Above the President

Excellent Article on the 13th Amendment

2008-04-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

Excellent article on the missing 13th amendment:

13th Amendment

World's First Constitution

2008-04-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

More on Federal Reserve Districts

2008-03-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

Again, there is the map of the Federal Reserve Districts:

This map can be used to "decode" which of the 12 regional Fed banks issued the note that you are carrying around in your wallet. If you look at the note carefully, you will see a number-letter series, which indicates the Fed bank that issued the note:

A-1: Boston
B-2: New York
C-3: Philadelphia
D-4: Cleveland
E-5: Richmond
F-6: Atlanta
G-7: Chicago
H-8: St. Louis
I-9: Minneapolis
J-10: Kansas City
K-11: Dallas
L-12: San Francisco

Catholic Encyclicals

2008-03-08T09:06:00.003-08:00

The economic system, known as corporatism, was based on two papal encyclicals which were supposed to prevent class struggle and supremacy of economism:

Rerum Novarum (Pope Leo XIII, May 15, 1891) - On Capital and Labor
Quadragesimo Anno (Pope Pius XI, May 15, 1931)

Supposedly these encyclicals inspired Salazar when he was ruling Portugal.

The popes who issued them:

Pope Leo XIII
(The Social Pope, the Pope of the Working Man)

Pope Pius XI

Federal Reserve Districts

2008-02-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

There would be 12 in all:

Declaration of Arbroath

2008-01-25T16:43:00.001-08:00

It was the inspiration for the Declaration of Independence:

http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/arbroath.html

Office of Management and Budget

2008-01-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

OMB was established as part of the Treasury Department by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. The Bureau of the Budget was moved to the Executive Office of the President in 1939, and was reorganized into the OMB in 1970 during the Nixon Administration. The first OMB included several familiar names, including:

Roy Ash (head)
Paul O'Neill (assissant director)

Roy Ash, First Director of the OMB

Paul O'Neill, First Assissant
Director of the OMB

Sir Robert Peel, Second Baronet

2008-01-07T16:56:00.000-08:00

The (perhaps ironic) idea that national debt can be a source of "prosperity" was espoused by both Sir Robert Peel, First Baronet - a prominent industrialist and one of the richest textile manufacturers in England - as well as his son, Sir Robert Peel, Second Baronet, who would later become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Dec 10, 1834-April 8, 1835 and then again August 30, 1841 to June 29, 1846). Such an idea could clearly only originate with the bankers, and it is clear that the Peels (both father and especially son) were in close cahouts w/ the banking establishment of the country.

Sir Robert Peel (the prime minister) is most famous for the following:

The establishment of a police force, in the modern sense of the word
The repeal of the Corn Laws

It's noteworthy that Peel likewise took an interest in genetics (and probably eugenics). He is credited with the development of the Tamworth Pig.

Sir Robert Peel

Peel was considered one of the rising stars of the Tory Party, first entering the cabinet in 1822 as Home Secretary. As Home Secretary, he introduced a number of important reforms of British criminal law:

Established the Metropolitan Police Force (Metropolitan Police Act 1829)
Changed the Penal Code reducing the number of crimes punishable by death
Reformed the gaol system, introducing payment for gaolers and education for the inmates

The police force deserves more mention: Metropolitan Police Force for London, based at Scotland Yard. The 1,000 constables employed were affectionately nicknamed "Bobbies" (or "Peelers", both terms are still used today). Although at first unpopular, they proved successful in cutting crime in London, and by 1835 all cities in the UK were being directed to form their own police forces. In fact, the authorities in Stalybridge, Cheshire had set up their own police force some two years earlier and so Peel was aware of this success of "police forces" before he "introduced" them in London. The city of Glasgow, Scotland had also had its own police force since 1800.

In this regard (police forces) Peel also established what were called the Peelian Principles, which defined the ethical requirements police officers must follow in order to be effective. The most memorable principle was: the police are the public, and the public are the police. Think about that next time the police talk about "serving and protecting the public(!)" Some things Peel stated include:

Every police officer should be issued a badge number, to assure accountability for his actions.
Whether the police are effective is not measured on the number of arrests, but on the lack of crime.
Above all else, an effective authority figure knows trust and accountability are paramount.

The Peelian (Police) Principles are:

The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insuffiicent.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The test of police efficiency is the abscence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

Some authors claim there is no evidence that Peel ever actually authored such a list, and that it was constructed by later, 20th century authors writing about Peel.

Corn Laws

The most notable act of Peel's second ministry, however, was the one that would bring it down. This time Peel moved against the landholders by repealing the Corn Laws, which supported agricultural revenues by restricting grain imports. This radical break with Conservative protectionism was connected with the Great Irish Famine (1845-1849). At first sceptical of the extent of the problem, Peel reacted slowly to the famine(?) Some claim that Peel was an intellectual convert to free trade since the 1820s.

Repeal of the Corn Laws

Some background on the Corn Laws: a Corn Law was first introduced in Britain in 1804, when the landowners, who dominated Parliament, sought to protect their profits by imposing a duty on imported corn. During the Napoleonic Wars, it had not been possible to import corn from Europe. This led to an expansion of British wheat farming and to high bread prices.

Farmers feared that when the war came to end in 1815, the importation of foreign corn would lower prices. This fear was justified and the price of corn reached fell from 126. 6d a quarter in 1812 to 65s.7d three years later. British landowners applied pressure on members of the House of Commons to take action to protect the profits of the farmers. Parliament responded by passing a law permitting the import of foreign wheat free of duty only when the domestic price reached 80 shillings per quarter (8 bushels). During the passing of this legislation, Parliament had to be defended by armed troops against a large angry crowd.

This legislation was hated by the people living in Britain's fast-growing towns who had to pay these higher bread prices. The industrial classes saw the Corn Laws as an example of how Parliament passed legislation that favored large landowners. The manufacturers in particular was concerned that the Corn Laws would result in a demand for higher wages.

In 1828, William Huskisson sought to relieve the distressed caused by the high price of bread by introducing a sliding scale of duties according to price. A trade depression in 1839 and a series of bad harvests created a great deal of anger towards the Corn Laws. The Irish famine caused people to rethink this, and eventually Peel was won over and the Corn Law was repealed.

Mossadegh Project

2007-10-27T22:31:00.001-07:00

Mohammad Mossadegh was born June 16, 1882 in Tehran. His father, Mirza Hedayat Ashtiani, was Iran's Finance Minister, and his mother, Najm al-Saltaneh, was closely related to the ruling Qajar dynasty. He lost his father at age 10 after which the monarch Nasir al-Din Shah gave him the title "Mossadegh al-Saltaneh". He was left to be raised by his mother, an uncommonly socially conscious woman who once told him: "A person's worth in society is dependent on how much one endures for the sake of the people".

http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/biography/

Liberty Gun Rights

2007-10-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

Good Web site:

http://libertygunrights.com/

Cardinal Bea Interfaith Award

2007-09-13T20:05:00.001-07:00

Look up who cardinal bea was, and his relation (a) to Vatican adn (b) to ADL

Behind the Dictators

2007-08-15T23:38:00.000-07:00

Book written in 1944 that you should read.

More Latin Stuff..

2007-08-02T16:01:00.001-07:00

omnis vitae consortium ==> total life relationship;

cantor formularum

2007-08-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

cantor formularum --> (Cicero) singer of formulas;

Giuliani Stole Widow's Money

2007-07-27T12:51:00.001-07:00

Interesting References on Eugenics

2007-07-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

The Pigeon, by Wendell Levi (who was exposing it):

http://www.amazon.com/Pigeon-Wendell-M-Levi/dp/0910876010

Allen W. Eckert

About attacking the Native Americans.

Henry Hub

2007-07-09T23:28:00.001-07:00

Henry Hub is the pricing point for natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). It is a point on the natural gas pipeline system in Erath, Louisiana. It is owned by Sabine Pipe Line LLC.

It interconnects with nine interstate and four intrastate pipelines: Acadian, Columbia Gulf Transmission, Gulf South Pipeline, Bridgeline, NGPL, Sea Robin, Southern Natural Pipeline, Texas Gas Transmission, Transcontinental Pipeline, Trunkline Pipeline, Jefferson Island, and Sabine. The two compressor stations can compress 520,000 decatherm/d (6.3 GW) . The transportation capacity is 1.8 billion ft³/d (bcf) (590 m³/s) (20.4 GW) (Sabine Pipe Line, LLC, 2000).

Spot and future prices set at Henry Hub are denominated in $/mmbtu (millions of British Thermal Units) and are generally seen to be the primary price set for the North American natural gas market. North American unregulated wellhead and burnertip natural gas prices are closely correlated to those set at Henry Hub.

Environmental Agenda

2007-06-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

LOST has long had the support of environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council;
World Peace Through Law Center (also supports LOST);

Classic Movies

2007-06-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

(*) Battle for Algiers (classic movie)
(*) The Abyss

War Profiteers

2007-06-22T15:23:00.001-07:00

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and United Technologies, Haliburton and Bechtel

Interesting Web Site

2007-06-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas

Able Warrior

2007-06-19T12:56:00.001-07:00

Were these the French riots

Admirality (not many people understand it)

2007-06-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court of the Untied States has declared:

To the extent that admiralty procedure differs from civil procedure, it is a mystery to mot trial and appellate judges, and to the non-specialist lawyer who finds himself-sometimes to his surprise - involved in a case cognizable only on the admiralty Aside of the court. Admiralty practice, said Mr. Justice Jackson, is a unique system of substantive laws and procedures with which members of the Court are singularly deficient in experience.” Black Diamond S.S. Corp. V. Steward & Sons, 336 U.S. 386, 403, 69 S.Ct. 622, 93L.Ed 754 (1949) (dissenting opinion).

Is it any wonder that the State Courts do not have any concept of Admiralty process when they rule against you in favor of the purchaser of the IRS tax lien, in Quiet Tile action? Note, more on this latter.

“The Federal District courts are the accustomed forum in which actions in admirable are tried and in the absence of some special reason therefore no effect should be made to divert this type of litigation to judges less experience in the filed” Calmar S.S. Corp. V. United States, 345, US 446, 97 L.Ed 1140, 73 S.Ct. 733.

Without Prejudice Explained

2007-06-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

For "ZIP Code Addresses Explained"

2. My use of the term "without prejudice, UCC 1-207" in
connection with my signature on this document, or any prior
document or instrument, indicates that I have exercised the
remedy provided for me in the Uniform Commercial Code, Article I,
Section 207, whereby I have reserved my natural and common law
right not to be compelled to perform under any contract,
commercial agreement, or bankruptcy that I did not enter
knowingly, voluntarily and intentionally, and reserved all other
Uniform Commercial Code and common law remedies. It also
indicates that I do not intend to ratify any fraudulently induced
contract by continued acceptance of the benefits thereof.
Furthermore, it notifies all administrative agencies of
government that I do not and will not accept the liability
associated with the compelled benefit of any unrevealed contract,
commercial agreement or bankruptcy.

Schwartzaneggar and the Prussian Deathshead

2007-06-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

Picture of Arnold on cover of Time Magazine:

Look at his belt buckle. Looks like the same skull & crossbones that was used by the Prussian death cult (i.e., the Prussian Deathshead). Below is a Prussian Deathshead used by Hitler's SS:

Banque de Rothschld

2007-06-15T23:29:00.001-07:00

Mitterand nationalized this bank in about 1981.

You may want to research this at some point..

More Monarch

2007-06-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

6:

7:

8:

10a:

10b:

10c:

Monarch

2007-06-14T10:04:00.001-07:00

1:

2:

3a:

3b:

3c:

4b:

5a:

5b:

The Korean Candidate

2007-06-14T09:32:00.001-07:00

Webster G. Tarpley on the Korean shooter at Virginia Tech:

Armenian Genocide

2007-06-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

audio file

video

Tom Cryer on the Federal Income Tax

2007-06-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

Zagros Fold Oil Belt

2007-06-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

source

Iranian Soldier Watches Abadan Burning

2007-06-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

Abadan is close to the Iraqi border and was the scene of numerous fights during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88); the photo alleges that it was taken on 27 Sep 1990, but I'm not sure this makes sense; it's after the Iran-Iraq war and before US-led Gulf War I;

Mossadegh/Shah Films

2007-06-10T23:52:00.001-07:00

Mossadegh at the Hague Court, 1951

Mossadegh nationalizes

1953: Mossadegh ousted, Shah returns to rule Iran

Kermit Roosevelt in Iran

2007-06-10T23:34:00.000-07:00

Kermit Roosevelt (1916-2000)

Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Pres. Teddy Roosevelt and a distant cousin to Pres. FDR, was the mastermind of CIA Operation Ajax, which orchestrated a coup against Mohammed Mossadegh and returned Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran's Peacock Throne. By th early 1950s, Kermit was a successful senior officer in the CIA's Middle Eastern division. In 1951 the Iranian parliament under the leadership of Mossadegh, voted unanimously to nationalize the oil industry. Slipped across the border under (June 19, 1953) under CIA cover of "James Lockridge" The coup initially failed and the Shah feld to Iran. The head of the CIA station in Iran preferred to resign rather than participate in the coup. Note that the Dulles Brothers had worked for Sullivan and Cromwell, a prominent law firm that represented Standard Oil of NJ. Standard had wanted to gain interests in Iran for many years but AIOC had a monopoly on the region.

More info: democracy now

Third Stage

2007-06-10T18:56:00.001-07:00

Howard Zinn Commenting on Government Lies

2007-06-10T13:35:00.001-07:00

2007-06-08T23:16:00.001-07:00

This is going to push the edge of the kind of content I've posted here before, but there's simply too much fascinating information here not to make reference to it. Interesting set of interviews that explore interesting correlations between Hitler, the Nazis and Zionism:

Full Interview

Part 1

Part II

Part III

Video Link

The reason for posting is not incite any kind of hatred or racism, but this is an extremely interesting historical point of view.

Ron Paul's Reading List for Giuliani

2007-06-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

Available Here

Includes such titles as:

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
The 9/11 Commission Report

Ron Paul / Reagan Pics

2007-06-08T17:15:00.001-07:00

More Ron Paul Stats

2007-06-07T16:03:00.001-07:00

Again, Ron Paul is the clear winner coming out of the most recent debate:

Ron Paul on John Stewart Daily Show

2007-06-07T00:50:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul Stands Out

2007-06-07T00:41:00.001-07:00

More info about how much Ron Paul is standing out:

Ron Paul wins the debate again (CNN)

2007-06-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul wins the debate again w/ 56%:

The Social Security "Trust" Fund

2007-05-20T00:33:00.001-07:00

Every man, woman and child in America is a trust-fund baby.

Well, perhaps not every last man, woman and child. There may still be a common law freeman running around on the loose, here and there, somewhere in America. But by and large, the vast majority of Americans out there (including the author) are trust fund babies[1] born into one of the most pervasive systems of financial manipulation and control (and ultimately, enslavement) in world history: Social Security.

To paraphrase the famous Biblical quote, the foregoing may require wisdom to understand (Rev 13:18, 17:9), and it’s our purpose to help impart some of that wisdom in this series of articles. In fact, the Bible makes an excellent place from which to launch our investigations into the subject, as the U.S. media seems to go to considerable length to paint those who object to the SSN as religious “nuts and zealots,” completely detached from all sense of logic and reason. It is true, the Bible takes a thoroughly dim view of government census-taking (2 Sam 24, Luke 2:1), numbering (Rev 13:17-18), taxation (Judges 6:11, Matt 17:24-27, Matt 22:15-22), etc. But for those who truly understand the legal mechanics behind Social Security, their vehement opposition to the system extends far, far beyond mere religious or moral grounds. The $44 trillion monster [2] that is Social Security strikes at (and largely destroys) the very heart of freedom, liberty and the American character, for reasons we shall soon see.

First let’s review what a trust actually is, in legal terms. The essence of all trusts is divided title to property.[3] [4] Most people are familiar with the concept of “full” title to property, also known as “lawful”, “complete” or “perfect” title. This is – in essence – what is meant when one talks about owning a house, car, etc, “free and clear.” It means that title to the property is held in full by one person, and the title-holder maintains full legal control (and responsibility for) the property, including the right to use, control and dispose of the property. Many people believe that this is the only form of title which exists. It is not.

For instance, a man who owns a home free and clear (i.e., he has “full title” to it) may decide to limit his liability in the property by dividing his title and placing it into a trust. Should he decide to do so, the title to the home will be split between trustee – who will retain legal control over the property and the right to dispose of that property – and the beneficiary – who will enjoy the privileges of using that property, but who will have no right of control over it.

How many times have you heard the government talking to you about the various “privileges” it is “willing” to extend to you? Like the “privilege” of driving?[5] Or the “privilege” of operating a business? Or the “privilege” of hunting or fishing? All of which are activities that generally speaking – in the United States, at any rate – require a State-issued “license” of some sort (there are many more examples than just these). The key point here being that a license is defined as “a permission, accorded by a competent authority, conferring the right to do some act which without such authorization would be illegal, or would be a trespass or a tort.” [6]

So how did America degrade into a condition where driving down a road, owning and operating a business, etc, all required some sort of special “permission” from a government technocrat? Is this “freedom”?

Returning back to our example of the home placed into a trust, once the home is in the trust, the original “perfect” title to the property is divided into two sub-components (i.e., “sub-titles”): legal title and equitable title. Legal title includes the rights of actual control and disposal of trust property. Equitable title includes the right of possession and use of trust property. The difference between legal and equitable title is similar to the difference between a landlord and a tenant: the landlord owns the house and has legal right to control and dispose (i.e., sell) the property if he desires. The tenant has the equitable right to live in, use and “possess” the house. Yet although the tenant lives in the house, he has no legal right to tear down walls or sell the property.

When a trust is created, one or more trustees are appointed to hold legal title to the property, and one or more beneficiaries are appointed to actually utilize the property in some way. The trustees effectively manage the property, while the beneficiaries enjoy the privileges associated with the use of it. It’s a hard and fast rule that trustees cannot enjoy the benefits of trust property, and beneficiaries cannot exercise any real control (i.e., ownership) over trust property. Whenever a single person holds both the legal title and the equitable title to a trust property, the “sub-titles” are once again re-united into a single “perfect” title, the trust is said to be “executed” and it ceases to exist.

[ To read more, subscribe to my new newsletter, the King's Bench Letter ]

[1] Does this explain the seemingly spoiled character of many Americans?J

[2] $44 trillion is probably a low estimate of Social Security’s total cost.

[3] It pays to pause for a moment and realize that the essence of all Communism is merely a simple variation on this theme: division of title to property amongst an entire community viz the instrument of the State; this will be of the utmost importance to understand when we come back to talking about the role Social Security plays in Communist Amerika.

[4] “The only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism”

-- George Orwell, 1984.

And in case you haven’t noticed yet, it’s the financial oligarchs who are the ones in control of the general consolidation towards socialism, fascism, Communism, etc (i.e., collectivism under any color or stripe); not the useful left-wing “reformers” who are little more than their unwitting servants.

[5] Some court cases reaffirming the fact that driving is a right, and not a government-granted privilege, include: Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 169 NE 22, Thompson v. Smith, 154 SE 579, Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 125, Schactman v. Dulles, 96 App. D.C., 287, 293.

[6] Black’s Law, 2^nd edition.

Debt-Based Banking

2007-04-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Watching the famous Money Masters video..

I saw it before years ago..

Get something new out of it each time I watch.

Something new this time: the U.S. has been using debt-based banking since the Civil War (i.e., 1864).

Some good quotes:

"The financial system ... has been turned over to ... the Federal Reserve Board. That board administers the finance system by authority of ... a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money."
-- Congressman Lindbergh

"We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board ... This evil institution has impoverished ... the people of the United States .. and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through ... the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."
-- Louis T. McFadden

"Most Americans have no real understanding of the international moneylenders ... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and ... manipulates the credit of the United States."
-- Barry Goldwater.

Know Your Enemy: E.H. Harriman and Union Pacific

2007-04-05T18:13:00.001-07:00

Previously had blogged a little bit about E.H. Harriman, and how he was helped in taking over the Union Pacific Railroad by the likes of Rockefeller and Kuhn Loeb & Co's British-affiliated private bankers, such as Otto Kahn, Jacob Schiff and Felix Warbug. Harriman gained control of the railroad in 1898.

E.H. Harriman, who in addition to Union Pacific also
controlled Southern Pacific, the Saint Joseph and
Grand Island, the Illinois Central, the Central of Georgia,
the Pacific Mail Streamship Company and the Wells
Fargo Express Company

William Rockefeller, treasurer of Standard Oil and brother of Standard founder John D. Rockefeller owned National City Bank ("Citibank") together with Texas-based James Stillman. In return for their backing, E.H. Harriman deposited in City Bank the vast receipts from his railroad lines. When he issued tens of millions of dollars of "watered" (fraudulent) railroad stock, Harriman sold most of the shares through the Kuhn Loeb company.

Samuel P. Bush, father of Prescott, grandfather of
George H.W., and great grandfather of G.W.

WWI would elevate Prescott Bush + his father, Samuel P. Bush, into the lower ranks of the Eastern Establishment. As war loomed in 1914, National City Bank began reorganizing the U.S. arms industry. Percy A. Rockefeller took direct control of the Remington Arms Company, appointing his man as the CEO of Remington.

The Rockefellers seized direct control of
the Remington Arms Company in 1914

The U.S. entered the war in 1917. In the spring of 1918, Prescott's father - Samuel P. Bush - became the chief of Ordinance, Small Arms and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board. The senior Bush took national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with Remington and other weapons companies. (Sam) Bush's entire background up until this point had been in in the railroad business; he was president of the Buckeye Steel Castings Co in Columbus Ohio prior to this; the makers of railcar parts. His entire career had been in the munitions business.

Winston Churchill and Bernard Baruch

The War Industries Board - in turn - was run by Bernard Baruch - a Wall Street speculator with close personal + business ties to old E. H. Harriman. Baruch's brokerage firm had handled a lot of speculation for Harriman in the past. In 1918, Samuel Bush became director of the Facilities Division of the War Industries Board. Prescott's father reported to the Board's Chairman, Bernard Baruch, and to Baruch's assistance: Wall Street private banker Clarence Dillon.

Robert S. Lovett, President of Union Pacific Railroad, chief counsel to EH Harriman and executor of his will, was in charge of national production and purchase "priorities" for Baruch's board. With the war mobilization conducted under the supervision of the War Industries Board, U.S. consumers and taxpayers showered unprecedented fortunes on war producers and certain holders of raw materials. Hearings in 1934 by the committee of U.S. Senator Gerald Nye attacked the "Merchants of Death" - war profiteers such as Remington Arms (controlled by the Rockefellers) and the British Vickers company -- whose salesmen had manipulated many nations into wars; and then supplied all sides w/ the weapons to fight them.

The Remington Arms Company, controlled by Percy Rockefeller, had supplied:

millions of arms to Czarist Russia;
1/2 of the small-arms ammunitions used by the Anglo-Americans in WWI;
69% of the rifles used by the U.S. in that conflict;

Sam Bush continued his relationship w/ these businessmen after WWI, something that would aid especially his son Prescott in his service to the Harriman family.

Declaration of Interdependence

2007-03-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Earlier I blogged about the Declaration of Interpedence signed by 124 U.S. Congressmen on behalf of the World Affairs Council to strengthen and promote the (treasonous) United Nations. In fact, there was an earlier version of that document produced in 1937 on a national scale amongst the Several States, to consolidate power and control at the federal level during the financial reorganization known to history as the Great Depression.

Quoting from Dan Meador:

The following Declaration of Intergovernmental Dependence was signed in Washington, D.C., by representatives of State and local governments on January 22, 1937. It is published on pages 143 & 144 in The Book of the States, 1937 edition, Volume II. This Declaration of Intergovernmental Dependence, along with versions signed in 1935 and 1976, laid the institutional foundation for what today is formally known as Cooperative Federalism (New York vs. United States, et al (1992) 505 U.S. __, 120 L.Ed.2d 120, 112 S.Ct. 2408), a system that employs a third, hidden government tier as the vehicle by which public servants of all stripes operate outside and beyond powers enumerated in applicable constitutions:

"Declaration of Interdependence of the Governments within the United States of America in Common Council Signed January 22, 1937, at Washington, D.C.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a nation to repair the fabric which unites its many agencies of government, and to restore the solidarity which is vital to orderly growth, it is the duty of responsible officials to define the need and to find a way to meet it.

A way does not come of itself. The maintenance of just and efficient government is as intricate, as arduous, and as imperative as any human endeavor. One hundred and fifty years ago our forefathers faced their necessity and formed a new union. They found a way.

And from that beginning in 1787 sprang history's finest example of the democratic form of government -- a government dedicated to the preservation of every man's endowment of life, liberty, and happiness.

Inevitable changes have come. The fundamental pattern of states united for the benefit of all the people remains the same as it was when the founding fathers wove it. But the far-flung tapestry of our many governments has stretched so taut that the fabric has weakened. The essential thread of coöperation too often is lacking.

Now, for the first time since the memorable day when the form of our Constitution was determined, official delegates of the states are gathered together with representatives of their local governments, as good neighbors, seeking to revive the original purpose -- "to form a more perfect union."

It was meant that the states, while creating a nation, should yet preserve their own sovereignties and a maximum of self-government. But now if the claim of states' rights is to prevail, it must be justified by a demonstration of states' competence. When our union was formed, there was no land transportation, nor any remote communication, except by the plodding foot of horse or man. But since that time our society has been revolutionized by the advent of transportation as swift as the wind and of communication more rapid than lightning. Our area has trebled. The number of our people has increased beyond belief.

How have our governments met their mutual problems brought by this modern era?

They have developed a "No Man's Land" of jurisdiction.

In thousands of instances their laws are in conflict, their practices are discordant, their regulations are antagonistic, and their policies are either competitive or repugnant to one another.

In taxation alone, scores of conflicts between federal and state laws exist.

The interstate criminal is a standing headline on Page One of every newspaper.

The forty-eight states pass laws on crime, labor, taxation, relief, corporations, parole, domestic relations, and other questions momentous to our social and economic system, with no thought of harmony. And this discord has been further stitched into our pattern of life by all other agencies possessing the power of legislation.

This is not as it should be.

The trend of federal-state projects, exemplified by social security, demands immediate action if those projects are to succeed completely.

All officials should conduct their own governments properly. But we hold that they must act with earnest regard also to the other units of government. The bonds of good will and the lines of communication which connect our many interdependent governments must be immeasurably strengthened.

Through established agencies of coöperation, through uniform and reciprocal laws and regulations, through compacts under the Constitution, through informal collaboration, and through all other means possible, our nation, our states, and our localities must fuse their activities with a new fervor of national unity.

We, therefore, as representatives of the officers of government here assembled, do solemnly pledge our loyal efforts to the accomplishment of such purposes.

As our forefathers by the Declaration of Independence affirmed their purpose to improve government for us, so do we by this Declaration of Interdependence affirm our purpose to improve government for our contemporaries and for our posterity."

More information available here:

Declaration of Inter-dependence

Fairfax Resolves

2007-03-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

These are the precedents to the Declaration of Independence:

Click here

Read them before you read the Declaration..

Tom Valentine + Fort Knox

2007-03-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Biometrica

2007-03-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

Book from the 1920s concerning the eugenics movement that documents what's currently happening..

McGuffy's Reader

2007-03-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

Great source for teaching a kid how to read:

McGuffy's Reader

Social Security ID

2007-03-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

"Social Security was never meant to be a national ID" ..

A common lament from privacy advocates.

In fact, it's a lie, and it's a (telling) symptom of the Orwellian DoubleThink that we Americans have been programmed to live by since we were incarcerated in government training centers from K-12.

Of course SSN was intended to be a national ID(!)

This kind of double-think is second only to the BBC reporter announcing on Sept 11, 2001 that Bldg 7 had collapsed, even though the skyscraper is still looming large behind her:

Source

Know Your Enemy: Percy Avery Rockefeller

2007-03-04T18:04:00.002-08:00

Percy Avery Rockefeller (1878-1934) was the son of William Rockefeller, and his wife Almira Geraldine Goodsell. He attended Yale from 1897 to 1900, where he was also a member of the 1900 class of Skull & Bones.

Percy Avery Rockefeller,
graudated from Yale in 1900

Some of Rockefeller's corporate interests included Atlantic Fruit Company, Anaconda Copper Mining, Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Cuba Company, Chile Copper Company, W. A. Harriman & Co, Brown Brothers & Company, New York Edison.

He was married to Isabel Goodrich Stillman, daughter of First National City Bank president James Stillman (now known as Citibank) on April 23, 1901. Their daughter Isabel Stillman (Rockefeller) Lincoln was a bride's maid at the wedding of Dorothy Walker and Prescott Sheldon Bush.

So we have a connection between the Rockefellers and the Bushes..

Prescott Bush: the daughter of Percy A. Rockefeller was
in attendence at Bush's marraige as a bride's maid

Now, what's the connection between this Rockefeller and the Harrimans?

William Rockefeller helped E.H. Harriman acquire a
controlling stake in Union Pacific Railroad

Averell Harriman's father, E.H. Harriman, had arranged to purchase control of Union Pacific Railroad in 1898 using credit arranged and prepared for him by William Rockefeller, father of Percy A. Rockefeller. William Rockefeller was the treasurer of Standard Oil and brother of the founder of the Rockefeller fortune, John D. Rockefeller. William Rockefeller also owned National City Bank (later known as Citibank) together with Texas-based James Stillman. In return for their backing, E.H. Harriman deposited into National City Bank the vast receipts from his railroad lines.

Jacob Schiff, of Kuhn Loeb & Co, also arranged credit for
E.H. Harriman to purchase the Union Pacific Railroad

Credit for the deal was also arranged through Kuhn Loeb & Co's British-affiliated private bankers, Otto Kahn, Jacob Schiff and Felix Warburg. When E.H. Harriman issued "watered" (i.e., fraudulent) railroad stock, Harriman sold most of the shares through the Kuhn Loeb company.

So here now have a connection between the Rockefellers and the Harrimans..

Know Your Enemy: Wm. Averell Harriman

2007-03-04T17:21:00.000-08:00

William Averell Harriman was born in New York City (Nov 15, 1891), the son of rairoad baron Edward Henry Harriman and Mary Williamson Averell, and the brother of E. Roland Harriman (Roland entered Yale in 1913, the same year that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the sitting president, entered Yale). Averell graduated from Yale the same year (1913) that his younger brother (Roland) entered the school. While at Yale, Averell Harriman was a member of Yale's notorious Skull and Bones fraternity.

Averell Harriman graces the
August 2, 1963 cover of Time

Averell Harriman served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1943 to 1946, during which time both Bretton Woods (IMF) and the United Nations were set in motion. Other political posts held by Harriman included:

U.S. Secretary of Commerce (under President Truman), where he replaced Herny A. Wallace
He was sent to Tehran in July 1951 to mediate between Persia and Britain in the wake of the Persian nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Compay (later known to history as BP, British Petroleum).
Harriman served as governor of New York State for one term between 1954 and 1958. He was also a candidate (Democratic) for president of the United States both in 1952 and 1956. In the 56 race, Truman endorsed him, but he lost the nomination to Adlai Stevenson.
Harriman was appointed Ambassador at Large in Kennedy administration, a position he held until Nov 1961 (Bay of Pigs?) He was then appointed Assistant Secretary of State for FarEastern Affairs. He remained in that position until April 1963, when he became Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He continued in that position into the Johnson Administration, until he became Ambassador at Large again, a position he would hold for the remainder of the Johnson administration.
Harriman was the chief negotiator (for US) at the Paris peace talks on Vietnam.

Harriamn is also noted for supporting, on behalf of the state department, the coup against Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963.

Globalists Unite! Harriman (center) pictured with
Winston Churchill and Soviet general Vyacheslav
Molotov (Molotov was would later become a founder
of the United Nations)

Harriman is largely the man responsible for starting the Vietnam War.

In 1922, using money from his father, Harriman established W.A. Harriman & Co, a banking business. His brother Roland Harriman joined the business in 1927 and the name was changed to Harriman Brothers. In 1931 they merged with Brown Bros. & Co to create the highly "successful" Brown Brothers Harriman. Notable employees included George Herbert Walked, and his son-in-law Prescott Bush (grandfather of the sitting president).

Yale's Skull and Bones Fraternity

In 1942, the Federal government seized some of Harriman's businesses for Nazi dealings under the Trading with the Enemies Act. Seizures include:

Union Banking Corporation (UBC) (for Thyssen and Brown Brother's Harriman)
Holland-American Trading Corporation (w/ Harriman)
Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation (w/ Harriman)
Silesian-American Corporation

Assets were held by the US government for the during of the war, and returned afterwards. UBC was officially dissolved in 1951.

Are you a Monster? (Part IV)

2007-03-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

Knowledge (Rightly Applied) is Power

Many people have asked me to detail the steps required to finally become free again. Much prayer and thought has gone into this. It is my conviction that the road to personal freedom can be accomplished in three easy steps:

1) Know and understand exactly who you are. Are you a legal fiction and a franchise to be pillaged and plundered, or a man(woman)? If you are a man, then you must allow the fictional persona to die (your name in all capital letters) and then bury it. Never answer to, or recognize this name again. Any property that you may have recorded or registered w/ your fictional name is subject to attack. Take all steps necessary to transfer your property out of the "fictional name". A good trust is a viable option.

Author's note: All "statutes and codes" (colored law) are applicable to "residents" and "persons" only. That is, artificial entities. Public Law (real Law) is rooted in Holy Scripture and applies to men and women. The legal definition of "resident" was given earlier. The shocker comes when we define the word "person". According to statute and code, a "person" is defined as: corporation, franchise, an individual, and (sometimes) a human being (all being artificial entities). One may argue that they are not a corporation, franchise or individual. But surely one must be a "human being," right? For this answer, let's look to Balentine's Law Dictionary (1930):

human being: see monster

OK, let's see "monster".

monster: a human-being by birth, but in some part resembling a lower animal. "A monster hath no inheritable blood, and cannot be hier to any land."

Remember, Holy Scripture tells us that in the beginning Yahweh (God) created man in his image. He did not create corporations, franchises, individuals, human beings or monsters. These are the creations of the State, created in Satan's image.

2) Know what the law is: One is either under Yahweh's (God's) Laws, which stand as Eternal Truth and can never change, or, one is under the thousands of arbitrary and conflicting man-made laws that can and will change on a political whim. Man's laws are in direct conflict w/ God's Laws. Remember: it is a maxim of law that where the laws of Holy Scripture and the laws of man are at variance, the former shall always be obeyed. The choice is totally yours. The government cannot force you to violate Scriptural Law. That's a fact!

3) Know to whom you belong and serve. Either you belong to and serve the Creator, or you belong to and serve the State. You cannot serve two masters.

Liberty and freedom are won on a personal level. Someone else can't do it for you. You must take steps to gain your own freedom through personal education and action. A famous quote says: "the surest way for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." In doing nothing, you will have no cause to complain when evil prevails.

Some Closing Notes

The reader must fully understand the dangers of accepting and using the "fictional name" (name in all capital letters) given as a slave name. To drive the point home so you never forget it, the following questions, answers and explanations are given:

1) Have you ever asked yourself why it is, that you are never allowed to enter a courtroom, as plaintiff or defendent, in "Propria Persona"? Propria Persona (commonly known as "Pro Per") simply means that you are entering the court as the "person in the subject matter." That is, in the flesh, as the man (or woman) named in the plaint: The court may reluctantly allow you to enter the court "Pro Se" (representing the "person in the subject matter"). Or the court will allow an attorney to represent the "person in the subject matter". But never "Pro Per" Why is this?

The reason is because you (the Man) are not the "person in the subject matter". How can a fiction appear in the flesh? The cause of actuion is always against the fiction. This is evident by the way your name is spelled within the court's documentas (in all capital letters). All courts today (in the US) are legal fictions (military courts against civilians) under the Emergency Way Powes Act of March 9, 1933. The courts of today are no longer under the judicial branch of government. They are under the executive branch of government. This is evident by the "gold fringed" flag in every courtroom. A "gold fringed" flag is a military flag (see Title 4, USC 1). The flag serves as notice to all that they are entering a military court. They (the Courts) can only prosecute another legal fiction, except in cases of Common Law crimes such as rape, murder, robbery, and other trespasses.

Defective Service

The trick that the courts use to get you to voluntarily subject yourself to their jurisdiction is by sending out or serving "defective service", "defective warrants", "notices to appear" or similar official sounding papers. "Defective service" smply means that "Due process" of law is not being followed. They are, in all actuality, all invitations.

Defective service (usually associated with victimless crimes) becomes perfected when one answers to the defective service, by voluntarily walking into their court, standing behind the bar, and entering into the "benefits of discussion" with the court. Simply by answering when you name is called is all that it takes.

Military courts do not recognize positive law. Attempting to introduce the Constutition or Holy Scriptures into one of these Admirality courts will swiftly result in being found in "contempt of court". This may be followed by jail time and/or fines.

Due Process of Law

Due process is guaranteed under the Constitution for the united States of America. In order for due process of law to take place, the court must do the following

a) the "person in the subject matter" must be properly named. If you are a Man adn not a legal fiction, this means that your name CANNOT, under any circumstances be spelled in all capital letters or contain initials.

b) the court most issue a summons for your appearance. That summons must be under official court seal and personally signed by the presiding judge (not a court clerk, or worse, w/ no signature which is common).

c) To that summons, must be attached a sworn complaint of a "damaged victim" or "injured party". Without an injured party there can be no crime (tort, trespass). Note: the State cannot claim to be an injured party. The State is a fiction and cannot be damaged. Also, they [the State] have a vested interest in finding you guilty of whatever violation they can dream up to raise revenue, and are therefore biased witnesses against you. The court, the State, and the police all share in the booty (fines, taxes, so-called bail, etc).

d) the summons must then be given to the county sheriff. Then, the sheriff must personally handle and serve the summons upon you.

When all of the above is accomplished, then you MUST appear (you have no choice) or a warrant will be issued for your arrest.

2) You may also ask yourself why it is, that in order to legally change your name, it has to be done through the court system. The reason, is because the name that you are trying to change does not belong to you. It is the name that the system created for you. After all is said and done, you will have accomplished nothing more than getting another "slave name" written in all capital letters. Note: a man's name written in all capital letters is known in closed circles as a "nom de guerre", or war name as translated from its french origins.

Perhaps you may remember the TV-mini-series "Roots" by Alex Haley. The series was about a king from Africa named Kunta Kinte. He was taken captive and brought to America as a slave. His slave master didn't like Kunta Kinte having the name of a king, and was promptly given the name of "Toby" by his new master. This is essentially what has happened to nearly everyone in America. The only difference is that Kunta Kinte did not have a choce. If you have accepted your slave name and carry their ID to confirm it, then it was done so, voluntarily. The fact is, you have the power to change your Lawfully "given" name any time you wish.

Remember, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it surely must be a duck. If you look, walk adn act as a slave the system will treat you accordingly.

I hope that readers don't think that I am suggesting that they change their lawfully "given name". As Big Brother never uses your lawfully "given name", a name change would never be necessary. Each time someone shoves a piece of paper with your name written in all capital letters under your nose, whistles, bells, sirens, and alarms go off. This paper should be rejected, followed by a firm request to spell your name correctly. But of course, they can't and won't do it. Don't believe it? Try it sometime. The government never does ANYTHING by accident.

The information provided herein is for educational purposes only. What the reader does with this information is purely at the reader's discretion. We encourage all readers to do their own research and reach their own conclusions.

(taken from the musings of Donald Merle, house of Lockwood)

Are you a Monster? Part III

2007-03-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

Fiction in Action

In order to get any government privilege or benefit, you must fl out a form and provide false (or hearsay) information. To emphasize this point, the following true story will be related.

John was stopped by the Highway Patrol for having no license plates on his car. After the stop it was also discovered that John did not have a driver's license either. Attempts to interrogate John proved fruitless to the officer. John remained silent except to answer the officer's questions with questions. Frustrated, the officer arrested John and brought him before the local magistrate (judge) to answer for his terrible crimes.

Before being forced to come before the judge, John managed to get some paperwork from his car. The paperwork consisted of more than one hundred court cites (from the Supreme Court on down) clearly stating that a driver's license was only rquired for commercial activity. That is, the transportation of "persons" and property "for hire" (taxi driver, chauffeur, coachman, etc).

The judge looked at John's paperwork, nodded in agreement, and said "Yes, I understand this" The judge then wadded up all of John's papers into a ball and threw them across the courtroom like a spoiled child. He then pointed his finger at John and said: "I don't care what that says, I say, you must have a driver's license and registration." John looked at the judge "Judge I don't want to offend you or this court," he said, "so exactly what is it that this court wants me to do in order to clear up this matter?" "You man, I want you to get a driver's license and registration," said the Judge. "Fine", said John "Let me understand this: if I apply for a driver's license and registration, will that clear up the matter?" The judge nodded, "Yes it will" "OK Judge" said John. "I'll do what this court orders, provided that I don't have to lie in order to get the license or registration. Scriptures say that I cannot bear false witness." "I never asked you to lie." said the Judge. "You have ten days from today to do what the court ordered you to do."

John went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and proceeded to fill out the required forms. He crossed out "First name", "MI" and "Last Name" and wrote "Given name" and "surname" Then he wrote his name in proper English upper and lower case letters. What's your address? asked the form, "general delivery" wrote John. Social Security number? None. Date of birth? Unknown. Are you a Florida resident? No. Are you a U.S. citizen? No.

Explanation:
Name: men and women do not have a first, middle and last name. They have "given names" and "surnames". Anyone claiming to have first, middle and last name is a legal fiction.

Address: You cannot claim to have a street address that belongs to you. The reason being is that when you move you cannot take the address with you. Therefore the address must belong to someone else. The only address (Post) that you own is "general delivery" general delivery is traditionally vested Right. You can receive "general delivery" wherever you go. The only condition is that you must get off your lazy behind and go to the post office to pick up your "post."

No social security number: Even if you think that you have a social security number, think again. The name on the card is not yours (all capital letters) and the numbers is not yours because you did not create it. You can honestly say before any court that you have never been issued a social security number in your name. Another way to prove that the account is not yours, try closing it; it can't be done. If the account were really yours, there would be no problem closing the account and purging the records (like a bank account or insurnace policy).

Date of birth: unknown; Were you conscious when you were born? How do you know (from first hand knowledge) the date on which you were born? Did your mother tell you this date? Did she ever lie to you? (Easter Bunny? Santa Claus?) How about an alleged Birth Certificate? Were you there when this document was created? Did you sign it? The fact is that your "date of birth" is nothing but "hearsay". Everything is hearsay as it applies to you unless you have first hand knowledge of it.

Not a state resident: Resident of a state; res = thing; ident = identified. A thing identified (no longer a man or woman); does the term "resident" apply to you?

Not a U.S. Citizen: The United States is defined as District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Noterhn Marinas Isalnds. The United States (a corporation) is not the same as the "United States of America" (the fifty states). Claiming to be a U.S. Citizen (voluntarily) makes you a corporate-political "citizen subject" and "person" under the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States of America.

John completed the application(s) and gave them to a clerk (clone), who promptly told John that his application(s) had been denied. John called the supervisor over and explained his situation. "I have to get a driver's license + registration," he said. "It's a court order." "We'd like to compy, but you are simply not eligible," the supervisor replied. "You are not a Florida resident and you have no social security number. We cannot issue you a license." "I don't tihnk the judge will believe that I tried to get a license." John said. "Will you write a short note to explain why I was denied?" The supervisor agreed and wrote a note explaining the reasons why John was denied. John returned to the court with the note from the DMV and his rejected application forms. "Judge" he said, "I tried my very best to comply with this court's order to get a driver's license and registration and here are the results of my efforts." The judge reviewed the paperwork and said "Fine! That's all I ever asked you do to... Now, get the hell out of my court!"

Scriptures teach us that if your adversaires want you to walk one mile, walk two; and if they want your cloak, give them your tunic as well. Remember, the Law does not require impossibilities. You will find that no matter what your public servants order you to do, tell the truth, and you will simply be ineligible. The law can only mandate performance on artifical entities. If their laws apply to you (man or woman) then they must make a provision to make you eligible (w/o telling a lie, or forcing you into a condition of peonage and involuntarily servitude which is prohibited in all fifty states). Allowing others to identify you can be deadly when claiming your natural Rigths. If you feel that you must carry some form of identification, then create it yourself or have it made to your specifications. Only the "Creator" is above the authority of a natural man. Holy Scriptures make it very clear that you cannot serve God and mammon (two masters).

qui non negat fatetur

2007-03-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

He who does not deny, admits.

A maxim of a law, and a powerful one. Important to always bear in this in mind when entering into contracts. Another way of putting it: an unrebutted affidavit stands as truth in commerce (1 Pet 2:15, Heb. 6:13-15).

Chinese control of US food imports

2007-02-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

Red Communist China controls roughly 27% of all U.S. food imports, through one of three channels:

Panama Canal
Port of Long Beach
Direct food exports

Communist China

Not a great place to be in ...

Five Commandments of the Bubble Economy

2007-02-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

Get out of real estate
Get out of stocks
Get out of long term, long interest bonds
Get out of adjustable rate loans
Do not depend upon fixed-income pension plans

Mind Boggling Facts about the IRS

2007-02-18T23:10:00.000-08:00

The Gettysburg Address is 269 words; the Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words; the Holy Bible is ~773,000 words; the Internal Revenue Code has grown from 11,400 words in 1913 to about 7 million words today
There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions
Even the easiest form, the 1040E, has 33 pages of instructions, and all in fine print.
The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth;
Nearly 300,000 tress are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.
American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year; more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.
The burden of compliance is the equivalent to a staff of 3 million people working full time for a year, just to comply with the taxes on individuals and businesses;
The IRS employs 114,000 people, 2x as many as the CIA and 5x as many as the FBI.
60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.
Federal income taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing, and shelter combined.

Chronology of Events for IRS/BATF/SS

2007-02-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

FDR rams Federal Alcohol Administration Act through Congress (27 USC, Ch. 8)
Supreme Court strikes down FAA (29 Aug 1935)
Congress amends the Carlisle Act & Moves FAA to Puerto Rico (Carlisle Act)
Congress passes the "Victory Tax" during WWII; tax collected on Form 1040 by Bureau of Internal Revenue, Puerto Rico. They keep sending out 1040s to (1st) federal employees; (2nd) civil servants; (3rd) teachers, etc. (Victory Tax Act)
"BIR" becomes "IRS" by a stroke of a pen from acting Secretary of the Treasury (7/7/53, TO 150-06)
"IRS" is split into two functions: "IRS" and "BATF" by another stroke of the pen from acting Secretary of the Treasury (6/6/72, TO 120-01)
"IRS" administers taxes on alcohol, tobacco & firearms;
"BATF" assess, collects and enforces Taxes on alcohol, tobacco & firearms;
The "IRS" and "BATF" are not separate taxing authorities; they are simply sections of the FAA in Puerto Rico;
The real name of the "IRS/BATF" is the Federal Alcohol Administration of Puerto Rico.

Are You a Monster? (Part II)

2007-02-18T18:24:00.000-08:00

The majority of people in the world carry IDs cards issued or granted by others. This allows the issuing agency to create the persona and the lawful standing of the individual carrying the identification. It is an established maxim in Common Law that the "created" can never be greater than the "creator."

Although most people carry ID cards, they have absolutely no foundation in law whatsoever. There is no law written that makes it mandatory for anyone to carry any type of ID.

The only time anyone is required to have ID is to access so-called privileges and benefits granted by the issuing party. If you have no need for special privileges and benefits granted by others, there is no need for an ID card. Bear in mind that the government has nothing to give. It produces nothing. In order to bestow a special privilege or benefit on one person, the government must first take from another. All those who recieve privileges, benefits and handouts from government (money from another, that is not earned) are doing nothing more than robbing their neighbor by legal plunder. No matter what type of ID(s) you carry, one thing is for sure: you did not issue it yourself. You willfully applied for the ID hoping to receive some type of special privilege or benefit granted by the authority.

Rights and Privileges

For clarity it is necessary to define the difference between natural Rights, which are unalienable and not within the power of government to grant, and privileges and benefits, which clearly are. Natural Rights include (but are not limited to) the right to: contract, work, get married, use public roads (liberty of movement), own property, open a business, choose your own destiny, worship, defend yourself, etc. Privileges and benefits may include any activity that gives the beneficiary a special advantage not usually granted to the general public. These special advantages are usually granted by way of a license or permit. A license is defined as "permission given by a competent authority to do something that would otherwise be unlawful." The question is, do you, as most people believe, need permission (license and permit) to contract, work, get married, use the public roads (libetry of movement), own property, open a business, choose their own destiny, worship, defend themselves, etc? The answer is ... you don't. That is unless you voluntarily, by your own free will and volition, apply for, are granted and accept the fictitious privilege or benefit being offered. Thereby placing yourself into a state of "involuntary servitude."

By way of endorsing this fact, the Constitution of the United States of America clearly states that the condition of "involuntary" servitude shall forever be prohibited. The key word here is "involuntary." This means that your natural Rights cannot be converted to privileges (without your consent), and privileges cannot be converted to Rights (without consent of the authority).

From Fact to Fiction

Althugh there are many types of identification, the most common are the driver license, passport, social security card, birth certificate, and employee ID. Lesser forms of ID may be government ID (federal, state, municipal), student cards, credit cards, military discharge/separation, select service registration, union memberships, professional licenses, marriage certificates, baptismal, etc. There are many more. Several peculiar things happen when you voluntarily apply for and accept identifying documents from government or government-created entities. They are:

Name change: your persona changes to a legal fiction with no persona (as a man or woman) standing in judicio (in court) whatsoever. This is accomplished by changing your lawfully "given name" (appellation) to that of a legal fiction. That legal fiction is represented by your name spelled in all capital letters, and may include initials. All government and corporate entities currently issuing ID cards today are legal fictions. They only exist on paper. They do not die (like a man or woman), they live in perpetuity. Therefore, when you are identified by a "legal fiction", you must become a legal fiction as well. Remember the "created" can never be greater than the "creator."
Creates a Nexus: a "nexus" is defined as a connection; tie, link. A connected series or group, a joining, fastening; to bind. That is, a firm legal attachment has been made between you and the issuing party. By carrying a state-issued ID card you are placed "within" the issuing state as a "resident" of the State. Res = thing; ident = identified. A thing identified (no longer a man or woman).
Forms an adhesion contract or agreement: The distinctive feature of an adhesion contract or agreement is that the weaker party has no realistic choice as to the terms. An example of an adhesion contract is when you voluntarily apply for and receive a driver's license. Once the driver's license has been issued, the licensee is legally bound by the vehicle code. You, the applicant have voluntarily converted your right to use the public roads (as a motorist) into a privileged activity (as a driver).

Who is the Boss?

All power rests with the People. After all, it is the People who created government in the first place. Since the "created" cannot be greater than the "creator", it must follow that the government is something less than the "creator" adn must by its very nature be the "creator's" servant. This is true until you voluntarily allow the servant to be your master. Which is what most people have done to themselves. Made public servants their masters. The government cannot do anything for you or against you without your consent. Your consent is either given in writing, by what you say (verbal consent), or by your silence (acquiescence). A maxim of law says: "the law does not require impossibilities." Another maxim is: "where the Laws of Holy Scripture and the laws of man are at variance, the former shall always be obeyed." A maxim of law is something that has been ruled on so many times that it is a firmly established truth, and is no longer up for debate.

More soon..

Are You a Monster? (Part I)

2007-02-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

The given (Christian) name does not include the last (family, or surname) name.

Research seems to indicate that surnames (at least in the English tradition) only came into being when the King's Exchequer wanted to increase revenue because the given names allowed so many "John Henry"s to escape the tax man. So in order to make certain that all the "subjects" were to pay the King , it was decreed that all people were to be given a surname. So some of the "John Henry"s became "Smith", others became "Carpenter", and so on.

Court of Exchequer

Donald Merle (House of Lockwood) has investigated the laws of identification, and reveals how governments re-create their citizens are fictional entities, thereby holding power over them and their destinies. The author observes, in American today (and worldwide) we are taxed, licensed, regulated, monitored, attacked, robbed, jailed and spied on more than at any time in our history. The worst part is that it is all being done to us by the very goverment that claims it was established for our "protection". The fact that nearly all of our rights, privileges, and immunities have been gradually taken away is now self-evident. Freedom and liberty are now nothing more than illusions in our land. That and that a more appropirate name for it would be "The United Slaves of Amerika".

Any American who has gone to great lengths to divorce himself and his assets from the clutches of Big Brother may discover that no matter how resourceful and inventive he has been with his offshore pursuits, his identity, as recorded by the country of birth and/or citizenship, remains his Achilles Heel until he successfully dis-associates himself from his identity as a fictional entity.

The identification of individuals has been with us for centuries. Your identity may represent your position of honor, status or standing among other men and women. You can be self-identified or identified by others. If you are self-identified, it is usually accomplished by reputatin, occupation, noble deeds, character, etc. Being self-identified carries a natural place of honor (or dishonor) among peers. You are either honor, trustworthy, and of good character, or you are not. In other words, the reputatin, honor and identification of a good and lawful man or woman, precedes them. They are known for who they are and what they stand for. This form of identification, at its best, is accomplished by a lot of hard work, and by adhering to the highest standards of ethics and moral character.

ID Card for a United Slave of Amerika

In contrast, you can be identified by others of so-called higher standard (liege lord). To be identified by others doesn't necessarily require adhering to the highest standards of ethics and moral character. When you are identified by another, the one being identified usually loses their own unique identity, and forms an adhesion (and lesser standing) with the one doing the identifying. Identifiers can include: ID cards, brands, tattoos, badges, images, insignia, sealed scrolls, medallions, clothing, titles, etc. A typical example of this is a Mayor of a city appointing a Chief of Police. The one being appointed, Chief of Police, need not be qualified or of good character. The only requirement is that it is within the Mayor's power to do so (for whatever reason).

The Corporate Preatorean Guard

2007-02-07T18:38:00.000-08:00

In ancient Rome, the Praetorian Guard were a special force of bodyguards used by Roman Emperors. Before their use by the emperors, they were used by Roman generals as well; their use dates back to at least to the Scipio family in 275 BC. Constantine I dissolved the Guard in the 4th century.

The Praetorian Guard of Emperor Augustus

We have, in recent years, witnessed the rebirth of a new Praetorian Guard, this time wearing three-piece business suits and cloaking their questionable actions behind the corporate veil. Companies supplying military contractors are the third largest contributor to forces in Iraq, behind the U.S. and U.K; proof that private armies are big business.

Blackwater Mercs killed in Fallujah
as part of an intelligence psy-op

The most well-known of the bunch is privately held Blackwater USA, a secretive outfit run by a former Navy SEAL that hires commandos from as far away as Chile, Bosnia and the Philippines, to fight U.S. wars and protect U.S. diplomats. When four of its men lost their lives in an unusually savage attack in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah three years ago, a spotlight was cast on the nasty business of private security forces. Since then, the attention has receded and the influence of the private merc companies has grown.

As the number of U.S. military personnel has fallen to around 1.5 million lately from around 3 million in 1970, the amount of money spent by the Pentagon on military operations has risen at a 6% annual rate from less than $50 billion to a bit more than $150 billion, adjusted for inflation. Much of the differential is being spent on outsourced services, and that is why independent personnel contractors -- a handful of which are publicly traded -- have become more important than ever.

Old School Contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT)

Old School Contractor General Dynamics (GD)

Among the private mercenary armies, the most notorious is DynCorp International, which has 14,000 people working in 35 countries. DynCorp has been around for five decades, starting as a U.S. Air Force logistics and mission support provider in California, and then progressing through a series of mergers into an international provider of defense and aerospace services. In 2003, the company was acquired by major Pentagon information technology provider Computer Services but then it was, in rapid succession, sold to defense-focused private equity firm Veritas Capital and then spun out as a separate company in an IPO last May.

DynCorp has recently entered into a joint venture in which it is the lead partner, winning a massive $4.6 billion contract to provide translation services in Iraq. Its new Global Linguistics Solutions division, in conjunction with privately held McNeil Technolgies, will be a major contributor to the company's 2008 earnings. The contract is renewable in 20 quarterly installments, and calls for DynCorp to provide 6,000 translations in Iraq and up to 1,000 additional U.S. citizens who speak various Arab and Persian dialects to the U.S. Army and other government agencies.

Other companies in the private, contract army include:

Arotech (leading supplier of armor to Israeli Defense Forces)
ManTech International (security services to the military in Iraq)
KBR, Inc unit of Halliburton
Blackwater USA (runs training camps at a 6,000 acre facility in North Carolina)

U.S. Media Lies and Distortions

2006-12-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

Quick comparison between the Newsweek covers for Oct 2, 2006 between Europe, Asia, Latin America and the U.S.:

* One (International version) is about how the US is losing in Afghanistan
* One (US version) is about Brittney Spears

Not much commentary needed, imho..

Phrygian Caps of Liberty

2006-12-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder why we have so many problems with Nicaragua and El Salvador?

Think it could have something to do with their Phrygian Caps of Liberty?

Coat of Arms, Nicaragua

Coat of Arms, El Salvador

Notice the little red caps in the middle of the coats of arms of each country.

Colombia also flies one:

Coat of Arms, Colombia

Pax Americana

2006-11-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

Places where the US military has troops stationed:

Click image for larger view

Ever wonder why Iran / NK / Sudan get so much attention in the media?

I wonder what ever happened to Qaddafi over in Libya?

Mexican Silver Belt

2006-11-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

Interested in what kind of natural resources Mexico has?

(click picture for larger version)

MAG Properties is a Canadian firm that does a lot of exploration in Mexico, looking for silver.

Eisenhower Carrier Group Sets Sail for Iran

2006-10-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Eisenhower Carrier Group set sail for the waters off Iran on Oct 2, 2006. It is expected to arrive in the Persian Gulf around Oct 21, roughly the same time as a second flotilla of minesweepers and other ships.

USS Eisenhower

The carrier is sent to the Persian Gulf along with a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and a supply ship. The Eisenhower is a strike group armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles:

Tomahawk Cruise Missile

Iran and the Persian Gulf

More information available here:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/14573

as well as here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15170.htm

The CPI Lie

2006-09-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

"Last year, if you did not eat, drive to work, heat your home, visit a doctor, buy a house, buy insurance of any kind, have a child in college, pay any state or property taxes, then your cost of living agrees w/ the goverment's Cost of Living index"
-- Cylde Harrison

Inflation is the government gift that just keeps on giving, and giving, and giving..

Despite that the central planners in Washington would have you think, true inflation is really monetary inflation. When the Federal Reserve increases the M3 money supply by 40% from 2000 and 2004, that means you're living (roughly) under about 10% annual inflation.. a good point higher, that is, than the 2-3% range numbers you see from the government's CPI metric. Of course, even in this 3% range, prices will tend to double every 25 years.

The true source of inflation is not greedy consumers, nor avaricious workers, nor price-gouging corporations; rather, it's the central bank itself and the ability it has (and employs) of creating money out of thin air.

One way (of many) in which the CPI is flawed is that it excludes the cost of mortgages, instead tracking the cost of rents. Fed easy credit policies have allowed many Americans who would not have met credit standards 30 years ago to now purchase a mortgage, which in turn diminishes the demand for apartment rentals. With less demand in the rental market comes lowered (or at least "controlled") prices, while the cost of a mortgage of course is skyrocketing.

Reagan campaigned in 1980 on the pledge
of bringing back the gold standard

As per the Reagan campaign pledge above, remember that 1980 was only 9 years after August 15, 1971 when Richard M. Nixon closed the international gold window and brought convertibility into gold for the U.S. dollar to an end. In 1980, there were still those who harbored the faint hope of bringing back that gold standard and making the dollar "as good as gold" once again. It was to these conservatives that Reagan appealed to in his 1980 campaign.

Inflation is of course one of the most important reasons to get rid of the Federal Reserve System. Ironically, the Fed was ostensibly called into existence to provide greater liquidity in the capital markets, while controlling inflation. Since the Federal Reserve System was put in place in 1913, the value of the U.S. dollar has shrunk to 4% of what it was once worth:

U.S. monetary inflation since the Fed was established
(click to enlarge)

What are some other reasons to abolish the Fed and return to a hard money standard? Here are just a few:

The Fed is incapable of achieving its stated goals;
The Fed is a private cartel operating against the public interest;
The Fed is the ultimate instrument of usury;
The Fed is the ultimate agent of monetary inflation (and deflation);
The Fed is the ultimate instrument of totalitarianism;
The Fed creates business cycles that destabilze the economy;
Fed policy openly and actively encourages war;

Congress could still buy back Fed operations from the central bank for $400,000, if it had the will to do so.

The Greatest Lie of the 21st Century

2006-08-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

I have to thank my friend slippy over at PCF for this one, but it's a real keeper, so I have to document here..

THE TRUTH ABOUT TERRORISM

0: People killed in the USA by terrorism/WMD in 2006.
(Thousands killed by the US and its allies in foreign countries.)

0: People killed in the UK by terrorism/WMD in 2006.

0: People killed in the USA by terrorism/WMD in 2005.

52: killed in the UK by terrorism/WMD in 2005 (all on "7/7").

0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2004.

0: People in the UK killed by terrorism/WMD in 2004.

0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2003.

0: People in the UK killed by terrorism/WMD in 2003.

0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2002.

0: People in the UK killed by terrorism/WMD in 2002.

2,752: in USA killed by terrorism in 2001 (all on "9/11").

0: People in the UK killed by terrorism/WMD in 2001.

0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2000.

0: People in the UK killed by terrorism/WMD in 2000.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Original article at Insider:

http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=0472

Vindicating the 9/11 "Conspiracy Theorists"

2006-08-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

As was published in the Washington Post on August 2, 2006, it turns out the military officials, at at the highest levels, perjured themselves and made false statements to Congress during the course of the Kean Commission inquiry into the atrocities of September 11, 2001.

Major General Larry Arnold
perjured himself before Congress

Quoting from the Post:

"Some staff members and commissioners of the September 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate."

Accorrding to this information, it appears that the Penatgon was involved in acts of coverup at the highest levels of the military hierarchy:

"Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that emails and other evidence provided enough probably cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said." (Ibid)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Richard Meyers perjured
himself before Congress.

The Kean Commission is beginning to point fingers, trying to shift the blame for the lies that it is responsible for pushing onto the American public. Evidence indeed, that the truth about 9/11 is beginning to gain ground.

The entire article is reproduced below, since in our NewSpeak World, there's no telling when the Washington Post might decide to "retract" the story and send it on down the Orwellian Memory Hole. As one observer in Soviet Russia once commented, "for us, the future is certain; it's the past that keeps changing."

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon
Allegations Brought to Inspectors General
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006; A03

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.

A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that the inspector general's office will soon release a report addressing whether testimony delivered to the commission was "knowingly false." A separate report, delivered secretly to Congress in May 2005, blamed inaccuracies in part on problems with the way the Defense Department kept its records, according to a summary released yesterday.

A spokesman for the Transportation Department's inspector general's office said its investigation is complete and that a final report is being drafted. Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she could not comment on the inspector general's inquiry.

In an article scheduled to be on newsstands today, Vanity Fair magazine reports aspects of the commission debate -- though it does not mention the possible criminal referrals -- and publishes lengthy excerpts from military audiotapes recorded on Sept. 11. ABC News aired excerpts last night.

For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances. Authorities suggested that U.S. air defenses had reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last two hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington.

In fact, the commission reported a year later, audiotapes from NORAD's Northeast headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott told the commission that NORAD had begun tracking United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but the commission determined that the airliner was not hijacked until 12 minutes later. The military was not aware of the flight until after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.

These and other discrepancies did not become clear until the commission, forced to use subpoenas, obtained audiotapes from the FAA and NORAD, officials said. The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes -- along with e-mails, erroneous public statements and other evidence -- led some of the panel's staff members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the commission and the public about what happened on Sept. 11.

"I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described," John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. "The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. . . . This is not spin. This is not true."

Arnold, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, told the commission in 2004 that he did not have all the information unearthed by the panel when he testified earlier. Other military officials also denied any intent to mislead the panel.

John F. Lehman, a Republican commission member and former Navy secretary, said in a recent interview that he believed the panel may have been lied to but that he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to support a criminal referral.

"My view of that was that whether it was willful or just the fog of stupid bureaucracy, I don't know," Lehman said. "But in the order of magnitude of things, going after bureaucrats because they misled the commission didn't seem to make sense to me."

Debunking Some JFK Myths

2006-07-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

One theme that keeps recurring over and over amongst conspiracy theories, especially those researching the Federal Reserve and/or the JFK assassination, is the idea that Kennedy was killed (at least in part) because of EO 11110, which supposedly ordered the U.S. Treasury to issue "hard" silver currency, as opposed to the borrowing Fed notes from the Federal Reserve and paying interest on them.

Was JFK killed because he dared cross the Federal
Reserve and ordered the issue of Silver Certificates?

The Silver Certificate Controversy

Variations of this myth abound ... some say that Kennedy simply ordered the issue of Silver Certificates; others place a dollar number on the figure, such as $4.2 billion in silver-backed currency. As we will see, this latter figure (the $4.2 billion) probably arises from confusion concerning an issue of U.S. Notes (paper currency issued directly by the U.S. Treasury, not backed by gold or silver, but not accruing interest either) that was made in 1963 but that was unconnected in any way with Silver Certificates or with EO 11110. In fact, the President could not have authorized so large an issue ($4.2 billion) since it would have exceeded his statutory limit.

The full text of EO 11110 (signed June 4, 1963) is available here: EO11110

EO11110 modifies an earlier Executive Order made by Harry Truman in 1951, EO10289. The purpose of the Truman EO is to delegate to the Secretary of the Treasury certain tasks and functions that would normally be the responsibility of the President. The order begins "The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby designated and empowered to perform the following-described functions of the President without the approval, or other action of the President..." The order then lists various tasks, (a) through (h), which can be performed by the Secretary without bothering the President. Most of these tasks involve U.S. Customs or the IRS.

It looks like a "normal" dollar bill, but read the bottom
closely, and you'll see that it guarantees to pay the bearer
in one dollar of silver

The Kennedy EO amends the one issued by Truman as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 9, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):
'(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of an outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption,' and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof.

SECTION 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue anymay be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

John F. Kennedy, THE WHITE HOUSE, June 4, 1963.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 (to which Kennedy refers in his EO) permits the President to issue Silver Certificates in various denominations (mostly $1, $2, $5 and $10) and in any total volume so long as the Treasury has enough silver on hand to redeem the certificates for a specific quantity and fineness of silver and so that the total volume of such currency does not exceed $3 billion. The Silver Purchase Act of 1934 also grants this power to the Treasury Secretary subject to similar limitations.

A couple things to note right here:

EO11110 did not order the issue of any new Silver Certificates; it merely amended an earlier EO giving the Treasury the authority to issue Silver Certificates -- without the permission of the President -- should the need for it arise.
In other words, EO11110 did not create any new authority for the Treasury to issue notes or currency of any kind; it merely affected who could give the order (whether it be the Secretary or the President).
The need never arose; the last issuance of Silver Certificates was in 1957, about five years prior to Kennedy's EO.

In the early 1960s, economic activity began to grow and demand for low denomination currency grew, increasing the Treasury's need for silver to back additional certificate issues and to mint new coins (dimes, quarters, half-dollars). However, during the late 1950s, the price of silver began to rise and reached the point that the market value of silver contained in the coins and backing the certificates was greater than the face value of the money itself.

The price of silver began to rise dramatically in the late 1950s

So with more and more economic activity, there was more and more demand for small-denomination bills. Yet, those bills were backed by silver and with the price of silver rising, the Treasury faced the problem that the value of those coins (and backed-paper currency) was worth more than the face-value of the coins (and currency).

To conserve the Treasury's silver needs, the Silver Purchase Act and related measures were repealed by Congress in 1963 with Public Law 88-36. Following the repeal, only the President could authorize new Silver Certificates; the power was removed from the Treasury Secretary. However, removing this power from the Treasury Secretary was not the true or ultimate purpose of this bill. Much more importantly, this law, signed by President Kennedy himself, also permitted the Federal Reserve to issue small denomination bills to replace the outgoing Silver Certificates (prior to this act, the Federal Reserve could only issue Federal Reserve Notes in large denominations). The idea was to use the Treasury's shrinking silver stock to only mint coins, and not to back paper currency.

In other words, the purpose of this legislation (legislation which Kennedy signed and supported) was to facilitate a reduction in the overall amount of Silver Certificates in circulation; not increase it. And in fact, this is precisely what happened. In October 1964 the Treasury ceased issued Silver Certificates altogether. The Coinage Act of 1965 (PL 89-81) ended the practice of using silver in most U.S. coins, and in 1968 Congress ended the redeemability of Silver Certificates (PL 90-29) altogether. EO11110 was never reversed by President Johnson (laying aside that conspiracy theory; for .. if the banksters had killed Kennedy to stop EO11110 from going into effect, surely the first thing they would have done was had Johnson repeal the order), and the EO remained on the books until its parent (EO 10289) was repealed (along with dozens of others) in a general house-keeping clean-up EO issued by President Reagan on September 9, 1987 (EO 12608).

Again, it "looks" like a "normal" five dollar bill, but look
more closely: it does not say "Federal Reserve Note";
instead it says "United States Notes"

The Issue of U.S. Notes

Now, what about all this business about the $4.2 billion in silver-backed currency that Kennedy alleged issued with EO11110? There is a difference between Silver Certificates and U.S. Notes. Silver Certificates are U.S. currency that is payable to the bearer, on demand, in face value of silver coin. A U.S. Note is paper currency, not backed by anything, but printed directly by the U.S. Treasury and, since it is not borrowed from the Federal Reserve, nobody is paying any interest on it. A U.S. Fed Note (<- essentially the only kind of currency in circulation today) is paper currency, not backed by anything except the taxes and labor of the people, which is produced by the Federal Reserve Bank and loaned to the U.S. government at an interest rate. In fact, the Treasury did print up some interest-free U.S. Notes in 1963, but as we have seen, this was not in response to EO11110 (which makes no mention of U.S. Notes at all). Instead, it was in response to a 1868 law which directs the U.S. Treasury to maintain a fixed supply of U.S. Notes. As old Notes become worn or damanged, they must be replaced by new ones, and this was the purpose of printing up the new U.S. Notes in 1963. Kennedy did not order this printing, and in fact there was no reason to assume that he was even aware that it was occurring. Those U.S. Notes (from the 1963 printing) that did hit open circulation were quickly snatched up by collectors, and ultimately these Notes had very little impact on the overall money supply of the nation.

One final point concerning notes (or "promissory notes", which is their more technical definition). In order for a (promissory) note to be legally valid and binding, it must contain four elements:

Who is going to pay
Who is going to be paid
What is going to be paid
When the payment is going to be made

Without all four elements, the promissory note is invalid.

The old Silver Certificates included language on their face which guaranteed that (1) the bearer could redeem them; (2) at the Treasury; (3) on demand; (4) for a specified weight of silver. Looks good; looks like they meet the technical definition of a promissory note. Silver Certificates were a promise to delivery silver.

Not so with today's Federal Reserve Notes. Yes, there is nice fancy language about the United States of America, about $20, about legal tender for all debts public and private; but nowhere on the note is a promise to pay the bearer, on demand, in gold or silver. Whereas the old Silver Certificates were a promise to deliver silver, the new Fed Notes are little more than a promise to deliver income taxes and inflation.

Kennedy the International Socialist

Another persistent JFK assassination rumor, often cited in parallel with EO11110/silver certificate rumor, is that ten days prior to his death, Kennedy gave a speech at Columbia University where he said: "The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight."

President Kennedy never spoke at Columbia University;
not 10 days prior to his death, and not ever.

Here again, truth is not quite so romantic.

When G. Edward Griffin contacted Columbia University to obtain a transcript of this speech, he was politely informed that President Kennedy never spoke at Columbia University; not 10 days prior to his death, and not ever. Moreover, Ronald Whealan, head librarian at the Kennedy Library in Boston, says that 10 days prior to his death, President Kennedy was at a White House meeting with, amongst others, the ambassador to the United States from Portugal.

And so dies another bankster-JFK conspiracy myth.

Kennedy was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Over 70 of Kennedy's appointments came from the CFR. Kennedy himself was a lifelong socialist and internationalist. He was educated at the London School of Economics, run by the Fabians. He participated in the destruction of the American money supply and he engineered the transfer of large amounts of American wealth to foreign nations overseas.

Give ear, fellow Americans, to Kennedy's words in his inaugural address on January 20, 1961:

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective—to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak—and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

Kennedy Inaugural Address

How different, how opposite are these words, from those of Abraham Lincoln when he spoke "America is the last, best hope for the world"(!) Kennedy, it would seem, sees the United Nations in a role that more properly belongs to America.

In September 1963 (just two months before his death), Kennedy addressed the finance ministers of 102 nations at the annual meeting of the IMF/World Bank. He lauded the concept of world socialism in glowing terms:

Twenty years ago, when the architects of these institutions met to design an international banking structure, the economic life of the world was polarized in overwhelming, and even alarming, measure in the United States ... Sixty per cent of the gold reserves of the world were here in the United States ... There was a need for redistribution of the financial resources of the world ... And there was an equal need to organize a flow of capital to the impoverished countries of the world. All this has come about. It did not come about by chance but by conscious and deliberate and responsible planning.

Do these sound like the words of someone who's about to overthrow the Federal Reserve and the global bankers? They sound more like the words of the Golden Boy of the Banking Establishment.

There is even reason to believe that Kennedy may have originated the orders -- on behalf of Big Oil -- to take out the Shah of Iran and replace him with the Ayatollah Khomeini (something which actually did come to fruition in 1979).

There may be many reasons that Kennedy was killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963, but to my mind, the Federal Reserve is probably the least likely of all explanations. My money would be more on something having to do with the CIA and the Bay of Pigs (back in 1961).

Sources:

G. Edward Griffin
Edward Flaherty

Gold, Paper and the 10th Amendment

2006-06-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

Many Americans know that the Constitution defines and helps protect what their rights are. Few Americans know what precipitated the creation of the Constitution, and what destroyed the rights and livelihood of all Americans under the ill-fated Articles of Confederation. It's the same scourage that we today as Americans are still battling: paper, fiat currency.

Most Americans are taught as school-children that Ben Franklin had little formal school but nevertheless was able to strike it big on his own as a printer. What Americans are never told is what exactly it was that Franklin was printing that made him so wealthy: the answer is, paper money. Which is not to say that Franklin was some nefarious usurer out to profit off the labor of others and destroy their livelihoods in the process. He certainly wasn't. But it is to say that back in those days, we didn't understand the principles of inflation and monetary quite as clearly as we do today. Few people in that era saw much wrong (morally, economically or otherwise) with the practice of issuing fiat, paper currency.

Franklin even printed and published pamphlets in support of the practice, at least one of which still survives to this day:

A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency

Ben Franklin: Master of the printing press and,
along with that, the issue of paper, fiat currency

Like I said, few people of that era understood the deleterious effects that hyperinflation and fiat currency can have on an economy. Said one patriotic old lady, perhaps somewhat ironically, "What a shame it is that Congress should let the poor soldiers suffer when they have power to make just as much money as they choose."(1) Little did she understand that the cause of the soldier's suffering and misery was the fact that Congress had the power to make just as much money as they choose.

This conception of fiat currency was widespread during the colonial era, and just following the War of Independence. Said one colonial legislator of the time: "Do you think, gentlemen, that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes when we can send to our printer and get a wagon load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole?" (2). The effects of such sagacious statesman-like wisdom were of course classic and undeniable: by the late 1750s, prices had inflated by 800% in Connecticut, 900% in the Carolinas, 1000% in Massachusetts, and over 2300% in Rhode Island.

The Constitutional Convention, 1787, Philadelphia

The folly of fiat currency was not lost on all, however. George Washington complained about how "a wagon-load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon-load of provisions." (3) Thomas Jefferson gave some even more sage advice, and correctly identified inflation for precisely what it was: a hidden (and extremely unfair) tax:

“It will be asked how will the two masses of Continental and of State money have cost the people of the United States seventy-two millions of dollars, when they are to be redeemed now with about six million? I answer that the difference, being sixty-six millions, has been lost on the bills separately by the successive holders of them. Every one, through whose hands a bill passed, lost on that bill what it lost in value during the time it was in his hands. This was a real tax on him; and in this way the people of the United States actually contributed those sixty-six millions of dollars during the war, and by a mode of taxation the most oppressive of all.”
-- Thomas Jefferson

How was such an injust and clearly destructive economic system kept in place? The same way we do it today: price and wage controls, as well as legal tender laws.

Fixing the Problem of Funny Money

And it was for this reason that the Founding Fathers decided to convene the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. To put an end to paper currency, and to finally put the country firmly onto a gold (or silver) money standard. The sentiments that these delegates brought to bear with them are clear and direct. George Mason wrote to George Washington (prior to the Convention): "They may pass a law to issue paper money, but twenty laws will not make the people receive it. Paper money is founded upon fraud and knavery." John Langdon from New Hampshire warned that he would rather reject the whole plan of a federal union rather than grant the new government the right to issue fiat money. George Reed from Delaware declared that a provision in the Constitution granting the new government the right to issue fiat money "would be as alarming as the mark of the beast in Revelation." Thomas Paine (who did not attend the Convention) was strongly opposed to fiat currency, even more strongly opposed to legal tender laws, and advocated the death penalty for any member of Congress who even suggested passing legislation to that effect.

Spanish "Pieces (or pesos) of Eight", which were later
adopted and modified by the U.S. Congress into Gold Dollars

So what does the Constitution say about money?

Congress shall have the power ---
To borrow money .. to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures, .. [and] to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting.
No state shall .. coin money; emit bills of credit; or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.

So the Constitution clearly prohibits the states from issuing fiat money (emitting bills of credit), and it clearly prohibits the states from using anything other than gold or silver in tender of payment of debts. However, it does not explicitly prohibit the federal government from doing so. This is unfortunate.. it may or may not be an oversight on the part of the Framers. However, there is a saving grace, and that is the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Amendment X

The power to issue fiat currency is not delegated to the federal government, and it is clearly prohibited to the States. Therefore, if any power to issue fiat currency legally exists in the United States, it is reserved to the people. In other words, individual people and private institutions, such as banks, have the right to issue IOUs and hope that the public will use them as money, but the government - at any level - is clearly prohibited from doing this.

Open Market Operations

2006-04-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

Open market operations -- the purchase and sale of U.S. Treasury and federal agency securities -- are the Federal Reserve's principal tool for implementing monetary policy. The short-term objective for open market operations can be a desired quantity of reserves or a desired price (the federal funds rate). The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend balances at the Federal Reserve to other depository institutions overnight.

Tax Day (April 15) is about Paying the Fed

The result of open market operations (buying and selling government securities) has the effect of expanding or contracting the amount of money that is available to the banking system. Purchases inject money into the banking system and stimulate growth while sales of securities have the opposite effect.

How do Open Market Operations work in practice?

(1) Government Debt

The federal government adds ink to paper, creates impressive designs around the edges and calls it a bond or Treasury note. It is merely a promise to pay a specified sum at a specified interest on a specified date. This debt becomes the foundation for almost the entire nation's money supply. In reality, the government has created cash, but it doesn't you look like cash. To convert these IOUs into paper bills and checkbook money is the function of the Federal Reserve. To bring about that transformation, the bond is given to the Fed where it is then classified as a..

Federal Reserve System

(2) Securities Asset

An instrument of government debt is considered an asset because it is assumed the government will keep its promise to pay. This is based upon its ability to obtain whatever money it needs through taxation. Thus, the strength of this asset is the power to take back that which it gives. So the Federal Reserve now has an "asset" which can be used to offset a liability. It then creates this liability by adding ink to yet another piece of paper and exchanging that with the government in return for the asset. That second piece of paper is a ..

(3) Federal Reserve Check

There is no money in any account to cover this check. Anyone else doing that would be sent to prison. It is legal for the Fed, however, because Congress wants the money, adn this is the easiest way to get it (To raise taxes would be political suicide; to depend on the public to buy all the bonds would not be realistic, especially if interest rates are set artifically low; and to print very large quantities of currency would be obvious and controversial).

Federal Reserve Bank of New York (on left), circa 1920s

This way, the process is mysteriously wrapped up in the banking system. The end result, however, is the same as turning on government printing presses and simply manufacturing fiat money (money created by the order of government with nothing of tangible value backing it) to pay government expenses. Yet, in accounting terms, the books are said to be "balanced" because the liability of the money is offset by the "asset" of the IOU. The Federal Reserve Check received by the government then is endorsed and sent back to one of the Federal Reserve banks where it now becomes a ..

(4) Government Deposit

Once the Federal Reserve check has been deposited into the government's account, it is used to pay government expenses and, thus, is transformed into many..

(5) Government Checks

These checks become the means by which the first wave of fiat money floods into the economy. Recipients now deposit them into their own bank accounts where they become..

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

(6) Commercial Bank Deposits

Commercial bank deposits immediately take on a split personality. On the one hand, they are liabilities to the bank because they are owed back to the depositors. But, as long as they remain in the bank, they are also considered as assets because they are on hand. Once again, the books are balanced: the assets offset the liabilities. But the process does not stop there. Through the magic of fractional-reserve banking, the deposits are made to serve an additional and more lucrative purpose. To accomplish this, the on-hand deposits now become re-classified in the books and called

(7) Bank Reserves

Reserves for what? Are these for paying off depositors should they want to close out their accounts? No. That's the lowly function they served when they were classified as mere assets. Now that they have been given the name of "reserves", they become the magic wand to materialize even larger amounts of fiat money. This is where the real action is: at the level of the commercial banks. The banks are permitted by the Fed to hold as little as 10% of their deposits in "reserve." That means, if they receive deposits of $1 million from the first wave of money created by the Fed, they have $900,000 more they are required to keep on hand. In banker's language, that $900,000 is called ..

(8) Excess Reserves

The word "excess" is a tipoff that these so-called reserves have a special destiny. Now that they have been transmuted into an "excess", they are considered as available for lending. And so in the due course these excess reserves are converted into..

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

(9) Bank Loans

So how can this money be loaned out when it is owned by the original depositors who are still free to write checks and spend it any time they wish? Isn't that a double claim against the same money? The answer is that, when the new loans are made, they are not made with the same money at all. They are made with brand new money created out of thin air for that purpose. The nation's money supply simply increases by 90% of the bank's deposits. Furthermore, this new money is far more interesting to the banks than the old. The old money, which they received from depositors, requires them to pay out interest or perform services for the privilege of using it. But with the new money, the banks collect interest, instead, which is not too bad considering it cost them nothing to make. Nor is that the end of the process. When this second wave of fiat money moves into the economy, it comes right back into the banking system, just as the first wave did, in the form of ..

(10) More Commercial Bank Deposits

The process now repeats but with slightly smaller numbers each time around. What was a "loan" on Friday comes back into the bank as a "deposit" on Monday. The deposit then is reclassified as a "reserve" and 90% of that becomes an "excess" reserve which, once again, is available for a new "loan." Thus, the $1 million of first wave fiat money gives birth to $900,000 in the second wave, which in turn gives birth to $810,000 in the third wave. It takes about 28 times through the revolving door of deposits becoming loans becoming deposits becoming loans until the process plays itself out to the maximum effect, which is

(11) Bank Fiat Money == Up to 9x the National Debt

The amount of fiat money created by the banking system is approximately 9x the amount of the original government debt which made the entire process possible. When the original debt itself is added to that figure, we finally have..

(12) Total Fiat Money == Up to 10x the National Debt

The total amount of fiat money created by the Federal Reserve and the commercial banks together is approximately 10x the amount of the underlying government debt. To the degree that this newly created money floods into the economy in excess of goods and services, it causes the purchasing power of all money, both old and new, to decline. Prices go up because the relative value of the money has gone down. The result is the same as if that purchasing power had been taken from us in taxes. The reality of this process, therefore, is that it is a

(13) Hidden Tax = Up to 10x the National Debt

Without realizing it, Americans have paid over the years, in addition to their federal income taxes and excise taxes, a completely hidden tax equal to many times the national debt! And that still is not the end of the process. Since our money supply is purely an arbitrary entity with nothing behind it except debt, its quantity can go down as well as up. When people are going deeper into debt, the nation's money supply expands and prices up go, but when they pay off their debts and refuse to renew, the money supply contracts and prices tumble. That is exactly what happens in times of economic or political uncertainty. This alteration between periods of expansion and contraction of the money supply is the underlying cause of..

(14) Booms, Busts and Depressions

Who benefits from all this? Certainly not the average citizen. The only beneficiaries are the political scientists in Congress who enjoy the effect of unlimited revenue to perpetuate their power, and the monetary scientists within the banking cartel called the Federal Reserve System who have been able to harness the American people, without their knowing it, to the yoke of modern feudalism.

For more information on this subject, please consult the excellent book The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin.

$25 Million Constitution, Part II

2006-04-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Reading from William Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse..

Behold a Pale Horse

Apparently the phrase "national emergency" appears no less than 134 times in the Newstates Constitution that was put together by the Rockefeller-backed Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in the mid-1970s.

You can find my original posting on the Newstates Constitution here:

The $25 Million Constitution

The Mandrake Mechanism

2006-02-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

The U.S. dollar has no intrinsic value. It is a classic example of fiat money with no limit on the quantity that can be produced. Its primary value lies in the willingness of people to accept it and, to that end, legal tender laws require them to do so. It is true that our money is created out of nothing, but it is more accurate to say that it is based upon debt. In one sense, therefore, our money is created out of less than nothing. The entire money supply would vanish into bank vaults and computer chips if all debts were repaid. Under the present System, therefore, our leaders cannot allow a serious reduction in either the national or consumer debt. Changing interest on pretended loans is usury, and that has become institutionalized under the Federal Reserve System.

Mandrake the Magician could make
anything appear ex nihilo

In the 1940s, there was a comic strip character called Mandrake the Magician. His specialty was creating things out of nothing and, when appropriate, to make them disappear back into that same void. It is fitting, therefore, that the process of creating fiat currency should be named in his honor.

Money Would Vanish Without Debt

It is difficult for Americans to come to grips with the fact that their total money supply is backed by nothing but debt, and it is even more mind boggling to visualize that, if everyone paid back all that was borrowed, there would be no money left in existence. That's right, there would be not one penny in circulation -- all coins and all paper currency would be returned to bank vaults -- and there would be not one dollar in anyone's checking account. In short, all money would disappear.

The Mandrake Mechanism in Action: Debt

The entire purpose of the Federal Reserve machine is to convert debt into money. First the Fed takes all the government bonds which the public does not buy and writes a check to Congress in exchange for them. There is no money to back up this check. These fiat dollars are created on the spot for this purpose. By calling these bonds "reserves", the Fed then uses them as the base for creating 9 additional dollars for every dollar created for the bonds themselves. The money created for the bonds is spent by the government, whereas the money created on top of those bonds is the source of all the bank loans made to the nation's businesses and individuals.

The result of this process is the same as creating money on a printing press, but the illusion is based on an accounting trick rather than a printing trick. The bottom line is that Congress and and the banking cartel have entered into a partnership in which the cartel has the privilege of collecting interest on money which it creates out of nothing, a perpetual override on every American dollar that exists in the world. Congress, for its part, has access to an unlimited funding source without having to tell the voters that their taxes are being raised (although, "taxes" are raised since this is an inflationary process).

The Mandrake Mechanism in Action: Money

There are three parallel ways in which the Federal Reserve creates fiat money out of debt. One is by making loans to the member banks through what is called the Discount Window. The second is by purchasing Treasury bonds and other certificates of debt through what is called the Open Market Committee. The third is by changing the so-called reserve ratio that member banks are required to hold. Each method is merely a different way of taking IOUs and converting them into spendable money.

The Discount Window: The Discount Window is banker's language for the loan window. When banks run short of money, the Federal Reserve stands ready as the "banker's bank" to lend it. There are many reasons for them to need loans. Since they hold "reserves" of only about one or two percent of their deposits in vault cash and eight or nine percent in securities, their operating margin is extremely thin. It is common to experience temporary negative balances caused by unusual customer demand for cash or unusually large clusters of checks all clearing through other banks at the same time.

Open Market Operation: The most important method used by the Federal Reserve for the creation of fiat money is the purchase and sale of securities on the open market. This is a somewhat techical subject, and will be covered in greater detail in my next post.

In summary, the Mandrake Mechanism by which the Fed converts debt into money may seem complicated at first, but it is simple if one remembers that the process is not intended to be logical but to confuse and decieve. The end product of the Mechanism is artificial expansion of the money supply, which is the root cause of the hidden tax called inflation. This expansion then leads to contraction and, together, they produce the destructive boom-bust cycle that has plagued mankind throughout history whenever fiat money has existed.

For more information on this subject, please consult the excellent book The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin.

The Rothschild Formula

2006-01-20T05:46:00.000-08:00

By the end of the eighteenth century, the House of Rothschild had become one of the most successful financial institutions the world has ever known. Its meteoric rise can be attributed to the great industry and shrewdness of the five brothers who established themselves in various capitals of Europe and forged the world's first international financial network. As pioneers in the practice of lending money to governments, they soon learned that this provided unique opportunities to parlay wealth into political power as well. Before long, most of the princes and kings of Europe had come within their influence.

Rothschild Coat of Arms

The Rothschilds also had mastered the art of smuggling on a grand scale, often with the tacit approval of the governments whose laws they violated. This was perceived by all parties as an unofficial bonus for providing needed funding to those same governments, particularly in time of war. The fact that different branches of the Rothschild network also might be providing funds for the enemy was pragmatically ignored. Thus, a time-honored practice among financiers was born: profiting from both sides.

Enlargement of the Rothschild Crest

The Rothschilds operated a highly efficient intelligence gathering system which provided them with advance knowledge of important events, knowledge which was invaluable for investment decisions. When an exhausted Rothschild courier delivered the first news of the Battle of Waterloo, Nathan Rothschild was able to deceive the London bond traders into a selling panic, and that allowed him to acquire the dominant holding of England's entire debt at but a tiny fraction of its worth.

Lionel Nathan Rothschild was "elected" to
British Parliment in 1847

A study of these and similar events reveals a personality profile, not just of the Rothschilds, but of that special breed of international financiers whose success typically is built upon certain character traits. These include cold objectivity, immunity to patriotism, and indifference to the human condition. That profile is the basis for proposing a theoretical strategy, called the Rothschild Formula, which motivates such men to propel governments into war for the profits they yield. This formula most likely has never been consciously phrased as it appears here, but subconscious motivations and personality traits work together to implement it nevertheless. As long as the mechanism of central banking exists, it will be to such men an irresistible temptation to convert debt into perpetual war and war into perpetual debt.

The Rothschild Formula may be briefly summarized as follows:

War is the ultimate discipline to any government. If it can successfully meet the challenge of war, it will survive. If it cannot, it will perish. All else is secondary. The sanctity of its laws, the prosperity of its citizens and the solvency of its treasury will be quickly sacrificed by any government in its primal act of self-survival.
All that is necessary, therefore, to insure that a government will maintain or expand its debt is to involve it in war or the threat of war. The greater the threat and the more destructive the war, the greater the need for debt.
To involve a country in war or the threat of war, it will be necessary for it to have enemies with credible military might. If such enemies already exist, all the better. If they exist but lack military strength, it will be necessary to provide them the money to build their war machine. If an enemy does not exist at all, then it will be necessary to create one by financing the rise of a hostile regime.
The ultimate obstacle is a government which declines to finance its wars through debt. Although this seldom happens, when it does, it will be necessary to encourage internal political opposition, insurrection or revolution to replace that government with one that is more compliant to our will. The assassination of heads of state could play an important role in this process.
No nation can be allowed to remain militarily stronger than its adversaries, for that could lead to peace and a reduction of debt. To accomplish this balance of power, it may be necessary to finance both sides of the conflict. Unless one of the combatants is hostile to our interests and therefore, must be destroyed, neither side should be allowed a decisive victory or defeat. While we must always proclaim the virtues of peace, the unspoken objective is perpetual war.

For more information on this subject, please consult the excellent book The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin.

Masquerade in Moscow

2006-01-15T09:11:00.000-08:00

The Bolshevik Revolution was not a spontaneous uprising of the masses. It was planned, financed and orchestrated by outsiders. Some of the financing came from Germany which hoped that internal problems would force Russia out of the war against her. But most of the money and leadership came from financiers in England and the United States. It was a perfect example of the Rothschild Formula in action.

Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, 1917

This group centered mainly around a secret society created by Cecil Rhodes, one of the world's wealthiest men at the time. The purpose of that group was nothing less than world domination and the establishment of a modern feudalist society controlled by the world's central banks. Headquartered in England, the Rhodes inner-most directorate was called the Round Table. In other countries, there were established subordinate structures called Round Table Groups. The Round Table Group in the United States became known as the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR, which was initially dominated by the Morgan group and later by the Rockefellers, is the most powerful group in America today. It is even more powerful than the federal government, because almost all of the key positions in government are held by its members. In other words, it is the United States Government.

Cecil Rhodes (above) along with Lord
Milner organized the Round Table Group

Agents of these two groups cooperated in pre-revolutionary Russia and particularly after the Czar as overthrown. The American contingent in Russia disguised itself as a Red Cross mission allegedly doing humanitarian work. Cashing in on their close friendship with Trotsky and Lenin, they obtained profitable business concessions from the new government which returned their initial investment many times over.

For more information on this subject, please consult the excellent book The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin.

Sink the Lusitania!

2006-01-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

To finance the early stages of WWI England and France had borrowed heavily from investors in America and had selected the House of Morgan as sales agent for their bonds. Morgan also acted as their U.S. purchasing agent for war materials, thus profiting from both ends of the cash flow: once when the money was borrowed and again when it was spent. Further profits were derived from production contracts placed with companies within the Morgan orbit.

The House of Morgan profited
from both ends of WWI

But the war began to go badly for the Allies when Germany's submarines took virtual control of the Atlantic shipping lanes. As England and France moved closer to defeat or a negotiated peace on Germany's terms, it became increasingly difficult to sell their bonds. No bonds meant no purchases, and the Morgan cash flow was threatened. Furthermore, if the previously sold bonds should go into default, as they certainly would in the wake of defeat, the Morgan consortium would suffer gigantic losses.

In WWI, German U-Boats upset the
traditional British domination of the seas

The only way to save the British Empire, to restore the value of the bonds, and to sustain the Morgan cash flow was for the United States government to provide the money. But, since neutral nations were prohibited from doing that by treaty, America would have to be brought into the war. A secret agreement to that effect was made between British officials and Colonel House, with the concurrence of the President. From that point forward, Wilson began to pressure Congress for a declaration of war. This was done at the very time he was campaigning for re-election on the slogan "He kept us out of war." Meanwhile, Morgan purchased control over major segments fo the news media and engineered a nation-wide editorial blitz against Germany, calling for war as an act of American partiotism.

Colonel Edward House secretly negotiated to
bring the U.S. into WWI on the side of Britain

Morgan had created an international shipping cartel, including Germany's merchant fleet, which maintained a near monopoly on the high seas. Only the British Cunard Lines remained aloof. The Lusitania was owned by Cunard and operated in competition with Morgan's cartel. The Lusitania was built to military specifications and was registered with the British Admiralty as an armed auxiliary cruiser. She carried passengers as a cover to conceal her real mission, which was to bring contraband war materials from the United States. This fact was known to Wilson and others in his administration, but they did nothing to stop it. When the German embassy tried to publish a warning to American passengers, the State Department intervened and prevented newspapers from printing it. When the Lusitania left New York harbor on her final voyage, she was virtually a floating ammunition depot.

The German warning to Americans not to board the
Lusitania was suppressed by the U.S. State Department

The British knew that to draw the United States into the war would mean the difference between defeat and victory, and anything that could accomplish that was proper -- even the coldly calculated sacrifice of one of her great ships with Englishmen aboard. But the trick was to have Americans on board also in order to create the proper emotional climate in the United States. As the Lusitania moved into hostile waters, where a German U-boat was known to be operating, First Lord of Admirality, Winston Churchill, ordered her destroyer protection to abandon her. This, plus the fact that she had been ordered to travel at reduced speed, made her an easy target. After the impact of one well placed torpedo, a mighty second explosion from within ripped her apart, and the ship that many believed could not be sunk, gurgled to the bottom of the sea in less than 18 minutes.

Winston Churchill ordered the Lusitania's destroyer
escort to abandon her, just as she entered hostile waters

The deed had been done, and it set in motion great waves of revulsion against Germany. These waves eventually flooded through Washington and swept the United States into war. Within days of the declaration, Congress voted $1 billion in credit for England and France. $200 million was sent to England immediately and was applied to the Morgan account. The vast quantity of moeny needed to finance the war was created by the Federal Reserve System, which means it was collected from Americans through that hidden tax called inflation. Within just five years, this tax had taken fully one-half of all they had saved. The infinitely higher cost in American blood was added to the bill.

Thus it was that the separate motives of such diverse personalities as Winston Churchill, J.P. Morgan, Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson all found common cause in bringing America into WWI. Churchill maneuvered for military advantage, Morgan sought the profits of war, House schemed for political power, and Wilson dreamed of a chance to dominate a post-war League of Nations.

For more information on this subject, please consult the excellent book The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin.

Most Important Video You'll See All Year

2005-12-20T23:05:00.000-08:00

Michael Ruppert discussing the Truth and Lies Behind 9/11:

Truth and Lies Behind 9/11

Packed with vital information. There's no way I can do it justice by commenting on it. Instead, just watch it and learn for yourself. Take notes..

Opium played a role in 9/11 too..

Visit Michael's Web site here:

From the Wilderness

My only comments on his video presentation is that he may be playing down the role of Mossad in 9/11, and he may be playing up the "crisis" of Peak Oil. Other than that, the video is packed full of useful information.

Yale in China

2005-12-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

Having minted such great traitors like George Bush (Sr. and Jr.), John Kerry and Bob Woodward, and being home to such treasonous and subversive institutions like Skull and Bones and Book and Snake, every American should (at this point) have a healthy suspicion of Yale University.

Well, now you have one more reason to shut down Yale..

Urim ve'Thummim at Yale

Back in 1903, Yale Divinity School established a number of schools and hospitals throughout China that were collectively known as the "Yale in China" program. It has since been revealed that this "Yale in China" program was little more than an intelligence program designed to destroy the republican movement of Sun Yat-sen on behalf of the Anglo-American Establishment.

Who was the "Yale in China"'s top student? None other than Communist mass-murderer Mao Zedong.

Chairman Mao was (predictably) a Yalie

During WWII, the "Yale in China" program was the primary instrument used by the U.S. Establishment and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to install the Maoists into power. "Yale in China" was run by OSS operative Reuben Holden, the husband of Bush's cousin, and a member of Skull and Bones.

The Maoists made China into the world's largest opium producer. "Yale in China" was also closely associated with the New York-based Union Theological Seminary (today associated with Columbia University), which has been a center for U.S. subversion of Asia (literally a wolf in sheep's clothing). Every prominent radical leader operating in Korea today, for example, was trained at the Union Theological. Union Theological was dominated for twenty years by Henry Sloane Coffin, a U.S. intelligence executive from the Sloane and Coffin families. He too is a member of Skull and Bones.

Skull and Bones: Now opening on a campus in Asia near you..

Source for this article:

http://www.illuminati-news.com/S&B-China.htm

Bombs in WTC

2005-12-07T22:30:00.000-08:00

I try to avoid posting much about things like 9/11, seeing as how history has not yet given us enough time to judge these events with the proper perspective.

South Tower explodes on Sept 11, 2001

However, today I stumbled across a link on the Alex Jones site that I think was worth making note of.. it's a report from MSNBC (Rick Sanchez) on the day of 9/11 concerning police reports of bombs in the WTC and of a van parked inside the WTC that may have had bombs in it.

The link can be found here:

Alex Jones Web Site

The transcript of the broadcast is as follows:

”Police have found what they believe to be a suspicious device and they fear that it may lead to another explosion."

"I spoke with some police officials moments ago, Chris, and they told me they have reason to believe that one of the explosion at the besides the ones made with the planes, may have been caused by a van that was parked on the building that may have had an explosive device in it.”

Update: You'll find more info on this Web site

Operation Desert Badger

2005-10-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has been widely quoted as saying that Iraq was "Topic A" at the very first meeting of the Bush National Security Council, just ten days after the president's inauguration in January, 2001. What is perhaps not so widely known is just how eager the Bush administration really was to force a showdown with Saddam Hussein at this early date (although serious students of globalization should hardly be surprised that Bush was trying to force a showdown with Hussein just ten days into his administration, but that's another matter..)

Iraqi No-Fly Zone, south of 33^o and north 36^o

Soon after the January 2001 NSC Meeting, the U.S. military began stepping up the number of overflights it conducted in the No-Fly Zone, and it also began launching provocative attacks on key Iraqi targets under a plan evidently known as Operation Desert Badger, the apparent intent of which was to force or provoke a military confrontation between the U.S. and Iraq. Allegedly, one "ideal" scenario called for the Iraqis to shoot down a U.S. fighter, hence giving the Americans a plausible public excuse to move full force into Iraq with guns blazing.

F-18 armed with a J-SOW cluster bomb

On February 16, 2001, U.S. aircraft bombed an Iraqi radar installation north of the No-Fly Zone and very close to the southern limits of Baghdad. Although U.S. aircraft had been making two or three illegal airstrikes within Iraq each week, this particular incident drew slightly more attention in the media. The February 16 bombing left three people dead and wounded 30 civilians. The Washington Post reported that the bombing used 28 new Raytheon-produced bombs known as "Joint Stand-Off Weapoins" (or J-SOW), which are actually cluster bombs. Each 1000-pound bomb carries 145 bomblets, both anti-armor and anti-personnel, and disperse over a football field-sized area. Pentagon sources admit that 26 of those 28 bombs missed their target. Cluster bombs, if they do not explode once on the ground, become landmines and render the entire area lethal. It is estimated that about 5% of J-SOW bomblets fail to detonate on impact and thus become highly volatile land mines.

J-SOW cluster bomb in action

Some statistics on the J-SOW:

Length: 13 feet, 5 inches
Wingspan: 8 feet, 10 inches
Weight: 1,000-1,500 pounds
Range: 15-40 miles from launch
Guidance System: Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System
Cost: $150,000

Just a few weeks after this incident, the hastily-organized National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Vice Preident Dick Cheney, studied the "challenge" posed by French, Russian, Japanese and other companies operating in Iraq. The group produced a map of Iraqi oil fields, along with a list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts." The list showed 40 companies from 30 countries with projects agreed to or under discussion in Iraq, but not a single US or UK deal. Cheney's Group issued a dire warning concerning "national security" should these "foreign suitor" deals be allowed to go through.

The documents were later made public, through lawsuit, and have been published on the Web site of Judicial Watch:

It seems that by Spring 2001, the Bush Administration was dead set on war with Iraq. The events of September 11, 2001, may have delayed (slightly) the war in the Iraq, but they also helped build popular support in the US and UK for the military action in Iraq that began in March 2003.

So Brilliant, and Yet So Naive..

2005-09-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

I was reading from the Federalist (#46) a couple nights ago, and I must say, it never ceases to amaze me just how much foresight and vision the Founding Fathers (James Madison, in this case) really had:

The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/federlist/federa46.htm

What amazes me is not only did Madison have the foresight to see (in 1788) that the buildup of a military-industrial complex would be fatal to the Republic, but he - even more amazingly - foresaw the precise means by which this military buildup would occur. His only fault (perhaps) is in (naively) discounting the possibility of the rise of a military-industrial complex as exceedingly unlikely, when in fact what I have highlighted in red above is precisely how U.S. history has unfolded since 1913, and more especially since 1945.

James Madison, Contributor to the Federalist

Of course, the State governments have been all but absorbed into the Federal Collosus, more especially since Nixon's Executive Order 11647 which carved up the nation into 10 Federal "New States". Read the $25 Million Constitution for more details.

But, supposing that such a military-industrial complex does one day arise (which it long since has).. How does Madison propose we meet the threat? He continues:

Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/federlist/federa46.htm

So the protection lies in the Second Amendment.

Wonder how James Madison would feel about the fact that private ownership of handguns is banned in Washington, D.C., and that San Francisco desires to follow suit?

A few other quotes from the Federalist that I thought were striking. In the opening lines of Federalist #3, John Jay writes:

It is not a new observation that the people of any country (if, like the Americans, intelligent and well-informed) seldom adopt and steadily persevere for many years in an erroneous opinion respecting their interests. That consideration naturally tends to create great respect for the high opinion which the people of America have so long and uniformly entertained of the importance of their continuing firmly united under one federal government, vested with sufficient powers for all general and national purposes.

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/federlist/federa03.htm

There are few figures in early American history for whom I have more distaste than John Jay. Yet, his words here are telling. It seems there was a time and a place when Americans were in fact regarded as highly intelligent and well-informed. How far off that day now seems!

Jay also seems to be giving posterity a little too much "benefit of doubt" when it comes to adopting and steadily persevering "for many years in an erroneous opinion respecting their interests."

The final work I would like to comment on is Federalist #1, by Alexander Hamilton, wherein he writes:

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Books/federlist/federa01.htm

Americans would be wise in these days to give grave weight to these important words..

The Most "Trusted" Name in News

2005-09-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

Came across an interesting site (and some articles) that talk a little bit about an alleged media coverup concerning Hurricane Andrew. Truth be told, I really don't know what to believe these days. What I do *know* is that the mainstream media lies routinely and compulsively, on just about any and every subject that passes across their greedy, money-grubbing lips. Yet the scale of some of these allegations is so large that, instead of even trying to pass opinion on what I think about these allegations, I'll just post the material up here, and let the readers decide for themselves.

Do you still believe the lies?

First up is a long, but highly interesting story written by an author who identifies herself as "k.t. Frankovich." An excerpt (chapters 24-28) from her book detailing the Hurricane Andrew disaster, Where Heavens Meet, can be found here:

http://www.whereheavensmeet.com/andrew/andrew1.pdf
(PDF File)

Some of the allegations made include:

There was a deliberate media coverup to hide the true extent of the damage done by Hurricane Andrew.
There was a deliberate attempt to withhold food, water and medical care from survivors for three to four days following the disaster; the allegation is made that elements of the U.S. military were involved in this suppression of food and aid.
The military evacuated Homestead AFB before Andrew hit, although no warning was issued to the civilian population.
Hurricane Andrew killed at least 10,000 people in south Florida alone.
Hurricane Andrew produced top sustained winds of over 350+ mph (on par with an F5 tornado), well in excess of the 214 mph winds reported in the media.
Hurricane Andrew cracked the dome of the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant on Biscayne Bay, releasing at least as much radiation into the atmosphere as the atomic bomb over Hiroshima did.

Although I've never met a conspiracy theory I didn't like, some of these allegations seem a bit too tall for even me to believe..... Or, perhaps not. I'm not quite sure what to believe yet. But reviewing the pictures of the devastation left by Hurricane Andrew makes it hard to believe that the storm only killed 23 people, as officially reported in the U.S. media:

Category 5 killer Hurricane Andrew
bearing down on South Florida

Andrew erased entire communities off the map

Debris left by the hurricane

More debris left by the hurricane

Cars were flipped like toys by Andrew

Another community destroyed by Andrew

Trees knocked over, ship thrown out of water

Another boat out of water, alongside
palm trees snapped off like twigs

Cars and boats were lifted up into the air

What was once a marina

Plane thrown into a house

Andrew "lands" at a local hangar

Demolished apartment building

Homestead AFB suffered its fair share of damage

Parts of the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant had
to be demolished after Andrew hit

I suppose the question the reader must ask himself is, could a storm this powerful kill no more than 23 people in its wake (as was reported in the mainstream news)? I don't (currently) have an answer to that question.

And what is perhaps the Greatest Mystery of All concerning Hurricane Andrew? Although heavily defoliated, the famous Coral Castle - built by Edward Leedskalnin in the early 20th century - pulled through Hurricane Andrew without suffering any substantial damage at all(!)

Although defoliated, Coral Castle survived Andrew intact

The Iraqi Blueprint for Terror

2005-08-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

Taking his cues on cluelessness from his boss, the Bush administration's ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has praised the new Iraqi draft Constitution as "one of the most enlightened constitutions in the world, second to perhaps one or two others." He's certainly correct that the proposed Iraqi Bill of Rights contains plenty of warm and fuzzy platitudes similar to the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, so did the Soviet Constitution.

Unocal consultant Khalilzad is no smarter than his boss

In the American system of governance (paraphrasing the U.S. Declaration of Independence), men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. The U.S. Bill of Rights does not, therefore, "grant" rights to anyone. Instead, it protects already existing rights by prohibiting the government from intruding on those rights. Khalilzad's proposed Iraqi Constitution, on the other hand, follows the myopic (and barbaric) model that a government is somehow able to "grant" rights to its citizens. If a government can grant rights, it can also withdraw them. This is the model that was followed by the Soviets, and by the UN Charter on Human Rights.

The New American has recently published an interesting study comparing and contrasting basic human freedoms in these three documents (U.S., Soviet and Iraqi Constitutions, respectively). A quick glance at the table indicates that the Iraqi Constitution, on the whole, closely follows the Soviet model, and would barely be recognizable to an American. Perhaps the "one or two" constitutions Khalilzad had in mind as being "more enlightened" than this Iraqi document are the Soviet and UN constitutions?

See also the article: U.S. Blood is not Buying a Free Iraq

Points where the proposed Iraqi Constitution differs (radically) from the U.S. model include:

Freedom of Religion: Islam is the official state religion, and no law can be passed that contradicts or disputes the rules of Islam.
Freedom of Religion: all hate language is banned and prohibited.
Freedom of Speech and Press: permitted so long as it does not disrupt public order and morality.
Freedom of Speech and Press: all hate language is banned and prohibited.
Freedom of Assembly: permitted so long as it does not disrupt public order and morality.
Freedom of Assembly: public protests and demonstrations will be organized by law.
Right to Bear Arms: not permitted in the Iraqi constitution.
Right to Trial by Jury: none.
Right Against Search and Seizure: communications will not be spied upon or monitored unless required for legal and security measures, in accordance with the law.
Right to Face an Accuser: none.
Protection Against Self Incrimination: none.
Additional Individual Rights: may be constrained to any extent necessary, but only "by law."

U.S. blood is not buying "freedom" in Iraq

In addition, the Iraqi constitution contains a number of curious "collective rights" designed to empower the State, and for which there is no analogue in the U.S. Constitution or any of its amendments:

Socialized Medicine: guaranteed health insurance.
Government Housing: state guarantees housing for its citizens.
Industrial Planning: state shall be empowered to reform the Iraqi economy as it sees fit.
Guaranteed Employment: work is a "right" for all Iraqis, and the proposed constitution regulates the relation between employees and employers.
Nationalization of Natural Resources: environmental protection clauses
State Control of Women and Family: state shall preserve the family's existence and ethical and religious values.

Again, none of these "collectivist rights" (listed above) can be found anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, nor do they belong in the constitution of any freedom loving people. The old Soviet constitution(s) contained provisions for each of the collectivist provisions listed above. I could go on for quite some time, but the point I believe is clear.

Ironic that Bush and Cheney campaigned against socialized medicine in the United States, and yet they are busy forcing it upon the people of Iraq.. Even more ironic is their desire to make the state an all-powerful, all-pervasive entity in Iraq. Benito Mussolini once described facsism as "everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." The proposed Iraqi Constitution is incovertible proof that the Bush administration has sacrified hundreds of American lives, and billions of American taxdollars, to the cause of building and creating Islamo-fascism, rather than fighting it.

Kennedy and ..... Khomeini??

2005-08-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Robert Dreyfuss' Hostage to Khomeini. It's an interesting book, or at least the first half of it certainly is. Past the midpoint, the book unfortunately drifts off into blanket condemnations of everything which the author does not understand (especially concerning arcane Mideast religious sects like the Sufis). Sweeping generalizations for which little or no supporting evidence is provided are in fact quite characteristic of writers who have been apprenticed into the trade of journalism by the likes of Lyndon LaRouche. Thankfully, however, the first half of the book is packed with enough (accurate) information to make it a worthwhile (if not invaluable) resource.

"Death to America!" (Iran, 1979)

Most students of the 1979 Iranian Revolution concede that this seeming "fundamentalist Islamic, Death-to-the-USA Revolution" was in reality a British-led (i.e., BP and BBC) covert op, with ample support, backup and logistics provided by the unwittingly American taxpayer compliments of the CIA and NSC Director Zbigniew Brzezinski. Broadly speaking, the goals of the covert op were to:

Renegotiate BP's concessions to the Persian oil fields on "friendly" terms (the concessions were up for renewal in 1978).
Keep Iran from developing its own technological base, especially in the area of nuclear power.
Provide price-support for a sagging U.S. dollar by precipitating another "oil embargo" crisis a-la 1973 (thereby inflating global demand for otherwise worthless U.S. Federal Reserve Notes).

U.S. Special Forces led an utterly botched and
pathetic "rescue" attempt on April 24-25, 1980

A more distant goal may have been to pressure West Germany and France away from forming a joint monetary union known as EMS which could have challenged the hegemony of the IMF. There are two schools of thought on why the American hostages were taken at the U.S. Embassy in November 1979. One is that the Carter administration, which had secretly begun shipping arms to Khomeini earlier that year (and which would eventually blossom into Iran-Contra later in the 1980s), was tardy in delivering on some of its promises. The hostages were taken as ransom until Washington could make good on its promised arms shipments. The other school of thought is (again) that Washington "permitted" the hostages to be taken so as to escalate an international crisis, with the goal in mind of driving West Germany and France away from the EMS. Dreyfuss leans towards the latter model, I still haven't made up my mind yet.

It's interesting to note that documents uncovered at the U.S. State Department indicate that central planners in Washington had anticipated entering into financial "recycling" arrangements with Iran as early as 1973 (much like the recycling agreements in place with the Saudi kingdom), although for some reason the Shah never took the bait. Perhaps this too contributed to his downfall.

Italian oil magnate Enrico Mattei was
murdered in a plane crash on Oct 27, 1962

The most interesting revelation from this book, though, is just how long the Shah truly was a thorn in the side of British Petroleum. In 1953, the Italian government formed a state-owned oil company called ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi) and put the flamboyant entrepreneur Enrico Mattei in charge of the venture. The idea was to gradually wean Italy off dependence on the Anglo-American oil consortium (aka, the "Seven Sisters") by developing natural resources and by contracting with outside firms. ENI aggressively pursued oil deals with, among others, the Soviets throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Mattei's sins in Iran go back a long, long way. ENI was in fact the first company to contract for oil concessions with the short-lived, democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh, who came to power in Iran in 1953. Mossadegh was soon thrown out of power in a CIA coup led by Kermit Roosevelt (son of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt), but by 1957 Mattei was back in Iran cutting deals with the Shah. Mattei proposed a new joint venture (Societe Irano-Italienne des Petroles, or SIRIP) to develop a previously unexplored 8,800 square-mile area of Iran. The Shah signed the deal in August, 1957, and in March, 1961, Italy's first-ever oil tanker (the "Cortemaggiore") unloaded 18,000 tons of Persian crude at the Italian Adriatic Sea port of Bari.

Washington was, to say the least, very alarmed.

The original orders to take out the Shah and put Khomeini in
power came in 1962 from President John F. Kennedy himself.

The Anglo-American oil cartel promptly swung into high gear to counter the growing threat. In early 1961, soon after assuming the presidency, Kennedy sent Averell Harriman (of Bush-Nazi banking fame) to Iran to present U.S. demands to the Shah. The demands were quite simple: don't cut any deals with the Soviets, and don't cut any deals with Italy's ENI. Perhaps because Iran has been a defacto British protectorate (or, perhaps, colony) ever since 1905 and perhaps because it was the CIA that brought the Shah to power in the first place in 1953, Washington thought it appropriate to pursue "diplomacy" -- at least initially -- with Tehran in this case. As fate would have it, Mattei was not nearly so lucky: the head of ENI soon met with an untimely death later the next year (1962) in a plane crash over Lombardy, Italy.

During his 1961 meeting with the Shah in Iran, Harriman forced the Shah to accept Ali Amini, a Washington puppet, as his new prime minister. Predictably, Amini and the Shah did not exactly hit it off, and in 1962 the Shah traveled to propose a new deal to Kennedy: the Shah would oust Ali Amini as his prime minister, but henceforth he (the Shah) would take his marching orders directly from Washington. Kennedy agreed. Upon his return to Iran, the Shah promptly fired Amini, and -- just as promptly -- reneged on his end of the bargain, enraging Kennedy in the process.

Long gas lines once again graced America's cities and
streets following Khomeini's 1979 Revolution

At this point, a man named Teymour Bakhtiar enters the picture. Bakhtiar was a known asset of British intelligence and was appointed (by the British) as the head of Iran's deaded secret police, the SAVAK, in 1957 (shortly following the putsch that brought the Shah, and British Petroleum along with him, back into power). Bakhtiar was dismissed from his post in 1961 by a suspicious Shah, and later fled to Switzerland in 1962 when directly confronted, face-to-face, by the Shah with evidence of his treason.

Later that same year (1962), President Kennedy called General Bakhtiar to Washington for a high level strategy session. The ostensible reason for Bakhtiar's trip from Switzerland was to receive medical treatment, but his first stop in the U.S. was at the Kennedy White House. The subject of the meeting was how to undercut the Shah's power in Iran. The means they settled on to accomplish this goal: a man now known to history as Ruhollah Khomeini.

And lo and behold! 1963 would find the Ayatollah Khomeini back in Iran, leading the charge against the Shah's industrial modernization program (dubbed the "White Revolution").

And what of the poor Enrico Mattei? How do we know that it was the CIA that was behind his untimely murder, and not just some random act of God? Consider the following facts:

Earlier in 1962, his plane had been deliberately sabotaged. The sabotage was discovered at the last moment, by chance, by his pilot.
Immediately upon Mattei's death, CIA Station Chief in Italy, Thomas Karamessines, suddenly disappeared and fled the country (although he would later surface to make a cameo appearance in Chile during Henry Kissinger's September 11, 1973 overthrow of the democratically-elected Allende government).
Karamessines detailed report on Mattei's death, dated October 28, 1962, remains classified as "top secret" by the U.S. Government to this day.
Perhaps slightly less suspicious, although still noteworthy, is that Director of Central Intelligence at the time, John McCone, had a stake in Standard Oil of California (Chevron) worth over $1 million (1962 dollars).

You'll find the information concerning Kennedy and Khomeini documented in and around p. 85 of Dreyfuss' text.

Teagle Maneuvers in Russia

2005-08-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

Came across an interesting tidbit of information on the Oil Rulers Web site concerning Walter Teagle, the head of Exxon immediately after WWI. Seems that Teagle bought out the Nobel brother's Russian oil venture in Baku for about $11.5 million in 1920. This would lend credence the idea that Standard Oil (i.e., Rockefellers) were keen on acquiring the Baku oil fields, and that they had already been in negotiations with the Lenin regime for these concenssions.

Walter Teagle, head of Exxon and Time Man of the Year (1929)
bought back concessions in Baku from the Nobel brothers in 1920.

Of course, by 1924, Josef Stalin was running the show in Russia, prompting:

Alliance between British and American oil interests, leading to the Red Line Agreement of 1927
Destruction of Germany (i.e., hyperinflation), along with "reconstruction" of Germany as an Anglo-American client state, complete with dictator-to-go Adolf Hitler
Staging a showdown over Stalin's oilfields in the form of WWII, where Anglo-American darling Hitler would charge into Russia and take back the Soviet oil fields for his (ultimately) benefactor Rockefeller.

As history would have it, Hitler wound up printing his own money shortly before the outbreak of hostilities in WWII, prompting London to reverse strategy and take out Hitler first and Stalin later. Also, since Stalin didn't die with WWII, it was decreed that a new Cold War must be waged until the Soviet oil fields can once again come into Standard control.. a Cold War which proved too useful to end even after Rockefeller stooge Khrushchev took power in the 1950s

Rise of the German State

2005-08-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

To summarize briefly, the geopolitical oil outlook in early 1922 looked something like:

The British had control of Kuwait, Basra and Baghdad
The French had control of Mosul
The Americans (i.e., Standard Oil) had control of the entire Soviet Union

The allocations were not necessarily "static", per se.. there was a great deal of infighting between the groups, and especially so between the Americans and the British. The Americans (i.e., Standard Oil) had been angling to get a hold of at least some Iraqi oil since at least as early as 1919, and as we've seen in an earlier post, the British were aggressively trying to wrestle control of the Soviet oil fields away from Standard and its Bolshevik puppets (giving rise to such historical "scandals" like the Teapot Dome scandal).

Baku's oil fields were the scene of intense
international competition in the early 1920s

Such was the situation in early 1922. At this point, two events, both of which would ultimately have a momentous impact on subsequent world history, and neither of which seem to have been anticipated by the Western powers, occurred almost simultaneously:

The Rapallo Treaty was signed between Walter Rathenau (Germany) and G. V. Chicherin (Russia) in April 16, 1922
Vladimir Lenin suffered the first of four strokes on May 26, 1922. Lenin would soon die on January 21, 1924, creating a power vacuum in the as yet highly unstable Soviet (i.e., Standard Oil) state.

Both events must be considered in detail. First we must consider some of the economic motivations the British had for waging WWI in the first place.

The Rise of German Power

Beginning with the political unification of Germany in 1871 under Bismarck, a new center of political and economic might was suddenly created right in the heart of Europe. What had hitherto been a disjointed, balkanized "buffer zone" between France, Austria-Hungary and Russia, had suddenly been transformed into a new, powerful political state in its own right. Moreover, with the adoption of a policy of "national economy" as set forth by Friedrich List, the German economy was charging ahead of its European competition by leaps and bounds.

Otto von Bismarck united Germany in 1871,
after defeating Austria-Hungary in war

There were two things in particular that alarmed the British Crown about this sudden rise of German power:

German colonialism, and the threat it posed to the British Empire
German shipping building and advancing naval technology, and the threat it posed to Britain's hitherto unrivaled supremacy on the seas (since the sinking of the Spanish Armada in 1588, at any rate).

A more distant cause for concern was the fact that the new German state was not teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, as was the British Empire of the late 19th century. The Germans were operating from a much more secure, and much less debt-ridden, economic basis than the British were.

German U-Boats were London's worst nightmare in WWI,
overturning 300+ years of unrivaled British naval supremacy

Of the two threats cited above, the threat of colonial expansion is probably what ultimately sparked WWI (from London's perspective). However, one should still bear in mind that by 1914 the German Navy undoubtedly reigned supreme on the high seas surrounding Europe, and would likely have won the war for Germany had the U.S. not intervened in 1917.

There were two areas where German colonialism concerned London. One area was in Africa, and especially the German colonies in what area now Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Namibia. Namibia has extensive deposits of gold, diamonds and natural gas, while Tanzania sits on a strategic corridor connecting the (southern) Horn of Africa to Egypt, the Nile Valley and the Suez. The British, who were in control of both South Africa (gold and diamonds) and Egypt (strategic shipping through the Suez), desired to build a railway connecting these two colonies, and German Tanzania sat smack the middle of it.

German colonies (circa 1900) are shown in pink

The second, much more serious (from London's viewpoint), area of German expansion concerned the Ottoman Empire. So as to counteract growing Russian influence in the Balkans, Bismarck entered into a series of alliances and agreements with the Ottomans beginning 1878. These agreements culminated in a project known to history as the Baghdad-Berlin Railway, a project which would ultimately light the sparks that set off the First World War.

Clearly, neither Germany nor Britain have any indigenous sources of oil (North Sea crude excepted, which isn't really indigenous to Britain and was technologically inaccesible anyway in 1914). The lack of pretty much any natural resources (whatsoever) in Europe is largely what has driven Europe's policy of imperial colonialism since the 16th century. With the advent of petroleum-based technological innovations (circa 1859 and onwards), though, the wars for control of natural resources began to grow much more aggressive and much more deadly.

The Baghdad-Berlin Railway was nearing completion in 1914

Bismarck's solution to this problem (i.e., lack of oil) was to contract with the Ottomans and construct a railway that would bring Mesopotamian crude directly into Berlin straight from Baghdad. The British, quite clearly, did not take kindly to this idea. It's out of scope for this post to discuss the "true" causes of WWI, but know that the Baghdad-Berlin Railway played a very key role. Curiously, the Austrian archduke Ferdinand (whose assassination allegedly "sparked" WWI) was killed in Serbia just a few miles away from where construction was being completed on one of the final links of the Baghdad-Berlin Railway.

In the next post, we'll have a look at the Treaty of Versailles, and how the British divided up what remained of German assets to (a) ensure that Germany would never again threaten British naval supremacy; and to (b) implement a policy of a "strategic denial" upon defeated Germany with respect to natural resources (and more especially with respect to oil).

Carving up the Middle East

2005-08-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

In my earlier post (Detering and Sinclair Duke it Out), we had a look at some of the subversive tactics used by the British, and specifically by the Royal Dutch Shell Company and its chairman, Sir Henry Detering, to gain oil concessions from the Soviets in 1921 and 1922. By early 1922, the British had effectively eliminated their American competition via the notorious Teapot Dome Scandal, and were ready to negotiate with the Soviets for oil concessions on their own terms. To this end, the British convened the World Economic Conference in Genoa, Italy in April, 1914. Briefly, the goals of this conference were (to recap):

Explore the possibility of returning to a pre-1914 gold standard
Open diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the Soviet Union
Keep the Americans (and Standard Oil) out of the whole process.

Such was British posturing with respect to Soviet oil concessions, concessions for which they were fiercely competing with the U.S.-based Standard Oil Company, who -- until the Teapot Dome Scandal became front-page news -- had the upper hand in Russia viz its support for Lenin and his Communist revolutionaries.

Mosul, located on the upper shores of the Tigris River, near
the ruins of the Biblical city of Nineveh, is Iraq's 2nd largest city

One thing remained yet undone, though, and it's a key to understanding why the German economy was later ravaged by hyperinflation. As part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement (arrived at in 1916), which carved out concessions in the Middle East between France and Great Britian, the French were awarded territory around what is now Mosul, Iraq. The area is, of course, rich in oil, something the British suspected even in 1916 when they signed Sykes-Picot, and which was proven beyond any reasonable doubt in the intervening years.

The British therefore naturally desired to wrestle control of Mosul away from the French and back into their own sphere of influence. To understand their strategy for doing so, we must first understand a little bit about the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and about British involvement in the Middle East during WWI.

The British Wage Jihad at Gallipoli

Historians often focus on the massive changes that WWI brought to Europe and Russia, and occassionally less so on the equally profound changes the war had on American life. But what is little discussed in Western educational institutions is the impact that WWI had on Middle East. By the time the bitter fighting was over, four centuries of Ottoman rule over the Middle East would be over, and Christians would be in control of Jerusalem for the first time since the Crusades.

The Gallipoli Peninsula was the site of an early, important
defeat for British forces in the Middle East during WWI

The following is a brief synopsis of the some the key, early events in the Mideast Theater:

Ottoman Empire declares war on France, Russia and Great Britain in November, 1914
British (and Indian) troops land in Basra to defend the Anglo-Persian pipeline
Ottomans attack Britain's "jugular vein," the Suez Canal, in February, 1915. An attempt to raise in Islamic revolt in Egypt fails, however, and results in heavy losses for the Ottomans.
In February and March, 1915, the Royal Navy launches a campaign against Istanbul to force the Ottomans out of the war, but is unable to fight its way through the Dardanelles

It was at this point that the British, along with French reinforcements, organized an ill-fated attempt to seize Istanbul by landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The fighting was savage, and the Allies suffered heavy losses (205,000 British causulties, and 47,000 French causulties), and were eventually forced to retreat.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Kemal Ataturk) successfully defended
the Gallipoli Peninsula from Allied attacks in 1915

The loss at Gallipoli, and the heavy causulties the French sustained in supporting British military objectives (in 1915), is key to understanding how the Middle East would eventually be carved up between the French and the British (in 1916). After all, the Anglo-Persian pipeline in Basra, and the Suez Canal in Egypt (the primary targets of Ottoman attacks against British assets), were hardly of any overriding importance to the French. Why should the French be expected to sacrifice so many of their troops for British mercantile interests, when they have the Germans to contend with in the trenches?

The British would soon be forced to compensate the French for their losses at Gallipoli, and the compensation would come in the form of oil concessions in Mosul.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement

If there was ever any question as to why the British were even in the Middle East in the first place during WWI, the question can easily be answered by casually glancing at the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Concluded in May, 1916, it was essentially a deal struck between Sir Mark Sykes (UK) and Georges Picot (France), although Italy and Russia were signatories as well and received small allotments in Anatolia (what is now Turkey) and the Causaus Mountains, respectively. The lion's share of all the spoils (including all the known oil fields in the region) were divided between the French and the British.

Sykes-Picot Agreement of May, 1916. The French concessions
(including Mosul) are shown in blue; the British concessions
(including Baghdad, Basra and Kuwait) are shown in red.

Some things that Britain and France agreed to under Skyes-Picot:

In each of their respective areas, France and Britain retain exclusive rights to enterprise and exclusive rights to make (local) banking loans.
Britain gets the Palestine ports of Haifa and Acre.
Construction on the Baghdad Railway would be suspended south of Mosul (in the French region) and north of Baghdad (in the British region), until a railway connecting Baghdad with Aleppo (in what is now Syria) had been completed.
Britain had the sole right to build a railway connecting the Palestine port of Haifa with Baghdad, and had perpetual right to transport troops along this line at all times.
Britain and France would control the import of arms into the region.

Looks "fair" enough on paper (unless you're an Arab), but keep in mind the relative deployment of forces in the region. While France was engaged in a murderous war of attrition with Germany in the trenches of the Western Front, Britain was busy sending over 1.4 million of her finest troops into the Middle East. So as not to be accused of utter complacency, the Crown did concede to send "some" reinforcements over to the Western Front, mostly out of the colonial brigades stationed in India and Africa.

France was keenly aware of the disproportionately heavy burden that she was bearing, as well as the (unnecessary) 47,000 causulties that she suffered at Gallipoli fighting for the British Crown. It is for this reason that Picot was able to negotiate a concession to the oil fields of Mosul in 1916 as part of Sykes-Picot. It was a concession that the British were (very) reluctant to make in 1916, and which they were (very) keen to win back in the following years.

Lenin released a copy of the confidential Sykes-Picot
Agreement in 1917, embarrasing the Allies and stirring up
distrust among Britain's most important WWI asset, the Arabs

As a historical note, the Sykes-Picot Agreement was first made public by none other than Rockefeller-stooge Vladimir Lenin soon after he took power in Moscow and dug up a dusty copy of the contract with the Czar's seal of approval on it (for what should perhaps be somewhat obvious reasons .. after all, where was Standard Oil when Mesopotamia was being carved up? ..it would seem that old J.D. Rockefeller had been rudely shut out of the negotiations), although delving into that here will take us too far off topic. As another historical note, the British -- for all their calculating -- saw no value whatsoever (at the time) in the region that is now Saudi Arabia, an oversight that Rockefeller's Standard Oil would be more than happy to take advantage of soon afterwards in the 1930s.

We are now almost ready to discuss the topic of German hyperinflation, which I'll address in my next post.

Reading Notes

2005-07-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

I'm continuing on with my reading notes for Dreyfuss' Hostage to Khomeini, but I've created a new blog for those reading notes, as they tend to be much more scattered and "stream-of-consciousness" than the content I would like to post here.

If you're interested, you can find them here:

http://myreadingnotes.blogspot.com/

For now, Above the President will continue to be a place where I continue posting somewhat well-formed thoughts concerning power and politics.

Detering and Sinclair Duke it Out

2005-07-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of ignorance out there about what caused the runaway hyperinflation in Germany in the early 1920s. Most people believe the reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles had something to do with it, forcing the Weimar government to devalue its currency so as to meet its debt obgliations.

The Imperial Palace Hotel in Genoa, Italy
where the Treaty of Rapallo was concluded

To understand the real reasons for the runaway hyperinflation, one must first understand the Treaty of Rapallo, signed by representatives of Germany and the Soviet Union on April 16th, 1922 at the World Economic Conference in Genoa, Italy. The treaty re-established diplomatic relations between the two countries, renounced financial claims on each other and pledged future cooperation. Specifically, Germany agreed to ship important new technologies over to Russia, in exchange for which Russia would forgive the (enormous) debt Germany owed her. Representing Germany was Walther Rathenau, who was serving at the time as the German foreign minister.

The ongoing World Economic Conference was convened by the British for (roughly) three important reasons:

London desired, if possible, to return to a pre-1914 gold standard.
London was ready to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the new Soviet government in Russia.
London wanted to do all this without the help or prescence of the Americans, for reasons that will shortly become very clear.

London of course anticipated new, lucrative business contracts to begin flowing out of Russia, once diplomatic relations with the Soviets had been normalized. Specifically, the Communist government had already promised Royal Dutch Shell and other British firms concessions to the rich mineral wealth of the Baku oil fields in (what is now) Azerbaijan.

Royal Dutch Shell (UK) battles it out with Standard Oil (US)
for control of the Soviet Baku oil fields in Azerbaijan

As a historical note, one should realize that London had spent the past 3-4 years (since 1918 or so) battling the Communist government in Moscow tooth and nail. Some examples of (covert and overt) British engagement in Russia against the Soviet Communists include:

British financial support for the White Russian Counterrevolution, which fought against Lenin and his Red Army.
British Colonial Minister Winston Churchill helped Boris Savinkow set up a "goverment in exile" in opposition to Lenin's Communist goverment.
British agents Sir Robin Bruce Lockhart and Sidney Reilly made an assassination attempt upon Lenin in August 1918 (or at least, they were accused of having done so by the Soviet government).

It would take us too far afield to discuss all the reasons why London was so strongly opposed to Lenin (at least initially), but the short version of the story is that Lenin and his Soviet government were put in power by the Rockefellers (operating out of the U.S.) and their Standard Oil Company (now Exxon).

Royal Dutch Shell Head, Sir Henry Detering

So essentially what's happening here in a (corporate) battle for concessions to the vast mineral wealth of Russia. On the one side you have Standard Oil, who is backing Lenin and the Communist government in Russia. On the other side you have Royal Dutch Shell, who (operating through the British government) is doing everything in their power to topple the Communist goverment in Russia and win their own concessions to Baku.

Harry Sinclair and the Teapot Dome Scandal

The Sinclair Oil Company was form on May 1, 1916 when Harry Sinclair brought together the assets of eleven smaller petroleum companies under one corporate umbrella. The company quickly grew to be one of the largest oil companies in the United States. Sinclair initially ran the operation out of Oklahoma, although today the company is based in Utah.

Teddy Roosevelt served as U.S. president from 1901 to 1909.
Two of his sons worked for Harry Sinclair's oil companies.
A third son staged a coup in Iran in 1953, on behalf of U.S. oil.

By most outward appearences, Sinclair was the proverbial American "self-made" man. A closer look under the covers, though, reveals that it was his connections - and specifically his connections to Standard Oil - that made Sinclair who he was. Teddy Roosevelt, Junior, son of the former U.S. president, sat on the board of directors of the Sinclair Refining Company, and his brother, Archibald Roosevelt, was a vice-president at Sinclair Oil. William Boyce Thompson, a director at the Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank in New York (the bank through which Standard Oil did most of its business) was also a member of Sinclair's board of directors.

The picture that emerges is one in which the Rockefellers used Harry Sinclair and his oil companies to further their own interests, whenever it was more politically expedient not to "reveal" the "hand" of Standard Oil directly. It's no therefore coincidence (or surprise) that just after the 1917 Russian Revolution, Harry Sinclair traveled to Russia and met with Lenin to negotiate oil concessions for his company in Siberia. Remember, it was the Rockefellers who put Lenin in power in the first place.

The Soviet island of Sakalin (in red)
was believed to hold oil mineral wealth

In so far as the Soviet oil concessions were concerned, Sinclair had already traveled to London repeatedly (1918-1921), along with his corporate vice-president Archibald Roosevelt and U.S. Senator Albert Fall (R-New Mexico), to meet and negotiate with Soviet foreign minister Leonid Krassin. They met to discuss concessions not only in Baku, but also deep in Siberia, including those on Soviet island of Sakalin (in the Pacific Ocean). The Sinclair Group was prepared to offer $115 million to the Soviets for these concessions, as well as using their contacts in the Harding administration (Senator Fall had been appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in March 1921) to press for U.S. diplomatic recognition of the new Soviet government.

1924 political cartoon depicting the Teapot Dome Scandal

The parties were all prepared to sign their names on the dotted line, when - out of the blue - a scandal that eeriely forshadowed the Watergate crisis of the Nixon years embroiled the key American stakeholders, including Albert Fall, Harry Sinclair and President Harding. In early 1922, reports began to surface that Albert Fall (now acting as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior) had leased - without competitive bidding - the Teapot Dome, Wyoming oil fields to Harry Sinclair and the Elk Hills, California oil fields to Edward L. Doheny. Albert Fall was eventually forced to resign his position as Secretary of the Interior in March, 1923, and the scandal even reached all the way into the office of the president, as Harding had officially transferred control of the oil fields from the Navy to the Department of Interior in 1921 by Executive Order. Fall, Sinclair and Doheny were all convicted on various charges of bribery, conspiracy and contempt of court. The oil fields were eventually restored to the U.S. government by a Supreme Court decision in 1927.

U.S. Senate investigates the Teapot Dome Scandal

Harry Sinclair's photo "graced" the front page of the Wall Street Journal (and other prominent papers) on April 14, 1922. President Harding died under very suspicious circumstances about a year later. His successor, Calvin Coolidge, showed no interest either in Harry Sinclair or in U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union. U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet regime would have to wait another decade until Franklin D. Roosevelt came into power.

Black rook takes white queen.

In one fell swoop, Detering (who was the source of the initial Teapot Dome rumors) and his backers in British intelligence had swiftly and decisively removed their American competition (i.e., the Rockefellers), and were now prepared to "negotiate" for concessions with the (Rockefeller-backed) Soviets on their own terms. So as to kick these negotiations off in the proper spirit, the British convened the World Economic Conference in Genoa, Italy in April 1922.

In the next post, we'll have a look at what all this has to do with the German hyperinflation of the 1920s.

Brzezinski's "Islamic" Card

2005-07-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
-- Ephesians 5:11

The Arc of Crisis

Continuing on with our review of Robert Dreyfuss' Hostage to Khomeini, we left off with U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski waxing intellectual about how Muslim fundamentalists are preferable for the U.S. to deal with since at least they are not "godless athiests" like the Soviet Communists are.

Masjid al-Nabawi, in Medina, is the second holiest shrine in Islam.

Brzezinski's support for Islamic fundamentalism soon became the dominant theme of U.S. foreign policy towards the entire Mideast. As is usual for those in Establishment circles, Brzezinski drew authority for his policy decisions by citing the need to react to a range of artificially engineered "crises" (see my earlier post concerning Lawmaking by Fiat, or the excellent study Executive Orders and National Emergencies produced by the Cato Institute). To this end, Brzezinski coined the term Arc of Crisis to describe the geographic region stretching from North and East Africa through the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Brzezinski charged that the Sovet Union was making a power play for control of the oil in this region of the world, and that the U.S. must react lest the fate of civilization fall into the hands of the Soviets.

It's highly unlikely that the Soviets ever had any such serious ambitions, although (somewhat "coincidently") the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 gave Brzezinski precisely the fuel he needed to substantiate his claims to this effect. More on this later...

As a sidenote, it's interesting to note that the term "Arc of Crisis" has stuck, and is used to this day in media sources such as:

Much of the "imprint" on the American public conscience that was left by this statement is probably due to a 1979 article in Foreign Affairs endorsing Brzezinski's policy.

Talk about "manufacturing consent" ...

Brzezinski's salient points concerning the Arc of Crisis were as follows:

The "Arc" is the last major stronghold against Soviet advancement in the Free World
Roughly 75% of the world's oil reserves lay in the "Arc" (these are Brzezinski's numbers, dated 1979)
The "Arc" is the scene of the world's most bitter ongoing conflict, the one between Zionists and Arab nationalists

Some other, more minor points of his were that this region is the birthplace of the major, monotheistic religions of the world, including Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and that it's the scene of an intense struggle between two ideologies of how to economically modernize: the Western model and the Soviet model.

President Truman announced a Communist
"Containment" Strategy in 1947

Brzezinski's "Arc of Crisis" model continued a long-standing U.S. strategy of expanding its power and influence under the guise of "containing Communism." The first such public docrtine was enunciated by President Truman in 1947 in the so-called Truman Doctrine. Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon each followed with their own Communist Containment strategies in 1957 and 1969, respectively. Although each such "doctrine" (including Brzezinski's) paid lip service to "containing" the Soviet boogyman, the results of these policies was the inevitable expansion of U.S. military and economic power across the globe.

Mideast Treaty Organization (METO)

Nobody really (seriously) believed that the Moscow was supporting Khomeini against the Shah, but most analysis believed that Moscow would have preferred that the Shah remain in power. Brzezinski used the image of a Soviet bear pressing down toward the Indian Ocean to propose the creation of METO, similar to NATO or SEATO, but tailored to the Mideast Region (see my post about the UN War Document to learn more about who really controls NATO and SEATO).

The idea was not new. In fact, the original name of CENTO (the Central Treaty Organization) was METO (CENTO was also known as the Baghdad Pact). CENTO was adopted in 1955 by Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and (ironically?) Britain. Pressure from the United States was key in forming the alliance in the first place, although the U.S. did not formally join the pact until 1958. The organization's headquarters was in Baghdad Iraq. CENTO is generally regarded as one of the least successful of all Cold War alliances, and the alliance more or less fell apart in 1974 after Turkey invaded Cyprus.

In 1978, the Zionist Edgar Bronfman (chairman of the Seagram's Corporation) wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times where he too demanded consideration of a "METO" organization. Bronfman claimed that he had discussed the idea with New York Senator Jacob Javits and with Vice President Walter Mondale, who then suggested to Brzezinski that the idea be pursued by the administration. The "formal" idea of a METO was put together at a summit at Camp David in September 1978.

Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline - Iranian tankers unloaded crude
oil at the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat until the Shah fell in 1979

Why were Zionists like Bronfman so interested in protecting the status quo in Iran? Most likely it had something to do with the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, which runs from the Red Sea port of Eilat, Israel up to the Mediterrean coast near Ashkelon. The use of this pipeline can save considerable time and money over shipping oil through the nearby Suez Canal, and it represents a major source of income for the state of Israel. The pipeline was used regularly by Iranian tankers shipping Persian crude until the Shah's regime fell in 1979.

More on this later..

At any rate, the idea was gradually formulated to resurrect METO as an expansion of NATO into the Middle East. Egypt and Israel were expected to be the first countries to accept membership into the expanded NATO alliance, followed by Iran. Brzezinski regarded the Muslim Brotherhood as the common factor that could bring together all the disparate regimes in the "Arc of Crisis."

The Mujahadeens of Afghanistan

The culmination of Brzezinski's Islamic strategy was the covert American and open Chinese support for the Afghanistan guerillas operating out of Pakistan and Iran.

Afghanistan shares long borders with Iran and Pakistan

With the victory of an Islamic Revolution in Iran to inspire them, the fundamentalist guerillas began to attack the pro-Soviet government in Kabul with impunity. The guerillas were rewarded handsomely with American aid for doing so. Brzezinski's NSC was spoon fed glowing reports of alleged victories by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Afghan government of Prime Minister Amin. Brzezinski and his Peking allies pressed on with their "jihad" in Afghanistan.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was secretly welcomed by Brzezinski. Washington now had the opportunity to mobilize Iran and the rest of the Muslim world against the Soviets, who were consistently portrayed in Washington statements as Islam's chief enemy. No matter that these same Muslim "allies" had seized the American embassy in Tehran, held its diplomats hostage and burned down American embassies in Pakistan and Libya.

The Dreyfuss Report

2005-07-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've been making (and will be continuing to make, for some time) posts based on Robert Dreyfuss' landmark 1980 book, Hostage to Khomeini. Those who are interested in reading more about what Dreyfuss has to say about the Middle East might like to know that between May 2004 and February 2005, Dreyfuss wrote a serious of op-ed pieces for TomPaine.com.

You can find the entire collection of op-ed pieces here:

The Dreyfuss Report

Look for Dreyfuss' new book, Devil's Game: How the U.S. Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, due out in Fall 2005.

Someday, of course, I'll have to make a few posts about Thomas Paine himself, but first, back to Iran circa 1980...

Who Overthrew the Shah?

2005-07-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

So as to better understand why (so-called) "Muslim terrorists" are bombing London (or for that matter, New York), it's important to delve deeply into the shadowy world of London finance, Texas oil and Arab nationalism. Two important names that come up regularly in any such investigation are (a) BCCI; and (b) the Muslim Brotherhood. Both organizations were made up predominantly of Arab nationals, both organizations were (ostensibly) run out of London City, both organizations were closely linked with U.S., British and Israeli intelligence, and both organization have perpetrated any number of terrorist attacks.

The Muslim Brotherhood Set Off
Bombs in London on July 7, 2005

One of the clearest and most articulate exposes of the Muslim Brotherhood was produced by Robert Dreyfuss in 1980, entitled Hostage to Khomeini. The book can be read online in its entirety here.

I am today going to begin a (long) series of posts, in which I'll be documenting and outlining the more salient points of Dreyfuss' book. I anticipate that much of the content will flow in a "stream of consciousness" type style, but then again, whose blog doesn't?

Here goes nothing ..

The Carter administration deliberately, and with malicious premeditation, provided aid to the Khomeini as so to overthrow the Shah of Iran

The Carter administration helped out Khomeini in a number of ways, including propaganda crafted by U.S. and British Intelligence, and behind-the-scenes arms deals that would eventually blossom into Iran-Contra.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the
world's most dangerous terrorists

People that were intimately involved in these affairs included:

Zbigniew Brzezinski (head of the U.S. National Security Council)
Cyrus Vance (U.S. Secretary of State)
George Ball (NSC's Iran Task Force special coordinator)
David Newsom (U.S. State Department)
Henry Precht (U.S. State Department)
William H. Sullivan (U.S. Ambassador to Tehran)
Harold Brown (Pentagon)
Charles Duncan (Pentagon)
General Alexander Haig (NATO)
General Robert Huyser (NATO)
Admiral Stansfield Turner (CIA)
Robert Bowie (CIA)
Richard Cottam (University of Pittsburgh, Iran specialist)
Marvin Zonis (University of Chicago, Iran specialist)
James Bill (University of Texas, Austin, Iran specialist)
Richard Falk (Princeton, Iran specialist)
Bernard Lewis (Princeton, Iran specialist)
Thomas Ricks (Georgetown, Iran specialist)

This group acted as a general liason between (1) the Carter White House; (2) the organizers of the Khomeini Revolution; and (3) a secret society called the Muslim Brotherhood. The general coordinator for the entire operation was U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

The developing alliance between the White House and the Muslim Brotherhood (1977-1979) was sold to junior members of the intelligence community as part of a geopolitical strategy aimed at the Soviet boogeyman.

Brzezinski and cohorts formulated a policy of plausible denial by circulating rumors that the Shah of Iran had developed cancer and was likely to soon die. It was reasoned that his death would leave a power vacuum in Iran that would not easily be filled. The CIA "feared" that the Soviets might move in, so it was "critical" the U.S. begin building contacts with the Shah's opposition in Iran (most of which was rooted in Islamic fundamentalism).

The American people were told nothing.

In 1977, Brzezinski had publicly stated that he believed "Islamic fundamentalism" would provide an effective bulkwark against Communism. His reasoning, as recorded in a New York Times interview after the Iranian Revolution, was that Washington should welcome Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East since -- ideologically -- they were not "atheists" like the Soviet Communists were. This view was reaffirmed on November 7, 1979 by Carter press secretary Jody Powell, three days after 53 Americans were taken hostage in Tehran.

Brzezinski's expertise lay in the use of religion and religious cults as tools of political warfare.

Brzezinski was trained by Jesuits at McGill University in Canada. He is on record as stating that his thinking is so close to the Jesuits that he regards himself as an honorary member of their Society. By using Jesuit contacts in Eastern Europe (Brzezinski is of Polish birth), the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, and by playing the "China Card," it was thought that Brzezinski was trying to encircle the Soviet Union with hostile, ideologically-motivated armies.

One quarter of the Soviet population was Muslim, and it was believed that by inflaming their ideologies, the Soviet Union could be effectively dismantled.

More to come soon..

Aspen Institute Meddles in Iran

2005-07-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

One of the books at the top of my reading list is Hostage to Khomeini, by Robert Dreyfuss. After reading this short excerpt online, I'm now more eager than ever to have a look at the book.

The entire book is available online here.

Persepolis, Iran was built c. 500 BC by Darius the Great

In September 1975, the Aspen Institute organized a symposium in the ancient city of Persepolis, Iran. Their goals were, as usual, completely subversive. Publicly, the Institute documented its proceedings in a book that was later published entitled Iran: Past, Present and Future. Subversely, they made plans to reverse the Shah's industrialization program and to turn Iran into a model for Dark Age brutality and repression. As is usual with the Establishment, they got the people they were targeting (in this case, the Shah and his wife, Empress Farah Diba) to underwrite and finance the cost of their "research."

Some of the attendees at the Persepolis symposium included:

Aureho Peceei (Club of Rome chairman)
Sol Linowitz
Jacques Freymond
Robert O. Anderson (Aspen Institute)
Rarlan Cleveland (Aspen Institute)

We of course met Robert O. Anderson earlier on my post about the $25 Million Constitution.

The goal of the conference was to drive home a single point: modernization and industrialization (such as that which the Shah was pursuing) undermine the "spiritual, nonmaterial" values of ancient Iranian society, and these values must be preserved above all else.

Bani-Sadr, Elected President of Iran in 1980

The other interesting thing to note here are some of the connections which aided Abolhassan Bani-Sadr in his rise to power under the watchful guidance of the Aspen Institute and the various western intelligence agencies. Bani-Sadr spent most of the 1970s living in exile in Paris, where he joined the Iranian "resistance" group lead by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Bani-Sadr returned with Khomeini to Iran in February 1979 as the Iranian Revolution was just beginning. He was later elected president of Iran in 1980.

What's interesting about Bani-Sadr is that while in Paris, he studied under the following people and institutions:

Centre Nationale des Recherches Scientifiques (CNRS)
"Division Six" of the Ecole Pratique des Hatues Etudes (EPHE-6)
National Institute for Agronomical Research
George Balandier
Paul Veille
Rene Dumont (expelled from Cuba and Algeria for being a CIA agent)
Miche Crozier (theorist associated with the Tavistock Institute in Britain, and coordinator of the 1968 destabilization of the de Gaulle government)
Jene-Pierre Vigier (also a key figure in the 1968 destabilization of the de Gaulle government)
Michel Foucault (connected to British and Israeli intelligence)
Jacques Soustelle (connected to British and Israeli intelligence)
Charles Battelheim (connected to British and Israeli intelligence)
Claude Levi-Strauss (connected to British and Israeli intelligence)
Henri Corbin (connected to British and Israeli intelligence)
Roger Garaudy (a French Jesuit, associated with the Institute for the Dialogue of Civilizations)

What's so important about these people and institutions? It's that these are precisely the same people and institutions who were responsible for "training" and "mentoring" Khieu Samphan just a few years earlier.. and who, might you say, was Khieu Samphan? He was the president of Cambodia under Pol Pot, at a time when Cambodia was undergoing a similar genocidal "cultural revolution" that would later become the fate of Iran under Khomeini.

You beginning to see a few connections?

The British Crown Modernizes Slavery

2005-07-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

The Victorian novelist Charles Dickens open his classic Tale of Two Cities with the famous words "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" ...... and so it is with us today.

Dickens wrote about the French Revolution in
The Tale of Two Cities (painting by Delacroix)

I frequently malign the British Empire (and Crown), and the stranglehold that it has exerted (and continues to exert) over the planet for the past 300+ years. Yet, every cloud has its silver lining. There is no political freedom without economic freedom, and our current system of free enterprise (under attack, as it is) owes a great and deep debt to the pioneering thought of classical British liberalists; William Shakespeare is certainly a treasure of the entire human race to enjoy; and America (somewhat obviously) owes its very existence in no small part to the philosophers and thinkers of the English Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Such are the British contributions to humanity that you are taught about in school. They qualify as that which we might very justly term "the best of times," for truly these advancements (especially those in the economic sphere) have been (very) directly responsible for bringing to a greater part of the world a quality of life that was unknown even among royalty not so very long ago. I make these comments partly because they are true, and they should therefore be known and acknowledged, and partly out of deference to the people of Britain and the victims of last week's bus bomb attacks in London.

Yet there is a much darker side to this story, a part of the story that you are deliberately not taught about in school. It's the part that describes exactly how the British Crown, operating from that tiny little island up in the North Sea, managed first to build, and now today to maintain, the greatest, most powerful and most pervasive Empire the world has ever known.

The story begins over 300 years ago with creation of the British "free trade" system, a euphamism used (to this day) in polite society to describe the far more vulgar concept of "slavery." It is, of course, (rather) well known that the British Empire was first built upon the backs of Black chattel slaves over 300 years ago. It is perhaps slightly less well known that the United States, despite winning "political" independence from Great Britain in 1783, was unable to achieve any meaningful economic independence from Britain until 1865, when President Lincoln was finally able to throw the British "free-traders" and their slave-handling ways out of this country.

Lincoln won the first major battle
against British "free trade" in 1865

What is far less well known in the Western world is that the barbarity, cruelity and malice with which the English practiced chattel slavery is without parallel in the history of recorded civilization. The ancients kept slaves, that much is true, but in the ancient world it was rare that such a "contract" extend over the course of an entire lifetime, much less was it perpetuated from one generation to the next solely upon the basis of race [1,2]. Such a system of perpetual (and racist) chattel enslavement appears to be entirely of English origin and invention.

British "contributions" to the practice of chattel slavery may be somewhat ambiguous, but what we know for a fact is that nearly every form of social collectivism created during the 19th and 20th centuries - everything from Communism to Naziism to Fabianism to the United Nations to the European Union - is (ultimately) of English invention. If you want more evidence to support such claims, keep reading this blog .. I plan on posting much more about such topics in the coming weeks and months.

In my next post, I'll discuss what all this has to do with our current topic at hand: the global terrorism that is spewed forth (daily) from London City, and what it means for those who are (still) loyal to the American Republic.

Footnotes

It's an interesting footnote to history that even such greats as Pythagoras and Plato had the unfortunate experience of spending various and sundry times of their lives as slaves. Pythoagoras was taken captive when the Persian ruler Cambyses invaded Egypt in 525 B.C. He was taken back to Persia, where he eventually won his freedom and proceeded to study philosophy with the Magians of Persia and the Chaldeans of Babylon. Plato was briefly taken as a slave in Italy while he was studying with the Pythagoreans, but soon obtained his freedom with the help of a Libyan friend.

There are a few exceptions that could be cited, for instance the plight of the Hebrews in Egypt prior to Moses, or of the Jews during the Babylonian Exile, yet concrete data concerning the extent to which "economic slavery" was a factor in these events is scant and ambiguous. There is also ample documentation from the classical era (for instance, in the biographies of Plutarch) indicating that slaves (for instance in Rome) were often treated with (relatively) decent regard and (more or less) as members of the family whom they served.

Herbert Hoover and Central Planning

2005-07-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

Got into a discussion today at dinner about the Great Depression, what caused it, and whether or not FDR's policies prolonged it. It's going to take me a couple posts to sort through all my thoughts on this topic, but for starters I'm going to cover some of the basics right here today.

Did Hoover really do nothing? Most people believe that Hoover stood by and did nothing while the economy collapsed, and that it was only FDR's vigorous intervention in the economy that "saved the day" for "capitalism." In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Hebert Hoover, U.S. President 1929-1933

In the first place, it isn't true that Hoover stood by and "did nothing." In fact, Hoover did more than any peacetime president in American history (up to that point) had done. Rexford Tugwell, an important figure in FDR's New Deal programs and someone we met on my post about the $25 Million Constitution, is on record as stating: "We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."

Secondly, it was Hoover's constant meddling with the economy that managed to turn the mild recession of 1929 into the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic picture may have been bad in 1929 and 1930, but it wasn't until 1931, after a year of government intervention, that the situation truly became critical.

Messing with employment: Within a month following the stock market crash, Hoover summoned key business leaders to the White House. He implored them to refrain from cutting wages, arguing that high wages were the way out of the economic downturn since they gave workers the means to purchase goods.

Depressions, of course, occur for one and only one reason: a contraction in the amount of money available to the economy; hence, the only way out of a depression is to let prices (and wages) fall. Wages are, after all, a cost of doing business. By demanding high wages - at a time when prices were (naturally) falling - Hoover was making it more difficult for businesses to hire people. Nevertheless, big business honored Hoover's wishes, and the result was predictable: mass unemployment.

Hoover's Policies Created Record Unemployment

High wages are a reflection of prosperity, not the cause of it. If high wages alone could produce prosperity, we could eliminate poverty by simply having the government mandate a $100-per-hour minimum wage. The sheer insanity of this, to say nothing of the mass unemployment this would cause, should be apparent to anyone, yet this is precisely the policy that Hoover (and his successor, FDR) followed.

Messing with agriculture: American agriculture had suffered from a chronic surplus problem throughout most of the 1920s. During WWI, U.S. agricultural output had expanded dramatically. Once the war was over, though, the nation found that it had far more farmers than it (or even the world) actually needed. The resulting surpluses (naturally) depressed the prices of almost all agricultural goods. Yet rather than allow supply-and-demand to work its natural course, American farmers had grown dependent on government assistance (in one form or another) to help prop up agricultural prices.

Canadian and Argentinian farmers stole global
market share from the U.S., thanks to Hoover

Hoover continued this policy by establishing the Federal Farm Board (FFB) in 1929 to make loans to farmers so they could keep their crops (especially wheat and cotton) off the market until prices rose. Yet whenever prices actually did rise, farmers went ahead and produced even more crop, making the surplus even worse for the following year. Eventually the Federal Farm Board decided to authorize, through its Grain Stablization Corporation, massive purchases of U.S. wheat well above world prices. Farmers therefore sold their wheat to the Grain Stablization Corporation, rather than exporting it. Hoover was sure that by keeping American wheat off the world market, a global shortage would ensue and soon the world would be begging for more American wheat. Instead, Canadian and Argentinian producers increased their output and stole what was left of America's share of the world market.
Messing with taxes: In June 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff into law. Originally intended to provide tariff protection to American agriculture, Smoot-Hawley ended up providing "protection" for virtually every sector of the economy by raising tariffs an average of 59% on over 25,000 imported items. The impact on American exporters was predictable. The Italian government, for instance, responded by doubling its tariffs on American cars, causing American auto sales in Italy to plummet by 90%. Spain too raised tariffs on American cars, to the point where almost no American cars could be sold there. France simply closed its markets altogether to virtually all American products.

Andrew Mellon, Tax Tyrant

There were other (insane) tax increases as well. Andrew Mellon, who served as Secretary of the Treasury under Hoover, helped push through the disasterous Revenue Act of 1932. It was the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history up to that point. Income tax rates were increased dramatically and surtaxes on the highest incomes rose from 23% to 63%. Mellon also introduced new federal taxes on: corporations, estates, gifts, cars, tires, gasoline, toiletries, electricity, luxury items, bank checks and on telephone, telegraph and radio messages.

Messing with spending: Hoover spent more on public works projects during his four years in office, then had been spent in the previous thirty. He subsidized the shipbuilding industry at a time when demand for shipping services was falling due to a shrinkage in international trade caused by Smoot-Hawley. Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) supplied failing businesses, usually railroads and banks, with emergency low-interest loans. Most of the businesses Hoover attempted to save wound up going bankrupt anyway, or were burdened throughout the 1930s with crushing loads of debt.

Hoover is on record as stating in 1932 that "We might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead, we met the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic." The result, of course, was an economic catastrophe of collossal proportions, one which FDR would spend the next 12 years perpetuating and fine-tuning.

More info on these topics can be found in Thomas E. Woods, Jr.'s excellent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. In a future post, I'll go over how FDR finished the work that Hoover started, by unneccessarily prolonging the Depression. I'll also cover some of the basics of recessions, depressions and the business cycle.