. Control prices. Remove profits from the community, and deposit them in offshore banks to escape taxes and potential liability.

Remove all barriers to trade, regardless of whether they protect desirable industries, health and safety, human rights, or the environment. Expand management prerogative beyond the workplace, into the community, into the policymaking institutions, and across all jurisdictions. Make private property and the pursuit of profit the basis of all law and all social and economic policy. Create an economy where people have to pay currency for food, clothing, shelter, and culture. Commercialize the schools. Patent species. Make life pay.

For the remainder of the text go to:
http://inspectorlohmann.blogspot.com/2008/12/web-of-power-hidden-behind-invisible.html

The American Cult of Consumerism

2009-05-26T06:00:00.001-07:00

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/21-4

by Tirdad Derakhshani

A Black Friday mob of frenzied shoppers breaks down the doors of a Walmart on Long Island, N.Y., and tramples an employee to death. Four others are injured, including a woman who is eight months pregnant.

Most of those condemning the incident treat it as an aberration, a display of craven greed in an otherwise healthy community. One commentator even blamed the tragedy on the severe pressures and anxieties caused by the economic meltdown.

Perhaps it would be more fruitful to treat it as a symbol of a fanatical, hyperconsumerist ethos, which has come to define us as individuals and as a community.

Trampling incidents evoke images of mindless crowds whipped into a frenzy by an ideology that arouses an uncontrollable, irrational desire.

If there's an antidote to such an ideology, surely it's consumerism, which promises individual freedom, autonomy and rational choice. Yet at its extreme, consumerism creates the same fanatical crowd behavior that has led to trampling deaths at rock concerts, European soccer games, and the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Sadly, hundreds were trampled at the hajj between 1987 and 2004. Those deaths are used by some Westerners as proof that Islam engenders a mob mentality and destroys individual autonomy.

Consumerism, no less than any cult or religion, has the power to level individual difference and independence and render citizens into a homogeneous mass. Advertising companies, celebrity spokespersons, movies and TV shows conspire to render the consumer object - be it a $2 ice cream cone or an $80,000 luxury sedan - into a fetish imbued with magical, if not downright divine, powers. (Consumerism also has its rituals and its holy days, most notably Black Friday itself.)

If this sounds excessive, think of the frenzied desire someone like Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Britney Spears or Allen Iverson has evoked in otherwise rational people. The primitive, visceral reaction we feel as fans is the same infantile desire aroused by consumer goods.

The consumerist message has become the wallpaper to our lives.

"Enjoy," flashes a billboard-size red neon Coke sign. Enjoy [COCA-COLA] . . . Enjoy [COCA-COLA] . . . Enjoy . . . This is not merely a cheerful suggestion. It's a command.

In the 21st century, pleasure is equated to consumption, and consumption has become an imperative that has all but replaced the moral imperative issued by teachers from Abraham to 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant and 20th-century liberators Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The old moral tradition gave birth to our grandparents' credo, the so-called Protestant work ethic - work hard, sacrifice, and invest wisely in the future.

Today, the country's economic health is measured more according to how much we are willing to spend, our consumer confidence, and less in how much we produce, the gross national product, or even how we invest.

If previous leaders preached self-sacrifice and service, our commander in chief tells us that our duty is to consume. Since Sept. 11, he has consistently told Americans that if we want to help the country, we must . . . buy.

To be American once meant having the right to pursue happiness, where the emphasis is on the road taken toward a goal that is difficult, if not impossible, to reach - at least in one lifetime. Today our right is to be happy. (Enjoy . . . enjoy . . . enjoy.)

Consumerism infantilizes us, alienates us from one another, and makes us apathetic as citizens. What's ironic is that even if you base human worth not on social responsibility but on individual happiness, consumerism still fails us.

A consumer economy only works if consumption of goods provides only temporary pleasure. That is, if happiness is infinitely deferred, so that buyers continue to buy more and more goods and services. By definition, the consumer can never be satisfied, at rest or happy. Which means she will always feel lacking. The pursuit of this sort of happiness creates a vicious circle of growing anxiety and dissatisfaction.

Perhaps what's most dismaying is that so many consumers have become sophisticated enough to know they are manipulated, yet choose to remain passive.

We are like the 30-something characters in Seinfeld, who know they are immature, who know they are avoiding the responsibility of building meaningful relationships and of leading meaningful lives - and who don't really care.

The reason is simple: We are, for the most part, comfortable.

But, given the global economic crisis and the rapid rate at which we are consuming Earth's resources, how long can our little comforts last?

The United States Position on the Current Financial Crisis

2008-11-22T04:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/economy/

Fact Sheet: Plan To Stabilize Financial System Is Limited In Size, Scope, And Duration

The Federal Government Is Acting Swiftly To Preserve Our System Of Free Market Capitalism And Return Our Nation To A Path Of Prosperity, Job Creation, And Long-Term Economic Growth

On October 17, 2008, President Bush visited the United States Chamber of Commerce and discussed the actions that the Federal Government has taken in response to the financial crisis. The President explained that the government took swift action to protect the financial security of the American people. One important element, the equity purchase program, is designed with strong protections to ensure the government's involvement is limited in size, limited in scope, and limited in duration:

The government's involvement is limited in size. The government's investment is capped for any individual firm that chooses to participate in this voluntary program, so that private investors retain control.
The government's involvement is limited in scope. The government will not exercise control over any private firm. The shares owned by the government will have voting rights that can be used only to protect the taxpayer's investment – not to direct the firm's operations.
The government's involvement is limited in duration. This program includes provisions to encourage banks to buy back their shares from the government when the markets stabilize and they can raise money from private investors.

We must never lose sight of the enormous benefits delivered by the free enterprise system. Democratic capitalism remains the greatest system ever devised. Around the world, free market policies have lifted millions of people out of poverty and given them the opportunity to build a more hopeful life. In the United States, it has given our large and dynamic economy the flexibility and resilience to absorb shocks, adjust, and bounce back.

... it continues.

The Misunderestimated Man - How Bush Chose Stupidity. By Jacob Weisberg

2008-11-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I must agree with a brilliant article written by Jacob Weisberg.
My comment:

"I like your article because it shows an astute mind rightfully incensed by the individual who occupies the highest office in the land and clearly lacks the qualifications. One must ask the question: "How in Heaven did he get there?" What do two won elections tell us about the discretion of Congress, the media and most of all the American People. If one believe that his installation was somehow engineered by a cabal of conspirators who were grimly ratified by senators and such on the make, then the current financial demise of the nation has rendered them their just rewards. But, I think that, yes, there was a conspiracy, although in the words of Gary Allen, none dare call it that, but conspiracy none the less. It is easy to surmise given the amount of secrecy that hidden agenda and covert processes are continually turning the well greased gears of government. So, Dubbya is elected with for-knowledge of everything that Jacob Weisberg writes about. Either we share in his stupidity corporately, or we honored it for some darker motive. It has been written that Laurel and Hardy's tremendous fame was based upon the notion that no one could be stupider than them, thus making everyone else feel superior. The same philosophy applies to Silvester Stallone. I think GW came at a time when the American Public, filled with excess and false ideas about it's power and sophistication delighted in electing a man who has already often been recorded as the stupidest person in all history ... him, his family, his friends and most of all those who cast their ballot in his favor. My old Sicilian grandfather had one word for people who prefer to be stupid, Mr. Weisberg ... the word is: "Ignoranza!""

Weisberg Article dated May 7, 2004, at 9:54 AM ET

The question I am most frequently asked about Bushisms is, "Do you really think the president of the United States is dumb?" Read on ...

EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION Act

2008-10-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: h1424eas.txt]
[Engrossed Amendment Senate]


               In the Senate of the United States,

                    October 1 (legislative day, September 17), 2008.
 Resolved, That the bill from the House of Representatives (H.R.
1424) entitled ``An Act to amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service
Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require
equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder
benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the
basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and
employment, and for other purposes.'', do pass with the following

                           AMENDMENTS:

         Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
   following:

           DIVISION A--EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS.

 (a) Short Title.--This division may be cited as the ``Emergency
Economic Stabilization Act of 2008''.
 (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this division is
as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents.
Sec. 2. Purposes.
Sec. 3. Definitions.

             TITLE I--TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM

Sec. 101. Purchases of troubled assets.
Sec. 102. Insurance of troubled assets.
Sec. 103. Considerations.
Sec. 104. Financial Stability Oversight Board.
Sec. 105. Reports.
Sec. 106. Rights; management; sale of troubled assets; revenues and
                         sale proceeds.
Sec. 107. Contracting procedures.
Sec. 108. Conflicts of interest.
Sec. 109. Foreclosure mitigation efforts.
Sec. 110. Assistance to homeowners.
Sec. 111. Executive compensation and corporate governance.
Sec. 112. Coordination with foreign authorities and central banks.
Sec. 113. Minimization of long-term costs and maximization of benefits
                         for taxpayers.
Sec. 114. Market transparency.
Sec. 115. Graduated authorization to purchase.
Sec. 116. Oversight and audits.
Sec. 117. Study and report on margin authority.
Sec. 118. Funding.
Sec. 119. Judicial review and related matters.
Sec. 120. Termination of authority.
Sec. 121. Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief
                         Program.
Sec. 122. Increase in statutory limit on the public debt.
Sec. 123. Credit reform.
Sec. 124. HOPE for Homeowners amendments.
Sec. 125. Congressional Oversight Panel.
Sec. 126. FDIC authority.
Sec. 127. Cooperation with the FBI.
Sec. 128. Acceleration of effective date.
Sec. 129. Disclosures on exercise of loan authority.
Sec. 130. Technical corrections.
Sec. 131. Exchange Stabilization Fund reimbursement.
Sec. 132. Authority to suspend mark-to-market accounting.
Sec. 133. Study on mark-to-market accounting.
Sec. 134. Recoupment.
Sec. 135. Preservation of authority.
Sec. 136. Temporary increase in deposit and share insurance coverage.

               TITLE II--BUDGET-RELATED PROVISIONS

Sec. 201. Information for congressional support agencies.
Sec. 202. Reports by the Office of Management and Budget and the
                         Congressional Budget Office.
Sec. 203. Analysis in President's Budget.
Sec. 204. Emergency treatment.

                    TITLE III--TAX PROVISIONS

Sec. 301. Gain or loss from sale or exchange of certain preferred
                         stock.
Sec. 302. Special rules for tax treatment of executive compensation of
                         employers participating in the troubled
                         assets relief program.
Sec. 303. Extension of exclusion of income from discharge of qualified
                         principal residence indebtedness.

SEC. 2. PURPOSES.

 The purposes of this Act are--
         (1) to immediately provide authority and facilities that
     the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and
     stability to the financial system of the United States; and
         (2) to ensure that such authority and such facilities are
     used in a manner that--
                 (A) protects home values, college funds, retirement
             accounts, and life savings;
                 (B) preserves homeownership and promotes jobs and
             economic growth;
                 (C) maximizes overall returns to the taxpayers of
             the United States; and
                 (D) provides public accountability for the exercise
             of such authority.
[Continue  Reading]

Do the Math on the Bailout and Paulson

2008-10-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

My fellow Americans ... These are changing times and those who lack understanding of freedom and liberty will soon become wise.

Review the new Paulson Regimme.

Henry Paulson Requests Non-Reviewable Authority To Dole Out Billions Terry Trippany

2008-10-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

[Tyranny is here: Another excellent article;]

on Sep 22 2008 at 11:30 am | Filed under: Feature Article, Politicians at Work

Michelle Malkin looks back in time tracking Henry Paluson’s troubling record leading up to one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history.

Henry Paulson is a former managing partner and COO at Goldman Sachs with a current net worth estimated at $700 million dollars. If you don’t think he has a financial stake in the current financial crisis that could conflict with his ability to do what is right for the American taxpayer then you are reading the wrong website.

He, along with fed chair Ben Bernanke and SEC Chair Christopher Cox are at the helm of the government’s move to nationalize the nations largest financial institutions; a move that puts this country one large step closer to the likes of Hugo Chavez.

Now Paulson wants the government to give him the keys to over $700 BILLION dollars and is requesting that this be done under authority that “may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

This reckless, unelected friend of Wall Street has been wrong on the severity of the subprime mortgage crisis repeatedly and now he is requesting that the American taxpayer trust him with nearly a trillion dollars in a power grab that is not subject to any scrutiny or review.

Let’s review Paulson’s keen insights and see if this man should be fired or given the keys to the country.

First we loo at the proposal as submitted September 19, 2008, Text Draft Proposal of Legislative Bailout Plan

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Authority to Purchase.–The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

(b) Necessary Actions.–The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;

(4) establishing vehicles that are authorized, subject to supervision by the Secretary, to purchase mortgage-related assets and issue obligations; and

(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.

There is a lot of language in this legislative proposal like the above. Tying it all together is the provision concerning review of those “investments”, “contracts” and “employment decisions”.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

With this proposal in mind we now turn our attention to a list of statements made by Paulson leading up to the crisis. While reading this you should ask yourselves if this guy should be the one bailing this country out of the mess that he, many more in Congress and his friends in Wall Street helped create?

Paulson, April 2007:

“I don’t see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained”.

Paulson, May 2007

That correction was inevitable; that correction has now been significant. We think it is near the bottom. It will take a while to work its way through the system. Fortunately for us, we have a very diverse, healthy economy. There are other things that are positive that are offsetting that.

…So my very strong view is that we are near the bottom and that this will be contained as — the housing will be contained, and we’re fortunate that we have a diverse, healthy economy.

Paulson, August 2007 while on a trip to Beijing

There’s a wake-up call, and there’s an adjustment to this repricing of risk, but I see the underlying economy as being very healthy,” he told reporters before leaving Beijing.

Paulson added that he did not see anything that caused him to reconsider his view that the economic damage from the housing correction was “largely contained,” despite losses in a number of financial institutions and a long period for subprime issues to move through the economy.

Paulson, October 2007 Speech at Georgetown University

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is walking a fine line, pushing the need to help troubled mortgage borrowers without rewarding past risky behavior.

“I have no interest in bailing out lenders or property speculators.”

Paulson, May 2008

‘The worst is likely to be behind us,’ Paulson told the paper, in one of the most optimistic comments by a top U.S. finance official since sub-prime mortgage losses set a domino effect in motion in mid 2007.

So either Paulson has been lying to the American people ever since he knew that the train was heading down the tracks or he is stupid. I don’t think he is stupid but you can make your own conclusions. Bottom line, Americans should not be giving this guy any unfettered access to our money. Enough is enough.

Read the whole story on Malkin, there is much much more to this crisis of corruption, greed and the power brokers in Congress that were every bit as complicit in this disaster as the ones that were enabled to bleed these insititutions into bankruptcy.

Financial Tyranny, Fedzilla-style by Ted Nugent

2008-10-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

[Excellent post in "An Angry Mob of One"]

(First, props to by Ted Nugent for the term “Fedzilla”)

According to Webster’s. tyranny may be defined as 2(a) a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler; one characteristic of an ancient Greek city-state; (b) the office, authority, and administration of a tyrant.

In the instance of Bush’s proposed bailout, the shoe fits- it is tyranny of the highest order.

According to the proposal, the Feds will basically be able to do as they will (emphasis mine):

Treasury Seeks Asset-Buying Power Unchecked by Courts (Update2)
By Alison Fitzgerald and John Brinsley

Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) — The Bush administration sought unchecked power from Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from financial companies in what would be an unprecedented government intrusion into the markets.

Through his plan, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson aims to avert a credit freeze that would bring the financial system and the world’s largest economy to a standstill. The bill would prevent courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority.

“He’s asking for a huge amount of power,” said Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University. “He’s saying, `Trust me, I’m going to do it right if you give me absolute control.’ This is not a monarchy.”

As congressional aides and officials scrutinized the proposal, the Treasury late yesterday clarified the types of assets it would purchase. Paulson would have authority to buy home loans, mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage- related assets and, after consultation with the Federal Reserve chairman, “other assets, as deemed necessary to effectively stabilize financial markets,” the Treasury said in a statement.

The Treasury would also have discretion, after discussions with the Fed, to make non-U.S. financial institutions eligible under the program.

The plan would raise the ceiling on the national debt and spend as much as the combined annual budgets of the Departments of Defense, Education and Health and Human Services. Paulson is asking for the power to hire asset managers and award contracts to private companies. Most provisions of the proposal expire after two years from the date of enactment.

(Read the rest at Bloomberg.com)

It’s all bad, but two things stand out as particularly troubling:

“Other assets.” What exactly does this mean? Is there anything in the proposal that would safeguard US taxpayers from Paulson using this vague and undefined term to buy anything he desires? It seems that, acting in cahoots with the Federal Reserve, all he would have to do is say, for example, that the steel industry is causing turmoil in financial markets, and the government could buy their assets.
“The bill would prevent courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority.” This means the US taxpayer would have no legal recourse to challenge anything Paulson decided to do. According to the provisions of the plan, if Paulson decided to bail out a foreign bank, no citizen could sue to stop it.

Does this qualify as tyranny? Well, Paulson would have virtually unchecked authority to act- meaning he would have absolute power. By definition, this is tyranny- and your congressmen and Senators are lining up to support the plan.

Things will get only worse under either Obama or McCain, as both are champions of both Fedzilla and the Federal Reserve, and would do nothing to reign them in (or, in the case of the FR, get rid of it). A vote for either of them is a vote for tyranny.

Progressives Starting To Demand An Alternative To Paulson's Boneheaded Proposal & Corporate Giveaways

2008-10-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

[This is an excellent blog review from

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/09/progressives-starting-to-demand.html:]

Although he has a somewhat different approach than the good folks at BuyMyShitPile.com, Paul Krugman has an eye-opening column in today's NY Times called Cash For Trash. He gives voice to the uncomfortable notion floating around the zeitgeist that calls "the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq."

Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself-- and for his successor-- to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense.

Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half-- a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes-- justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.

So let’s try to think this through for ourselves. I have a four-step view of the financial crisis:

1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities-- assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.

2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital-- too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.

3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.

4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the “paradox of deleveraging.”

...Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached-- no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency,” and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.

I’m aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.

But I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded-- if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.

This weekend Democrats Blue America backs strongly, Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA) and candidate Annette Taddeo (D-FL), both big supporters of small businesses and working families, have been campaigning together in Miami-Dade and talking with voters about the bailout. Hilda is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and she has been instrumental in making sure Annette understands exactly where the congressional debate has been going and why a progressive alternative to Paulson's proposals is needed. Annette:

“We are in a state of crisis. Taxpayers will have to spend $700 billion or more to pay for the refusal of President Bush and rubberstamps like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to conduct oversight or accountability. We need to protect American families and small businesses. For too long, George Bush and Ros-Lehtinen have sided with the special interests, and the American people are left paying the bill.”

She is an advocate of cutting taxes for small businesses and the middle class and bringing the power balance between corporate America and the rest of us back into pre-Bush Regime equilibrium. “We must cut taxes for the middle class so that they have real relief. We must expand health care for children, so that parents who are increasingly being squeezed don’t have to choose between paying the rent and buying medicines. We must end the war in, Iraq where we are spending over $400 million a day. We must have real oversight over Wall Street so that this does not happen again. And since this crisis began with too many unsustainable mortgages, any resolution must include a plan to ease pressure on homeowners.”

Hilda is one of the good guys in Congress who we will be counting on to stand up against the corporate shills like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel and Melissa Bean who are pressuring Democrats to sign on to the Bush Regime proposals, like they did when he wanted to invade Iraq and just like they did when he decided to shred the Constitution with his FISA bill. In her joint statement with Annette, Hilda reminded Floridians that "Three years ago, President Bush and rubberstamps in Congress like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen fought hard to privatize Social Security. From the floor of Congress, Ros-Lehtinen said that she “applauded the President for his strong leadership and vision” and that she wanted to “reform Social Security to include private accounts. Had George W. Bush and rubberstamps in Congress had their way, today’s financial crisis would be a full-blown emergency. Tens of millions of seniors around the country, including hundreds of thousands here in South Florida, would have lost their pensions overnight.”

Annette followed up with a statement going right to the heart of the Bush Regime's flawed approach.

We will not be forced into acting on a $700 billion bill without even examining what the bill does. The American people need protection so that this emergency does not turn into a boondogive-away to corporate insiders. Congress should send President Bush a bill that includes transaction standards, independent oversight, protections for homeowners, and constraints on excessive executive compensation.

The bill is inadequate because while doing nothing for homeowners, it gives the Treasury Department a blank check for Wall Street-– it authorizes purchases “on such terms and conditions as determined by the [Administration].” There would be no guidelines, no standards, no conditions. The Treasury would be permitted to purchase assets at any price it wanted, even if it provided a huge profit to the same corporate entities that got us into this mess in the first place, entities like commercial banks, investment banking firms-– even hedge funds-- that have acted recklessly or worse.

I oppose, and call on Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to oppose-- the Bush Administration’s proposed legislation giving the Treasury the power to spend up to $700 billion to buy “mortgage-related assets” from U.S.-based financial institutions, until the proposed bill is strengthened to protect homeowners, and to protect the American taxpayer from sweetheart deals, cronyism and outright waste.

Finally, if the bailout is to be expanded to cover foreign-headquartered companies, then our allies must share the burden. Unfortunately, after seven and a half years of Cowboy diplomacy and a war in Iraq based on lies, we have little if any leverage left with our allies. They have no desire and little incentive to help us in our moment of need. It is time for a new beginning.

Debbie Cook is another Blue America-endorsed candidate who Hilda has been helping-- this time to beat Bush rubber stamp and lunatic fringe extremist Dana Rohrabacher here in southern California. Debbie, who is the mayor of Huntington Beach and very much in touch with the mundane problems the Bush Economic Miracle have brought into the lives of real people, was the very first Democratic candidate to e-mail us on Friday night when Paulson's proposal started leaking out:

"We must take action to keep our whole economy from collapsing. But if the plan by the Treasury which has leaked out today is genuine, then it's unclear if the plan will work at all.

"Add in a massive transfer of authority to the executive branch, with no congressional oversight or judicial review, and this plan should be dead on arrival.

"Handing over taxpayer money to the government with no oversight is always a bad idea and it's especially rotten given the current administration's track record."

.
Meanwhile, up in Oregon, Speaker of the House and Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Merkley is demanding that Gordon Smith represent Oregon citizens for a change-- and not his corporate backers who have financed his political career in return for his constant help with their special interests. He is insisting that Smith reject Paulson's proposal. This morning he demanded that Smith reject the blank check proposal that needs to be fixed so it includes "protections for homeowners, limits on executive compensation and market reforms to prevent a future crisis. " As Jeff points out, Smith's lockstep support for deregulation-- the 1999 Phil Gramm legislation that removed restrictions on the activities of banks, investment firms and insurance companies and allowed the proliferation of new and unregulated banking practices was instrumental in causing this crisis.

"Republicans in Washington are demanding a blank check to fix the mess they created and that is completely unacceptable. Real families are hurting in this economy and George Bush is only concerned about CEOs on Wall Street. Gordon Smith rubber-stamped the Bush policies that led to this mess, and I urge him to reject any blank check that puts special interests on Wall Street ahead of families on Main Street.... Gordon Smith says, 'don't play the blame game'-- what he really means is 'don't hold me accountable'. Oregonians need new leadership in Washington and that starts with rejecting the failed policies and philosophies of Gordon Smith and the Republican party in November. In the meantime, Smith must stop giving blank checks to the Bush Administration-- he did it with the Iraq war, and he shouldn't do it now."

The Bailout's Essential Brazenness by Jay Cochran

2008-10-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

Dr. Cochran is an Adjunct Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

Added to cato.org on October 1, 2008

This article appeared on Cato.org on October 1, 2008

One of the more galling arguments put forth in support of the Treasury’s $700 billion bailout, is the suggestion that the government might actually profit from being a hold-tomaturity investor in the illiquid mortgage instruments currently clogging the arteries of high finance. Laying aside the thorny issue of whether the Treasury Secretary and his overseers have the means to discover the correct price for securities that the market itself cannot price (hence the illiquidity), it is breathtakingly brazen that the supporters of this scheme think it somehow proper for the government to earn even one basis point of net return from a problem that is of its own making.

Congress and the executive branch, established the rules and institutions that all but guaranteed the outcome we taxpayers see unfolding and are being asked to pay for today. Government leaders had multiple opportunities to correct problems identified years before, but instead dithered and calculated. To suggest now-in malice, greed, or fear-that it is somehow proper for government to make a net return on the assets it purchases, is as unjust as allowing a referee to make money gambling on the outcome of a game he oversees. (Read on)

The Coming Financial Collapse of America by Mike Adams, January 22, 2008

2008-09-30T05:07:00.000-07:00

[Interesting bit of prophesy, quite accurate. Many astute writers have been aware and have been wise enough to see the writing on the wall.]

(and Why Today's Market Bloodbath is Only a Small Taste of Things to Come...)

(NaturalNews) Americans have always been fond of the idea of getting rich without effort by putting their money in things that produce no profits and then magically being able to ride those investments, milking them for spending cash that supports a drunken spending lifestyle. From 1998 - 2001, that profit vehicle was, of course, dot-com stocks. From 2001 to the present, it's been housing. Never mind the fact that a house produces nothing real, earns nothing real and actually loses utility with each successive year of its existence (roof repairs, anyone?) -- Americans have been convinced over the last seven years that housing prices would rise forever, allowing people to simply extract money from their home equity as if their house were some sort of giant ATM machine.

As the markets are finally demonstrating today, the "economic good times" spurred by a runaway housing price boom (and powered by astonishingly fraudulent lending practices by dishonest banks) are over. A day of reckoning has arrived, and the unwinding of this false wealth that has been propping up the U.S. economy for so many years is about to be unleashed upon the American people. (Today's stock market meltdown is only the beginning...)

That this day of economic reckoning would arrive has been obvious to me for years. On December 29, 2005, I published a two-part article series entitled, "Don't get caught in the housing bubble crash." Part two is available HERE.

In those articles, I stated:

There's no question whatsoever that this housing market will experience a correction. ...It's eventually going to come tumbling down. The only question is whether it's going to be a correction or a crash.

Friends, I believe it is time to take your money and exit the speculative real estate market. The average person doesn't understand anything about finances and never will. The average person can't even calculate a 15 percent tip at a restaurant, and he or she is buying real estate because he or she wants to double his or her money. Are you kidding me? Take your money and run; that's my advice. Run from the inflated real estate marketplace before you become another victim. These super hot, speculative housing bubbles and stock market bubbles cannot continue. They always correct. Gravity kicks in, and, eventually, things unwind. A lot of people get hurt. They lose their money. To some of those people, I say, "That's a really expensive education you just paid for." A lot of life's lessons are hard to learn, but some of them can be rather expensive.

So, it's December 2005. I'm going on the record as saying this bubble is going to pop, folks, and you can call me a pessimist or a doomsayer if you want. The fact is, if you understand math, you know I'm right. If you want to protect your own finances, you'd better take a good, hard look at this and make some decisions about what you're going to do. Do not leave yourself over-leveraged in speculative real estate. You thought you were going to retire on the beach, and it ends up you're flipping burgers as a second job to pay off what you owe the bank, and they garnish your wages on top of that. That's what happens to people who don't get out in time.

Two Years Later, the Housing Crash is On
I point out these predictions not to prove I was right, but rather to demonstrate how easy it was to see these things coming. The inevitable bursting of the housing bubble was a no brainer to any rationally-minded person, and yet everywhere I turned back in 2005, I kept hearing (from apparently intelligent folks) things like, "Housing prices have never fallen," or, "Buying a house is the best investment you can make!"

Nonsense. Any fool could see that while housing prices were rising 15 - 25% a year in some regions, there were no underlying fundamentals that would justify such an increase in the value of the property. The population, for example, wasn't increasing by 25% per year. Houses weren't becoming 25% more useful. Land wasn't becoming 25% more scarce. So what could possibly explain the rapid rise in housing prices? Easy money, of course.

That easy lending practices were being so aggressively pushed could only mean that more money was being artificially injected into the housing market, causing a fictitious rise in the value of homes based on the fact that there was too much money floating around in the hands of people who probably wouldn't qualify for such loans under normal, rigorous lending conditions. And once you realize that, it's not difficult to figure out that such lending practices will sooner or later backfire with a massive round of bankruptcies and bank repossessions.

And that, of course, will inevitably lead to a sustained drop in housing prices that, as I predicted, could ultimate see many homes drop to 50% of their peak values.

That's what's coming. I don't even have to offer a prediction of it: It's just a natural reaction to the economic practices that have been so unwisely pursued in this country for years.

The Domino Effect on the U.S. Economy
The U.S. economy, as any astute financial observer has noted for years, is running on artificial wealth that has been manufactured by the Federal Reserve and swallowed by gullible consumers chasing that pot of gold at the end of the easy money rainbow. An alarmingly large percentage of U.S. economic activity is driven by consumer spending and the taxation of such activities. So when housing prices plummet and consumer bankruptcies start piling up, here's what we're going to see next:

My prediction for 2008 - 2012 is a massive wave of municipal bankruptcies, state bankruptcies and escalating national debt. We are going to see cities and states go belly up, pension programs terminated (or watered down), and financial institutions teetering on the brink of disaster.

And the worst part of it all? The only way out of this financial mess is for the Federal Reserve to steal yet more money from the American people by printing more money and hyperinflating the currency.

This is the part where the late Aaron Russo and his film Freedom to Fascism comes into play. If you haven't already watched this documentary on the massive fraud of the Federal Reserve and the IRS, watch it now at Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid...

This is also the part where Ron Paul comes in (www.RonPaul2008.com), since Ron Paul is the only Presidential candidate who understands the financial destruction being caused by the Federal Reserve and has pledged to end the Fed's control over the U.S. money supply. (The Fed, by the way, is a privately-owned corporation that isn't even controlled by U.S. lawmakers.)

But given that most Americans are still likely to vote for status quo candidates and not for the radical changes required to bring economic sanity to our nation, it seems inevitable that this nation won't learn its lessons about the laws of economics until the currency is near-worthless, the population is destitute, the banks are owned by wealthy foreigners and the neighborhoods are boarded up and abandoned due to a massive wave of foreclosures.

While all that's happening, of course, the Federal Reserve is going to be trying (in vain) to print its way out of the debt implosion by creating hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air -- an act that quietly steals money from the people due to the loss of purchasing power (inflation). The amount of money needed to bail the U.S. out of its impending financial crisis will be so large that the real value of saved money in U.S. currency (i.e. dollars) could be reduced anywhere from 30% to 80%. Imagine: One day you have $25,000 in the bank that buys a car, and the next year, that same $25,000 only buys half a car. Nobody stole dollars from your account, but the Federal Reserve stole your purchasing power by inflating the currency while trying to print its way out of a national debt crisis! This is what's coming next.

The mathematically-impaired American masses, largely unable to follow basic economics, are destined to watch all this unfold with bewilderment, not knowing why their dollars are becoming worthless, but being rightly outraged by the turn of events at the same time. The MSM (Mainstream Media) will be no help, of course, since it's in on the scam. It will likely find some foreign scapegoat like blaming China's currency or Middle East oil prices for the disastrous effects of stupid domestic economic policies that have been pursued by Democrats and Republicans alike. (Of course, nobody has put the U.S. more deeply into debt than George W., largely thanks to spending on war.)

There's little question that hard economic times are coming, and not one in a hundred people has any real clue what to do about it. Not even many mainstream investment professionals, by the way -- they're the same idiots who probably told you to buy into the housing bubble in the first place, am I right? (Remember, through 2006 and 2007 when I was urging everybody to get OUT of the housing market, many investment "professionals" were urging people to keep on buying and leveraging their money in yet more housing! We'll all get rich! [Insert Howard Dean scream here...] Yaaaargh!)

So what can YOU -- the intelligent reader -- do with all this information? You're the exception to the idiocy of the masses, as is evident by the very fact that you get at least part of your news and information from non-mainstream sources. So how can you protect yourself from these hard economic times?

Here are some sensible solutions:

Solutions for Surviving the Economic Downfall of America. (Read More)

Russia Georgian and the Historic "Silk Road"

2008-08-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

Understanding the politics of the region requires taking a look at the bigger picture. Study the maps. Most maps focus on the immediate region. Once you have gone through this quick study you will find the last map which will offer insights into what is in the Naked Underground.

Let's start here. Notice the pretty colors and can you guess where the oil is coming from?

Much of what underlies Western political activity today can be better understood by studying the economic link between Europe and Asia and anything which might clarify corridor related matters between the two regions. Understanding the term "Eurasia" is a good place to start. In order to aid in this study go to: http://www.eurasianet.org

The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues.

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the position of the Open Society Institute and are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.

What's going on in Georgia?
In order to understand, for example, what is going on in Georgia, and what it is that Russia is truly protecting, or anyone else, for that matter, we must look beneath the surface. That is what the Naked Underground attempts to bear in mind before publishing on this collection of blogs. After all, why should we be unwitting victims. So, here is an excerpt from that site dating back to February which should give some insight into why Russia is at war with Georgia. The idea that Russia is "protecting" the Russians in the area is easily seen as a suitable pretense for a severe action to regain control of an economically strategic region, a most vital and shortest corridor between East and West. What you are about to read is the story about what is coming to be the revival of the historic "Silk Road" and will "develop the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor".

Here's a glimpse of that February article:

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
AZERBAIJAN, GEORGIA AND TURKEY: BUILDING A TRANSPORTATION TRIUMVIRATE?
Rovshan Ismayilov 2/07/07

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First, it was energy; now, transportation. The Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway project, run by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, is strengthening a sense of regional cooperation in the South Caucasus.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Tbilisi on February 7 with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to sign a framework agreement on the project, which will link Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia via a 258-kilometer-long railway. The agreement must then be submitted to the Azerbaijani, Turkish and Georgian parliaments for ratification.
The railroad, 14 years in the making, has been touted as the shortest route for commercial traffic between Asia and Europe. Some observers have forecast that, if completed, it could become a competitor to the Trans-Siberian Railway. Construction is scheduled to begin in June 2007, with a tentative completion date by the end of 2008, Azerbaijani Transportation Minister Ziya Mammadov told the Azerbaijani independent television station ANS on January 18. A January 16 statement from the Azerbaijani foreign ministry predicted that the railroad "will create conditions for the revival of the historical Silk Road and will develop the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor," thereby advancing "the region’s integration with Europe."
In many ways, the project is a case study in regional self-reliance. The United States, an influential backer of such regional projects as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline, has declined to support the rail link since it excludes Armenia. The European Union has expressed similar reluctance.
Instead, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia have looked to themselves to cover the $600 million in estimated costs. "The US can issue any decisions it wants, but there will be no problems with financing the project," commented Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili on January 10, the Azerbaijan’s news agency Trend reported. "There are other sources."
One of those sources is Azerbaijan. At a January 13 meeting in Tbilisi, the three sides agreed that Azerbaijan will loan Georgia $200 million for the construction of a 29-kilometer stretch of the railroad through Georgian territory and for the reconstruction of existing sections of Georgian railways that the new line will use. Georgia will pay an annual interest rate of just 1 percent on the 25-year loan, according to Economic Development Minister Giorgi Arveladze. The Georgian government has already approved the proposed terms for the loan and expects a final agreement with Azerbaijan to be signed soon, Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli has said.
The agreement comes on the heels of a gas deal between Georgia and Azerbaijan that the government in Tbilisi hopes will allow it to replace higher-priced Russian gas with gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Turkey also plays a key role in this assistance scheme. At a February 7 joint press conference in Tbilisi with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would try by July 2007 to funnel 800 million cubic meters from its share of Shah Deniz gas to Georgia. Saakashvili, however, told reporters that Georgia would receive Turkey's gas "as soon as Shah Deniz is put into operation," adding that Azerbaijani gas supplies are expected to steadily increase.
The agreements underline Azerbaijan’s growing importance for Georgia. To highlight that significance, part of the embankment of the Mtkvari River in central Tbilisi was renamed during the summit to commemorate the late President Heydar Aliyev, father of the current Azerbaijani leader.
Some opposition members in Georgia have questioned this relationship.
Analysts in Baku say that the railway deal’s long-term advantages for Azerbaijan justify the cost of footing the bill for construction of Georgia’s section of the railway.
"The project has significant importance for Azerbaijan. It will be the final link for providing Azerbaijan with a transportation corridor to Europe," said Inglab Akhmadov, an economic expert and the director of the Public Finance Monitoring Center. "The oil and gas routes already exist and construction of the railroad to Europe, bypassing Armenia and Russia, will complete the process for Azerbaijan." (The Public Finance Monitoring Center is funded by the Open Society Institute. EurasiaNet.org operates under the auspices of the Open Society Institute in New York.)
The profitability of Baku’s Caspian Sea port and the Azerbaijani State Railroad will also increase, noted independent political analyst Rasim Musabekov, who argued that the project is more important for Azerbaijan than for Georgia.
"The length of the Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railroad on Azerbaijan’s territory is much longer than on Georgian territory, so Azerbaijan’s railroad will make a greater profit on tariffs," he said. Plus, a key strategic benefit also exists: "For the first time, Azerbaijan will get direct railroad access to its most important ally, Turkey."
Although Azerbaijan’s booming energy sector has so far allowed it to play benefactor to its poorer neighbor, Georgia, Baku has kept a sharp eye on potential sources of outside financing for the project, as well. China, which has a growing interest in Central Asian energy sources, has featured among these sources. An official in Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry told EurasiaNet that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov tried to convince China to support the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway project during a visit to Beijing in the spring of 2005. "However, while China’s leadership stated its interest in an alternative route for railway traffic to Europe, they politely refused to finance the project," said the source, who asked not to be named.
Meanwhile, other sources of financing remain trapped in a tightly intertwined circle of conditions. While the US does not exclude the possibility of its active support for the project in the future, it insists on Armenia’s inclusion. With the Bush administration’s support, the US Congress in 2006 banned any government funding for the railway for this reason.
"We’d love to get to that point when the railroad from Turkey to Baku could transit Armenia, " commented US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza in a January 9 interview with the Azerbaijani state-run news agency AzerTag. While the US does not oppose the project, he continued, "We hope there’ll be [a] time soon when the transit scheme will embrace all of the countries." ...More

Next for some history ...

Learn about the Ancient Silk Road and it's significance today and why the rebuilding of the railway.

How is the US affected today:

Ethnic Interests Threaten U.S. Interests in the Caucus

Okay next once we have gotten this far, let's take a peek at this happy piece of geography. Once we see this map it is easier to understand why the US is playing the role with Iran and how the pieces fit together.

Yerevan to Tehran

More maps:

Please comment!

Islam and Unity By Professor Maqsood Jafri

2008-07-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

Unity is strength. When the sand grains unite they become a vast desert. When the sea drops unite they become a boundless ocean. The conglomeration of stars in the firmament of sky soothes our eyes. The seven colors emerge in the shape of a bewitching rainbow. The unity of people makes an invincible strong nation. This is the reason Islam lays great stress on the importance of unity. The Islamic concept of Towhid is the other name of the unity of humankind. The corner stone in Islam is the unity of God. Allah’s unity teaches us the message that we should not divide humans into sections and sects. Almighty Allah in the Quran says that the division of people in the races and clans is only for their introduction. The best one out of them is the man of piety. Dr. Mohammad Ali Al-khuli is his book titled “The Light of Islam” writes. “Islam is the greatest unifying force in the world. It is a religion to all humans regardless of color, race and language. It is a religion that tolerates other religions and orders its followers to respect and protect all humans.” According to a Hadith of the Holy Prophet all persons belong to Adam and Adam was from soil. The racial discrimination has been strictly prohibited in Islam. In the last sermon from the Mount of Arafat the Holy Prophet had clearly announced that no Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab; or the white over the black. This is the reason that in Muslim countries we do not find racial discriminations. Islam gives clear injunctions for the respect, safety, security and prosperity of the non-Muslims as well. Unity teaches peace, equality and paternity. The absence of unity brings and breeds disruption, devastation and disputes. Islam ordains protection of non-Muslims simply to show the respect for the Canons of divinity and humanity. God is not only of the Muslims. God is the God of all human beings. The unity of all humans is the ultimate aim of the teachings of Islam. The doctrinal and ideological differences should not lead to war or bloodshed. Man is a thinking creature. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher introduced Rationalism in Philosophy. The Quran time and again asserts on the need of cogitation. “Ijtihad” is an analogical and analytical approach towards the matters of jurisprudence. Ashab-e-Suffa were the people of wisdom. They gave more time to cogitate on social and academic matters along with their saintly and spiritual practices. They were praised by the Holy Prophet for their involvement in intellectual pursuit. Once the Holy Prophet said: “The juristic scholar who receives two rewards for every correct decision and even one for every incorrect one, for he is endeavoring with all his effort to reach the correct decision.” The difference of opinion must be positive. It should not lead to prides and prejudices of priests. It should be decent difference on the bases of logic like the differences of Philosophers. Aristotle was the pupil of Plato. He differed from his teacher on many points but he never issued the edict of his assassination. Hegel and Bergson differed. Immunel Kant differed with Nietzche. None cursed or condemned the other. These differences were on principles; not personal. But unfortunately the so called scholars and clerics of different religions brought immense misery to mankind in the name of religion. The Jews, the Christians, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists and others had mercilessly shed the blood of each other in the name or religion. Each of these sects then killed the followers of their own religions on minor interpretative issues. Even to date the bloodshed in the name of faith is rampant. This is the greatest error and must be rectified. The Quran discusses the concept of unity on three levels. Foremost is the unity of humanity. The Quran in Sura Al-Hujurat (The Inner Apartments) says: “O, Mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you with Allah is the one who has piety.” (49:13). The Quran no where addresses the Muslims. Either it addresses the believers (momineen) or the people (Annas). The Quran on second level refers to the unity of the people of the Books: the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims- In Sura Al-e-Imran the Quran says:” O, people of the Book! Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but Allah, and that we associate no partners with him, and that none of us will take others as lords besides Allah. Then if they turn away, say; Bear witness that we are Muslims” (3:64). The fifth verse of the Sura The Clear Evidence and the forty eighth verse of Sura The Table Spread also shed light on the unity of the people of the Book. Then on third level the Quran asserts on the unity of the Muslims. In Sura Al-e-Imran the Quran says; “And hold fast, all of you together to the rope of Allah, and be not divided among yourselves.” (3:103). Then Quran condemns sectarianism and regards it shirk (polytheism). The Quran again in Sura Al-e-Imran says: “O ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared and die not except in a state of Islam.” This verse clearly ordains that instead of adhering to Sunnism, Shiasim or Wahabism we should strongly adhere to Islam. In Mishqat Sharife there is a tradition of the Holy Prophet which says; “The Muslims are like a body; if one limb aches, the whole body aches.” Then the Messenger of Allah says; “whoever does not care about the affairs of the Muslims is not one of them.” From the above Quranic facts we deduce the result that Islam believes in the unity of all humans and preaches peace, justice and equality. Religion is to serve humankind. Religion has come to reform and unite humans, not to divide them. We must condemn extremism and terrorism in the name of religion and unite humankind if we believe in the unity of God.

(The writer is an eminent speaker and scholar on Islam. He can be reached at maqsoodjafri@aol.com)

A Short Middle Eastern Political Primer by Peter David Orr

2008-07-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

Middle East.

The Pan-Islamists:

Think Sayyid Qutb, Hasan al-Banna, Ayman Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. Pan-Islamists desire worldwide Muslim unity and the restoration of the Caliphate. Pan-Islamism is based on the notion that there should be a worldwide brotherhood of Muslims and a common, proactive struggle against the occupation by imperialist rulers—foreign, of course, but internal as well (i.e. “the corrupt Monarchies of the Middle East). Pan-Islamists seeks a global community of Muslims united in resistance against European colonialism and American economic and cultural imperialism.

Divorcing the Pan-Islamist movement from its political implications is impossible. It is a thoroughly political movement--a political movement that seeks to conform the state to the dictates of a strict and literalist interpretation of the Quran. Those who are called Islamists argue that Islam is inherently a political religion, and that the rules and laws laid out in Quran and Hadiths mandate Islamic government.

Muhammad Qutb's most prominent student was Ayman Zawahiri, who later became the mentor of Osama bin Laden.

Qutb's advocated an Islamic theocracy as the “only legitimate state.” He also preached “jihad” as a pro-active rather than simply reactive struggle against non-Islamic governments. Jihad to Qutb, Zawahiri and Bin Ladin has an essentially offensive character in this age, rather than only defensive. All three, of course, are known for their uncompromising opposition to Western culture and values. Those values are seen as degenerative and out of harmony with the expressed will of Allah as outlined in the Quran.

One of the founding movements that helped to create Pan-Islamism was “The Muslim Brotherhood.” The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hasan al-Banna. He was a proponent to a return to the imposition of strict Islamic-based law and political systems based on that law. Since only divine guidance could lead humans to peace, justice, and prosperity, it followed that Muslims should despise man-made systems of governance and live according to divinely inspired Quranic law as found in the examle of past Caliphates. "The Qur'an is our constitution" was the slogan of the movement and it continues to be at the heart of Pan-Islamism today.

Not surprisingly, The Muslim Brotherhood advocated Jihad against the European colonial powers, particularly the British and the French, and their allies. So as the US took up the frayed edges of European failure in the region in an attempt to keep the USSR from making inroads, this animosity naturally switched its primary focus to the United States, whose economic domination and cultural corruption of the Muslim world was obvious to them.

Members of Al-Qaeda are deeply anti-democratic Islamists. Why? They believe that there is no place for law made by men. That’s it.

The Secular Pan-Arabists/Pan-Arab Nationalists:

The best two examples are Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party. Both espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism. Pan-Arab Nationalism goes hand in glove with single party rule with socialist leanings--Socialist in the sense of subservience of the individual to the greater, national good. Both saw themselves as social revolutionaries and modernizers.

To the consternation of Islamists, Secular Pan-Arabist governments often institute reforms that smack of the intrusion of Western values. For example, both Nasser and Hussein gave women added freedoms and opened the door to more economic freedom for women. Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law.

Saddam Hussein promoted Iraqi nationalism by highlighting its unique role in the history of the Arab world—making frequent references to the Abbasid period, when Baghdad was the political capital of the Arab-Muslim world.

The Secular Nationalist often play whatever side of the foreign political fence that best suits their national aspirations at the moment. For example, as Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East he signed an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972, and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers from the USSR. A few years later, Saddam executed a group of Iraqi Communists who he felt were conspiring to bring Iraq under Soviet control, followed by a shift in trade toward France and US. This “Western Orientation” continued until the events precipitating the Gulf War in 1991.

Syria is politically in many ways similar to Iraq because the two nations share a common Ba'athist Party path. The Ba’athist takeover in Syria directly followed a Ba'ath coup in Iraq. In fact, the new Syrian Government seriously considered the possibility of federation with Egypt and Ba'ath–controlled Iraq.

In contrast to pan-Islamism, Pan-Arabism is secular and nationalistic first. Religion is secondary as a unifying force. Pan-Arab nationalists generally reject religion as a main element in political identity, and promoted the unity of Arabs regardless of sectarian identity. However, the fact that most Arabs are Muslims is used to foster a new Arab national identity.

The common colors of the movement are black, white, red and green. Notice that many Arab nations have adopted very similar variants of the same color scheme for their flags.

The Islamic Nationalists:

Think Ayyatola Ruhollah Khomeini. In one important sense the Islamic Nationalists are like the Islamic version of Stalin. With Stalin came the notion of “Socialism in One State.” The idea was that a model soviet state should be created that would serve as a paradigm for the next, international, step. Khomeini was certainly no communist or socialist, but if you simply substitute the word “Islam” for “Socialism” you’ll get the idea: “Islam in One State” first to serve as a model for an international, Islamic movement and model of government.

Khomeini sought restoration of Quran-based law and limited the influence of “Westernizing Muslims” who he considered agents of Western Christian or “Godless” or “Satanic” interests intent on "plundering" Muslim lands.

Unlike the Pan-Islamist of Bin Ladin’s sort, Khomeini had no interest in restoring the Caliphate. Instead, he wanted the leading role in government to be taken by the clergy. His concept of the “Guardianship of the Jurist," held that the leading Shia Muslim cleric in society should serve as “Head of State” to protect or "guard" the nation from Western “innovation" and "anti-Islamic laws.”

Another complication in Iran’s version of Islamic Nationalism is the racial issue. Persians play the leading role in Iranian politics and Persians do not consider themselves Arabs, so they do not traditionally fall into the trappings of Pan-Arab schemes.

Theocratic Democracy:

Properly seen as a branch of Islamic Nationalism, most Theocratic Democrats lay claim having democratic institutions. For instance, the legislature of Iran is called the “Islamic Consultative Assembly.” It is made up of 290 members elected to four-year terms. The Assembly drafts legislation, ratifies international treaties, and approves the national budget. All of the legislation that these representatives produce must be approved by the Council of Guardians. The Council of Guardians is a theocratic group of Iran’s leading clerics.

A theocratic democracy theoretically endeavors to institute Sharia (traditional Islamic law) while maintaining the power of the people. No separation of “Mosque and State,” if you will.

The concept of Theocratic/Islamic Democracy is viewed by many as an oxymoron because of the notion that theocracy and democracy are incompatible.

Pakistan could very well be considered an example of a real theocratic democracy, for the following reasons. Firstly, in the President of Pakistan is the head of state while the Prime Minister is head of government. Secondly, there is no restriction of political parties. In fact Pakistan has a full-blown multi-party system. Thirdly, executive power is exercised by the elected government, not by national-level clerics. Fourthly, Legislative power is vested in the Parliament, with a few exceptions in the case of extreme national security issues.

What makes Pakistan a “Theocratic” form of democracy then? The Chief Executives are Constitutionally bound to be Muslims.

The West, especially the USA, is also seen as a supporter of Israel, and so having institutions that are too much like Western democracies are seen by many Muslims as suspect.

Secular Nationalist Democracy:

Turkey is a democratic state with a majority Muslim population, which was founded by Ataturk on the basis of the separation of Islam and that state. What should be remembered is that Turks do not consider themselves Arabs and vice versa, so they do not traditionally fall into the trappings of Pan-Arab schemes.

In 1951, an Iranian pro-democratic nationalist, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was elected its first Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh alarmed the British Governmetn by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (The original name of BP). Britain immediately put an embargo on Iran. Members of the British Intelligence Service approached President Eisenhower and he agreed to join the British in Operation Ajax--a coup to depose Mossadegh. Althoug the scheme failed, Mossadegh was ultimately replaced with the infamous “Shah of Iran” (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). So, ironically, the US helped to secure the downfall of the Middle East’s first attempt at democracy.

Islamic Monarchies:

The term absolute monarchy applies. The associated term “Sultan” came to be used as the title of certain Muslim rulers who claimed full sovereignty without claiming the overall Caliphate. In other words, dynastic, localized, monarchies that lay no claim to the entire “Realm of Islam.”

There are no recognized national political parties. The king's powers are theoretically limited within the bounds of Quranic Law and other Saudi traditions. He also must retain a consensus of the Saudi royal family, religious leaders and other important elements in Saudi society. The state's ideology is the Wahhabism. The leading members of the royal family choose the king from among themselves with the subsequent approval of the religious leaders.

For example, Saudi Arabia has no legislature. It has a "Consultative Council" comprised of 90 appointed members. No political parties are allowed in Saudi Arabia. Religious freedom does not exist in Saudi Arabia or any of the other Islamic Monarchies. Pubic bans on any visible forms of non-Muslim worship are enforced by police who have the power to enforce religious law and secular law.

Constitutional Monarchies exist in some Middle Eastern countries. These countries are generally considered more democratic than Saudi Arabia and the other smaller nations of the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain are examples of Constitutional Monarchies, whereas Yemen, Oman, UAE and Qatar fit the Saudi Arabian mold.

Why do the Pan-Islamists despise the monarchies? Because Osama and his ilk believe that the monarchies are corrupted by their economic association with the West. They also see the monarchy as impotent in the sense that they seem to be powerless to inspire any Pan-Islamic movement.

Islamic Dictatorships and Covert Dictatorships:

Libya’s political system is theoretically based on the political philosophy in Qadhafi's Green Book, which combines socialist and Islamic theories and rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties. In reality, Qadhafi exercises near total control over the government.

It certainly could be argued that Saddam Hussein was a dictator. For that matter it could be argued that single party rule, anywhere, is just another form of dictatorship. By that definition most Middle Eastern nations practice what could be termed “covert dictatorships.”

Egypt is yet another possible example, although after extensive reading on the last fifty years of Egyptian governance, I honestly cannot place the current government neatly in this category or any other without being quite conflicted. There is much in Egypt as in Libya and Pakistan that smacks of covert dictatorships. Single party elections and single candidate elections for Chief Executive are elements of current political practice in Egypt. Egyptian politics have much in common with the Pan-Arab category. In fact many of the most profound theorists of the Pan-Islamist and Pan-Arab movements have been Egyptian nationals.

Why are the Pan-Islamists and Secular Pan-Arab Nationalists often lumped together and called Islamo-Fascists?

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Banna, copied fascist methods, since his movement developed during a time when the only counterweights to French and British hegemony in the Middle East were Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. He founded organizations directly based on the Brownshirts and Blackshirts to try and seize power. It is natural that nationalists in the region wishing to rid themselves of Bristish and French colonial domination would find the enemy of their enemies as potential friends or inspirations. The anti-Israel sentiment in common on all sides of this equation is the factor that continues to drive the Pan-Islamists and Pan-Arab Nationalists ever closer.

Last, but not least, consider the mixture of virulent nationalism with socialism in Iraq and Syria in particular. For this reason alone some naturally equate the Ba’ath Party with fascism.

The Wisdom of God in Fruits and Vegetables

2008-07-19T19:08:00.001-07:00

God's sovereign message of love and wisdom for human beings is written on the foods we eat.

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes; A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.; Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.; A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain functio; Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.
: C elery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
: Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).; Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.
: Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.; Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries; Oranges, grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.; Onions look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Want to Work for the Department of State?

2008-06-27T05:17:00.000-07:00

If you ever wanted to work for the State Department of the United States Foreign Service these would be the qualifications:

"What qualities do we want to see in these candidates? The successful candidate will demonstrate the following dimensions which reflect the skills, abilities, and personal qualities deemed essential to the work of the Foreign Service:

Composure. To stay calm, poised, and effective in stressful or difficult situations; to think on one's feet, adjusting quickly to changing situations; to maintain self-control.
Cultural Adaptability. To work and communicate effectively and harmoniously with persons of other cultures, value systems, political beliefs, and economic circumstances; to recognize and respect differences in new and different cultural environments.
Experience and Motivation. To demonstrate knowledge, skills or other attributes gained from previous experience of relevance to the Foreign Service; to articulate appropriate motivation for joining the Foreign Service.
Information Integration and Analysis. To absorb and retain complex information drawn from a variety of sources; to draw reasoned conclusions from analysis and synthesis of available information; to evaluate the importance, reliability, and usefulness of information; to remember details of a meeting or event without the benefit of notes.
Initiative and Leadership. To recognize and assume responsibility for work that needs to be done; to persist in the completion of a task; to influence significantly a group's activity, direction, or opinion; to motivate others to participate in the activity one is leading.
Judgment. To discern what is appropriate, practical, and realistic in a given situation; to weigh relative merits of competing demands.
Objectivity and Integrity. To be fair and honest; to avoid deceit, favoritism, and discrimination; to present issues frankly and fully, without injecting subjective bias; to work without letting personal bias prejudice actions.
Oral Communication. To speak fluently in a concise, grammatically correct, organized, precise, and persuasive manner; to convey nuances of meaning accurately; to use appropriate styles of communication to fit the audience and purpose.
Planning and Organizing. To prioritize and order tasks effectively, to employ a systematic approach to achieving objectives, to make appropriate use of limited resources.
Quantitative Analysis. To identify, compile, analyze and draw correct conclusions from pertinent data; to recognize patterns or trends in numerical data; to perform simple mathematical operations.
Resourcefulness. To formulate creative alternatives or solutions to resolve problems, to show flexibility in response to unanticipated circumstances.
Working With Others. To interact in a constructive, cooperative, and harmonious manner; to work effectively as a team player; to establish positive relationships and gain the confidence of others; to use humor as appropriate.
Written Communication. To write concise, well organized, grammatically correct, effective and persuasive English in a limited amount of time."
... more

Thought Reform Exists: Organized, Programmatic Influence

2008-05-16T17:59:00.001-07:00

("Thought Reform" throughout this article can be read as synonymous with "Brainwashing" & "Coercive Persuasion".)

Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.

Recently, cult apologists have attempted to create the impression that the concept of thought reform has been rejected by the scientific community. This is untrue.

As recently as May of this year, the new Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association cites thought reform as a contributing factor to "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" (a diagnosis frequently given to former cult members). Thought reform (notes 1,2,3 below) and its synonyms brainwashing and coercive persuasion (4.5) were also noted in DSM-III (1980) and is DSM-III revised (1987), as well as in widely recognized medical texts (6.7).

Thought reform is not mysterious. It is the systematic application of psychological and social influence techniques in an organized programmatic way within a constructed and managed environments (5,7,8,9,10). The goal is to produce specific attitudinal and behavioral changes. The changes occur incrementally without its being patently visible to those undergoing the process that their attitudes and behavior are being changed a step at a time according to the plan of those directing the program.

In society there are numerous elaborate attempts to influence attitudes and modify behavior. However, thought reform programs can be distinguished from other social influence efforts because of their totalistic scope and their sequenced phases aimed at destabilizing participants' sense of self, sense of reality, and values. Thought reform programs rely on organized peer pressure, the development of bonds between the leader or trainer and the followers, the control of communication, and the use of a variety of influence techniques. The aim of all this is to promote conformity, compliance, and the adoption of specific attitudes and behaviors desired by the group. Such a program is further characterized by the manipulation of the person's total social environment to stabilize and reinforce the modified behavior and attitude changes. (8,9,10)

Thought reform is accomplished through the use of psychological and environmental control processes that do not depend on physical coercion. Today's thought reform programs are sophisticated, subtle, and insidious, creating a psychological bond that in many ways is far more powerful than gun-at-the-head methods of influence. The effects generally lose their potency when the control processes are lifted or neutralized in some way. That is why most Korean War POWs gave up the content of their prison camp indoctrination programs when they came home and why many cultists leave their groups if they spend a substantial amount of time away from the group or have an opportunity to discuss their doubts with in intimate (11).

Contrary to popular misconceptions (some intentional on the part of naysayers), a thought reform program does not require physical confinement and does not produce robots. Nor does it permanently capture the allegiance of all those exposed to it. In fact, some persons do not respond at all to the programs, while others retain the contents for varied periods of time. In sum, thought reform should be regarded as "situationally adaptive belief change that is not subtle and is environment-dependent". (8,10)

The current effort by cult apologists to deny thought reform exists is linked to earlier protective stances toward cults in which apologists attempted to deny the cults' active and deceptive recruitment practices, deny the massive social, psychological, financial, spiritual and other controls wielded by cult leaders and thus dismiss their often destructive consequences.

These earlier efforts to shield cults from criticism rest on a seeker theory of how people get into cults, which overlooks the active and deceptive tactics that most cults use to recruit and retain members. When bad things happened to followers of Jim Jones or David Koresh, the twisted logic of some apologists implied that these "seekers" found what they wanted, thus absolving the cult leader and his conduct.

Finally, to promulgate the myth that though reform has been rejected by the scientific community, cult apologists doggedly stick to faulty understanding of the process contrary to findings in the literature, they ---- that physical coercion and debilitation are necessary for thought reform to occur, and that the effects of thought reform must be instant, massive, uniform, universally responded to, and enduring.

The recent upholding of thought reform in DSM-IV is but one more piece of evidence that this orchestrated process of exploitative psychological manipulation is real and recognized within the professional psychiatric field. To say then that the concept of thought reform is rejected by the scientific community is false and irresponsible. The phenomenon has been studied and discussed since 1951, and continuing studies by social psychologists and other behavioral scientists have solidified our understandings of its components and overall impact.

� 1994 M.T. Singer {The Cult Observer, Vol.11, No.6 (1994): 3-4.}

Report of the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control by Margaret Thaler Singer, et al.

2008-05-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

Abstract

Cults and large group awareness trainings have generated considerable controversy because of their widespread use of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control. These techniques can compromise individual freedom, and their use has resulted in serious harm to thousands of individuals and families. This report reviews the literature on this subject, proposes a new way of conceptualizing influence techniques, explores the ethical ramifications of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control, and makes recommendations addressing the problems described in the report. (Read Abstract

Excerpt:

Educative/therapeutic and advisory/therapeutic methods of influence are classified under the choice-respecting mode of influence, which emphasizes effectively communicating one's message while persuasive/manipulative and controlling/destructive methods are classified under the compliance-gaining mode, which emphasizes obtaining the desired response from the influences.

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Mode of Influence	Method of Influence	Techniques
Choice-respecting (emphasis on message)	Educative/Therapeutic	- Reflection - Clarification - Discussion - Information giving - Directed questioning - Creative expression
	Advisory/Therapeutic	- Commenting on problem or alternatives - Suggesting ideas or solutions - Recommending solutions - Rational argument: message oriented - Hypnosis (some forms)
Compliance Gaining (emphasis on response)	Persuasive/Manipulative	- Rational argument: compliance oriented - Emotional appeals - Compliance tactics: consistency, reciprocation, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity (see Cialdini, 1985) - Gross deceptions - Hypnosis (some forms)
	Controlling/Destructive	- Isolation from social supports - Selective reward/punishment - Denigration of self and of critical thinking - Dissociative states to suppress doubt and critical thinking - Alternation of harshness/threats and leniency/love - Control oriented guilt induction - Active promotion of dependency - Debilitation - Physical restraint/punishment - Pressured public confessions

Further Study:

Dr. Margaret T. Singer's 6 Conditions for Thought Reform

These conditions create the atmosphere needed to put a thought reform system into place:

This table is from Cults in Our Midst:

Table 3.2. Continuum of Influence and Persuasion

	Education	Advertising	Propaganda	Indoctrination	Thought Reform
Focus of body of knowledge	Many bodies of knowledge, based on scientific findings in various fields.	Body of knowledge concerns product, competitors; how to sell and influence via legal persuasion.	Body of knowledge centers on political persuasion of masses of people.	Body of knowledge is explicitly designed to inculcate organizational values.	Body of knowledge centers on changing people without their knowledge.
Direction & degree of exchange	Two way pupil-teacher exchange encouraged.	Exchange can occur but communication generally one-sided.	Some exchange occurs but communication generally one-sided.	Limited exchange occurs, communication is one-sided.	No exchange occurs, communication is one-sided.
Ability to change	Change occurs as science advances; as students and other scholars offer criticisms; as students & citizens evaluate programs.	Change made by those who pay for it, based upon the success of ad programs by consumers law, & in response to consumer complaints.	Change based on changing tides in world politics and on political need to promote the group, nation, or international organization.	Change made through formal channels, via written suggestions to higher-ups.	Change occurs rarely; organization remains fairly rigid; change occurs primarily to improve thought-reform effectiveness.
Structure of persuasion	Uses teacher-pupil structure; logical thinking encouraged.	Uses an instructional mode to persuade consumer/buyer.	Takes authoritarian stance to persuade masses.	Takes authoritarian & hierarchical stance.	Takes authoritarian & hierarchical stance; No full awareness on part of learner.
Type of relationship	Instruction is time-limited: consensual.	Consumer/buyer can accept or ignore communication.	Learner support & engrossment expected.	Instruction is contractual: consensual	Group attempts to retain people forever.
Deceptiveness	Is not deceptive.	Can be deceptive, selecting only positive views.	Can be deceptive, often exaggerated.	Is not deceptive.	Is deceptive.
Breadth of learning	Focuses on learning to learn & learning about reality; broad goal is rounded knowledge for development of the individual.	Has a narrow goal of swaying opinion to promote and sell an idea, object, or program; another goal is to enhance seller & possibly buyer.	Targets large political masses to make them believe a specific view or circumstance is good.	Stresses narrow learning for a specific goal; to become something or to train for performance of duties.	Individualized target; hidden agenda (you will be changed one step at a time to become deployable to serve leaders).
Tolerance	Respects differences.	Puts down competition.	Wants to lessen opposition.	Aware of differences.	No respect for differences.
Methods	Instructional techniques.	Mild to heavy persuasion.	Overt persuasion sometimes unethical.	Disciplinary techniques.	Improper and unethical techniques.

References:

Lifton, R.J. (1961). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. New York: W.W. Norton. (Also: 1993, University of North Carolina Press.)
Lifton, R.J. (1987). Cults: Totalism and civil liberties. In R.J. Lifton, The Future of Immortality and Other Essays for a Nuclear Age. New York: Basic Books.
Lifton, R.J. (1991, February). Cult formation. Harvard Mental Health Letter.
Hunter, E. (1951). Brainwashing in China. New York: Vanguard.
Schein, E.H. (1961). Coercive Persuasion. New York: W. W. Norton.
Singer, M.T. (1987). Group psychodynamics. In R. Berkow (Ed.). Merck Manual, 15th ed. Rahway, NJ: Merck, Sharp, & Dohme.
West, L.J., & Singer, M.T. (1980). Cults, quacks, and nonprofessional psychotherapies. In H.I. Kaplan, A.M. Freedman, & B.J. Sadock (Eds.), Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry III, 3245-3258. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.
Ofshe, R., & Singer, M.T. (1986). Attacks on peripheral versus central elements of self and the impact of thought reforming techniques. Cultic Studies Journal. 3, 3-24.
Singer. M.T. & Ofshe, R.(1990) Thought reform programs and the production of psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric Annals, 20, 188-193
Ofshe, R. (1992). Coercive persuasion and attitude change. Encyclopedia of Sociology. Vol. 1, 212-224. New York: McMillan.
Wright, S. (1987) Leaving Cults. The Dynamics of Defection. Society for the Scientific Study of religion. Monograph no. 7, Washington, DC.

---

Is someone trying to unethically influence you?

Continuum of Influence and Persuasion

Danger of Cults is Growing. [September 18, 1998]

Coercive Mind Control tactics, a short overview

What is mind control?

How does mind control work?

Q & A on mind control

Mind control and religion

Warning signs of a destructive cult

How to determine if a group is a destructive cult.

Excerpts from "Cults in Our Midst," by Dr. Margaret Singer .

Mind Control Exists

"How I healed the psychological injuries from my abuse in a cult" by Lawrence Wollersheim

The Real Reason Why Gas Prices Are Increasing by Rachel Alexander

2008-04-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

May 1, 2006 at 9:20 pm

Gas prices are soaring again, and are expected to surpass last September’s high of $3.07 a gallon after Hurricane Katrina. Yet this time, there is no Hurricane Katrina to provide an obvious reason why. Both Republicans and Democrats are blaming the oil companies. Bush and Congressional Democrats are calling for a repeal of tax breaks to oil companies. Politically, attacking the oil companies while gas prices are high is fairly safe, because many people already view them as faceless corporate entities that trash the environment while emptying their pocketbooks.

In reality, this criticism is shortsighted because the oil companies are not raising the cost of gas in order to earn higher profits. Punishing the oil companies will not fix the problem. In fact, it will cause additional problems, as ensued in the 1970’s when the government set price controls on gas, resulting in long lines and shortages.

Nor will the problem be resolved by giving everyone a onetime $100 rebate, a short term solution proposed by Congressional Republicans, or by temporarily repealing gas taxes, an equally short-sighted solution proposed by the Democrats. The Bush administration is contemplating a relaxation of clean-air rules in order to reduce the costs involved in producing gas. This would also be a temporary fix, since eventually environmentalists would force the regulations back into place. Instead of addressing the problem honestly, Bush and Congress are scrambling for a quick fix in order to ease voters’ concerns about the cost of gas before the 2006 fall elections.

The reason gas prices are increasing is not the fault of the oil companies, but because of several factors outside of their control, most notably the cost of crude oil.

There are several costs that go into producing and delivering a gallon of gas. These include the cost of the crude oil to refiners, refining costs and profits, distribution and marketing costs, and federal and state taxes. Generally, the cost of the crude oil hovers close to 50% of the cost of a gallon of gas, taxes comprise about 25%, and the remaining costs average almost 30%.

The current increase in gas prices is mainly due to an increase in the cost of crude oil, which has doubled over the past two years to more than $70 a barrel. This is the first of four underlying reasons why the cost of gas has increased. OPEC manipulates the price of crude oil. OPEC member countries hold about 2/3 of the world’s crude oil reserves, and provide about 40% of the world’s crude oil. OPEC sets limits on the amount of crude oil its members may produce in order to keep the price of oil at a target level.

The cost of crude oil is also affected by conflict in oil-exporting countries, such as the Arab oil embargo of 1973. This most recent spike is caused by supply disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico and *****ia. A correlating effect is caused by oil futures speculators who bid up the price of a barrel of oil whenever relations with oil-exporting countries sour, such as the current dispute with Iran over uranium enrichment and our increasingly poor relationship with Venezuela.

A second reason why gas prices have increased, which is the most important factor for the long-term, is that demand for oil has been gradually increasing around the world. Demand for new cars has risen in China and India. As those countries purchase more oil from OPEC countries, the U.S. is forced to turn to other oil-exporting countries at higher cost. Even if the U.S. chose not to buy any oil from OPEC countries, it would still be affected by OPEC’s changes in price or supply, since the countries that continued to purchase from OPEC would be affected by those swings and so would purchase more oil from non-OPEC countries, raising the cost of oil sold by those countries to the U.S. During the first quarter this year new car sales grew by 4.8 percent in the U.S. People in the U.S. continue to buy SUVs, which consume more gas than regular cars, while living increasingly farther away from their work in suburbs outside of the ever-growing megacities.

Third, environmental policies in the U.S. have kept costs associated with production, refining, formulas, transportation and storage of oil high. U.S. crude oil production dropped as reserves ran out, and environmentalists have prohibited new drilling in Alaska’s ANWAR. Because of the influence of Iowa farmers, many refineries are still in the process of switching from the additive MTBE to ethanol, at dubious value and excessive cost. Some areas of the country, like California, experience higher gas prices than the rest of the country due to even more stringent gas formula requirements, as well as their distance from the Gulf of Mexico pipelines. U.S. oil refineries are operating at maximum capacity, because liberals and environmentalists have prevented any additional refineries from being built for decades. Gas prices skyrocketed after Hurricane Katrina took out 10-15% of oil refineries in the U.S. and interrupted pipelines from the Gulf of Mexico that fed the Midwest and the East Coast. Without additional refineries to take up the slack, any time there is a disruption affecting refineries, gas prices soar.

Finally, gas prices in the U.S. have not kept up with the cost of inflation. A McDonald’s hamburger cost 28 cents in 1963, about the same price as a gallon of gas. That hamburger today (now called a double hamburger) costs about $3.00. Gas prices in European countries are twice as high as they are in the U.S.

What no one wants to admit is that gas prices are not meant to be as low as they have been. Any attempts to keep the price of gas down go counter to the free market law of supply and demand. Is that where we are at today, insisting on government controls simply to keep one particular commodity at a price we prefer? Even if we were to accede to socialist price controls for gas, permitting us to continue using gas at ever-escalating levels that exceed the laws of supply and demand, it will ensure that global oil reserves eventually run out.

The solution is to allow the market to determine the price of gas, which will force the auto and oil industries to look at alternative modes of energy as people find ways to use less gas. It is already happening. Columnist Thomas Brewton points out that ExxonMobil invested 68% of its net income over the past five years into finding and developing new energy sources, even though its profits were far less than the media has hyped them up to be. ExxonMobil’s profits compared to a company like Microsoft are miniscule; its net income to sales ratio peaked at 10% last year, which is paltry compared to Microsoft’s average of 25% to 41% ratio over the past decade. Punishing the oil companies will only take away marginal profits which they were using to invest in new energy sources.

So when you hear politicians criticizing oil companies and gas stations, remember it is because there is an election coming up.

WHO IS AHMADINEJAD AND WHAT HE IS UP TO?

2008-04-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

Highly informative article by Iran Press Service

PARIS, 12 Dec. (IPS) “…. He is viscerally anti Jew, anti West…This is rooted in his education, his fascination for Hasan al Bana, Gamal Abdol Naser and third worldism, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the late Egyptian leader and the movement that once was the flag ship of developing nations… and above all his total and fanatic belief in Shi’a doctrine”, said an Iranian journalist who knew Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the time he was Mayor of Tehran, commenting the islamo-populist Iranian President who, in less than four months destroyed all the credits – and respect -- his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, a charismatic cleric, had obtained painfully for Iran during the eight years he was in office October.

After declaring on 26 October 2005 that “the Zionist Entity”, -- the jargon Iranian officials use to name Israel -- must be "wiped off the map of earth", Mr. Ahmadinejad did it again, by not only questioning the Holocaust, the killing of more than 6 million Jews and the gas chambers, but also calling on Europe, mostly Germany and Austria, the two nations responsible for the massacres during World War II, to provide one or two of their states to the Zionists in order to plant there their nation.

“The Europeans claims that Hitler killed and annihilated innocent Jews in furnaces..
Why then not give a parcel of Europe to the Zionists?

“The Europeans claims that they massacred Jews during World War II, that Hitler killed and annihilated innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that, they condemn that person and throw him in jail, why then not give a parcel of Europe to the Zionists? (read more)

U.S. includes renewables in strategic plan for hydrogen

2008-04-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2004-03-17 (Refocus Weekly) The United States government will “accelerate and expand research on the production of hydrogen from renewable resources,” according to the strategy of the Department of Energy.Among the priorities for renewable resources are cost reductions in electrolysis and work on thermochemical conversion of biomass, in addition to photoelectrochemical systems and water electrolysis, says DOE's ‘Hydrogen Posture Plan.’ The plan is focussed on the transportation sector, and outlines the activities and milestones needed to support the U.S. shift to a hydrogen-based energy system.

The plan notes that the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier can enhance energy security while reducing air pollution and GHG emissions, and supports the vision of president George Bush for a hydrogen economy, explains energy secretary Spencer Abraham. It will integrate research from DOE’s renewable, nuclear and fossil offices, leading up to a commercialization decision by industry in 2015.

“The federal government will play a key role in accelerating the transition towards the hydrogen economy by pursuing research to overcome technical challenges,” it says. The long-term hydrogen initiative is complemented by other DOE programs on near-term energy efficiency and renewable energy.

A Few Links:

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com

http://www.hypowerfuel.com

http://gethydropower.com

http://www.h2ofueltechnologies.com

http://www.xogen.ca

http://bwt.jeffotto.com/hydro-assist-fuel-cell.htm

http://waterpoweredcar.com

http://www.gethydropower.com

http://www.hydrogen-boost.co

http://hy-drive.com

“In the long-term vision of the hydrogen economy (which will take several decades to achieve), hydrogen will be available in all regions of the country and will serve all sectors of the economy,” the document notes. “It will be produced from fossil fuels (with carbon capture and sequestration), renewable energy, and nuclear energy. It will be used throughout the transportation, electric power, and consumer sectors.”

“In the near- to mid-term, most hydrogen will likely be produced by technologies that do not require a new hydrogen delivery infrastructure, ie: from distributed natural gas and electrolysis of water using electricity (with emphasis on renewable sources such as wind power),” it continues. “As research, development and demonstration efforts progress along renewable, nuclear and clean coal and natural gas production pathways, a suite of technologies will become available in the mid- and longer-term to produce hydrogen from a diverse array of domestic resources.”
DOE will “focus on methods to produce affordable supplies of hydrogen from water using renewable electricity (eg: solar, wind) and nuclear sources of energy, or even using direct solar conversion or biological methods,” it adds. “A mix of diverse energy feedstocks to produce hydrogen is needed to gradually make the transition to a sustainable, secure, affordable and environmentally safe hydrogen energy system.”

Bush wants to invest US$1.7 billion over five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.

Baghdad Burning by river

2008-03-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Review from:
Feminist Review

Baghdad Burning II: More Girl Blog From Iraq

By Riverbend
The Feminist Press

Some people are covering the war in the Middle East from a distance. Riverbend is blogging directly from Baghdad. This second print installment of Riverbend’s blog offers her entries from late 2004 to the beginning of 2006. There are humorous moments when she offers a Christmas list requesting blast-proof windows, landmine detectors and running water. Her hilarious version of the 2006 Oscars dubbed the Sayid Awards nominates George W. Bush as one of the Best Actors for convincingly portraying “the world’s first mentally challenged president," but she also indicts several Islamic leaders who act unaware of the political climate. more

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Friday, July 15, 2005

Prayers for Khalid...
Raed of Raed in the Middle has some very bad news. His brother Khalid of the blog Tell Me a Secret has been abducted by the new Iraqi mukhabarat.

We're all praying he'll be alright and that Allah/God gives his family the strength to make it through this.

Nid3eelek bil salameh wil rijoo3 ila il a7ibeh wil ahal wil 7'irooj min hathihi il mi7neh bi 7'air ya Khalid...

- posted by river @ 12:01 PM

Friday, July 01, 2005

Unbelievable...
“Not only can they not find WMD in Iraq,” I commented to E. as we listened to the Bush speech, “But they have disappeared from his speeches too!” I was listening to the voiceover on Arabiya, translating his speech to Arabic. He was recycling bits and pieces of various speeches he used over two years.

E., a younger cousin, and I were sitting around in the living room, sprawled on the relatively cool tiled floor. The electricity had been out for 3 hours and we couldn’t turn on the air conditioner with the generator electricity we were getting. E. and I had made a bet earlier about what the theme of tonight’s speech would be. E. guessed Bush would dig up the tired, old WMD theme from somewhere under the debris of idiocy and lies coming out of the White House. I told him he’d dredge up 9/11 yet again… tens of thousands of lives later, we would have to bear the burden of 9/11… again.

I won the bet. The theme was, naturally, terrorism- the only mention of ‘weapon’ or ‘weapons’ was in reference to Libya. He actually used the word ‘terrorist’ in the speech 23 times.

He was trying, throughout the speech, to paint a rosy picture of the situation. According to him, Iraq was flourishing under the occupation. In Bush’s Iraq, there is reconstruction, there is freedom (in spite of an occupation) and there is democracy.

“He’s describing a different country…” I commented to E. and the cousin.

“Yes,” E. replied. “He’s talking about the *other* Iraq… the one with the WMD.”

“So what’s the occasion? Why’s the idiot giving a speech anyway?” The cousin asked, staring at the ceiling fan clicking away above. I reminded him it was the year anniversary marking the mythical handover of power to Allawi’s Vichy government.

“Oh- Allawi… Is he still alive?” Came the indolent reply from the cousin. “I’ve lost track… was he before Al Yawir or after Al Yawir? Was he Prime Minister or did they make him president at some point?”

9/11 and the dubious connection with Iraq came up within less than a minute of the beginning of the speech. The cousin wondered whether anyone in America still believed Iraq had anything to do with September 11.

Bush said:
“The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001.”

Do people really still believe this? In spite of that fact that no WMD were found in Iraq, in spite of the fact that prior to the war, no American was ever killed in Iraq and now almost 2000 are dead on Iraqi soil? It’s difficult to comprehend that rational people, after all of this, still actually accept the claims of a link between 9/11 and Iraq. Or that they could actually believe Iraq is less of a threat today than it was in 2003.

We did not have Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war. We didn’t know that sort of extremism. We didn’t have beheadings or the abduction of foreigners or religious intolerance. We actually pitied America and Americans when the Twin Towers went down and when news began leaking out about it being Muslim fundamentalists- possibly Arabs- we were outraged.

Now 9/11 is getting old. Now, 100,000+ Iraqi lives and 1700+ American lives later, it’s becoming difficult to summon up the same sort of sympathy as before. How does the death of 3,000 Americans and the fall of two towers somehow justify the horrors in Iraq when not one of the people involved with the attack was Iraqi?

Bush said:
“Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. … The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

He speaks of ‘abroad’ as if it is a vague desert-land filled with heavily-bearded men and possibly camels. ‘Abroad’ in his speech seems to indicate a land of inferior people- less deserving of peace, prosperity and even life.

Don’t Americans know that this vast wasteland of terror and terrorists otherwise known as ‘Abroad’ was home to the first civilizations and is home now to some of the most sophisticated, educated people in the region?

Don’t Americans realize that ‘abroad’ is a country full of people- men, women and children who are dying hourly? ‘Abroad’ is home for millions of us. It’s the place we were raised and the place we hope to raise our children- your field of war and terror.

The war was brought to us here, and now we have to watch the country disintegrate before our very eyes. We watch as towns are bombed and gunned down and evacuated of their people. We watch as friends and loved ones are detained, or killed or pressured out of the country with fear and intimidation.

Bush said:
“We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul…”

Yes. And Bush is extremely concerned with the mosques. He might ask the occupation forces in Iraq to quit attacking mosques and detaining the worshipers inside- to stop raiding them and bombing them and using them as shelters for American snipers in places like Falluja and Samarra. And the terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul? Maybe they got their cue from the American troops who attacked the only functioning hospital in Falluja.

“We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while a country is at war is even harder."

Three decades of tyranny isn’t what bombed and burned buildings to the ground. It isn’t three decades of tyranny that destroyed the infrastructure with such things as “Shock and Awe” and various other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn’t have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of electricity daily. In several areas they aren’t even getting that much.

“They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice under law.”

We’re so free, we often find ourselves prisoners of our homes, with roads cut off indefinitely and complete areas made inaccessible. We are so free to assemble that people now fear having gatherings because a large number of friends or family members may attract too much attention and provoke a raid by American or Iraqi forces.

As to Iraqi forces…There was too much to quote on the new Iraqi forces. He failed to mention that many of their members were formerly part of militias, and that many of them contributed to the looting and burning that swept over Iraq after the war and continued for weeks.

“The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day.”

Indeed they are. The forte of the new Iraqi National Guard? Raids and mass detentions. They have been learning well from the coalition. They sweep into areas, kick down doors, steal money, valuables, harass the females in the household and detain the men. The Iraqi security forces are so effective that a few weeks ago, they managed to kill a high-ranking police major in Falluja when he ran a red light, shooting him in the head as his car drove away.

He kept babbling about a “free Iraq” but he mentioned nothing about when the American forces might actually depart and the occupation would end, leaving a “free Iraq”.

Why aren’t the Americans setting a timetable for withdrawal? Iraqis are constantly wondering why nothing is being done to accelerate the end of the occupation.

Do the Americans continue to believe such speeches? I couldn’t help but wonder.

“They’ll believe anything.” E. sighed. “No matter what sort of absurdity they are fed, they’ll believe it. Think up the most outrageous lie… They have people who’ll believe it.”

The cousin sat up at this, his interest piqued. “The most outrageous lie? How about that Iraq was amassing aliens from Mareekh [Mars] and training them in the battle art of kung-fu to attack America in 2010!”

“They’d believe it.” E. nodded in the affirmative. “Or that Iraq was developing a mutant breed of rabid, man-eating bunnies to unleash upon the Western world. They’d believe that too.”

Mykeru has a fantastic post about the speech, as do Juan Cole (as usual), and TomDispatch.

- posted by river @ 3:21 AM

email riverbend

Amazon Review:

Iraq's Anne Frank?,

April 18, 2005

By	David Dix (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

First, this book is NOT written by James Ridgeway. He just wrote a short introduction to the book. Amazon should change its copy to reflect that Riverbend is the author of this collection of blog entries.

Riverbend is a woman in her mid-twenties living in the hell that is Baghdad. Her blog "Baghdad Burning" is an example of how vital the blogging phenomenon can be. She gives us, in "real time", a deeply intimate view of what is actually happening to the people of Iraq by describing what she and her family members are going through.

Her entries are sometimes funny, often angry, always compassionate. She is well educated and well read, knows a great deal about American culture and is ferociously honest.
Her entries are not ideological, like those of many other Iraqi bloggers. She speaks from her heart, not her politics.

Writing is writing, but great writing is rare and deserves to be honored. We are not a time, yet, when the literature of the Internet can be respected as equal to that in print. But, if there ever is a Nobel Prize for Internet Literature, Riverbend should be its first recipient. She is the equal to any essayist writing today. Even when angry, she writes with a delicacy, with true elegance that no other writer I know can match.

Each day, thousands of people around the world view her blog. Many days we are disappointed she has not made an entry. That is not because we love her writing and have learned so much from her expression of her point of view; we all open her page just to make sure she is still alive, that she has not been shot or bombed, or raped or subjected to any more suffering than she and her family have already experienced. She is a person many of us love deeply and want so much for her to survive and flourish.

I keep this book next to my computer. I pick it up occassionally and open it some random page. I learn from her, laugh with her, feel her agony at what has been done to her country, her people. This book is wonderful. It will become a classic. And it will stand as part of a body of great literature all of us who consider her a friend know she will someday write.

President Roosevelt to the Chancellor of Germany (Hitler) [40], [Telegram], 14 April 1939

2008-03-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

"Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following independent nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, the Arabias, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iran."

Question: Where did Hitler get the money to arm Germany to do the above?
Answer: Wall Street & the Rise of Hilter by Antony C. Sutton
Next Blog entry.

THE WHITE HOUSE, April 14, 1939.

You realize I am sure that throughout the world hundreds of millions of human beings are living today in constant fear of a new war or even a series of wars.

The existence of this fear-and the possibility of such a conflict-is of definite concern to the people of the United States for whom I speak, as it must also be to the peoples of the other nations of the entire Western Hemisphere. All of them know that any major war, even if it were to be confined to other continents, must bear heavily on them during its continuance and also for generations to come.

Because of the fact that after the acute tension in which the world has been living during the past few weeks there would seem to be at least a momentary relaxation-because no troops are at this moment on the march-this may be an opportune moment for me to send you this message.

On a previous occasion I have addressed you in behalf of the settlement of political, economic, and social problems by peaceful methods and without resort to arms.

But the tide of events seems to have reverted to the threat of arms. If such threats continue, it seems inevitable that much of the world must become involved in common ruin. All the world, victor nations, vanquished nations, and neutral nations will suffer. I refuse to believe that the world is, of necessity, such a prisoner of destiny. On the contrary, it is clear that the leaders of great nations have it in their power to liberate their peoples from the disaster that impends.

It is equally clear that in their own minds and in their own hearts the peoples themselves desire that their fears be ended.

It is, however, unfortunately necessary to take cognizance of recent facts.

Three nations in Europe and one in Africa have seen their independent existence terminated. A vast territory in another independent nation of the Far East has been occupied by a neighboring state. Reports, which we trust are not true, insist that further acts of aggression are contemplated against still other independent nations. Plainly the world is moving toward the moment when this situation must end in catastrophe unless a more rational way of guiding events is found.

You have repeatedly asserted that you and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war.

Nothing can persuade the peoples of the earth that any governing power has any right or need to inflict the consequences of war on its own or any other people save in the cause of self-evident home defense.

In making this statement we as Americans speak not through selfishness or fear or weakness. If we speak now it is with the voice of strength and with friendship for mankind. It is still clear to me that international problems can be solved at the council table.

It is therefore no answer to the plea for peaceful discussion for one side to plead that unless they receive assurances beforehand that the verdict will be theirs, they will not lay aside their arms. In conference rooms, as in courts, it is necessary that both sides enter upon the discussion in good faith, assuming that substantial justice will accrue to both; and it is customary and necessary that they leave their arms outside the room where they confer.

I am convinced that the cause of world peace would be greatly advanced if the nations of the world were to obtain a frank statement relating to the present and future policy of governments.

Because the United States, as one of the nations of the Western Hemisphere, is not involved in the immediate controversies which have arisen in Europe, I trust that you may be willing to make such a statement of policy to me as the head of a nation far removed from Europe in order that I, acting only with the responsibility and obligation of a friendly intermediary, may communicate such declaration to other nations now apprehensive as to the course which the policy of your Government may take.

Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following independent nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, the Arabias, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iran.

Such an assurance clearly must apply not only to the present day but also to a future sufficiently long to give every opportunity to work by peaceful methods for a more permanent peace. I therefore suggest that you construe the word "future" to apply to a minimum period of assured non-aggression-ten years at the least-a quarter of a century, if we dare look that far ahead.

If such assurance is given by your Government, I will immediately transmit it to the governments of the nations I have named and I will simultaneously inquire whether, as I am reasonably sure, each of the nations enumerated above will in turn give like assurance for transmission to you.

Reciprocal assurances such as I have outlined will bring to the world an immediate measure of relief.

I propose that if it is given, two essential problems shall promptly be discussed in the resulting peaceful surroundings, and in those discussions the Government of the United States will gladly take part.

The discussions which I have in mind relate to the most effective and immediate manner through which the peoples of the world can obtain progressive relief from the crushing burden of armament which is each day bringing them more closely to the brink of economic disaster. Simultaneously the Government of the United States would be prepared to take part in discussions looking towards the most practical manner of opening up avenues of international trade to the end that every nation of the earth may be enabled to buy and sell on equal terms in the world market as well as to possess assurance of obtaining the materials and products of peaceful economic life.

At the same time, those governments other than the United States which are directly interested could undertake such political discussions as they may consider necessary or desirable.

We recognize complex world problems which affect all humanity but we know that study and discussion of them must be held in an atmosphere of peace. Such an atmosphere of peace cannot exist if negotiations are overshadowed by the threat of force or by the fear of war.

I think you will not misunderstand the spirit of frankness in which I send you this message. Heads of great governments in this hour are literally responsible for the fate of humanity in the coming years. They cannot fail to hear the prayers of their peoples to be protected from the foreseeable chaos of war. History will hold them accountable for the lives and the happiness of all-even unto the least.

I hope that your answer will make it possible for humanity to lose fear and regain security for many years to come.

A similar message is being addressed to the Chief of the Italian Government.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

[40] The Secretary of State at the same time, at the President's direction, addressed an identical telegram to Premier Benito Mussolini, of Italy.

Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943, pp. 455-58

Wall Street & the Rise of Hilter by Antony C. Sutton

2008-02-25T19:07:00.000-08:00

ANTONY C. SUTTON was born in London in 1925 and educated at the universities of London, Gottingen, and California. A citizen of the United States since 1962, he was a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford, California from 1968 to 1973, where he produced the monumental three-volume study, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development. In 1974, Professor Sutton completed National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union, a best-selling study of Western, primarily American, technological and financial assistance to the U.S.S.R. Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler is his fourth book exposing the role of American corporate insiders in financing international socialism. The two other books in this series are Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution and Wall Street and FDR. Professor Sutton has contributed articles to Human Events, The Review of the News, Triumph, Ordnance, National Review, and many other journals. Before his passing in 2002, he was working on a two-part study of the Federal Reserve System and the manipulation of the U.S. economic system. Married and the father of two daughters, he lived in California.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Conclusions

We have demonstrated with documentary evidence a number of critical associations between Wall Street international bankers and the rise of Hitler and Naziism in Germany.

First: that Wall Street financed the German cartels in the mid-1920s which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power.

Second: that the financing for Hitler and his S.S. street thugs came in part from affiliates or subsidiaries of U.S. firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by I.G. Farben and General Electric in 1933, followed by the Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944.

Third: that U.S. multi-nationals under the control of Wall Street profited handsomely from Hitler's military construction program in the 1930s and at least until 1942.

Fourth: that these same international bankers used political influence in the U.S. to cover up their wartime collaboration and to do this infiltrated the U.S. Control Commission for Germany.

Our evidence for these four major assertions can be summarized as follows:

In Chapter One we presented evidence that the Dawes and Young Plans for German reparations were formulated by Wall Streeters, temporarily wearing the hats of statesmen, and these loans generated a rain of profits for these international bankers. Owen Young of General Electric, Hjalmar Schacht, A. Voegler, and others intimately connected with Hitler's accession to power had earlier been the negotiators for the U.S. and German sides, respectively. Three Wall Street houses — Dillon, Read; Harris, Forbes; and, National City Company — handled three-quarters of the reparations loans used to create the German cartel system, including the dominant I.G. Farben and Vereinigte Stahlwerke, which together produced 95 percent of the explosives for the Nazi side in World War II.

The central role of I.G. Farben in Hitler's coup d' état was reviewed in Chapter Two. The directors of American I.G. (Farben) were identified as prominent American businessmen: Walter Teagle, a dose Roosevelt associate and backer and an NRA administrator; banker Paul Warburg (his brother Max Warburg was on the board of I.G. Farben in Germany); and Edsel Ford. Farben contributed 400,000 RM directly to Schacht and Hess for use in the crucial 1933 elections and Farben was subsequently in the forefront of military development in Nazi Germany.

A donation of 60,000 RM was made to Hitler by German General Electric (A.E.G.), which had four directors and a 25-30 percent interest held by the U.S. General Electric parent company. This role was described in Chapter Three, and we found that Gerard Swope, an originator of Roosevelt's New Deal (its National Recovery Administration segment), together with Owen Young of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Clark Minor of International General Electric, were the dominant Wall Streeters in A.E.G. and the most significant single influence.

We also found no evidence to indict the German electrical firm Siemens, which was not under Wall Street control. In contrast, there is documentary evidence that both A.E.G. and Osram, the other units of the German electrical industry — both of which had U.S. participation and control — did finance Hitler. In fact, almost all directors of German General Electric were Hitler backers, either directly through A.E.G. or indirectly through other German firms, G.E. rounded out its Hitler support by technical cooperation with Krupp, aimed at restricting U.S. development of tungsten carbide, which worked to the detriment of the U.S. in World War II. We concluded that A.E.G. plants in Germany managed, by a yet unknown maneuver, to avoid bombing by the Allies.

An examination of the role of Standard Oil of New Jersey (which was and is controlled by the Rockefeller interests) was undertaken in Chapter Four. Standard Oil apparently did not finance Hitler's accession to power in 1933 (that part of the "myth of Sidney Warburg" is not proven). On the other hand, payments were made up to 1944 by Standard Oil of New Jersey, to develop synthetic gasoline for war purposes on behalf of the Nazis and, through its wholly owned subsidiary, to Heinrich Himmler's S.S. Circle of Friends for political purposes. Standard Oil's role was technical aid to Nazi development of synthetic rubber and gasoline through a U.S. research company under the management control of Standard Oil. The Ethyl Gasoline Company, jointly owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey and General Motors, was instrumental in supplying vital ethyl lead to Nazi Germany — over the written protests of the U.S. War Department — with the clear knowledge that the ethyl lead was for Nazi military purposes.

In Chapter Five we demonstrated that International Telephone and Telegraph Company, one of the more notorious multi-nationals, worked both sides of World War II through Baron Kurt von Schroder, of the Schroder banking group. I.T.T. also held a 28-percent interest in Focke-Wolfe aircraft, which manufactured excellent German fighter planes. We also found that Texaco (Texas Oil Company) was involved in Nazi endeavors through German attorney Westrick, but dropped its chairman of the board Rieber when these endeavors were publicized.

Henry Ford was an early (1922) Hitler backer and Edsel Ford continued the family tradition in 1942 by encouraging French Ford to profit from arming the German Wehrmacht, Subsequently, these Ford-produced vehicles were used against American soldiers as they landed in France in 1944. For his early recognition of, and timely assistance to, the Nazis, Henry Ford received a Nazi medal in 1938. The records of French Ford suggest Ford Motor received kid glove treatment from the Nazis after 1940.

The provable threads of Hitler financing are drawn together in Chapter Seven and answer with precise names and figures the question, who financed Adolf Hitler? This chapter indicts Wall Street and, incidentally, no one else of consequence in the United States except the Ford family. The Ford family is not normally associated with Wall Street but is certainly a part of the "power elite."

In earlier chapters we cited several Roosevelt associates, including Teagle of Standard Oil, the Warburg family, and Gerard Swope. In Chapter Eight the role of Putzi Hanfstaengl, another Roosevelt friend and a participant in the Reichstag fire, is traced. The composition of the Nazi inner circle during World War II, and the financial contributions of Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiaries, are traced in Chapter Nine. Documentary proof of these monetary contributions is presented. Kurt yon Schrader is identified as the key intermediary in this S.S. "slush fund."

Finally, in Chapter Ten we reviewed a book suppressed in 1934 and the "myth of 'Sidney Warburg.'" The suppressed book accused the Rockefellers, the Warburgs, and the major oil companies of financing Hitler. While the name "Sidney Warburg" was no doubt an invention, the extraordinary fact remains that the argument in the suppressed "Sidney Warburg" book is remarkably close to the evidence presented now. It also remains a puzzle why James Paul Warburg, fifteen years later, would want to attempt, in a rather transparently slipshod manner, to refute the contents of the "Warburg" book, a book he claims not to have seen. It is perhaps even more of a puzzle why Warburg would choose Nazi von Papen's Memoirs as the vehicle to present his refutation.

Finally, in Chapter Eleven we examined the roles of the Morgan and Chase Banks in World War II, specifically their collaboration with the Nazis in France while a major war was raging.

In other words, as in our two previous examinations of the links between New York international bankers and major historical events, we find a provable pattern of subsidy and political manipulation.

The Pervasive Influence of International Bankers

Looking at the broad array of facts presented in the three volumes of the Wall Street series, we find persistent recurrence of the same names: Owen Young, Gerard Swope, Hjalmar Schacht, Bernard Baruch, etc.; the same international banks: J.P. Morgan, Guaranty Trust, Chase Bank; and the same location in New York: usually 120 Broadway.

This group of international bankers backed the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequently profited from the establishment of a Soviet Russia. This group backed Roosevelt and profited from New Deal socialism. This group also backed Hitler and certainly profited from German armament in the 1930s. When Big Business should have been running its business operations at Ford Motor, Standard of New Jersey, and so on, we find it actively and deeply involved in political upheavals, war, and revolutions in three major countries.

The version of history presented here is that the financial elite knowingly and with premeditation assisted the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in concert with German bankers. After profiting handsomely from the German hyper-inflationary distress of 1923, and planning to place the German reparations burden onto the backs of American investors, Wall Street found it had brought about the 1929 financial crisis.

Two men were then backed as leaders for major Western countries: Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States and Adolf Hitler in Germany. The Roosevelt New Deal and Hitler's Four Year Plan had great similarities. The Roosevelt and Hitler plans were plans for fascist takeovers of their respective countries. While Roosevelt's NRA failed, due to then-operating constitutional constraints, Hitler's Plan succeeded.

Why did the Wall Street elite, the international bankers, want Roosevelt and Hitler in power? This is an aspect we have not explored. According to the "myth of 'Sidney Warburg,'" Wall Street wanted a policy of revenge; that is, it wanted war in Europe between France and Germany. We know even from Establishment history that both Hitler and Roosevelt acted out policies leading to war.

The link-ups between persons and events in this three-book series would require another book. But a single example will perhaps indicate the remarkable concentration of power within a relatively few organizations, and the use of this power.

On May 1st, 1918, when the Bolsheviks controlled only a small fraction of Russia (and were to come near to losing even that fraction in the summer of 1918), the American League to Aid and Cooperate with Russia was organized in Washington, D.C. to support the Bolsheviks. This was not a "Hands off Russia" type of committee formed by the Communist Party U.S.A. or its allies. It was a committee created by Wall Street with George P. Whalen of Vacuum Oil Company as Treasurer and Coffin and Oudin of General Electric, along with Thompson of the Federal Reserve System, Willard of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and assorted socialists.

When we look at the rise of Hitler and Naziism we find Vacuum Oil and General Electric well represented. Ambassador Dodd in Germany was struck by the monetary and technical contribution by the Rockefeller-controlled Vacuum Oil Company in building up military gasoline facilities for the Nazis. The Ambassador tried to warn Roosevelt. Dodd believed, in his apparent naiveté of world affairs, that Roosevelt would intervene, but Roosevelt himself was backed by these same oil interests and Walter Teagle of Standard Oil of New Jersey and the NRA was on the board of Roosevelt's Warm Springs Foundation. So, in but one of many examples, we find the Rockefeller-controlled Vacuum Oil Company prominently assisting in the creation of Bolshevik Russia, the military build-up of Nazi Germany, and backing Roosevelt's New Deal.

Is the United States Ruled by a Dictatorial Elite?

Within the last decade or so, certainly since the 1960s, a steady flow of literature has presented a thesis that the United States is ruled by a self-perpetuating and unelected power elite. Even further, most of these books aver that this elite controls, or at the least heavily influences, all foreign and domestic policy decisions, and that no idea becomes respectable or is published in the United States without the tacit approval, or perhaps lack of disapproval, of this elitist circle.

Obviously the very flow of anti-establishment literature by itself testifies that the United States cannot be wholly under the thumb of any single group or elite. On the other hand, anti-establishment literature is not fully recognized or reasonably discussed in academic or media circles. More often than not it consists of a limited edition, privately produced, almost hand-to-hand circulated. There are some exceptions, true; but not enough to dispute the observation that anti-establishment critics do not easily enter normal information/distribution channels.

Whereas in the early and mid-1960s, any concept of rule by a conspiratorial elite, or indeed any kind of elite, was reason enough to dismiss the proponent out of hand as a "nut case," the atmosphere for such concepts has changed radically. The Watergate affair probably added the final touches to a long-developing environment of skepticism and doubt. We are almost at the point where anyone who accepts, for example, the Warren Commission report, or believes that that the decline and fall of Mr. Nixon did not have some conspiratorial aspects, is suspect. In brief, no one any longer really believes the Establishment information process. And there is a wide variety of alternative presentations of events now available for the curious.

Several hundred books, from the full range of the political and philosophical spectrum, add bits and pieces of evidence, more hypotheses, and more accusations. What was not too long ago a kooky idea, talked about at midnight behind closed doors, in hushed and almost conspiratorial whispers, is now openly debated — not, to be sure, in Establishment newspapers but certainly on non-network radio talk shows, the underground press, and even from time to time in books from respectable Establishment publishing houses.

So let us ask the question again: Is there an unelected power elite behind the U.S. Government?

A substantive and often-cited source of information is Carroll Quigley, Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University, who in 1966 had published a monumental modern history entitled Tragedy and Hope.1 Quigley's book is apart from others in this revisionist vein, by virtue of the fact that it was based on a two-year study of the internal documents of one of the power centers. Quigley traces the history of the power elite:

... the powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.

Quigley also demonstrates that the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Planning Association, and other groups are "semi-secret" policy-making bodies under the control of this power elite.

In the following tabular presentation we have listed five such revisionist books, including Quigley's. Their essential theses and compatibility with the three volumes of the "Wall Street" series are summarized. It is surprising that in the three major historical events noted, Carroll Quigley is not at all consistent with the "Wall Street" series evidence. Quigley goes a long way to provide evidence for the existence of the power elite, but does not penetrate the operations of the elite.

Possibly, the papers used by Quigley had been vetted, and did not include documentation on elitist manipulation of such events as the Bolshevik Revolution, Hitler's accession to power, and the election of Roosevelt in 1933. More likely, these political manipulations may not be recorded at all in the files of the power groups. They may have been unrecorded actions by a small ad hoc segment of the elite. It is noteworthy that the documents used by this author came from government sources, recording the day-to-day actions of Trotsky, Lenin, Roosevelt, Hitler, J.P. Morgan and the various firms and banks involved.

On the other hand, such authors as Jules Archer, Gary Allen, Helen P. Lasell, and William Domhoff, writing from widely different political standpoints2 are consistent with the "Wall Street" evidence. These writers present a hypothesis of a power elite manipulating the U.S. Government. The "Wall Street" series demonstrates how this hypothesized "power elite" has manipulated specific historical events.

Obviously any such exercise of unconstrained and supra-legal power is unconstitutional, even though wrapped in the fabric of law-abiding actions. We can therefore legitimately raise the question of the existence of a subversive force operating to remove constitutionally guaranteed rights.

The New York Elite as a Subversive Force

Twentieth-century history, as recorded in Establishment textbooks and journals, is inaccurate. It is a history which is based solely upon those official documents which various Administrations have seen fit to release for public consumption.

Table: IS THE EVIDENCE IN THE "WALL STREET" SERIES CONSISTENT WITH RELATED REVISIONIST ARGUMENTS PRESENTED ELSEWHERE?

But an accurate history cannot be based on a selective release of documentary archives. Accuracy requires access to all documents. In practice, as previously classified documents in the U.S. State Department files, the British Foreign Office, and the German Foreign Ministry archives and other depositories are acquired, a new version of history has emerged; the prevailing Establishment version is seen to be, not only inaccurate, but designed to hide a pervasive fabric of deceit and immoral conduct.

The center of political power, as authorized by the U.S. Constitution, is with an elected Congress and an elected President, working within the framework and under the constraints of a Constitution, as interpreted by an unbiased Supreme Court. We have in the past assumed that political power is consequently carefully exercised by the Executive and legislative branch, after due deliberation and assessment of the wishes of the electorate. In fact, nothing could be further from this assumption. The electorate has long suspected, but now knows, that political promises are worth nothing. Lies are the order of the day for policy implementors. Wars are started (and stopped) with no shred of coherent explanation. Political words have never matched political deeds. Why not? Apparently because the center of political power has been elsewhere than with elected and presumably responsive representatives in Washington, and this power elite has its own objectives, which are inconsistent with those of the public at large.

In this three-volume series we have identified for three historical events the seat of political power in the United States — the power behind the scenes, the hidden influence on Washington — as that of the financial establishment in New York: the private international bankers, more specifically the financial houses of J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller-controlled Chase Manhattan Bank, and in earlier days (before amalgamation of their Manhattan Bank with the former Chase Bank), the Warburgs.

The United States has, in spite of the Constitution and its supposed constraints, become a quasi-totalitarian state. While we do not (yet) have. the overt trappings of dictatorship, the concentration camps and the knock on the door at midnight, we most certainly do have threats and actions aimed at the survival of non-Establishment critics, use of the Internal Revenue Service to bring dissidents in line, and manipulation of the Constitution by a court system that is politically subservient to the Establishment.

It is in the pecuniary interests of the international bankers to centralize political power — and this centralization can best be achieved within a collectivist society, such as socialist Russia, national socialist Germany, or a Fabian socialist United States.

There can be no full understanding and appreciation of twentieth-century American politics and foreign policy without the realization that this financial elite effectively monopolizes Washington policy.

In case after case, newly released documentation implicates this elite and confirms this hypothesis. The revisionist versions of the entry of the United States into World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam reveal the influence and objectives of this elite.

For most of the twentieth century the Federal Reserve System, particularly the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (which is outside the control of Congress, unaudited and uncontrolled, with the power to print money and create credit at will), has exercised a virtual monopoly over the direction of the American economy. In foreign affairs the Council on Foreign Relations, superficially an innocent forum for academics, businessmen, and politicians, contains within its shell, perhaps unknown to many of its members, a power center that unilaterally determines U.S. foreign policy. The major objective of this submerged — and obviously subversive — foreign. policy is the acquisition of markets and economic power (profits, if you will), for a small group of giant multi-nationals under the virtual control of a few banking investment houses and controlling families.

Through foundations controlled by this elite, research by compliant and spineless academics, "conservatives" as well as "liberals," has been directed into channels useful for the objectives of the elite essentially to maintain this subversive and unconstitutional power apparatus.

Through publishing houses controlled by this same financial elite unwelcome books have been squashed and useful books promoted; fortunately publishing has few barriers to entry and is almost atomistically competitive. Through control of a dozen or so major newspapers, run by editors who think alike, public information can be almost orchestrated at will. Yesterday, the space program; today, an energy crisis or a campaign for ecology; tomorrow, a war in the Middle East or some other manufactured "crisis."

The total result of this manipulation of society by the Establishment elite has been four major wars in sixty years, a crippling national debt, abandonment of the Constitution, suppression of freedom and opportunity, and creation of a vast credibility gulf between the man in the street and Washington, D.C. While the transparent device of two major parties trumpeting artificial differences, circus-like conventions, and the cliche of "bipartisan foreign policy" no longer carries credibility, and the financial elite itself recognizes that its policies lack public acceptance, it is obviously prepared to go it alone without even nominal public support.

In brief, we now have to consider and debate whether this New York-based elitist Establishment is a subversive force operating with deliberation and knowledge to suppress the Constitution and a free society. That will be the task ahead in the next decade.

The Slowly Emerging Revisionist Truth

The arena for this debate and the basis for our charges of subversion is the evidence provided by the revisionist historian. Slowly, over decades, book by book, almost line by line, the truth of recent history has emerged as documents are released, probed, analyzed, and set within a more valid historical framework.

Let us consider a few examples. American entry into World War II was supposedly precipitated, according to the Establishment version, by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Revisionists have established that Franklin D. Roosevelt and General Marshall knew of the impending Japanese attack and did nothing to warn the Pearl Harbor military authorities. The Establishment wanted war with Japan. Subsequently, the Establishment made certain that Congressional investigation of Pearl Harbor would fit the Roosevelt whitewash. In the words of Percy Greaves, chief research expert for the Republican minority on the Joint Congressional Committee investigating Pearl Harbor:

The complete facts will never be known. Most of the so-called investigations have been attempts to suppress, mislead, or confuse those who seek the truth. From the beginning to the end, facts and files have been withheld so as to reveal only those items of information which benefit the administration under investigation. Those seeking the truth are told that other facts or documents cannot be revealed because they are intermingled in personal diaries, pertain to our relations with foreign countries, or are sworn to contain no information of value.3

But this was not the first attempt to bring the United States into war, or the last. The Morgan interests, in concert with Winston Churchill, tried to bring the U.S. into World War I as early as 1915 and succeeded in doing so in 1917. Colin Thompson's Lusitania implicates President Woodrow Wilson in the sinking of the Lusitania — a horror device to generate a public backlash to draw the United States into war with Germany. Thompson demonstrates that Woodrow Wilson knew four darts beforehand that the Lusitania was carrying six-million rounds of ammunition plus explosives, and therefore, "passengers who proposed to sail on that vessel were sailing in violation of statute of this country."4

The British Board of Inquiry under Lord Mersey was instructed by the British Government "that it is considered politically expedient that Captain Turner, the master of the Lusitania, be most prominently blamed for the disaster."

In retrospect, given Colin Thompson's evidence, the blame is more fairly to be attributed to President Wilson, "Colonel" House, J.P. Morgan, and Winston Churchill; this conspiratorial elite should have been brought to trial for willful negligence, if not treason. It is to Lord Mersey's eternal credit that after performing his "duty" under instructions from His Majesty's government, and placing the blame on Captain Turner, he resigned, rejected his fee, and from that date on refused to handle British government commissions. To his friends Lord Mersey would only say about the Lusitania case that it was a "dirty business."

Then in 1933-4 came the attempt by the Morgan firm to install a fascist dictatorship in the United States. In the words of Jules Archer, it was planned to be a Fascist putsch to take over the government and "run it under a dictator on behalf of America's bankers and industrialists."5 Again, a single courageous individual emerged — General Smedley Darlington Butler, who blew the whistle on the Wall Street conspiracy. And once again Congress stands out, particularly Congressmen Dickstein and MacCormack, by its gutless refusal to do no more than conduct a token whitewash investigation.

Since World War II we have seen the Korean War and the Vietnamese War — meaningless, meandering no-win wars costly in dollars and lives, with no other major purpose but to generate multibillion-dollar armaments contracts. Certainly these wars were not fought to restrain communism, because for fifty years the Establishment has been nurturing and subsidizing the Soviet Union which supplied armaments to the other sides in both wars — Korea and Vietnam. So our revisionist history will show that the United States directly or indirectly armed both sides in at least Korea and Vietnam.

In the assassination of President Kennedy, to take a domestic example, it is difficult to find anyone who today accepts the findings of the Warren Commission — except perhaps the members of that Commission. Yet key evidence is still hidden from public eyes for 50 to 75 years. The Watergate affair demonstrated even to the man in the street that the White House can be a vicious nest of intrigue and deception.

Of all recent history the story of Operation Keelhaul6 is perhaps the most disgusting. Operation Keelhaul was the forced repatriation of millions of Russians at the orders of President (then General) Dwight D. Eisenhower, in direct violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929 and the long-standing American tradition of political refuge. Operation Keelhaul, which contravenes all our ideas of elementary decency and individual freedom, was undertaken at the direct orders of General Eisenhower and, we may now presume, was a part of a long-range program of nurturing collectivism, whether it be Soviet communism' Hitler's Naziism, or FDR's New Deal. Yet until recent publication of documentary evidence by Julius Epstein, anyone who dared to suggest Eisenhower would betray millions of innocent individuals for political purposes was viciously and mercilessly attacked.7

What this revisionist history really teaches us is that our willingness as individual citizens to surrender political power to an elite has cost the world approximately two-hundred-million persons killed from 1820 to 1975. Add to that untold misery the concentration camps, the political prisoners, the suppression and oppression of those who try to bring the truth to light.

When will it all stop? It will not stop until we act upon one simple axiom: that the power system continues only so long as individuals want it to continue, and it will continue only so long as individuals try to get something for nothing. The day when a majority of individuals declares or acts as if it wants nothing from government, declares it will look after its own welfare and interests, then on that day power elites are doomed. The attraction to "go along" with power elites is the attraction of something for nothing. That is the bait. The Establishment always offers something for nothing; but the something is taken from someone else, as taxes or plunder, and awarded elsewhere in exchange for political support.

Periodic crises and wars are used to whip up support for other plunder-reward cycles which in effect tighten the noose around our individual liberties. And of course we have hordes of academic sponges, amoral businessmen, and just plain hangers-on, to act as non-productive recipients for the plunder.

Stop the circle of plunder and immoral reward and elitist structures collapse. But not until a majority finds the moral courage and the internal fortitude to reject the something-for-nothing con game and replace it by voluntary associations, voluntary communes, or local rule and decentralized societies, will the killing and the plunder cease.

Footnotes:

1Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, op. cit.

2There are many others; the author selected more or less at random two conservatives (Allen and Lasell) and two liberals (Archer and Domhoff),

3Percy L. Greaves, Jr., "The Pearl Harbor Investigation," in Harry Elmer Harnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, (Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1953), p, 13-20.

4Colin Simpson, Lusitania, (London: Longman, 1972), p, 252.

5Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, (New York: Hawthorn Book, 1973), p. 202.

6See Julius Epstein, Operation Keelhaul, (Old Greenwich: Devin Adair, 1973).

7See for example Robert Welch, The Politician, (Belmont, Mass.: Belmont Publishing Co., 1963).

Genocide in Darfur - How the Horror Began By Eric Reeves.

2008-02-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

In one of the most remote places in Africa, an insurgency began unnoticed under the shadow of the war in Iraq in 2003, killing 350,000 to 400,000 people in 29 months by means of violence, malnutrition, and disease in the first genocidal rampage of the 21st century.

The insurgeny began virtually unnoticed in February 2003; it has, over the past two years, precipitated the first great episode of genocidal destruction in the 21st century. The victims are the non-Arab or African tribal groups of Darfur, primarily the Fur, the Massaleit, and the Zaghawa, but also the Tunjur, the Birgid, the Dajo, and others. These people have long been politically and economically marginalized, and in recent years the National Islamic Front regime, based in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum, has refused to control increasingly violent Arab militia raids of African villages in Darfur. Competition between Arab and African tribal groups over the scarce primary resources in Darfur-arable land and water-has been exacerbated by advancing desertification throughout the Sahel region.

But it was Khartoum’s failure to respond to the desperate economic needs of this huge region (it is the size of France), the decayed judiciary, the lack of political representation, and in particular the growing impunity on the part of Arab raiders that gave rise to the full-scale armed conflict.

Not directly related to the 21-year civil conflict that recently formally ended in southern Sudan-a historic agreement was signed in Nairobi on January 9, 2005-Darfur’s insurgency found early success against Khartoum’s regular military forces. But this success had a terrible consequence: The regime in Khartoum switched from a military strategy of direct confrontation to a policy of systematically destroying the African tribal groups perceived as the civilian base of support for the insurgents. The primary instrument in this new policy has been the Janjaweed, a loosely organized Arab militia force of perhaps 20,000 men, primarily on horse and camel. [Read on at: http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=11445]

More background on Darfur:

Who Is Osama Bin Laden?

2008-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

by Michel Chossudovsky

Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montr�al
Posted at globalresearch.ca 12 September 2001

A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan ``multiple attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution."

Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of "punitive actions" directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's national hosts".

The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic "Jihad" to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.

Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders". 1

In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2:

With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.3

The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:

In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.4

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.5

Pakistan's Intelligence Apparatus

Pakistan's ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad", which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

In the words of CIA's Milton Beardman "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA" 6

CIA's Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help". 7

Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.

With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government". 8 The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9

Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:

'Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia's ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,'... During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.... `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.' Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.10

The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle

The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. 11 In this regard, Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in any other nation":12

CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests ... U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'13

In the Wake of the Cold War

In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World's opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.14

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 -- coinciding with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics-- reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.15 Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes.

The ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus essentially "served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia." 16.

Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington's strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.

Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also "handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI factions..." 17

And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI" 18

In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan's ISI. 19

In other words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.

No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban including the blatant derogation of women's rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of "the Sharia laws of punishment".20

The War in Chechnya

With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan's ISI in Chechnya "goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war". 22

Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.

The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan's ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army:

[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.23

Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) "Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia" 24

Basayev's organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia's oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania's collapsed pyramids, 25 Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.

During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al Khattab" who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev's return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab's posting to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya".26

Concluding Remarks

Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI's "most wanted list" as the World's foremost terrorist.

While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI --operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism through its covert operations.

In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush Adminstration as "a threat to America"-- is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

Endnotes

Hugh Davies, International: `Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996):
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999.
Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995.
Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.
Ibid.
Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
Ibid
See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997.
Ibid
Ibid.
Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.
Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)
Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
Levon Sevunts, Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 23 The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999..
Ibid
Ibid.
See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000.
BBC, 29 September 1999).

Related CRG articles and documents:

Missing Link to an understanding of 9-11: The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence Agency (ISI) in the September 11 attacks, by Michel Chossudovsky.

The main justification for this war has been totally fabricated. "Osamagate," by Michel Chossudovsky.

The CIA met Bin Laden while undergoing treatment at an American Hospital last July in Dubai. No attempt was made to arrest him. by Alexandra Richard. 2 November 2001

"War and Globalisation": The "hidden agenda" is "to break Russia's monopoly over oil and gas transport routes" and militarise the Central Asian region. 1998 Congressional Hearing on "US Interests in Central Asia".

The Clinton Administration supported the "Militant Islamic Network". A 1997 Congressional report provides evidence from official sources of the links between the Islamic Jihad and the US government .

What was the chief of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) doing in the US in the days prior to the attacks? , by Amir Mateen.

The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan preceded the Soviet Invasion. 1998 Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Updated Coverage on America's War in Central Asia and on the Implications of 9-11 at the home page of the Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca

Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, September 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to post this text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the source and the URL are indicated, the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed and/or other forms, including commercial internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at chossudovsky@videotron.ca , fax: 1-514-4256224.

The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

Fascism

2008-01-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

by Mussolini from Wikipedia

"Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. ...

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."^{[11] ...}...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination."^[12]"