TIMELINE TO GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
http://www.prisonplanet.com/timeline_to_...rnance.htm
1891 The Society of the Elect and the Association of Helpers - (also known as the "Secret Society,"), was created by Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner, William T. Stead, Reginald Baliol Brett, and Lord Esher, in London. Rhodes died in 1902, leaving the society, and his fortune, under the control of Milner, who established the Rhodes Scholar program. Good background here.
1910 The Round Table - a periodical, first published by Milner's "Secret Society" for Britain's intellectual community. The writers, and those associated with the publication became known as the Round Table Group, and later, the Chatham House crowd. Comprehensive background.
1912 Edward Mandell House - published Philip Dru: Administrator,a novel describing how the world could best be governed by a benevolent administrator. House traveled in Europe in 1909, and met Woodrow Wilson November 25, 1911. Chronology: Met Sir Edward Grey (member of Milner's group) in 1913.
1913 Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President - Edward Mandell House served as Wilson's campaign manager, and then as chief advisor. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Federal Reserve Act enacted - creating the first "central bank" in America. Paul Warberg, whose family controlled the Reichsbank in Germany, was the architect of the system.
1914 World War I Begins - Wilson campaigned against U.S. entry into the war, then entered the war in 1917, one year before it ended.
1918 Wilson's 14 Points - presented to a joint session of Congress on January 8. The document was developed by Colonel Mandell House and advisors known as the "Inquiry."
The League of Nations - first proposed in The Round Table, in December, in an article entitled The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion, written by Edward Mandell House and Lionel Curtis, a member of the original Rhodes/Milner "Secret Soceity."
1919 Paris Peace Conference - House is Wilson's chief deputy at the conference where he expanded his association with leaders of the Milner group.
Genesis of the CFR and RIIA - At a meeting on May 30, at the Majestic Hotel in Paris, Edward M. House, Lionel Curtis, Lord Eustace Percy, Harold Temperley, Herbert Hoover, Christian Herter, James T. Shotwell (Columbia), Charles Seymore (Yale), Archibald C. Coolidge (Harvard), were among 50 individuals who decided to create the Council on Foreign Relations in the U.S., and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
The Treaty of Versailles - signed June 28, ended the war and incorporated The Covenant of the League of Nations as the first 30 Articles - very much as had been proposed by House and Curtis.
1920 League of Nations rejected by U.S. Senate - despite herculean efforts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Royal Institute of International Affairs - organized by the Milner group, housed at the Chatham House in London.
1921 Council on Foreign Relations - organized as U.S. counterpart to Royal Institute of International Affairs. John W. Davis, attorney to J.P. Morgan, was first president. Paul Warberg and J.D. Rockefeller were among initial funders. Began publishing Foreign Affairs in 1922. Described by Senator Barry Goldwater in 1979.
1925 Mein Kampf - published by Adolf Hitler.
1929 Stock Market Crash - Sets the stage for world wide depression, international response, and another war.
1930 Bank of International Settlements - created in Basel, Switzerland. J.P. Morgan & Company, and others involved with the creation of the Federal Reserve, were among the founders.
1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt - begins his presidency amid the great depression. "The New Deal" was formulated by leftist, Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secretary of State, Cordell Hulll, who, as a Senator, supported Wilson's League of Nations. Hull began drafting a United Nations Charter two weeks after Pearl Harbor.
1933 The Wilderness Society - founded by Bob Marshall, a socialist.
1936 National Wildlife Federation - founded.
1938 World marches toward war - A chronology of events leading to World War II, the event which gave rise to the United Nations.
1941 FDR delivers "Four Freedoms" speech - (January 6), and the Atlantic Conference (August 14), embody the idea of disarming sovereign nations under international authority.
Declaration of War on Japan (December 8); Declaration of War on Germany (December 11).
1942 Declaration by "United Nations" - first official use of the name "United Nations," suggested by Roosevelt. Chronnology of related events.
1943 Moscow Conference - Articles 5 - 7 refer to "United Nations" and post-war permanent organization.
United Nations Association - created by Eleanor Roosevelt.
1944 Bretton Woods Agreements - created the World Bank , and the International Monetary Fund . Henry Morganthau delivered the closing address. (Background and conference details.)
Dumbarton Oaks Conversations - produce the draft recommendations for a United Nations organization. The U.S. Team, led by Edward Stettinius, included Alger Hiss, Ralph Bunche, Leo Pasvolsky, and Grayson Kirk. Overview of the meeting.
1945 Yalta Conference - (February) reached agreement on U.N. draft recommendations and set the date for U.N. conference. Germany surrenders (May 7).
U.N. Charter - signed June 26, in San Francisco. Ratified by Senate (89-2) July 28.
International Court of Justice - established in The Hague.
August 6, & 9, atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Japan surrenders (August 14).
UNESCO - created in London, November 16.
1946 U.S. joins UNESCO - Julian Huxley, president of the Eugenics Society, and author of "The New Divinity", first Director. Socialist Joseph Needham, appointed Director of Natural Science.
World Health Organization created.
1947 World Federalist Association - founded in Asheville, North Carolina
World Federalist Movement - founded in Switzerland.
1948 IUCN Created - by Julian Huxley, in Geneva. Headquarters in Gland, Switzerland The U.S. Government, and several agencies are members.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights - adopted by U.N. General Assembly
Environmental Education - concept introduced to the U.N. by the IUCN.
1949 UNESCO Publication 356 - "Toward World Understanding."
1951 The Nature Conservancy - organized.
1959 United Nations Development Program - evolved to maturity.
1960 Temple of Understanding - organized in New York. Dr. Robert Muller on Advisory Board.
1961 Freedom From War - State Department Publication 7277, setting forth U.S. disarmament policy in favor of U.N. peacekeeping.
World Wildlife Fund - organized by Julian Huxley and IUCN.
1964 Wilderness Act of 1964 - and how it came to be.
UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development established.
1968 ECOSOC Resolution 1296 - directed by Dr. Robert Muller, establishes "Consultative Status" for NGOs (non-government organizations). Lucis Trust among first NGOs accredited.
Club of Rome - organized, and published Limits to Growth.
1970 First Earth Day - founder, Gaylord Nelson. Another view of Earth Day.
World Conference on Religion and Peace - opened headquartrs at the U.N. Center. Held conference in Kyoto, Japan, was accredited by ECOSOC in 1973.
Environmental Protection Agency - created.
1971 RAMSAR Treaty on Wetlands - signed in Ramsar, Iran. IUCN driving force behind RAMSAR.
1972 Clean Water Act - passed by Congress. Wetland definition expanded by lawsuit brought by National Wildlife Federation, resulting in "Tulloch" decision in 1993. Tulloch overturned in 1997.
World Heritage Convention - adopted by UNESCO. Technical Review.
Earth Summit I - First U.N. Conference on Environment. Maurice Strong Conference leader.
James Parks Morton became dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
1973 CITES Signed - (March 3 - Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). IUCN and WWF driving force behind CITES. Endangered Species Act - became U.S. law.
U.N. Environment Program - launched with Maurice Strong first Executive Director.
Trilateral Commission - formed, most participants also members of Council on Foreign Relations.
UNEP's Regional Seas Program - expands environmental outreach. Survey of U.S. participation.
1975 Belgrade Charter - Global Framework for Environmental Education. Promoted by NAAEE
1976 HABITAT I - adopts U.N. policy on land. William K. Reilly and Carla Hills signed for U.S.
Federal Land Policy Management Act - adopted.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - becomes international law.
UNIFEM - created to promote womens' rights.
1978 Global Taxation - first proposed by James Tobin. Current status.
1979 U.S. MAB - (Man and the Biosphere Program) launched by agency agreement with UNESCO.
First World Climate Conference - held in Geneva, Switzerland.
World Core Curriculum - introduced by Dr. Robert Muller, through the Robert Muller Schools.
CEDAW - (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) adopted by the U.N. General Assembly.
1980 World Conservation Strategy - published jointly by UNEP, IUCN, and WWF.
MacBride Commission - (International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems. Report: Many Voices, One World. Chaired by Sean MacBride. Early efforts to control communications.
Brandt Commission - (Independent Commission on International Development) chaired by Willy Brandt. Report: North-South: A Program for Survival linked economic equity to development and was beginning of "sustainable development" concept.
1982 Palme Commission - (Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues). Report: Common Security: A Blueprint For Survival linked security to development. Chaired by Olof Palme.
World Resources Institute - organized with help from Russell E. Train. Gustave Speth first director.
World Charter for Nature - precursor to the Earth Charter.
U.N. Convention on the Law of the seas - which created the International Seabed Authority.
1985 U.N. Convention on Ozone Depleting Substances - adopted in Vienna, Austria.
1987 Montreal Protocol - converts voluntary Ozone Treaty into international law.
Brundtland Commission - (World Commission on Environment and Development). Report: Our Common Future, which defined "sustainable development". Chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland. Members included Shridath Ramphal and Maurice Strong .
Institute for Global Communications - created by the Tides Fouundtion to facilitate NGO communications.
1988 Global Forum on Human Survival - held in Oxford, England. Co-sponsored by the Temple of Understanding and the U.N. Committee on Parliamentarians and Population, chaired by James Parks Morton. James Lovelock was the featured speaker. Complete background here .
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - created by WMO and UNEP.
1989 Berlin Wall falls - (November 9), USSR begins to disintegrate.
Convention on Rights of the Child - adopted by the U.N.
Climate Action Network - created in Germany to promote climate treaty.
1990 Global Forum on Human Survival - held in Moscow, hosted by Mikhail Gorbachev, and Javier Perez de Cuellar, chaired by James Parks Morton.
World Summit for Children - held in New York; adopted Plan of Action.
Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) - created by Bella Abzug.
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) - created at the invitation of the U.N.,to advance Agenda 21 at the local level.
1991 Caring for the Earth - published jointly by UNEP, IUCN, and WWF.
Stockholm Initiative on Global Security and Governance - origin of Commission on Global Goverance.
1992 Commission on Global Governance - established. Willy Brandt, with the blessings of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, appointed Ingvar Carlsson and Shridath Ramphal (IUCN president) as co-chairs.
Global Biodiversity Strategy - published jointly by UNEP, IUCN, WWF, and WRI.
U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) - Rio de Janeiro. Chaired by Maurice Strong. Produced: Agenda 21; Convention on Biological Diversity; Framework Convention on Climate Change; Statement of Forest Principles; and the Rio Declaration.
U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development - created to advance Agenda 21.
Earth Council - created in Costa Rica by Maurice Strong to coordinate global implementation of Agenda 21 through "National Councils" on Sustainable Development.
National Religious Partnership for the Environment - outgrowth of Temple of Understanding's "Joint Appeal."
The Wildlands Project - published by Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!. Project seeks to convert half of America to wilderness.
1993 President's Council on Sustainable Development - created by Executive Order No. 12852 to implement Agenda 21 in America, co-chaired by WRI president, Jonathan Lash.
First Meridian Conference on Global Governance - held in Bolinas, California.
World Conference on Human Rights - in Vienna.
Green Cross - founded by Mikhail Gorbachev.
BIONET - created to promote Convention on Biological Diversity.
1994 World Trade Organization - formed at Uruguay round of GATT negotiations.
U.N. Conference on Population and Development - in Cairo
1995 World Summit on Social Development - in Copenhagen.
Commission on Sustainable Development - met in New York.
Fourth World Women's Congress - in Beijing. Documents.
State of the World Forum - San Francisco, hosted by Mikhail Gorbachev and Maruice Strong.
Our Global Neighborhood - final report released by the Commission on Global Governance.
Analysis - of Commission report.
Global Biodiversity Assessment - released by UNEP. Coordinated by Robert Watson.
1996 U.N. Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT II) - Istanbul. Community Sustainability , U.S. HUD's report to the conference. Instanbul Declaration on Human Settlements.
Campaign for U.N. Reform - organized to lobby for global governance.
1997 Al Gore's report - to the U.N. at Rio +5. A broader view of Agenda 21 implementation.
Kyoto Protocol - Adopted in Kyoto, Japan. Converts voluntary climate change treaty to binding international law. On-site reports.
International Conference on Environment and Society - sponsored by UNESCO in Thessaloniki. Survey of environmental education movement.
1998 International Criminal Court - created in Rome. On-site reports from Rome.
International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) - created to lobby for U.N. gun control.
U.N. Climate Change Conference - in Buenos Aires.
1999 Charter for Global Democracy - consolidates recommendations of Commission on Global Governance into 12 principles.
World NGO Conference - held in Canada to promote plan for "The Peoples Assembly."
U.N. Climate Change Conference - in Bonn.
2000 Earth Charter - final draft.
NGO Millennium Forum - New York, precursor to "The People's Assembly."
UNDPI/NGO Forum - August 28 - 30, New York (to strengthen "Civil Society" in UN operations)
Millennium Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders - August 28 - 31, New York
State of the World Forum - September 4 - 10, New York
Millennium Assembly - September 5 - 8, New York
Millennium Summit - September 6 -8, New York
[b]CABAL TIMELINE
[/b]
http://www.new-enlightenment.com/CabalTi...eline0.htm
1776-1783 Colonial America as a plutocracy
1787 Many Tories (British sympathisizers) side with British against America during American Revolution
1791 Shays Rebellion
Federalist leaders Alexander Hamilton and John Adams perpetrate a coup d'etat at the Constitutional Convention. A plutocratic constitution
1791-1801 The First Bank of the United States created by Alexander Hamilton; precursor to Federal Reserve System: private bankers controlling American money and finance
1811 John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and the Federalist Party take control of all branches of government and destroy Constitutional liberties Thomas Jefferson saves the United States from devolving into a Federalist (cabal) dictatorship; Madison and Monroe allow themselves to retreat from Jeffersonian principles - Congress voted to abandon the First National Bank
1816: Second National Bank of the United States chartered Second National Bank largely controlled by foreign investors through front men such as John Jacob Astor and David Parish, a New York agent for the Vienna branch of the Rothschild money interest. Nicholas Biddle runs 2nd Natl. Bank to benefit foreign owners, not Americans
1832: President Jackson vetoed 2nd National Bank recharter; Amos Kendall speech;
1833: Jackson removed deposits from Second National bank; Biddle retaliated by creating a panic to blackmail government for recharter;
1834: Biddle forced to stop bank panic; 5/6 of people in prison are debtors;
1837: Currency inflation caused a panic and banks refused to redeem currency for hard money;
1840: President Van Buren created U.S. Treasury; payments to federal agencies in hard money; 10 hour work limit for federal employees Federalist cabal adopted propaganda as major strategy; William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed the Federalist Karl Roves; Whig Federalists such as William Harrison packaged as populists; Horace Greeley the Federalist Rupert Murdock;
1841-43: the Dorr rebellion
1844: Residual Jacksonian sentiment elected Polk;
1848: Jacksonian Democratic party took anti-slavery stance; Federalist Whigs won presidency;
Compromise of 1850;
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 The Whig and Democratic parties were now both indistinguably pro-slavery and pro-capitalist; the Jacksonian element of the Democratic party had entered the Republican party or felt that abolition of northern wage slavery should come first
1862: Rothschilds retaliate against U.S. -- Secession and the Civil War -
Lincoln and emancipation -- Post Civil War -- Southern whites regain control
Foreign fatcats benefit from American Civil War
1864: Lincoln asks Tsar of Russia for help in the Civil War; Tsar sends his fleet to anchor off New York and California, warning British, French and Spanish to stay out
1863: Rothschild agent John D. Rockefeller forms oil business called Standard Oil
1881: President James A. Garfield states two weeks before he was assassinated: “Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce…and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”
The Rothschilds and their agents in the U.S. foment the Crash of 1893
The Northern Pacific Railway, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad all failed. This was followed by the bankruptcy of many other companies; in total over 15,000 companies and 500 banks failed (many in the West). About 17%-19% of the workforce was unemployed at the Panic's peak.
1907: Rothschild agent, Jacob Schiff, head of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., in a speech to the New York Chamber of Commerce:
“Unless we have a Central Bank with adequate control of credit resources, this country is going to undergo the most severe and far reaching money panic in its history.”
The Rothschilds and their agents in the U.S. foment the Panic of 1907
The concocted panics are for the purpose of scaring Americans into a central bank The Rothschilds and their agents in the U.S. (the cabal) create the Federal Reserve System
Congressman Charles Lindbergh condemns the passing of the Federal Reserve Act on December 23: “The Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this Bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized . . . The greatest crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.”
1914: Rothschilds own the three European news agencies, Wolff in Germany, Reuters in England, and Havas in France and manipulate the European people into a fervor for war; the cabal adopts "never-ending war" policy World War I: 10 million killed and 20 million die from hunger and disease related to the war
1919: Following the end of the first world war, Baron Edmund de Rothschild hosts the Versailles Peace Conference: reparations that the Germans must pay to the victors are decided N. M. Rothschild & Sons is given a permanent role to fix the world’s daily gold price. This takes place in the City of London offices, daily at 1100 hours, in the same room until 2004. President Roosevelt saves capitalism from itself
The cabal-controlled United States engages in imperialism and foments a second World War
The cabal continues its attack on Constitutional liberties 1954: Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine that it had defended since the 1890s
1955: Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for disobeying segregation law
1956: Supreme Court outlawed segregation on local bus lines
Dr. Martin Luther King begins his national non-violent desegregation campaign June 4, 1963:
President John F. Kennedy opposed the Federal Reserve System - Executive Order 11,110
JFK assassinated on November 22
1964: Gulf of Tonkin subterfuge and resolution
Popular dissent against Vietnam War
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
1971: President Nixon ended international redeemability of Federal Reserve Notes, de facto declaring American bankruptcy
1972: Nixon travels to China
1972: Watergate and Nixon's resignation
Cabal attacks American Presidency and national integrity: assassinated JFK, installed Nixon the crook, backed peanut farmer Jimmy Carter and Hollywood actor Ronnie Reagan, allowed Bush I to commit multiple crimes (S&L, Iran-Contra), installed Clinton the sex addict, and perpetrated a coup d'etat to put the moron Bush II into office
A "lone psychotic assassin" sidelines Ronnie Reagan and Bush I becomes de facto President
Clinton carries out cabal orders of instituting NAFTA, re-ordering Europe with the Kosovo war, and perpetrating the Waco extermination and the Oklahoma City bombing
Cabal begins a policy of barbaric annihilation, militaristic imperialism, police state dictatorship, war profiteering, rampant criminality, decimation of the American citizenry, and economic cannibalism
Cabal steals 2000 and 2004 elections for Bush II, plans and carries out 9/11 atrocity, economically plunders other nations through the contrivance of the American dollar, murders American military personnel, and enslaves American workers through vulture capitalism
THE WORLD'S MASTERMIND :
THE HIDDEN FACE OF GLOBALISATION
A view from Argentina
Adrian Salbuchi
Global Research, January 14, 2007
www.eltraductorradial.com.ar
T his article is a summary of the key points set forth in the Author’s book published in , “El Cerebro del Mundo: la cara oculta de la Globalización ” (Ediciones del Copista, Córdoba, Argentina, 4th Edition, 2003, 470 pages. and Editorial Solar, Bogotá, Colombia, 2004).
“Those who do not learn from history are condemned to re-live it” - George Santayana
As we now have it, globalization can be defined as an ideology that identifies the Sovereign Nation-State as its key enemy, basically because the State's main function is (or should be) to prioritize the interests of the Many - i.e., "the People" - over the interests of the Few. Accordingly, the forces of globalization seek to weaken, dissolve and eventually destroy the very foundations of the Nation-State as a basic social institution, in order to replace it with new supra-national worldwide social, political, economic, financial and military management structures. Such structures tie in with the political objectives and economic interests of a small number of highly concentrated and very powerful groups and organizations which today drive and steer the globalization process in a very specific direction.
These power groups consist of private interests which have succeeded in achieving something that is unprecedented in all of human history, and which we describe as the privatization of power on a global scale.
"Globalization" is actually a hypocritical understatement or euphemism of what former US presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and George H.W. Bush - each at different times in modern history - described as the “New World Order”.
A New World Order! Clearly, when former president George Bush Sr. unabashedly used that term on 11th September 1991, the Establishment quickly moved to ensure that it should not be commonly used, and in its place coined the much more neutral and seemingly harmless sounding idea of “globalization” which, nevertheless, today still has one main meaning: US-UK-Israeli Imperialism on a planetary and all-encompassing scale. This, at least, is how a growing number of people in Argentina and in our region see things today.
Who are they? What do they want?
The process we have described is in no way anonymous - much less, secret - because the power groups promoting and driving the New World Order are doing so in full public view: i.e., multinational corporations (e.g., the Fortune Global 500s accounting for over 80% of US economic activity); the global financial infrastructure (which includes banks, investment funds, stock exchanges and commodity market operators); multimedia monopolies; major Ivy League universities; international multilateral organizations (such as the World Bank, the IMF/International Monetary Fund, the IADB/Inter-American Development Bank, the BIS/Bank of International Settlements, the UN/United Nations and the WTO/World Trade Organization) and, most important, key government posts in the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom and other industrialized nations. So, we definitely do not have something that can be explained away as a "conspiracy theory".
What we have are the inner trappings and logic behind the way Power is built and managed. What is not immediately visible is the fact that all of these players the form a veritable Wheel of Global Power have one thing in common: their key managers, financiers, bankers, government officers, academics, strategists, shareholders and other fundamental players all belong to the same inter-twining network of think-tanks and lobbying organizations. This network forms a common hub that steers the wheel of world power on its present destructive course.
Among these key think-tanks - which should actually be described as geopolitical planning centers -, the role of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Trilateral Commission (TC), the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), the Brookings Institution, the RAND Corporation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), and the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), amongst others, are of vital importance.
A Historical Perspective
To properly understand today’s world, one needs to look back on yesterday’s world, in order to see how this whole situation came about. It was back in 1919 when a small group of influential bankers, lawyers, politicians and academics – who were taking part in the Paris Peace negotiations between the victorious Allies and the vanquished Central Powers right after World War I – met in the Parisian Hotel Majestic and reached a transcendental agreement: they decided to create a network of “think tanks” - a sort of exclusive club or lodge - from which they would design the kind of “New World Order” which would properly address and accomodate the imperial worldwide interests and objectives of the Anglo-US Alliance.
In London , that think tank would take on the name of Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), whilst in the United States it would become known as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) based in New York City . Both organizations had the unmistakeable mark of the social strategy of gradually imposing a socialist (i.e., formally "democratic" but in reality increasingly authoritarian) political order as a means of mass control of the population. At that time, that was promoted by such masonic fronts as the Fabian Society financed by the Round Table Group which was in turn created, controlled and financed by South African magnate Cecil Rhodes, the international financial dynasty of the Rothschilds, various UK-based Ancient Rite Masonic Lodges, and the British Crown.
The CFR got its initial support from the most wealthy, powerful and influential families in the United States, such as Rockefeller, Mellon, Harriman, Morgan, Schiff, Kahn, Warburg, Loeb and Carnegie (the latter, in particular, through its own front organization founded in 1910: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace).
In order to express and thus propagate its influence amongst elite circles, one of the first measures of the CFR consisted in publishing its own journal which still remains the world’s premier mouthpiece on geopolitics and political science: Foreign Affairs. Amongst the CFR´s first directors, was Allan Welsh Dulles, a key figure in the US intelligence community who would later consolidate the covert spying structure of the CIA leading to the NSA; journalist Walter Lippmann, director and founder of The New Republic; a host of J.P. Morgan corporate lawyers; bankers Otto H. Kahn, and Paul Moritz Warburg,[1] the latter a wealthy German emigrée who emigrated to the United States and in 1913 designed and promoted legislation leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank – the basically private central bank of the US which since then controls the financial structure of the United States (and, through it, of a good part of the world). When World War II ended in 1945, the Federal Reserve Bank was supplemented by the International Monetary Fund and The World Bank, both of which were masterminded, planned and designed by CFR planners at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944.
Another member of the CFR and one of its first directors, was geographer and president of the American Geographical Society, Isaiah Bowman, who in 1919 would lead the team of experts re-drawing the map of Central Europe after the World War I, thus ushering in times of grave turmoil in Europe which would actually lead to World War II in 1939. It was CFR lawyers Owen D. Young (president of General Electric) and Charles Dawes (a top J P Morgan Bank lawyer), who in the twenties designed and promoted the “debt refinancing” plans for Germany ’s war reparations debt imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. It was top Federal Reserve Bank directors and CFR members who would generate the monetary distortions leading to the 1929 financial crisis and ensuing Depression. It was CFR directors who through the powerful media under their control such as the NBC, ABC and CBS radio networks and newspapers like the The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and The New York Times, would coax and press public opinion to break US isolationist neutrality and embark that nation on another European war in 1939, which they themselves had been seeking since the early thirties.
The Second World War
At the very start of that terrible European civil war in which The United States would only formally take part in 1941, CFR members set up the War & Peace Studies Group which literally became a part of the State Department and designed its major foreign policies towards Germany, Italy, Japan and their allies. Later, they began preparing for yet another post-war “New World Order” after the then forseeable Allied victory. In this manner, the CFR designed and promoted the creation of the United Nations to manage world politics and US hegemony in the Nuclear Age, and some of its key economic agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank, through members like Alger Hiss, John J. McCloy, W. Averell Harriman, Harry Dexter White, Henry Kissinger and many others.
Once the war ended, US President Harry S. Truman would establish the far-reaching national security doctrine which was based on the doctrine of "containment" of Soviet expansionism proposed by yet another CFR member, who at that time was US Ambassador to Moscow: George Kennan,[2] who described his ideas in a famous seminal 1947 Foreign Affairs article which he signed with the pseudonym “X”. Similarly, the so-called “Marshall Plan” presented to the world by US Army General George C. Marshall, was in fact designed by a CFR task force and implemented by W. Averell Harriman.[3]
Elite Power Structures
Although it is little known among public opinion, the CFR is very powerful and has grown in influence, prestige and breadth of activities. So much so, that today we can say without a doubt that it operates as the “World’s Mastermind”, silently directing the course of many complex and highly volatile social, politicial, financial, military and economic processes throughout the world. There are no peoples, regions or aspects of human life which are not affected by CFR influence – whether we realize this or not – and the very fact that it has been able to remain “behind the scenes” makes the CFR exceptionally powerful and elusive, even amongst US public opinion.
Today, the CFR is a discreet organization counting among its more than 4.500 members, the best, most capable and brightest minds, operating together with very powerful anbd influential individuals wielding great influence in their respective professions, corporations, institutions, governmental posts and social environments. In this way, the CFR brings together top corporate officers from financial institutions, industrial giants, the media, research organizations, academics, top military officers, government leaders, university deans, trade union leaders and study center investigators. Their fundamental objectives consist in identifying and assessing a wide range of political, economic, financial, social, cultural and military factors spanning every imaginable aspect of public and private life in the United States , its key allies and the rest of the world. Today, thanks to the enormous power wielded by the US , the CFR's breadth of activities literally spans the whole planet.
Its research and investigations are carried out by different task forces and study groups which identify Opportunities and Threats, assess Strengths and Weaknesses, and design far-reaching strategies to promote its interests worldwide, each with their respective tactical and operational plans. Although such intensive and far-reaching tasks are made inside the CFR, the key issue to understand its enormous success lies in the fact that the CFR per se never actually does anything under its own name. Rather, it is its individual members who do so. And they do this from their formal posts as chairmen, CEO’s and directors of major corporations, financial institutions, international multilateral institutions, media, and key posts in government, universities, the armed forces, and trade unions, never invoking or even referring to the CFR as their main seat of planning and coordination.[4]
Indeed, today we can find CFR members in many powerful and decisive posts. To name but a handful of the more than 4.500 CFR members, we find David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Richard Perle, Robert Gates, James Baker III, Stephen Hadley, Douglas Feith, L. Paul Bremer III, John Bolton, John Negroponte, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, international rogue financier George Soros, supreme court judge Stephen Breyer, Lowes/CBS CEO Laurence A. Tisch, former General Electric Co. CEO Jack Welsh, CNN CEO W. Thomas Johnson, former chairman and CEO of The Washington Post / Newsweek / International Herald Tribune Katherine Graham (and today her successor son), US vicepresidente, former secretary of defence, and former Halliburton CEO Richard Cheney, former president George H.W. Bush, former national security advisor to president Clinton Samuel “Sandy” Berger, former CIA directors John M. Deutch and George Tenet, Federal Reserve Bank former governor Alan Greenspan and present governor Benjamin Shalom Bernanke, former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn, CS First Boston Bank CEO and former Federal Reserve Bank governor Paul Volcker, reporters Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, Wolf Blitzer, top CitiGroup directors John Reed, William Rhodes, Stanford Weill, and Stanley Fischer (in turn formerly No. 2 at the IMF), economists Jeffrey Sachs and Lester Thurow, former treasury secretary, Goldman Sachs CEO and CitiGroup director Robert E. Rubin, former secretary of state and “mediator” during the the Falkland/Malvinas Islands War between Argentina and Britain Gral. Alexander Haig, “mediator” in the Balcan conflict Richard Holbrooke, IBM CEO Louis V. Gerstner, democratic senator George J. Mitchell, former republican representative Newt Gingrich, former Bush Sr. national sercurity advisor Air Force General Brent Scowcroft, Kenneth Lay (recently deseased member of the Trilateral Commission and Enron CEO), amongst many, many others.[5]
In the business world, top Fortune 500 corporations all have senior directors who are CFR members. These corporations together have a combined market value equivalent to almost twice the gross domestic product of the United States and concentrate the better part of the wealth and power of that country, controlling key resources and technologies around the world. Together, they employ over 25 million people in the US alone and account for over 80% of its GDP. In short, they wield gigantic power, leverage and influence in the US and beyond.
We thus find here the key to the CFR’s enormous effectiveness and power: its decisions and plans are drafted out and agreed in closed meetings, study groups, conferences and task forces. But when the time comes to execute those plans, they are then carried out by its different members, each from his or her formal post in different powerful organizations, both public and private. And what powerful posts and organizations these are!
If, for example, a plan has been drafted and agreed regarding how globalisation of the economy and the financial system is to evolve, or which countries are to enjoy peace and prosperity and which are to be ravished by war, invasion and famine, then the coordinated action of personalities like the president of the United States, his secretaries of state, defense, commerce and treasury, CIA, NSA and FBI directors, key international bankers and financiers, Fortune 500 CEO's, media owners and moguls, reporters and writers, military officers and academics, heads of the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization, are all brought together at the right time, in the proper sequence and on a myriad of specific matters. In this way, they are able to coordinate concrete, effective and almost irrestistible action, anytime and anywhere.
This is how it has worked for more than eighty years.
Real Power and Formal Power
In order to understand how the world really works, we must first understand the difference that exists between Formal Power and Real Power. What the media propagate with a very high public profile every day in their television and radio newscasts, and in the press are basically the concrete and visible results of the actions carried out by Formal Power structures, especially those of national governments and the technological, financial and corporate infrastructures. However, Real Power levers that actually make things happen are far less visible. They are the ones which plan out what will occur in the world, when it will occur, where it will take place and who shall carry it out.
Formal Power operates short-term and with a high public profile. Real Power operates within a long-term framework and has almost no public profile. Nowadays, Formal Power is mostly “public” – Real Power is fundamentally “private”. This reflects the fact that the institutions of the Nation-State (the prime public Formal Power entity) has become subordinate to private interests (i.e., Real Power driven by money interests).
Since the United States is today’s sole superpower, it is reasonable to conclude that this world power structure – that is what it really is – provisionally manages this veritable World Government from the territory, the political and economic structures of the United States. This, however, by no means implies that the majority of the people of the United States necessarily form part of that scheme of things, much less that the people of the US are "enemies" of any other peoples (rarely are the People of any country an "enemy"; rather, it is their elite establishments that become adversarial through excessive concentration of power).
We are thus speaking of power groups which operate from within the United States (as they also do from within the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Israel and, through their local agents, also in countries like Spain, Argentina, Brasil and Korea), but that are not necessaily identified with the people of the United States.
To better understand the true nature of the United States – especially in what refers to US Foreign Policy – one does well to keep in mind that the US “Administration” as they so aptly call their Government - i.e., Formal Power - is based in Washington DC. However, Real Power structures in the US are mainly located in New York City and some New England states. In other words, the Administration of the United States is done from Washington DC, whilst the country is actually governed from New York City .
Once we grasp this concept, then many other things automatically fall into place. Additionally, the world's real power center resides not in New York City but, more likely, in London … Understanding this complex and subtle process automatically pre-empts any simplistic identification of the “enemy” as the United States or England or any other peoples . More often than not, in times of turmoil the people of the United States are victims – even bloody ones as fallen US citizens in Vietnam , Afghanistan , Iraq and the World Trade Center attest to – of this very process. Nevertheless, the fact that most people in the US ignore this fact, does not make them less responsible or accountable for the genocidal strategies the New World Order power structures operating from US territory perpetrate upon the rest of the world through the use and abuse of US military and economic might to achieve their goals.
That this should be so is understandable when one considers that exercising Real Power requires complying with a set of rules and conditions such as, for example, operational continuity spanning many decades in order to achieve far-reaching goals and carrying out complex strategies which, in turn, span the entire planet, its nations and resources. This requires long-term planning: twenty, thirty and fifty years into the future.
Ironically, the New World Order power elites know full well that there is no greater threat to political continuity and consistency in the design and execution of such long-term global strategies, than to have them subjected to a democratic process that imposes high public profiles on its leaders who must (or should!) heed the "voice of the People" at every step they take, coupled with recurrent power interruptions which all democratic electoral processes entail.
How much better it is to be able to operate discreetly, from what can only be describes as a gentlemen’s club such as the CFR, in which powerful and influential men and women can be officers, directors and chairmen for decades at a time without ever having to be accountable to anybody but their own peers. In this manner, 4.500 powerful individuals can exert tremendous policital, economic, financial and media clout over countless hundreds of millions of people throughout the entire planet.
It goes without saying that one of the main tasks of the global media monopolies is to impose “political correctness”, normally expressed through the "Two-Party System" – Democrats and Republicans in the US, Labour and Conservative in the UK, CDU or SPD in Germany, Radicals and Justicialists in Argentina – all of which are mere variations of the same basic politically correct tenets, and of each other. Stable Western democracies have all conformed to what is, in practice, a One-Party System with slightly different internal factions. People think they may “choose”, but the "options" are just not there: it's sort of like "choosing" between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola – no matter what they want you to believe, the truth is that they are both basically the same thing.
What we are describing is, in fact, the central hub of a veritable network of powerful people, considering that the CFR is, in turn, supplemented by a myriad of similar institutions both inside and outside of the United States .
All of these think tanks bring together the most intelligent, best prepared, creative and ambitous men and women in a wide range of fields and disciplines. They are paid and rewarded very handsomely - both economically and socially - as long as they clearly and uncompromisingly align themselves to the basic tenets of the CFR’s political objectives. These are nothing less than the creation of a Private World Government; the systematic erosion of the structures of all sovereign Nation-States (though, naturally, not all of them in the same way, at the same speed, nor at the same time); the (sub)standardization of cultural values and social norms; the spreading of a globalized financial system based on gross speculation and usury; and the management of a Global War System in order to maintain the necessary social cohesion of its own masses by permanent coaxing and alignment against real or imagined enemies of “democracy”, “human rights”, “freedom” and “peace”; i.e., against "terrorism".[6]
Since 2003, we saw first-hand how inexistent Iraqui “Weapons of Mass Destruction” turned out to be nothing but Weapons of Mass DISTRACTION, generating enormous suffering, pain and hardship for untold millions of people. The invasion of Irak and Afghanistan are just two examples of the double-standards and double-talk "Newspeak" on which this entire system thrives.
Thus, in order to better understand today's world, one needs to read and assess what the CFR – or rather, its individual members - say and propagate, as many of its activities though discreet are not actually secret. Any person visiting CFR headquarters on fashionable Park Avenue and 68th Street in New York City, as I have done many times in recent years, can easily get all sorts of information including a free copy of their latest Annual Report describing the Institution’s main activities and the full alphabetical list of its 4.500 members. All the information on these organizations is readily available for those who want to see it. It is, then however up to each of us to cross-check all that data on CFR members with what each really does in their professional, corporate, academic and government activities and capacities.
One need also look back on modern history and assess the exceptional leverage which the CFR has had throughout the twentieth century, both on its own, as well as in conjunction with its sister organizations. They have triggered and influenced ideologies, public events, wars, military alliances, political crimes, covert actions, mass psychological warfare, economic and financial crises, promotion and destruction of political and business personalities, and other high-impact events – many of them clearly difficult or impossible for them to admit or confess. All have, however, marked the course of humanity in these stormy modern times.
The technique used is to keep us all far too busy and fascinated as pasive spectators of this whirlwind of events taking place every day in the world. This ensures that almost no one ever thinks of looking elsewhere for suitable explanations to today’s grave crises, because that would then enable us to identify, not so much the effects and shocking results of many of these political decisions and covert actions, but rather their real and concrete originators, organizers and objectives.
In order for this gigantic mass psychological warfare – for that is what it really is - to succeed, the mass media play a vital role which cannot be underestimated. For they are the instruments whose goal it is to undermine and neutralise the capacity of independent thought among the world’s population. That is the key role of global mass media like CNN, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaró, FoxNews, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Corrieri della Sera, Le Monde, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Business Week, Reuters, and their respective local outlets in all countries, all of which are directed by key people belonging to the CFR and/or its sister organizations in the US and elsewhere.
And the worst part of it all is that, in spite of all the enormous friction, wars, violence and destruction it generates, the New World Order just does not work. You cannot build a world empire only based on billions of dollars, B1 bombers, F16 fighters, Tomahawk missiles, CNN and gross lying and hipocrasy at the top. Historically, Rome , France , Spain and even Britain knew that only deeper cultural values can consolidate a true empire that will endure even after the colonizing power is long gone, as has happened even to this very day throughout South America where Spanish, Potuguese (and British) influence are ubiquitous . These key cultural factors seem to be very much lacking in the United States that was once described by former French premier George Clemenceau as “that complex political and social process running from barbarity to civilization without going through the necessary stage of culture…”
Implications for Argentina and our Region
Within this context, we can say that the local media in Argentina , our educational system and local mainstream politicians are all basically aligned to the New World Order process – independently of whether they are aware of this or not. In this respect, this System of Domination has three key objectives:
To hide from public opinion how the world really works, knowing that if we cannot properly understand and diagnose the source of our problems and weaknesses, then we can hardly expect to find the proper solutions to them. We are thus (mis)led into believing that we are at “peace”, when in actual fact a veritable and violent total war is being waged against Argentina since more than half a century on the political, economic, financial, media, educational, technological and environmental fronts. Primarily, this is a Psychological War.
To make us all believe that although we are in a difficult situation, “things will improve”, as long as we reach yet another "agreement" with international bankers and speculators, privatize more State interests, reform our federal and provincial governments to the World Bank’s liking, reform our labour, educational and social legislation, and do all necessary so that “international investors” will smile upon us. The truth is that to say we are in a “difficult situation” is an absurd understatement: Argentina is in a terminal situation and if we do not awaken to this reality, in a few more years – a decade at most – we shall cease to exist as a country altogether.[7] Clearly, Argentina has only two options: either we accept living with all the problems and crises we have and take no action to resolve them, trying to merely manage their consequences as best we can or, we confront these problems and crises and decide to do something about them. Naturally, the second option is more difficult and risk laden. Our Governments over the past thirty years have all chosen the former option of living with these problems, which has led us to our present predicament.
3. To make us believe that, whether we like it or not, there is nothing we can do to stop “globalization”. The truth, however, is that there are myriads of things that we can do to neutralise the adverse effects of globalization. But they all require that we first recover sovereign Nation-State institutions that will achieve its basic and fundamental functions of:
· integrating internal conflicting social forces (i.e., promote the Common Good),
· foreseeing all possible threats and opportunities from without and within (i.e., defending the National Interest), and
· leading the Nation on a political course geared on defending its national interest (i.e., leading the country to its Destiny).
These functions require the existence of a Sovereign Nation-state which Argentina today no longer has. We have become a colony, so we must first promote a true Second Declaration of Independence in order to found a Second Argentine Republic. The implications and inspiration for our region and even further afield of such a revolutionary act would be truly momentous.[8]
Additionally – and this is beyond the scope of this brief article –, the global financial infrastructure is on the brink of what can only be described as a controlled worldwide collapse, something that the CFR has been carefully planning through various projects such as the so-called Financial Vulnerabilities Project and New International Financial Architecture programmes. When this occurs it will spell out unimagined new opportunities for Argentina and our region.
As we become aware of these realities, the road which we need to tread becomes increasingly clear too. In truth, things then do not appear as complex as we once thought. It is all basically a question of thinking with our own minds and not with the minds of our adversaries; of starting to assess and defend our National Interest, which implies having our own view of world events, interests and forces, and then taking intelligent measures that respond to our needs, real possibilities and idiosincracy. In this sense, we have an advantage because we do not need not “reinvent the wheel”, as the CFR gives us a brilliant and highly successful blueprint for political, economic, financial and social planning and management of national power. Why not learn from them? Why not form our own network of think-tanks, bringing together a wide range of local, regional and like-minded interests, players and thinkers from different fields? Why not put them all to work on promoting the National Interests of Argentina and its neighbours, so as to recover sovereignty and self-determination for our peoples in a consistent and coherent manner, irrespective of what the world power players try to impose upon us?
But to do this we must first understand what globalization really is: an immensely large range of threats which we need to avoid, and opportunities which we should take advantage of. Regarding every subject having potential impact on us, we need to understand which are our relative strengths and weaknesses in order to be able to successfully confront them; if not today, then certainly in the future. That requires proper planning. Medium and long-term planning. That requires trying to always be one step ahead of the Adversary, achieving and keeping an edge and an advantage over coming events.
No doubt this will lead us to designing the right policies that are consistent with our National Interest, which in many instances will certainly not coincide with the interests of today's global power brokers. To this end, we need to seek and work closely with nations and organizations in Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, with which we share the common goal of neutralising the negative effects of global imperial domination. In truth, this all means that we need to found a New Argentina . We have many of the necessary tools already at hand; we have millions of countrymen ready to accept the challenge if we but explain to them clearly and forcefully the odds which are at stake; and there are millions of others beyond our borders with whom we can work arm-in-arm towards such a common Cause.
In short, it is really a question of understanding that in Politics there are two kinds of people: those who are active players in the political arena and those who merely and passively look on. The Council on Foreign Relations is clearly a key active player in the global political arenat. Isn't it time that we started doing the same in our own country?
Adrian Salbuchi is a researcher, author and speaker; host of the Buenos Aires talk-show “El Traductor Radial” and founder of the Argentine Second Republic Movement (Movimiento por la Segunda República Argentina) www.eltraductorradial.com.ar. He is author of “El Cerebro del Mundo: la cara oculta de la Globalización”, (“The World’s Mastermind: the Hidden Face of Globalization”) and “Bienvenidos a la Jungla: Dominio y Supervivencia en el Nuevo Orden Mundial”.
NOTES
[1] Warburg belonged to a prestigious and powerful Jewish-German family of bankers, closely related to the Rothschilds and the Schiffs, owners of New York-based banking house, Kühn Loeb & Co. of which Paul Warburg was a partner together with CFR founding director, Otto Kahn. As a reflection of how these international power structures have been operating for almost a century, it is interesting to note that when the World War I ended, significantly, one Warburg – Paul – was on the Allied side of the negotiation table in Versailles , whilst another Warburg – his brother Max – was on the other side representing the vanquished Germans. Additionally, Jakob Schiff, Paul Warburg’s partner, had in turn financed the Japanese against the Russian Tsar during the 1905 Russian-Japanese War, thus paving the way for the Bolshevic Revolution.... Interestingly, another Kühn Loeb & Co.,partner N. Jivotovsky, had his daughter Natasha marry one Lev D. Bronstein which later became known as Leon Trotzky, through whose intermediary surprisingly large financing for the 1917 Bolshevic Revolution was funnelled….
[2] Kennan died recently at 101 years of age and almost to the last continued as an advisor at the CFR, an eloquent symbol of his continued influence spanning more than half a century among Real Power brokers in the CFR.
[3] Notably, W. Averell Harriman was a business partner of Prescott Bush, republican senator from Connecticut , father of former president George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather of president George W. Bush.
[4] The CFR’s so called “Rule of Non-attribution” specifically bans its members from ever publicly invoking the CFR in any way or manner or even disclosing matters discussed behind closed doors at its private meetings..
[5] The reader will find detailed information in the author’s Spanish language book El Cerebro del Mundo: la cara oculta de la Globalización (Ediciones del Copista, Córdoba , Argentina , 4th Edition, 2003, 470 pages.).
[6] Among these “enemies” of the “free peoples of the world” over the past decades one can mention Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, Japanese Imperialism, Argentine Peronism, Communism, environmental contamination, Global Terrorism, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Islamic “Fundamentalism”, Ayatollah Khomeini, Muhamar-el-Kadafi, Fidel Castro, Maoism, non-US “militarism”, Iran, Syria, and so-called “Antisemitism”, among many,many others.
[7] This might sound a bit strong and yet at the pace events are occuring in today's world, such a forecast may hold true for just about any country in the world. Just think what public opinion would have thought only seventeen years ago – at the beginning of 1989 – if it had been announced that only three years later (i.e., by 1992), the following would take place: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany , the collapse of the USSR into fifteen independent republics and their abandoning Marxism for Capitalism. At that time, any such announcement would have been considered totally exagerated, if not downright stupid and yet…..that is exactly what happened. It does make one think…. The fact that The New York Times ran a front page story in their 27-August-2002 edition with the title “Secession of Patagonia as a way for Argentina to pay its Foreign Debt” is telling us something….
[8] Elsewhere, the autor of this article has written extensively on the need to found a Second Argentine Republic as that is the only solution for Argentina and its neighbours, if both Argentina and our region are to recover their right to self-determination
CENTRAL BANKERS SEEK TOTALITARIAN POWER
Henry Makow PhD
The "War on Terror" is a ruse by central bankers to control every aspect of your life.
Reviewing "The Red Symphony" recently, I was shocked to read an insider's statement that the bankers are not content with infinite wealth, but want unlimited power.
"The Red Symphony" is a 1938 Stalinist Secret Police (NKVD) interrogation of Christian Rakovsky, a Soviet ambassador who was a close associate of Leon Trotsky, Rothschild's agent.
I introduced this explosive 50-page document to my readers two years ago. It strips the veil from modern history and explains the real meaning of Revolution, Communism, Freemasonry and War. It was not intended to become public knowledge. The translator, a Dr. J. Landowsky, made an unauthorized copy.
The human experiment is endangered by private interests who have usurped the function of money creation. Modern history reflects the gradual process by which they transfer all wealth and power to themselves, destroying Western Civilization and creating a world police state.
Rakovsky, whose real name was Chaim Rakover, was sentenced to death in Stalin's purge of the Trotskyite faction of the party. Leon Trotsky wrote in his autobiography, My Life, : "Christian G. Rakovsky... played an active part in the inner workings of four Socialist parties-- the Bulgarian, Russian, French, and Roumanian--to become eventually one of the leaders of the Soviet Federation, a founder of the Communist Internationale, President of the Ukranian Soviet of People's Commissaries, and the diplomatic Soviet representative in England and France ..."
Rakovsky tried to convince his interrogator that Stalin should cooperate with the bankers who "are just like you and me. The fact that they control unlimited money, insofar as they themselves create it, does not...determine the limits of their ambitions . . .The bankers, have the impulse towards power, towards full power. Just as you and me."
They created the Communist state as a "machine of total power" unprecedented in history. In the past, due to many factors, "there was always room for individual freedom. Do you understand that those who already partially rule over nations and worldly governments have pretensions to absolute domination? Understand that this is the only thing which they have not yet reached." (emphasis mine)
A pernicious force paralyzes our national life. Rakovsky identifies it: "Imagine to yourself, if you can a small number of people having unlimited power through the possession of real wealth, and you will see they are the absolute dictators of the stock exchange and [economy]...If you have enough imagination then...you will see [their] anarchical, moral and social influence, i.e. a revolutionary one...Do you now understand?"
The Revolutionary Movement, which defines modern history, was a means to increase banker power by destroying the old order.
In the French Revolution power subtlely passed to the bankers who weren't constrained by Christian niceties, Rakovsky says. "The supreme Royal power was taken over by persons, whose moral, intellectual and cosmopolitan qualities did allow them to use it. It is clear that these were people who had never been Christians, but cosmopolitans."
Communism, far from distributing wealth, is designed to concentrate it in the hands of the world's wealthiest people. (The State owns the wealth and they own the State.) And Marxism, "before being a philosophical, economic and political system, is a conspiracy for the revolution."
Rakovsky scoffs at the "elementary Marxism...the demagogic popular one" that is used to dupe the intellectuals and the masses.
[Whatever its intrinsic merits, Socialism seems designed to bribe and make people dependent on socialist politicians and big government, which the bankers control.]
As for Freemasonry: "Every Masonic organization tries to create all the required prerequisites for the triumph of the Communist revolution; this is the obvious aim of Freemasonry," says Rakovsky, a high-ranking Mason himself.
The aim of the Revolution is no less than to redefine reality in terms of the interests of the bankers. This involves the promotion of subjective truth over objective truth. If Lenin "feels something to be real" then it is real. "For him every reality, every truth was relative in the face of the sole and absolute one: the revolution."
In other words, white is black and up is down. This is the way it was in the Soviet Union and this is now happening to us. Truth and justice are being replaced by political diktat. "Political correctness" a Bolshevik term is now in common usage. Physicists like Steven Jones who question Sept.11 are silenced. Historians like David Irving are jailed.
Rakovsky marvels that "the benches on which sat the greasy usurers to trade in their moneys, have now been converted into temples, which stand magnificently at every corner of contemporary big towns with their heathen colonnades, and crowds go there ...to bring assiduously their deposits of all their possessions to the god of money..."
He says the Soviet five-pointed star represents the five Rothschild brothers with their banks, who possess colossal accumulations of wealth, the greatest ever known."
Isn't it strange that Marx never mentions this fact? Rakovsky asks. Isn't it strange that during revolutions, the mobs never attack the bankers, their mansions or banks?
War is the means by which the central bankers advance their goal of totalitarian world government. Rakovsky says Trotsky was behind the murder of Arch Duke Ferdinand (which sparked WWI.) He recalls the phrase used by the mother of the five Rothschild brothers: "'If my sons want it, then there will be no war.' This means that they were the arbiters, the masters of peace and war, but not emperors. Are you capable of visualizing the fact of such a cosmic importance? Is not war already a revolutionary function? Warthe Commune. Since that time every war was a giant step towards Communism."
After the murder of [Illuminati member Weimar Foreign Minister] Walter Rathenau in 1922, the Illuminati give political or financial positions only to intermediaries, Rakowsky says. "Obviously to persons who are trustworthy and loyal, which can be guaranteed a thousand ways: thus one can assert that those bankers and politicians [in the public eye] - are only men of straw . . . even though they occupy very high places and are made to appear to be the authors of the plans which are carried out."
In 1938, Rakovsky outlined three reasons for the upcoming Second World War. The first is that Hitler began to print his own money. "This is very serious. Much more than all the external and cruel factors in National-Socialism."
Secondly, the "fully developed nationalism of Western Europe is an obstacle to Marxism...the need for the destruction of nationalism is alone worth a war in Europe."
Finally, Communism cannot triumph unless it suppresses the "still living Christianity." He refers to the "permanent revolution" as dating from the birth of Christ, and the reformation as "its first partial victory" because it split Christianity. This suggests that the "conspiracy" also contains a racial or religious factor.
"In reality, Christianity is our only real enemy since all the political and economic phenomena of the Bourgeois States. Christianity controlling the individual is capable of annulling the revolutionary projection of the neutral Soviet or Atheist State."
Now the Central Bankers are promoting World War Three as in "The Clash of Civilizations." Substitute Islam for Christianity above, and pit "Christians" against them.
CONCLUSION
Our beliefs must adjust to the truth and not vice versa. Apparently, the truth is that a relatively small clique of Jewish banking families and their non-Jewish allies in the leading families of Europe and America have usurped control of money creation, and with it the destiny of the world.
This overclass owns or controls most of the world's largest corporations, media organizations, intelligence agencies, secret societies, universities, politicians, foundations, think tanks and NGO's. It also appears to dominate organized crime.
Sept. 11, the War on Terror and Iraq are part of an inexorable process by which this overclass increases its wealth and control. The end goal is a world police state in which the masses will be deprived of their wealth, freedom and possibly their lives.
Neo Cons are really Neo Com-munists. They jeopardize the security of their fellow Jews (as well as all Americans) by their evil machinations. Jews should follow my example and repudiate them.
The overclass wants us to see it as a "Jewish problem." This way it can deflect blame onto innocent Jews and then dismiss opposition as "hatred" and "prejudice." The problem is mainly one of money creation (credit) that has led to an untenable concentration of wealth and power in a few hands.
Almost everyone who is "successful" in society, Jewish or not, is forced, wittingly or unwittingly to align themselves with the overclass. Our religious, cultural and political institutions have been subverted. This explains the false quality of social life in the West.
As we celebrate Christmas, let's remember Christ's message: God is Love. God is more powerful than the satanic force that holds mankind in its thrall. But His will cannot be done unless men do it.
Whatever the cost, doing nothing will cost more. The affluence we now enjoy is part of an ageold plot to ensnare and enslave humanity.
Don,t ignore the holocaust against the black moustaches.
http://www.augustreview.com/index.php?module=pagesetter&func=viewpub&t id=4&pid=9
Today's date is December 01, 2006 Current Issue: Volume 6, Issue 5
AND MANY OTHERS... THE GLOBAL ELITE: WHO ARE THEY?
Volume 5, Issue 12
Introduction
There are two common misconceptions held by those who are critical of globalism.The first error is that there is a very small group of people who secretly run the world with all-powerful and unrestrained dictatorial powers. The second error is that there is a large amorphous and secret organization that runs the world. In both cases, the use of the word "they" becomes the culprit for all our troubles, whoever "they" might be. If taxes go up, it is "they" that did it. If the stock market goes down, "they" are to blame. Of course, nobody really knows who "they" are so a few figureheads (people or organizations) are often made out to be the scapegoats.
Depending on a person's politics and philosophy, the scapegoats could be the U.S. President, the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, or Vladimir Putin. The point is, the real power structure is not correctely defined, and thus escapes exposure.
These misconceptions are understandable because when things are wrong, we all have a driving need to know who to blame! In some cases, elitist slight-of-hand initiates and then perpetuates false assumptions.
This writer has never been accused of charging that all large corporations are guilty of initiating and perpetuating globalization. There are many businesses, including banks, who are led by moral, ethical and good-hearted businessmen or businesswomen. Just because a company might touch globalism does not mean it and its management or employees are evil.
Every bit of thirty-five years of research indicates that there is a relatively small yet diverse group of global players who have been the planners and instigators behind globalization for many decades. The primary driving force that moves this "clique" is greed; the secondary force is the lust for power. In the case of the academics who are key to globalism, a third force is professional recognition and acceptance (a subtle form of egoism and power.)
It is also important to understand that core globalists have full understanding of their goals, plans and actions. They are not dimwitted, ignorant, missinformed or naive.
The global elite march in three essential columns: Corporate, Political and Academic. For the sake of clarity, these names will be used herein to refer to these three groups.
In general, the goals for globalism are created by Corporate. Academic then provides studies and white papers that justify Corporate's goals. Political sells Academic's arguments to the public and if necessary, changes laws to accommodate and facilitate Corporate in getting what it wants.
An important ancillary player in globalism is the media, which we will call Press in this report. Press is necessary to filter Corporate, Academic and Political's communications to the public. Press is not a fourth column, however, because it's purpose is merely reflective. However, we will see that Press is dominated by members of Corporate, Political and Academic who sit on the various boards of directors of major Press organizations.
This report will attempt to identify and label the core players in the globalization process. The intent is to show the makeup and pattern of the core, not to list every person in it. Nevertheless, many people will be named and their associations and connections revealed. This is done for two reasons.
First, it will equip the reader be able to accurately identify other core players as they are brought into focus. Secondly, the reader will be able to pass over minor players who may sound like "big fish" but in fact are only pedestrians.
Organizational Memberships
The old saying, "Birds of a feather, flock together" is appropriate for the perpetrators of globalism. Sociologically speaking, they are like any other people group with like interests: they naturally tend to form societies that will help them achieve their common interests. A side-benefit of fellowship is mutual support and encouragement. Once formed, such groups tend to be self-perpetuating, at least as long as common interests remain.
In modern history, the pinnacle of global drivers has been the Trilateral Commission. Founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, this group is credited with being the founder of the New International Economic Order that has given rise to the globalization we see today.
The Council on Foreign Relations
Prior to the founding of the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was the most significant body of global-minded elitists in the United States. As far back as 1959, the CFR was explicit about a need for world government:
"The U.S. must strive to build a new international order... including states labeling themselves as 'socialist'... to maintain and gradually increase the authority of the United Nations."
The site for the United Nations headquarters in New York was originally donated by the Rockefeller family, and the CFR world architects worked for many years to use the U.N. as a means to develop an image of world order. Indeed, the CFR membership roster has been, and still is a Who's Who of the elitist eastern establishment.
The first problem with the CFR is that it became too large and too diverse to act as a "cutting edge" in global policy creation. The second problem is that it's membership was limited to north America: What group could effect global changes without a global membership?
The CFR continues to be significant in the sense that politicians often look to its membership when searching for people to fill various appointments in government. It also continues to be a policy mill through its official organ, Foreign Policy.
While there are a several core global elitists in the ranks of the CFR, they represent a very small percentage of the total membership. Conversely, there are many CFR members who are only lightly involved with globalism. For this reason, we do not count the CFR as being central to globalization today.
The Trilateral Commission
David Rockefeller recognized the shortcomings of the CFR when he founded the Trilateral Commission in 1973 with Zbigniew Brzezinski. Rockefeller represented Corporate and Brzezinski represented Academic.
Together, they chose approximately 300 members from north America, Europe and Japan, whom they viewed as being their "birds of a feather." These members were at the pinnacle of their profession, whether Corporate, Academic, Political or Press. It is a testimony to the influence of Rockefeller and Brzezinski that they could get this many people to say "Yes" when they were tapped for membership.
Out of the 54 original U.S. members of the Trilateral Commission, Jimmy Carter was fronted to win the presidential election in 1976. Once inaugurated, Carter brought no less than 18 fellow members of the Commission into top-level cabinet and government agencies.
Perhaps no one has described the Trilateral operation as succinctly as veteran reporter Jeremiah Novak in the Christian Science Monitor (February 7, 1977):
"Today a new crop of economists, working in an organization known as the Trilateral Commission, is on the verge of creating a new international economic system, one designed by men as brilliant as Keynes and White. Their names are not well known, but these modern thinkers are as important to our age as Keynes and White were to theirs.
"Moreover, these economists, like their World War II counterparts, are working closely with high government officials, in this case President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale. And what is now being discussed at the highest levels of government, in both the United States and abroad, is the creation of a new world economic system - a system that will affect jobs in America and elsewhere, the prices consumers pay, and the freedom of individuals, corporations, and nations to enter into a truly planetary economic system. Indeed, many observers see the advent of the Carter administration and what is now being called the "Trilateral" cabinet as the harbinger of this new era."1
The pernicious influence of the Commission and its dominance of the U.S. Executive branch remains unchallenged to this day.
Ronald Reagan was not a member of the Trilateral Commission, but his Vice President, George H. W. Bush, was a member. The Commission's influence was safely perpetuated into the Reagan years.
The 1988 election of George H.W. Bush to the presidency further consolidated Trilateral influence in the U.S.
In 1992, Trilateral member William Jefferson Clinton followed in the presidency and contributed greatly to the cause of globalization.
In 2000, George W. Bush assumed the presidency. While it can be demonstrated that Bush is closely aligned with and totally dedicated to Trilateral goals, he is not a member of the Commission. However, Vice President Dick Cheney is a member of the Commission.
Obviously, Corporate's partnerships with Political, Academic and Press has been very successful.
The Original Membership: 1973-1978
A short look at the first U.S. membership list is instructive. We have taken liberty to organize the names according to broad functions, which is not fully adequate to explain the interrelationships. As one examines the biographies of these individuals, one sees a "revolving door" phenomenon where people rotate in and out of government, business, think-tanks, etc., on a regular basis. This is one several tests used to identify a member of the true core of global elite.
Trilateral Commission Membership, 19732
Banking Related
Ernest C. Arbuckle Chairman, Wells Fargo Bank
George W. Ball Senior Partner, Lehman Brothers
Alden W. Clausen President, Bank of America
Archibald K. Davis Chairman, Wachovia Bank and Trust Company
*Peter G. Peterson Chairman, Lehman Brothers
*David Rockefeller Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
Robert V. Roosa Partner, Brown Brothers Harriman & Company
Bruce K. MacLaury President, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
John H. Perkins President, Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company
Press Related
Doris Anderson Editor, Chantelaine Magazine
Emmett Dedmon Vice-President and Editorial Director, Field Enterprises, Inc.
Hedley Donovan Editor-in-Chief, Time, Inc.
Carl T. Rowan Columnist
Arthur R. Taylor President, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.
Labor Related
*I. W. Abel, President United Steelworkers of America
Leonard Woodcock President, United Automobile Workers
Lane Kirkland Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
Senate/Congress
John B. Anderson House of Representatives
Lawton Chiles United States Senate
Barber B. Conable, Jr. House of Representatives
John C. Culver United States Senate
Wilbur D. Mills House of Representatives
Walter F. Mondale United States Senate
William V. Roth, Jr. United States Senate
Robert Taft Jr. United States Senate
Other Political
James E. Carter, Jr. Governor of Georgia
Daniel J. Evans Governor of Washington
*William W. Scranton Former Governor of Pennsylvania
Corporate
J. Paul Austin Chairman, The Coca-Cola Company
W. Michael Blumenthal Chairman, Bendix Corporation
*Patrick E. Haggerty Chairman, Texas Instruments
William A. Hewitt Chairman, Deere and Company
Edgar F. Kaiser Chairman, Kaiser Industries Corporation
Lee L. Morgan President, Caterpillar Tractor Company
David Packard Chairman, Hewlett-Packard Company
Charles W. Robinson President, Marcona Corporation
Arthur M. Wood Chairman, Sears, Roebuck & Company
William M. Roth Roth Properties
Academic
David M. Abshire Chairman, Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies
Graham Allison Professor of Politics, Harvard University
Robert R. Bowie Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University
*Harold Brown President, California Institute of Technology
Richard N. Cooper Provost and Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics, Yale University
Paul W. McCracken Edmund Ezra Day Professor of Business Administration, University of Michigan
Marina von N. Whitman Distinguished Public Service Professor of Economics, University of Pittsburgh
Carroll L. Wilson Professor of Management, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, MIT
Edwin O. Reischauer University Professor, Harvard University; former U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Law Firms
Warren Christopher Partner, O’Melveny and Myers
William T. Coleman, Jr. Senior Partner, Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Levy & Coleman
Lloyd N. Cutler Partner, Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering
*Gerard C. Smith Counsel, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
Cyrus R. Vance Partner, Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett
*Paul C. Warnke
Partner, Clifford, Warnke, Glass, McIlwain & Finney
Associations
Lucy Wilson Benson President, League of Women Voters of the United States
Kenneth D. Naden Executive Vice President, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives
Think-Tanks
Thomas L. Hughes President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Henry D. Owen Director, Foreign Policy Studies Program, the Brookings Institution
Miscellaneous
Anthony Solomon Consultant
* Indicates member of Executive Committee
Rockefeller and Brzezinski's strategy was nefarious, yet brilliant.
The election of democrat James Earl "I will never lie to you" Carter was assured by delivering the mostly democratic labor vote. This was accomplished by adding to the inner core: Leonard Woodcock (UAW), I.W. Abel (United Steelworkers) and Lane Kirkland (AFL-CIO).
By 1977, three more labor leaders were added to the membership: Glenn E. Watts (Communications Workers of America), Martin J. Ward (president of United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices), and Sol Chaikin, president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
Leonard Woodcock served as Chief Envoy to China under Carter, and was largely responsible for solidifying economic and political ties with Communist China. [Editor's note: Any reader who is or was a member of one of these unions will instantly have flashes of insight as to the enduring duplicity of labor management -- you were effectively "sold down the river" starting 1973 and continuing into the present.]
Those commissioners who Carter brought into his administration (the initial "steering committee", if you will) were Walter Mondale (Vice President), Zbigniew Brzezinski (National Security Advisor), Cyrus Vance (Secretary of State), Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense) and W. Michael Blumenthal (Secretary of the Treasury,) among others.
As the Washington Post phrased it:
"Trilateralists are not three-sided people. They are members of a private, though not secret, international organization put together by the wealthy banker, David Rockefeller, to stimulate the establishment dialogue between Western Europe, Japan and the United States.
"But here is the unsettling thing about the Trilateral Commission. The President-elect is a member. So is Vice-President-elect Walter F. Mondale. So are the new Secretaries of State, Defense and Treasury, Cyrus R. Vance, Harold Brown and W. Michael Blumenthal. So is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is a former Trilateral director, and, Carter's national security advisor, also a bunch of others who will make foreign policy for America in the next four years."3
Before Carter's term was completed, no less than 18 members (thirty percent of the U.S. Commission membership) of the Trilateral Commission served in his administration. Coincidence? Hardly!
This article purposely leaves out discussion of the non-U.S. membership of the Commission membership, which will be saved for another day. Suffice it to say that the European and Japanese contingents were just as powerful and effective in their respective home countries. Approximately one-third of the membership came from Europe and the other third from Japan. The joint membership met annually (no press allowed) to formulate policy and action plans for their respective regions. Many, if not most, of their policies were published in the Commission's quarterly journal, Trialogue.
The most damning argument ever launched against the Trilateral Commission is the unconstitutional influence of other governments and forces upon the U.S. For instance, Commission members are not elected nor representative of the general population of the U.S., yet they effectively dominated the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. When the Commission resolved policies (behind closed-doors) with non-U.S. members, who were a mere one-third minority, could it be said that foreign influences effectively controlled U.S. policy?
These concerns were never addressed by Congress or the Judiciary. The Executive branch would have nothing to address because it has been continuously dominated by Commission members -- who repeatedly assured us that there was no such conflict of interest. Of course, the answer to these questions are self-evident: U.S. interests, economic and political, have been subverted.
The economic subversion of the U.S. was studied in The August Review's For Sale: The United States of America and was likened to the plundering of a nation, the likes of which have not been seen in modern history.
Current Trilateral Membership
The following list of north American members is not exhaustive. These are selected because of their high visibility in positions within Corporate, Political or Economic and Press. A future installment of The August Review will examine the entire membership list more carefully and completely. The purpose here is to show that the Trilateral Commission has grown, rather than declined, in strength over the years.
Keep in mind that there is no enrollment or application process to belong to the Trilateral Commission. One is invited to join in a manner similar to a college student being "tapped" for membership in a fraternity. Thus, the process is highly selective and discrete. Candidates are thoroughly screened before invitation is delivered. For this reason, one can be relatively sure that anyone who is or who has ever been a member of the Commission is in the core of the global elite. There are likely a few members who are not truly a part of the core, but for the sake of aggregate analysis, this is not an important issue.
U.S. Members who have been subsequently added to the Commission over the years include, in part, the following list.
Additional Trilateral Commission Membership through 20054
Banking Related
Paul Wolfowitz President, World Bank
Paul A. Volker Former Chairman, Wolfensohn & Co., Inc., New York; Frederick H. Schultz Professor Emeritus, International Economic Policy, Princeton University; former Chairman, Board of Governors, U.S. Federal Reserve System; Honorary North American Chairman and former North American Chairman, Trilateral Commission
Alan Greenspan Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Board of Directors of Bank for International Settlements
Geoffrey T. Boisi former Vice Chairman, JPMorgan Chase, New York, NY
E. Gerald Corrigan Managing Director, Goldman, Sachs & Co., New York, NY; former President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Jamie Dimon President and Chief Operating Officer, JPMorgan Chase, New York, NY
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. Vice Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, Washington, DC
Stanley Fischer Governor of the Bank of Israel, Jerusalem; former President, Citigroup International and Vice Chairman, Citgroup, New York, NY; former First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Richard W. Fisher President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Dallas, TX; former U.S. Deputy Trade Representative
Michael Klein Chief Executive Officer, Global Banking, Citigroup Inc.; Vice Chairman, Citibank International PLC; New York, NY
*Sir Deryck C. Maughan former Vice Chairman, Citigroup, New York, NY
Jay Mazur President Emeritus, UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees); Vice Chairman, Amalgamated Bank of New York; and President, ILGWU's 21st Century Heritage Foundation, New York, NY
Hugh L. McColl, Jr. Chairman, McColl Brothers Lockwood, Charlotte, NC; former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America Corporation
Robert S. McNamara Lifetime Trustee, Trilateral Commission, Washington, DC; former President, World Bank; former U.S. Secretary of Defense; former President, Ford Motor Company.
Kenneth Rogoff Professor of Economics and Director, Center for International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former Chief Economist and Director, Research Department, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC
John Thain Chief Executive Officer, New York Stock Exchange, Inc.; former President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, Goldman Sachs & Co., New York, NY
Lawrence H. Summers President, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Press Related
David G. Bradley Chairman, Atlantic Media Company, Washington, DC
David Gergen Professor of Public Service, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Editor-at-Large, U.S. News and World Report
Donald E. Graham Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Washington Post Company, Washington, DC
Karen Elliott House Senior Vice President, Dow Jones & Company, and Publisher, The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY
Gerald M. Levin Chief Executive Officer Emeritus, AOL Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY
Fareed Zakaria Editor, Newsweek International, New York, NY
Mortimer B. Zuckerman Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, U.S. News & World Report, New York, NY
Labor Related
Sandra Feldman President Emeritus, American Federation of Teachers, Washington, DC
John J. Sweeney President, AFL-CIO, Washington, DC
Intelligence Related
John M. Deutch Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; former Director of Central Intelligence; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense
Henry A. Kissinger Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc., New York, NY; former U.S. Secretary of State; former U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
James B. Steinberg Vice President and Director of the Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor
William H. Webster Senior Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, Washington, DC; former U.S. Director of Central Intelligence; former Director, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation; former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Susan Rice Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council
Senate/Congress
Richard A. Gephardt former Member (D-MO), U.S. House of Representatives
Jim Leach Member (R-IA), U.S. House of Representatives
Charles B. Rangel Member (D-NY), U.S. House of Representatives
John D. Rockefeller IV Member (D-WV), U.S. Senate
Dianne Feinstein Member (D-CA), U.S. Senate
*Thomas S. Foley Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Washington, DC; former U.S. Ambassador to Japan; former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-WA); North American Chairman, Trilateral Commission
Other Political
George H. W. Bush President of the United States
William Jefferson Clinton President of the United States
Richard B. Cheney Vice President of the United States
Paula J. Dobriansky U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
Robert B. Zoellick Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Trade Representative
Madeleine K. Albright Principal, The Albright Group LLC, Washington, DC; former U.S. Secretary of State
C. Fred Bergsten Director, Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs
William T. Coleman, Jr. Senior Partner and the Senior Counselor, O’Melveny & Myers, Washington, DC; former U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Lynn Davis Senior Political Scientist, The RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA; former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
Richard N. Haass President, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY; former Director, Policy Planning, U. S. Department of State; former Director of Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution
*Carla A. Hills Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hills & Company, International Consultants, Washington, DC; former U.S. Trade Representative; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Richard Holbrooke Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC, New York, NY; Counselor, Council on Foreign Relations; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; former Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany
Winston Lord Co-Chairman of Overseeers and former Co-Chairman of the Board, International Rescue Committee, New York, NY; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; former U.S. Ambassador to China
*Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; former Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Richard N. Perle Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC; member and former Chairman, Defense Policy Board, U.S. Department of Defense; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
Thomas R. Pickering Senior Vice President, International Relations, The Boeing Company, Arlington, VA; former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the United Nations
Strobe Talbott President, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Miscellaneous
Ernesto Zedillo Director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Yale University, New Haven, CT; former President of Mexico [Ed . Note: not an American citizen]
David J. O'Reilly Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chevron Corporation, San Ramon, CA
* Indicates member of Executive Committee
The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same
The occupational makeup of the Trilateral Commission has obviously changed over time, but that only represents the maturing of the globalization process. What was needed in 1973 is not what is needed today. Still, there are some consistencies that are easily observed.
The most obvious consistency (and expansion) is the very large representation by the banking cartel: two chairmen and two board members of of the Federal Reserve System, two presidents of the World Bank, director of the International Monetary Fund, and chairmen/CEO's of several prominent global banks. This does not take into account any linkages from Commission members who are also directors of commercial and investment banks. Financial representation is not incidental because money is the life-blood of globalism. The August Review's coverage in Global Banking: The Bank for International Settlements detailed the apex and makeup of global banking.
Through membership, the Trilateral Commission dominates the executive branch of the U.S. government, the Federal Reserve System, and is closely aligned with the Bank for International Settlements, which controls the world's currencies and money supply. This is seen even without analyzing the remaining two-thirds of Commission membership that resides outside of the U.S.
The Institute for International Economics (IIE)
The IIE is an example of a key organization in which one might identify other core members of the global elite. Founded in 1981, IIE is a small policy-wonk organization with only 60 employees and an annual budget of $7 million. According to its own web site,
"The Institute for International Economics is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy. Since 1981 the Institute has provided timely, objective analysis and concrete solutions to key international economic problems.
"The Institute attempts to anticipate emerging issues and to be ready with practical ideas to inform and shape public debate. Its audience includes government officials and legislators, business and labor leaders, management and staff at international organizations, university-based scholars and their students, other research institutions and nongovernmental organizations, the media, and the public at large. It addresses these groups both in the United States and around the world."5
This would be easily overlooked unless you examine IIE's board of directors. Trilateralist Peter G. Peterson is chairman of the board. Anthony M. Solomon is honorary chairman of the executive committee. Solomon is the former chairman of Warburg (USA) Inc., former president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs. Solomon was listed only as "Consultant" on the 1973 Commission membership list.6
There are 12 other Trilateral Commission members (including David Rockefeller) on IIE's board of directors! Having established Trilateral influence (if not total domination), consider the following non-Commission IIE board members who might well be candidates for inclusion in the core of the global elite:
Chen Yuan - Governor, China Development Bank; former Deputy Governor, Peoples Bank of China.
Jacob A. Frenkel - Former governor of the Bank of Israel and former IMF economic counselor and director of research.
Maurice R. Greenberg - Chairman, American International Group.
David O'Reilly - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ChevronTexaco Corporation.
James W. Owens - Chairman and CEO of Caterpillar.
Lawrence H. Summers - President, Harvard University; former Secretary of the Treasury.
These are just a few of the non-Trilateral board members, and are reviewed only to show the process by which one might identify additional global elite core members.
There are other organizations like IIE that could stand similar analysis of purpose, leadership and directorship.
Conclusion
As was declared in the beginning of this analysis, the stampede to globalism is conducted by a small group of individuals with aspirations for global dominance. It should be noted again that there are members of the global "core" who are not members of the Trilateral Commission.
In general, they are driven by lust for money and power. They have clearly made an end-run around the American people in order to achieve personal goals that, in many cases, are diametrically opposed to U.S. interests. If the American people fully understood the magnitude of the deception and power-grab, they would immediately and totally repudiate these individuals and their self-serving global schemes.
In 1971, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era,
"...the nation-state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state."7
Brzezinski could not have been more clear than this. Of the few people who paid attention to Brzezinski previously, only one person needed to receive his message fully: David Rockefeller, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and consummate globalist. When they teamed up to start the Trilateral Commisison in 1973, the rest, as we say, "became history."
So, how can one determine if an individual is a member of the core of the global elite? There is a good chance that such a person will be:
closely aligned with and accepted by many of the people already identified as core;
often family-related to other core members (i.e., the Bush family, Rockefeller family, etc.);
part of the "revolving-door" that switches them in and out of important and critical positions in government, academia and business;
a member (director or high-level executive) of an organization identified as a core company, such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Caterpillar Tractor, etc.;
educated at a prestigious and global-minded university;
belong to one or more organizations that are dominated by people already identified as core.
This list is not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be some simplistic litmus test. It is important to realize that many names being bandied about are NOT part of the core of the global elite, but rather become decoys that shift the focus away from the real elite core. Discretion, common sense and study is required to understand the difference between the two.
Footnotes
Novak, Jeremiah, Christian Science Monitor (February 7, 1977)
The Trilateral Commission, Membership List, www.trilateral.org
Washington Post, January 16, 1977
op. cit.
About Us, http://www.iie.com/institute/aboutiie.cfm
Board of Directors, http://www.iie.com/institute/board.cfm
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era, (Penguin Books , 1971)
WHO RULES AMERICA?
James Petras
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e16140.htm
In the broadest and deepest sense, understanding how the US political system functions, the decisions of war and peace are taken, who gets what, how and why, requires that we address the question of ‘Who rules America?’ In tackling the question of ‘ruling’ one needs to clarify a great deal of misunderstandings, particularly the confusion between those who make governmental decisions and the socio-economic institutional parameters which define the interests to be served. ‘Ruling’ is exacting: it defines the ‘rules’ to be followed by the political and administrative decision-makers in formulating budgetary expenditures, taxes, labor and social legislation, trade policy, military and strategic questions of war and peace. The ‘rules’ are established, modified and adjusted according to the specific composition of the leading sectors of a ruling class (RC). Rules change with shifts in power within the ruling class. Shifts in power can reflect the internal dynamics of an economy or the changing position of economic sectors in the world economy, particularly the rise and decline of economic competitors.
The ‘rules’ imposed by one economic sector of the RC at a time of favorable conditions in the world economy, will be altered as new dominant economic sectors emerge and unfavorable external conditions weaken the former dominant economic sectors. As we shall describe below the relative and absolute decline of the US manufacturing sector is directly related to the rise of a multidimensional ‘financial sector’ and to the greater competitiveness of other manufacturing countries. The result is an accelerating process of liberalization of the economy favored by the ascending financial sectors. Liberalization in pursuit of unregulated flows of investments, buyouts, acquisitions and trade increases the financial sector’s profits, commissions, incomes and bonuses. Liberalization facilitates the financial sector’s acquisition of assets. The declining competitiveness of the older ruling class manufacturing sector dependent on statist protectionism and subsidies leads to ‘rear-guard’ policies, attempting to fashion an unwieldy policy of liberalization abroad and protectionism at home.
The answer to the question of who rules depends on specifying the historical moment and place on the world economy. The answer is complicated by the fact that shifts among ‘sectors’ of the ruling class involves a prolonged ‘transitional period’. During this period declining and ascending sectors may intermingle and the class members of declining sectors ‘convert’ to the rising sector. Hence while power between economic sectors may change, the leading class groupings may not lose out or decline. They merely shift their investments and adapt to the new and more lucrative opportunities created by the ascending sector.
For example, while US manufacturing sector has declined relative to ‘finance capital’, many of the major investment institutions have shifted to the new financial ‘growth sectors.’ Concomitantly, the converted sectors of the ruling class will shift their policies toward greater liberalization and deregulation, thus severely weakening the rear-guard demands of the uncompetitive manufacturing sector. Equally important within the declining economic sectors of the RC, drastic structural changes may ensue, to regain profitable returns and retain influence and power. Foremost of these changes is relocation of production overseas to low wage, low tax, non-union locations, the introduction of IT technology designed to reduce labor costs and increase productivity, and diversification of economic activity to incorporate lucrative financial ‘services’.
For example General Electric has moved from manufacturing toward financial services, relocated labor intensive activity off-shore and computerized operations. Through these moves the distinction between ‘manufacturing’ and financial capital has been made obsolete in describing the ‘ruling class’.
To the degree that older manufacturing capitalists retain any economic and political weight in the RC, they have done so via sub-contracting overseas to Asia and Mexico (General Motors/Ford), invested in overseas plants to capture foreign markets, or have been converted in large part into commercial and importing operations (shoes, textiles, toys, electronics and computer chips).
Locally based manufacturers which remain in the RC are largely found among military contractors living off the largesse of state spending and depending on the political support of congressional and trade union officials, eager to secure employment for a shrinking manufacturing labor force.
During this transitional period of rapid and all-encompassing changes in the ruling class, enormous financial opportunities have opened up throughout the world. As a result of political tensions within the ‘governing class’, key policymakers are drawn directly from the most representative institutions of Wall Street. Key economic policies, especially those which are most relevant to the RC, tend to be overwhelmingly in the hands of tried and experienced top leaders from Wall Street.
Despite (or because of) the ascendancy of various sectors of financial capital in the RC, and their agreements on a host of ‘liberalizing’ economic policies, they are not homogeneous in all of their political outlooks, party affiliations, or their foreign policy outlook. Most of these political differences are questions of small matter – except on one issue where there is a major and growing rift, namely in the Middle East. A sector of the RC strongly aligned with the state of Israel supports a bellicose policy toward the Jewish state’s adversaries (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Palestine) as opposed to another sector of the RC favoring a diplomatic approach, directed toward securing closer ties with Arab and Persian elites. Given the highly militarized turn in US foreign policy (largely due to the ascendancy of neo-conservative ideologues, the strong influence of the Zionist Lobby, and the instability and failures of their policies in the Middle East and China) the RC has pressed for and secured direct control over foreign economic policy.
The tensions and conflicts within the RC – especially between the Zioncons and the ‘free marketeers’ – have been papered over by the enormous economic benefits accruing to all sectors. All RC financial sectors have been enriched by White House and Congressional policies. All have benefited from the ascendancy of ‘liberalizing regimes’ throughout the world. They have reaped the gains of the expansionary phase of the international economy. While the entire ruling financial, real estate and trading sectors have been the main beneficiaries, it has been the financial groups, particularly the investment banks that have led the way and provide the political leadership.
Ascendancy of Financial Capital
‘Finance capital’ has many faces and cannot be understood without reference to specific sectors. Investment banks, pension funds, hedge funds, savings and loan banks, investment funds are only a few of the operative managers of a multi-trillion dollar economy. Moreover each of these sectors have specialized departments engaged in particular types of speculative-financial activity including commodity and currency, trading, consulting and managing acquisition and mergers. Despite a few exposés, court cases, fines and an occasional jailing, the financial sector writes its rules, controls its regulators and has secured license to speculate on everything, everywhere and all the time. They have created the framework or universe in which all other economic activities (manufacturing, retail sales and real estate) take place.
‘Finance capital’ is not an isolated sector and cannot be counterposed to the ‘productive economy’ except in the most marginal ‘local activity’. In large part finance capital interacts with and is the essential driving force in real estate speculation, agro-business, commodity production and manufacturing activity. To a large degree ‘market prices’ are as influenced by speculative intervention as they are by ‘supply and demand’. Equally important, the entire architecture of the ‘paper empire’ (the entire complex of inter-related financial investments) is ultimately dependent on the production of goods and services. The structure of power and wealth takes the form of an inverted triangle in which a vast army of workers, peasants and salary employees produce value which becomes the basis for near and remote, simple and exotic, lucrative and speculative financial instruments. The transfer of value from the productive activities of labor up through the ladder and branches of financial instruments is carried out through various vehicles: direct financial ownership of enterprises, credit, debt leveraging, buyouts and mergers. The tendency of ‘productive capitalists’ is to start-up an enterprise, innovate, exploit labor, capture markets and then ‘sell-out’ or go ‘public’ (stock offerings). The financial sector acts as combined intermediary, manager, proxy-purchaser and consultant, capturing substantial fees and expanding their economic empires and… preparing the way to higher levels of acquisitions and mergers… ‘Finance capital’ is the midwife of the concentration and centralization of wealth and capital as well as the direct owner of the means of production and distribution. From exacting a larger and larger ‘tribute’ or ‘rent’ (commission or fee) on each large-scale capital transaction, ‘finance capital’ has moved toward penetrating and controlling an enormous array of economic activities, transferring capital across national and sectoral boundaries, extracting profits and dumping shares according to the business, product and profit cycle.
Within the ruling class, the financial elite is the most parasitical component and exceeds the corporate bosses (CEOs) and most entrepreneurs in wealth and annual payments. It falls short of the annual income and assets of the super-rich entrepreneurs like William Gates and Michael Dell.
The financial ruling class is internally stratified into three sub-groups: at the top are big private equity bankers and hedge-fund managers, followed by the Wall Street chief executives, who in turn are above the next rung of senior associate or vice-presidents of a big private equity funds who is followed by their counterparts at Wall Street’s public equity funds. Top hedge fund managers and executive have made $1 billion dollars or more a year – several times what the CEO’s make at publicly traded investment houses. For example in 2006 Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, was paid $53.4 million, while Dan Ochs, executive of the hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital paid himself $220 million dollars. That same year the Morgan Stanley CEO received $40 million dollars, while the chief executive of the hedge fund Citadel was paid over $300 million dollars.
While the ‘hedge fund’ speculators receive the highest annual salaries, the private equity executives can equal their hundreds of millions payments through deal fees and special dividend payments from portfolio companies. This was especially true in 2006 when buyouts reached a record $710 billion dollars. The big bucks for the private equity bosses comes from the accumulating stake executives have in portfolio companies. They typically skim 20% of profits, which are realized when a group sells or lists a portfolio company. At that time, the payday runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The subset of the financial ruling class is the ‘junior bankers’ of private equity firms who take about $500,000 a year. At the bottom rung are the ‘junior bankers’ of publicly traded investment houses (‘Wall Street’) who average $350,000 a year. The financial ruling class is made up of these multi-billionaire elites from the hedge funds, private and public equity bankers and their associates in big prestigious corporate legal and accounting firms. They in turn are linked to the judicial and regulatory authorities, through political appointments and contributions, and by their central position in the national economy.
Within the financial ruling class, political leadership does not usually come from the richest hedge fund speculators, even less among the ‘junior bankers’. Political leaders come from the public and private equity banks, namely Wall Street - especially Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, the Carlyle Group and others. They organize and fund both major parties and their electoral campaigns. They pressure, negotiate and draw up the most comprehensive and favorable legislation on global strategies (liberalization and deregulation) and sectoral policies (reductions in taxes, government pressure on countries like China to ‘open’ their financial services to foreign penetration and so on). They pressure the government to ‘bailout’ bankrupt and failed speculative firms and to balance the budget by lowering social expenditures instead of raising taxes on speculative ‘windfall’ profits.
The Dance of the Billions: Finance Capital Reaps the Profits from their Power
Speculators of the world had a spectacular year in 2006 as global equities hit double digit gains in the US, European and Asian markets. China, Brazil, Russia and India were centers of speculative profiteering as the China FTSE index rose 94%, Russia’s stock market rose 60%, Brazil’s Bovespa was up 32.9% and India’s Sensex climbed 46.7%. In large part the stock markets rose because of cheap credit (to speculate), strong liquidity (huge financial, petrol and commodity profits and rents) and so-called ‘reforms’ which gave foreign investors greater access to markets in China, India and Brazil. The biggest profits in stock market speculation occurred under putative ‘center-left’ regimes (Brazil and India) and ‘Communist’ China, which have realigned themselves with the most retrograde and ‘leading’ sectors of their financial ruling class.
Russia’s booming stock market reflects a different process involving the re-nationalization of gas and petroleum sectors, at the expense of the gangster-oligarchs of the Yeltsin era and the ‘give-away’ contracts to European/US oil and gas companies (Shell, Texaco). As a result huge windfall profits have been re-cycled internally among the new Putin era millionaires who have been engaged in conspicuous consumption, speculation and investment in joint ventures with foreign manufacturers in transport and energy related industries.
The shift toward foreign-controlled speculative capital emerging in China, India and Brazil as opposed to ‘national and state’ funded investment in Russia accounts for the irrational and vitriolic hostility exhibited by the western financial press to President Putin.
One of the major sources of profit-making is in the area of ‘mergers and acquisitions’ (M&A) – the buying and selling of multinational conglomerates, with $3,900 billion in deals for 2006. Investment banks took $18.8 billion dollars in ‘fees’ leading to multi-million dollar bonuses for ‘M&A’ bankers. M&A, hostile or benign, are largely speculative activity fueled by cheap debt and leading to the greater concentration of ownership and profits. Today it is said 2% of the households own 80% of the world’s assets. Within this small elite, a fraction embedded in financial capital owns and controls the bulk of the world’s assets and organizes and facilitates further concentration of conglomerates. The value of speculative M&A on a world scale is 16% higher than at the height of the ‘DOTCOM’ speculative boom in 2000. In the US alone over $400 billion dollars worth of private equity deals were struck in 2005, three times higher than the previous year.
To understand who are the leading members of the financial ruling class one needs only to look at the ten leading private equity banks and the value and number of M&A deals in which they were engaged:
Private equity rankings by M&A deals (Year to Dec 20 2006)
US Value $bn Number
Blackstone 85.3 12
Texas Pacific 81.9 11
Bain Capital Partners 74.7 9
Thomas H Lee Partners 53.4 6
Goldman Sachs 51.2 5
Carlyle 50.0 14
Apollo Management 44.9 7
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts 44.5 3
Merrill Lynch 35.9 3
Cerberus Capital Management 28.6 4
Industry Total 402.6 1,157
(Financial Times 12/27/2006 p 13 - FT montage:Bob Haslett
The crucial fact is that these private equity banks are involved in every sector of the economy, in every region of the world economy and increasingly speculate in the conglomerates which are acquired.
In the era of the ascendancy of speculative finance capital it is not surprising that the three leading investment banks, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns reported record annual profits, based on their expansion in Europe and Asia, and their transfer of profits from manufacturing and services to the financial sector. For the year 2006, Goldman Sachs (GS) recorded the most profitable year ever for a Wall Street investment bank, on the basis of big (speculative) ‘trading gains and lucrative investment in the world’s worst sweatshops in Asia. GS reported a 69% jump in annual earnings to $9.54 billion dollars. Lehman Brothers (LB) and Bear Stearns (BS) equity banks also recorded record earnings. LB earned a record $4billion for the year. SB earned a record $2.1 billion dollars. For the year Lehman set aside about $334,000 dollars per junior banker, while top speculators and bankers earned a big multiple of that amount.
For the year 2006 investment banking revenue reached nearly $38 billion dollars compared to $25 billion dollars in 2004 – an increase of 34% (Financial Times Dec. 13, 2006 p.15).
The dominance of finance capital has been nurtured by the speculative activity of the controllers and directors of state-owned companies. ‘State’ ownership is an ambiguous term since it raises a further more precise question: ‘Who owns the state’? In the Middle East there are seven state-owned oil and gas companies. In six of those companies the principal beneficiaries are a small ruling elite. They recycle their revenues and profits through US and EU investment banks largely into bonds, real estate and other speculative financial instruments (FT Dec 15, 2006 p.11). State ownership and speculative capital, in the context of closed ‘Gulf-State’ type of ruling classes, are complementary, not contradictory, activities. The ruling regime in Dubai converts oil rents into building a regional financial center. Many Jewish-American-led Wall Street investment banks cohabitate with new Islamic-based investment houses, both reaping speculative returns.
Much of the investment funds now in the hands of US investment banks, hedge funds and other sectors of the financial ruling class originated in profits extracted from workers in the manufacturing and service sector. Two inter-related processes led to the growth and dominance of finance capital: the transfer of capital and profits from the ‘productive’ to the financial and speculative sector and the transfer of finance capital overseas, in the form of take-over of foreign assets now equivalent of around 80% of the US GDP. The roots of finance capital are embedded in three types of intensified exploitation: 1) of labor (via extended hours, transfer of pension and health costs from capital to labor, frozen minimum wage, stagnant and declining real wages and salaries); 2) of manufacturing profits (through higher rents, inter-sectoral transfers to financial instruments, interest payments and fees and commissions for mergers
and acquisitions); and 3) via state fiscal policies by lowering capital gains taxes, increasing tax write-offs and tax incentives for overseas investments and imposing regressive local, state and federal taxes.
The result is increasing inequality between, on the one hand, senior and junior bankers, public, private equity, investment and hedge fund directors, and their entourage of lawyers, accountants and, on the other hand, wage and salaried workers. Income ratios range between 400 to 1 and 1,000 to 1, between the ruling class and median wage and salary workers is the norm.
Crisis of the Working and Middle Class – (Begin to Worry the Ruling Class)
Living standards for the working and middle class and the urban poor have declined substantially over the past thirty years (1978-2006) to a point where one can point to a burgeoning crises. While real hourly wages in constant 2005 dollars have stagnated, health, pension, energy and educational costs (increasingly borne by wage and salary workers) have skyrocketed. If extensions in work time and intensification of work place production (increases in productivity) are included in the equation, it is clear that living (including working) conditions have declined sharply. Even the financial press can write articles entitled: “Why Ordinary Americans have Missed Out on the Benefits of Growth” (FT November 2, 2006 p.11).
Financial and investment banks are in charge of advising and directing the ‘restructuring’ of enterprises for mergers and acquisitions by downsizing, outsourcing, give-backs and other cost-cutting measures. This has led to downward mobility for the wage and salaried workers who retain their jobs even as their tenure is more precarious. In other words, the greater the salaries, bonuses, profits and rents for the financial ruling class engaged in ‘restructuring’ for M&As, the greater the decline in living standards for the working and middle class.
One measure of the enormous influence of the financial ruling class in heightening the exploitation of labor is found in the enormous disparity between productivity and wages. Between 2000 and 2005, the US economy grew 12%, and productivity (measured by output per hour worked in the business sector) rose 17% while hourly wages rose only 3%. Real family income fell during the same period (FT November 2, 2006 p.11). According to a poll in the fall of November 2006, three quarters of Americans say they are either worse off or no better off than they were six years ago (FT November 3, 2006 p.13).
The impact of the policies of the financial ruling class on both the manufacturing and service sectors transcends their profit skimming, credit leverage on business operations and management practices. It embraces the entire architecture of the income, investment and class structure. The growth of vast inequalities between the yearly payments of the financial ruling class and the medium salary of workers has reached unprecedented levels. The financial elite receives something in the range of a ratio of 500 up to 1000 times that of an average worker, depending on how narrowly or broadly we conceive of the financial ruling class.
Members of the financial ruling class have noted these vast and growing inequalities and express some concern over their possible social and political repercussions. According to the Financial Times (December 21, 2006), billionaire Stephen Schwartzman, CEO of the private equity group Blackstone warned “that the widening gap between Wall Street’s lavish pay packages and middle America’s stagnating wages risks causing a political and social backlash against the US’s ‘New Rich’”. Treasury Secretary and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson admitted that median wage stagnation was a problem and that amidst “strong economic expansion many Americans simply are not feeling (sic!) the benefits” (FT November 2, 2006 p. 11).
Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank testified before the Senate that “inequality is potentially a concern for the US economy…to the extent that incomes and wealth are spreading apart. I think that is not a good trend” (Ibid). In 2005 the proportion of national income to GDP going to profits, rents and other non-wage and salary sources is at record levels – 43%. Inequality in the distribution of national income in the US is the worst in the entire developed capitalist world. Moreover studies of time series data reveal that in the US inequality increased far greater and intergenerational social mobility was far more difficult in the US than any country in Western Europe. The growth of monstrous and rigid class inequalities reflects the narrow social base of an economy dominated by finance capital, its ingrown intergenerational linkages and the exorbitant entry fees ($50,000 per annum tuition with room and board) to elite private universities and post-graduate business schools. Equally important, the political power of finance capital and its ‘associated’ conglomerates wield uncontested political power in the US in comparison to any country in Europe. As a result the US government redistributes far less through the tax and social security, health and educational system than other countries. (ibid)
While some financial rulers express some anxiety about a ‘backlash’ from the deepening class divide, not a single one publicly supports any tax or other redistributive measures. Instead they call for increases in educational up-grading, job retraining and greater geographical mobility, though it is precisely among the educated middle class which is suffering salary stagnation.
Neither the Democratic Party majority in Congress, nor the Republican-controlled Executive offer any proposals to challenge the financial ruling class’s dominance nor are there any proposals to reverse its most retrograde policies causing the growing inequalities, wage stagnation and the increasing rigidity of the class structure. The reason has been reported in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times: An overwhelming chunk of the funds that Democrats raise nationally for election campaigns comes either from Wall Street financiers or Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs. (FT November 3, 2006 p. 13). The Democratic congressional electoral campaign was tightly controlled by two of Wall Street’s favorite Democrats, Senator Charles ‘Israel First’ Schumer and Congressman Rahm Immanuel, who selectively funded candidates who were pro-war, pro-Wall Street and unconditionally pro-Israel. Democrats slated to head strategic Congressional committees like Zion-Lib Barney Frank have already announced they have ‘good working relations’ with Wall Street.
The Financial Ruling Class Also Governs
Ruling classes rule the economy, are at the top of the social structure and establish the parameters and rules within which the politicians operate. More often than not few actually engage directly in congressional politics, preferring to build economic empires while channeling money toward candidates prepared to do their bidding. Only when an apparent division occurs, especially within the Executive, between the interests of the ruling class and the policies of the regime will elite members of the ruling class intervene directly or take a senior executive position to ‘rectify’ policy.
Ruling Class Political Power: Paulson Takes Over Treasury
Several sharp divergences occurred during the Bush regime between finance capital and policymakers. These policies prejudiced or threatened to seriously damage important sectors of the financial ruling class. Theses include: 1) the aggressive militarist and protectionist policies pursued by senior Pentagon officials and ‘Zion-con’ Senators toward China; 2) the political veto by Congress of the sale of US port management to a Gulf State-owned company and of a US oil company to China; 3) the failure of the Bush regime to secure the privatization of social security and to weaken the regulatory measures introduced in the aftermath of the massive corporate (Enron and World Com) and Wall Street swindles and 4. the need to put a check on the uncontrolled growth of fiscal deficits resulting from the Middle East wars, the ballooning trade deficits and the weakening dollar.
The headlines of the financial press (FT December 4, 2006 p.3) spell out finance capital’s direct intervention into key White House policy making:
“Goldman Sachs Top Alumni Wield Clout in White House”
and
“Former Bank Executives Hold Unprecedented Power within a US Administration”
US financial and manufacturing ruling classes have long influenced, advised and formulated policy for US Presidents. But given the stakes, the risks and the opportunities facing the financial ruling class, it has moved directly into key government posts. What is especially unprecedented is the dominant presence of members from one investment bank – Goldman Sachs. In late November 2006, Goldman Sachs (GS) senior executive William Dudley took over the Federal Reserve Bank of New York markets group. Hank Paulson, ex-CEO of GS is Treasury Secretary – explicitly anointed by President Bush as undisputed czar of all economic policies. Reuben Jeffrey, a former GS managing partner is the chief regulator of commodity futures and options trading, Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff (he decides who Bush sees, when and for how long – in other words arranges Bush’s agenda) served as GS executive director. Robert Steel, former GS vice chairman, advises Paulson on domestic finance. Randall Fort, ex-GS director of global security, advises Secretary of State Rice. The ex-GS officials also dominate Bush’s working group on financial markets and financial crisis management. The investment bankers wielding state power will control the Bush regime’s biggest housing giants (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), tax policy, energy markets – all issues that directly affect the investment banks. In other words, the financial banks will be ‘regulated’ by their own executives. The degree of finance capital’s stranglehold on political power is evidenced by the total lack of criticism by either party. As one financial newspaper noted: “Neither Mr. Bush nor Goldman have been criticized by Democrats for holding too many powerful jobs in part because the investment bank (GS) also has deep ties to Democrats. Goldman represented the biggest single donor base to the Democrats ahead of this (2006) year’s mid-term election”. (FT December 4, 2006)
Among Paulson’s first moves was to organize a top level delegation to China and a working group to work on forming a ‘strategic partnership’. Its task is to accelerate the ‘opening’ of China’s financial markets to penetration and majority takeovers by US operated investment funds. This represents a potential multi-trillion dollar window of opportunity. By seizing the initiative Paulson hopes to undercut the anti-China cohort of neo-con, Pentagon and White House militarists, as well as backwater backers of Taiwanese independence and Congressional chauvinist demagogues like Senator Schumer who threaten to undermine lucrative US-Chinese economic relations.
To lower the fiscal deficit, Paulson proposes to ‘reform’ entitlements - reduce spending on Medicare and Medicaid and to work out a deal with the Democrats to privatize Social Security piecemeal.
Where finance capital has not been able to fashion a coherent economic strategy is with regard to Washington’s Middle East wars. Because of the pull of the Zionist Lobby on many of leading lights of Wall Street – including its unofficial mouthpieces – the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times – Paulson has failed to formulate a strategy. He sis not even pay lip service to the Baker Iraq Study Group report’s proposal to gradually draw down troops for fear of alienating some key senior executives of Goldman Sachs, Stern, Lehman Brothers et al who follow the ‘Israel First’ line. As a result, Paulson has to work around the Lobby by focusing on dealing with the Gulf city-state monarchies and Saudi Arabia in order to avoid another disastrous repetition of the Dubai Port management sale. Paulson above all wants to avoid Zionist political interference with the two way flow of finance capital between the petrol-financial-banking complexes in the Gulf States and Wall Street. He wants to facilitate US finance capital’s access to the large dollar surpluses in the region. It is not surprising that the Israeli regime has accommodated their wealthy and influential financial backers on Wall Street by drawing a distinction between ‘moderate’ (Gulf States) with whom they claim common interests and ‘Islamic extremists’. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has directed his zealots in the US-Jewish Lobby to take heed of the refinements in the Party Line in dealing with US-Arab relations.
Nevertheless with all its concentrated political power and its enormous wealth and economic leverage over the economy, Wall Street cannot control or avoid serious economic vulnerabilities or possible catastrophic military-political events.
The Future of the Financial Ruling Class
What is abundantly clear is that one of the main threats to world markets – and the health of the financial ruling class – is an Israeli military attack on Iran. This will extend warfare throughout Asia and the Islamic world, drive energy prices beyond levels heretofore known, cause a major recession and likely a crash in financial markets. But as in the case of the relationships between Israel and the US, the Zionist Lobby calls the shots and its Wall Street acolytes acquiesce. As matters now stand, the Jewish Lobby supports the escalation of the Iraq war and the savaging of Palestine, Somalia and Afghanistan. It has neutralized the biggest and most concerted effort by big name centrist political figures to alter White House policy. Baker, Carter, former military commanders of US forces in Iraq have been savaged by the Zionist ideologues. Under their influence the White House is putting into practice the war strategy presented by the ‘American’ Enterprise Institute (a Zioncon thinktank). As a result parallel to Bush’s appointment of Paulson and Wall Streeters to run imperial economic policy, he has appointed an entire new pro-war civilian military-security apparatus to escalate and extend the Middle East wars to Africa (Somalia) and Latin America (Venezuela).
Sooner or later a break between Wall Street and the militarists will occur. The additional costs of an escalating wars, the continual ballooning debt payments, huge imbalances in the balance of payments and decreasing inflows of capital as multi-national repatriate profits and overseas central banks diversify their currency reserves will force the issue. The enormous and growing inequalities, the massive concentration of wealth and capital at a time of declining living standards and stagnant income for the vast majority, gives the financial ruling class little political capital or credibility if and when an economic and financial crisis breaks.
With foreign investors owning 47% of all marketable US Treasury bonds in 2006 compared to 33% in 2001 and foreign holdings of US corporate debt up to 30% today, from 23% just 5 years ago, a rapid sell-off would totally destabilize US financial markets and the economic system as well as the world economy. A rapid sell-off of dollars with catastrophic consequences cannot be ruled out if US-Zionist militarism continues to run amuck, creating conditions of extended and prolonged warfare.
The paradox is that some of the most wealthy and powerful beneficiaries of the ascendancy of finance capital are precisely the same class of people who are financing their own self-destruction. While cheap finance fueling multi-billion dollar mergers, acquisitions, commissions and executive payoffs, heightened militarism operates on a budget plagued by tax reductions, exemptions and evasions for the financial ruling class and ever greater squeezing of the overburdened wage and salary classes. Something has to break the cohabitation between ruling class financiers and political militarists. They are running in opposite directions. One is investing capital abroad and the other spending borrowed funds at home. For the moment there are no signs of any serious clashes at the top, and in the middle and working classes there are no signs of any political break with the two Wall Street parties or any challenge to the militarist-Zionist stranglehold on Congress. Likely it will take a catastrophe, like a White House-back Israeli nuclear attack on Iran to detonate the kind of crisis which will provoke a deep and widespread popular backlash of all things military, financial and made in Israel.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press, 2006). He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu.
BLAIR REVEALS MASTERPLAN FOR NWO FOR NEXT 20 YEARS
We are grateful to receive a copy of the speech delivered by the British Prime Minister
The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP, on the closing day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. More than 2,000 people have joined the World Economic Forum in Davos for an intensive five-day programme of workshops and interview-style panel discussions.
He states:
... It is a very great honour to be asked to speak to the Davos forum at this closing session. This will be my last Davos forum as Prime Minister so I look forward to coming back in future years and telling other leaders where they went wrong and how easy the job is ...
Despite the multiple challenges we face in the world today, I am optimistic. Mind you, in my job, you have to be. It is true that each of the three issues -- world trade, climate change, Africa -- that have dominated Davos, hangs in the balance. But on each, there is progress that would have been unimaginable even a short time back. Let me briefly state where I think we are on each issue and then give a broader context for my optimism; and end with an analysis of what we have to do.
On the WTO, within the past few days I have held discussions with President Bush, President Lula and Chancellor Merkel. We had a great discussion with trade Ministers under Pascal Lamy's expert eye yesterday. "Cautious optimism" was how it was described. I think it is now more likely than not, though by no means certain, that we will reach a deal within the next few months. Countries are moving closer together; there is a reignition of political energy and drive; and an increased recognition of the dire consequences of failure.
A trade deal would be a big boost to the notion of multilateralism; help the world's poorest escape their poverty; and achieve an impact on overall trade and
business, three times the amount of the last trade round. This is a critical priority for me in the coming period and that determination, I am pleased to say, is shared by the other major players in the negotiation.
Of course Africa would be a central beneficiary of such a deal. It is sometimes too easy to be pessimistic about Africa. But just think of what progress there has been. HIV/AIDs treatment now being given to 1.6 million. USD 100 billion of debt wiped out, enabling countries like Tanzania to transform primary education. Fifty democratic elections in Africa in the last five years. And six major wars have ended. We made commitments, not least on aid at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in July 2005. We must honour them. We will have the first meeting of the Africa Progress Panel which will monitor our commitments under Kofi Annan's leadership in Berlin later this year.
The other topic at the top of the Gleneagles agenda was climate change.
Kyoto was an extraordinary achievement, over 100 countries coming to an agreement with profound implications for their future economic growth. But in reality, even if implemented -- and Britain is one of the few nations that will hit, indeed exceed our Kyoto targets -- it would only stabilise emissions. In truth, we need them cut, probably by an order of 60 per cent by 2050 -- something we have now set as a UK domestic target.
Moreover, whatever we do -- Britain accounts for around 2 per cent of total emissions -- any agreement that does not have binding commitments from America, China and India is not one that can deliver. If Britain shut down our emissions entirely ie we closed down the country, the growth in China's emissions would make up the difference within just two years. Without the biggest economies being part of a framework to reduce carbon dependence, we have no earthly hope of success.
Fortunately I believe we are, potentially, on the verge of a breakthrough.
Chancellor Merkel is providing excellent G8 leadership. China and India are participating constructively in the G8 + 5 process Gleneagles established. They know that they will suffer if the environment degrades further. They have every imperative to be part of a deal, provided it is one that allows them to grow their economies so that they can spread the prosperity they are creating to the millions in those countries still in poverty.
And the mood in the US is in the process of a quantum shift. The President's State of the Union address built on his "addiction to oil" speech last year and set the first US targets for a reduction in petrol consumption.
Many individual American states -- notably California, with whose Governor I signed a bilateral agreement on this subject last year -- are setting targets for reducing emissions and taking far-reaching action to achieve them. American businesses -- including many of their major power companies -- have become advocates of a binding cap and trade system.
The German G8 Presidency gives us an opportunity to agree at least the principles of a new binding international agreement to come into effect when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012; but one which is more radical than Kyoto and more comprehensive, one which this time, includes all the major countries of the world. It is a prize of tantalising significance and I think it is possible.
So across all three issues, there are signs of hope. But this is part of a bigger shift in the politics of the global community. It is in this shift that the real possibilities of progress lie.
What is really happening is that nations -- even the most great -- are realising that they cannot pursue their narrow national interests without invoking broader global values. They are obliged to recognise that interdependence is the defining characteristic of the early 21st century world.
These three topics which have dominated Davos in 2007 are all global in their impact, their political relevance and in their prospective solutions. The Shifting Power Equation, the title of Davos this year, is in part, obviously, about emerging new powers; but it is equally about the fact that power over global issues can only be effectively wielded today by global alliances, based on global values.
There is also the curious mix of moral cause and strategic interest. We know we have a clear interest in combating climate change; but we feel it too, as a moral duty to successive generations as well as our own.
Business is here in Davos not simply to talk about commerce, industrial trends, competitive challenges, but also about its role in tackling the great issues of the day. It has moved way beyond traditional notions of corporate responsibility. Business believes that it, too, has a strategic interest in the moral cause.
The world today is in a kind of perpetual global conversation. Campaigns are begun and intensified almost instantly. Tragedy or injustice, like war, leaps into our living rooms, assaulting our senses, bringing us to a judgement on events that may be thousands of miles away but of which we feel a part.
This can happen in a malign way, as when an atavistic terrorist ideology uses the internet to recruit or proselytise; or in a benign way, as the magnificent Live Aid showed in awakening the conscience of the world over Africa.
Either way, it is a reality and it has a profound impact.
Individuals become part of mass movements for change and action. Political leaders find that the time quotient between foreign and domestic affairs alters dramatically. Business gets involved in politics, not as partisans of a political party, but as important actors in global debate.
Above all, nations find that they need to confront and deal with challenges that simply do not admit of resolution without powerful alliances of other nations. And every nation, even the most powerful, is obliged to find such alliances or find their own interests buffeted and diminished.
That is why we call it interdependence. It is the ultimate joining together of self-interest and community interest. Afghanistan was a failed state, its people living in misery and poverty but in days gone by it would have stayed that way without the world much noticing. September 11th brought it to our notice in the most unforeseen but catastrophic way. Look how the world has changed because of it.
We know Africa's plight is shameful in a world of plenty. But I have never shrunk from confessing another motive. I believe if we let Somalia or Sudan slip further into the abyss, the effect of their fall will not stay within their region never mind their nation. I will argue for the presence of peace in Palestine on its own terms; but there is no question that its absence has consequences on the streets of cities in Britain amongst people who have never been near Gaza or the West Bank.
And, of course, there is climate change. Assume even a possibility of its threat being real. It would be madness not to act to prevent its realisation -- just as a precaution. Its challenge is the supreme expression of interdependence. America and China, even if they had no other reason for a relationship and they have many, would need one simply for this alone.
To this add economic globalisation, which offers, in general, such immense opportunity but whose effects, in particular, can be random and savage.
So just take these three issues: climate change; Africa and world trade. Work out what is at stake: the future of the planet; the death or life of millions of people every year; the ability to spread the life chances of globalisation, the single greatest economic engine of our time, more evenly.
Consider what is at stake in these issues. Then consider how hard we have found it to put the right alliances in place; reach agreement; and take the appropriate measures to get the job done. This is my major reflection on 10 years of trying to meet these challenges, 10 years in which, as a deliberate policy, Britain has been at the forefront, for better or worse, of each of these major global issues.
Interdependence is an accepted fact. It is giving rise to a great yearning for a sense of global purpose, underpinned by global values, to overcome challenges, global in nature. But we are woefully short of the instruments to make multilateral action effective. We acknowledge the interdependent reality. We can sketch the purpose and describe the values. What we lack is capacity, capability, the concerted means to act.
We need a multilateralism that is muscular. Instead, too often, it is disjointed, imbued with the right ideas but the wrong or inadequate methods of achieving them. None of this should make us underestimate what has been done. But there is too often a yawning gap between our description of an issue's importance and the matching capability to determine it.
In this regard, there is often an easy and lazy critique that puts this down to an absence of political will. In my experience there is, usually, not a problem of political will. By and large its there. It is translating that will into action that is the problem. Why? Because it requires focus, time, energy and commitment and though individual leaders and nations can provide those qualities intermittently, sustaining them over time, with all the other pressures is just practically impossible.
Global purpose, underpinned by global values requires global instruments of effective multilateral action. A UNSC without Germany, Japan, Brazil or India, to say nothing of any African or Muslim nation, will, in time, not merely lose legitimacy in the eyes of the world, but seriously inhibit effective action. By all means let us have some form of bridging mechanism -- perhaps semi-permanent status without a veto -- to a reformed Council; but get it done. Likewise with reform within the UN -- greater power to the Secretary General, merging agencies, one UN organisation in-country. But reform now has to happen.
There is a powerful case for merging the IMF and World Bank and for increasing the influence of the developing countries within them.
The G8 is already well on its way to metamorphosis into G8 + 5. At G8 + 5, it can be a forum for agreement between the most powerful nations with a true modern global reach. But sooner or later, the metamorphosis should be complete.
We need to make the regional blocs more effective. I strongly believe in changing the rules of the EU to build efficacy in Europe's power. The EU at 27 cannot operate within the system used for an EU of 15 countries.
It would hugely help the cause of Africa if the AU became a strongly and cohesive voice and instrument of Africa's interests. However, this is not just about Governmental institutions.
Into the void between identifying an issue's importance and securing the means of acting on it, has increasingly stepped the non-governmental and non-state actors. The resource of the Gates Foundation is being put to the eradication of Malaria -- a preventable disease which kills one million a year. The Grameen Bank, founded by Mohammed Yunus has pioneered micro-credit projects which now have over 80 million recipients, the majority of them women. It is a partnership between Governments, private markets, NGOs and faith groups that is providing immunisation that will save five million children's lives and those of a further five million adults.
The agenda on climate change is increasingly being set by coalitions of business, most recently the group of US companies calling for tougher action but also setting out practical ways of doing it. All of this is great, ground-breaking work. But in a sense it is laying bare the paucity of the instruments to effect change, which we have at our disposal.
In 1999 in Chicago I called for a doctrine of international community, in which we accept that a modern foreign policy cannot work except on the basis of shared common values. These values gave us not just a right but a duty to act in order to protect people at risk. I meant it in the context of Kosovo and ethnic cleansing. But of course its application goes far wider.
The common theme that runs through such apparently disparate issues like the struggle against terrorism or poverty in Africa is that both require active measures of intervention. Indeed the very consequence of interdependence is the necessity to intervene, in coalition with others, in order to prevent danger or injustice that may originate outside our borders but ultimately will affect us within them.
So, today, we see the establishment of a proper democratic state of Palestine as benefiting not just the people of Palestine and Israel but the wider Middle East and the world. We know, too, that if Central Africa is given over to conflict it will at some stage be a global threat. Likewise if Iraq or Afghanistan falls back into failed states exporting violence, we will suffer the impact.
But we know also that none of these desirable objectives will occur without our active intervention.
We are familiar with military intervention; the path of aid and development is well trodden. But the concept of nation-building - by which I mean the construction of the capacity for effective self-government within a country - is still in its infancy. The proper infrastructure of government - functioning commercial and legal systems, health and education ministries that can actually administer, economic authorities that have real authority; police and military that perform the tasks they should under proper rules of governance: these things often seem less exciting and motivating than direct intervention to cure disease or alleviate poverty, but in reality they are the life blood of true progress for nations struggling to be nations.
Aid for trade is at least as important as any other part of the world trade deal. Why? Because it builds capacity.
There is a whole new dimension to international intervention that needs development. It is in building capacity that the fate of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan or any of poorest or war-ravaged African nations will obtain their salvation. Everything else - worthy and essential though it is - fails unless the systems of self-government and therefore self-help are brought into being.
These are new skills the international community must develop.
There is a further element to it. We need proper, well-constructed means of conflict resolution and peace-keeping. What is happening in Darfur today is a scandal; not a problem, a scandal. Hundreds of thousands die or live lives of unbelievable risk and misery because we cannot assemble a proper peace agreement, properly enforced, with the full weight of the international community behind it. I know there are a host of political reasons that are colliding with our good intent. But the real problem, again, is the absence of a sustained international focus, with the capacity to keep at it, report back credibly and trigger action, if nothing happens.
Not all of this requires us to go back to traditional institutions of international governance like the United Nations. Non-state actors can play a role here too. But the point is very simple: if we are to intervene successfully, we have to have the capability to do so.
Therefore a key and new part of our international dialogue must now be strengthening the instruments and institutions, those between governments but also those within broader civic society, that can build capacity. We need new networks, new relationships between countries and between people which mobilise the practical means of bringing change into being.
There is an urgency here. What is remarkable about Davos this year - and this has been true for some years now - is the degree of consensus around a values-based international agenda. It is what makes me optimistic. There is a true sense of global responsibility.
But ours is not the only narrative competing for the world's attention. There is another. It may be - is - based on a total perversion of Islam; but it has shown itself capable of playing cleverly on the injustice, poverty and alienation felt by many whose lifestyles are a world away from ours. We believe we are doing our best to confront the world's problems and to lift the scourge from the backs of so many millions whose lives are blighted. But this counter-ideology mocks our efforts, disputes our motives, turns our good faith into bad.
And there is yet another narrative. In 20 years, or sooner, there will be new powers, new constellations of authority, with strong intentions and powerful means of advancing them. What values will govern that new world? Will they be global values, commonly shared or will the world revert to spheres of interest, to competing power-plays in which the lesser or struggling nations are the victims?
If the narrative we believe in - a world of tolerance, freedom, openness and justice for all - is to be credible, it has to be effective. The best answer to fear is always hope. But hope requires belief. And belief comes only from words turned into deeds. So take these issues: Africa, climate change, world trade.
Imagine over the coming months the world agrees and over the coming years, it acts. Think how attractive our story of the world's progress would be. Then think of failure and who will weep and who will rejoice. Think of all of this. Then let us agree. Then let us act.
Tony Blair
BROWN SETS OUT HIS MASTERPLAN TO RESHAPE THE WORLD
Anthony Brown
The Times January 18, 2007
Gordon Brown has called for a “new world order”, to be achieved by reorganising international institutions including the United Nations and Nato. In a marked change of tone after years in which Tony Blair has been criticised for being too close to President Bush, the Chancellor emphasised the importance of working multinationally. And, in an agenda that would involve overhauling virtually all the world’s big organisations, he promised that he would put Britain’s interests and values at their heart.
In a speech in Bangalore yesterday, Mr Brown gave details of the foreign policy he plans to pursue when he becomes prime minister, as is almost certain this year. Making his first visit to India, he said that the postSecond World War institutions had to be made fit for the 21st century. He outlined plans to overhaul the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries, the EU and Nato.
He also promised to take the pressure off British troops by insisting that other Nato countries do more to help in hotspots such as Afghanistan. He pledged continuity to Mr Blair’s policies but, in a change of tone, emphasised the importance of working multinationally rather than unilaterally.
He told an audience of Indian and British industrialists: “The post-1945 system of international institutions — built for a world of sheltered economies and just 50 states — is not yet broken, but for a world of 200 states and an open globalisation, urgently in need of modernisation and reform.”
He said that he would work to ensure that the new world order would be in Britain’s interests. “We can help to build things and shape this new world order and shape it in a way that is good for Britain and British values.”
The UN should be reformed to reflect the growing power of Asia, and Mr Brown insisted that he “strongly backed” India’s bid to join the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which have the right to veto all resolutions.
The IMF would have to work to pre-empt financial crises rather than respond to them; the World Bank shift focus from purely development to promoting renewable forms of energy.
The Chancellor called for the stalled world trade talks to be restarted and condemned rising protectionism in America and Europe. He said that the EU would have to do more to embrace globalisation, rather than shut it out, saying that it would have to move “from an inward-looking union — the union of a trade-bloc Europe — to outward-looking internationalists, the union of a global Europe” .
Labour is drawing up plans for Mr Brown to face a formal ballot to confirm him as Labour leader, even if no one challenges him to replace Mr Blair (Philip Webster, Political Editor, writes).
This would avoid the need for him to “kick his heels” while the party elects a deputy leader, senior party sources said last night.
GLOBALIZATION IS THE NEW IMPERIALISM-
DON'T TRY TO "IMPROVE" IT, BURY IT!
RESTORE NATIONAL-INTEREST POLICIES
Hearing on Trade and Globalization by the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives
Jan 30 2007
Dear Chairman Charles B. Rangel, and other Honorable
Members of the Committee:
We fully support your opening of the work of the 110th Congress, by holding a series of hearings on the economic conditions of the United States; and in that spirit, we respond bluntly to your questions for this third hearing--on how to identify the "successes" of globalization and improve its "benefits"--by stressing this one central point: Globalization has been a raving success for those financial interests who imposed it over the past 40 years; and a disaster--as they intended--for the nations and peoples that are being looted. Therefore, it should be stopped--NOT improved or adjusted to. So-called free (rigged) trade must be stopped, and a set of monetary, foreign policy and economic measures initiated for the mutual benefit of building up nations again.
"Too late? Can't be done?" Not at all. The popular groundswell for "fair" trade, not free trade, and for curbing the "excesses" of globalization, is evident across the United States. Just look at the many articles and books by your fellow Congressmen on the topic. The Nov. 7 election results are a mandate to end the globalization disasters of the last three decades of GATT/NAFTA/WTO/"free trade democracy," and all the other variants. Internationally, a rush of support is awaiting any Congressional initiative in this direction, even for the most preliminary measures. It would signify that the United States is returning to sanity and its founding principles.
Secondly, we have no choice but to confront the real nature of the menace involved in globalization. We are at a blow-out stage of the world monetary and financial system. The unprecedented volumes of speculative activity--mostly denominated in U.S. dollars--are at the point of chain-reactions of non-payment. Look at the bursting of the home mortgage bubble, the commodities prices volatility, the frenzied hedge fund takeovers of economic activity, the privatization-grab for government infrastructure assets, not to mention gambling, otherwise known as derivatives.
"Globalization, The New Imperialism"
"Globalization, The New Imperialism," was the title of a policy document by Lyndon LaRouche in October 2005, which was a forewarning, to provide policymakers the means to understand what we're up against. (See www.larouchepac.com, "A Strategic View of European History Today; Globalization, The New Imperialism.") The United States and other republics would not exist today, if in the 1700s, the leaders of the American colonies, and their European allies, decided to lobby to merely "improve" the conduct of the British and Dutch East India Companies, rather than to break from their imperial control. (In historical fact, the British East India Co. itself backed fake "popular movements" to plead with the Company to not overcharge for goods, to go easy on slaves, and to provide chaplains on commercial missions, etc.).
Unfortunately, these networks were not trounced in the American Revolution, and have attempted to re-gain dominance at many times since. Today, the particulars may be different from the 18th century, but there is a continuity of both the nature of imperial control, and even of the pedigree of major financial interests involved, whose practices are called by economic historians, "Anglo-Dutch liberalism." LaRouche warned in 2005,
"The long-ranging drive of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal financier-oligarchical establishment, over the post-Franklin Roosevelt period of world history, has been to destroy the institution of the sovereign nation-state republic throughout the planet, an intention which has been turned loose, full force, with the collapse of the Soviet system. The name given to this global destruction of sovereignty of nations, including that of the U.S.A. itself, is 'globalization.'
"The systemic characteristic of this transformation, most clearly since the middle to late 1960s, has been the destruction of the so-called ``protectionist model'' of the U.S. economy. The intent has been, including from the government of the U.S.A. itself, to destroy the role of the U.S.A. as a sovereign nation-state, by destroying the so-called 'protectionist' system on which the superiority of the U.S. economy to that of other parts of the world had depended, prior to the 1971-1982 transformation of the U.S. into the presently bankrupt 'service economy' rubbish-bin it has become. The intent of globalization is to make the poverty of the so-called 'developing sector' permanent, by degrading the physical economies of the Americas and Europe to the notoriety of 'Third World' conditions, and by making 'Third World' conditions the standard for economy world-wide."
From this vantage point, we here provide summary documentation and references to back Congressional action to end the globalization era, under three main points:
* history of the imposition of globalization
* review of the damage from globalization
* emergency measures called for.
Globalization Was Imposed, Not "Evolved"
At the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, which set up the post-WW II financial system, a proposal to establish an ITO--International Trade Organization--was voted down. This reflected the prevailing principled view that trade between nations was a prerogative of sovereign governments to determine what was in their mutual best economic interest, and not that of either supra-national agencies, nor private multi-national financial interests. Over the subsequent 15-20 years, this principle continued, despite exceptions and assaults, as post-war reconstruction took place, new nations gained independence, and the prospects for a vast advance in economic conditions globally were indicated in the "Atoms for Peace" program, to harness nuclear power.
The original goal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for a post-war "International New Deal" for deliberate multi-nation collaboration on infrastructure and rapid economic development was thwarted, because of direct opposition through the Truman Administration. But there was still a vector of development underway until the mid-1960s.
However, by the 1970s, this dynamic had been seriously undermined by the opponents of national sovereignty and development. In brief: In 1971, the dollar was "floated," which ushered in the era of increasing uncertainty from fluctuating currency exchange rates, and speculative activity amounting to a World Casino. The graph here shows that over two decades, the volume of currency exchange associated with trade in goods collapsed, in contrast to exchange associated with speculation.
In the United States, deregulation was launched in all manner of vital functions--trucking and rail, health care (1973 was the first HMO act), and energy, culminating in Enronomics. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher's Britain became the world model for radical privatization and deregulation. In 1986, with the "Uruguay Round" of the U.N. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade," a Thatcher-type campaign was launched to "reform' the entire world farm and food systems by taking away "trade-distorting" practices such as tariffs and national food reserves.
The sophistry of the GATT globalist movement was shown in its slogan, "One World, One Market' to argue that citizens of every nation had the "right" to access their food and all other needs directly from world sources, not from the "confines" of their own nations. "Borderless" free trade was the goal across the board for banking, labor, industrial and agricultural goods and services, and especially access to minerals and natural resources.
In January 1988, the Canada-United States Free Trade Act was signed. In 1992, NAFTA was concluded. In 1995 the World Trade Organization was established. During this process, when Germany was re-unified in 1990, the "free trade" movement was imposed on it, including on Russia, and other parts of the former Soviet bloc.
In the course of all this, a "blob" of cartels and multi-national financial networks positioned themselves for near-total control and killer-profiteering. In 1968, this was described explicitly as a "world company" project, by George Ball, a former Undersecretary of State, and Chairman of Lehman Brothers, in a speech to a conference of the Bilderberg Society, on whose steering committee he then served. Ball gave an outline of how the archaic nation-state system should be replaced by globalized corporate cartels.
The "names" associated with this process indicate the networks involved. Lehman Brothers itself, along with Lazard, are foremost entities, and have been in the forefront of the sell-off of the U.S. auto/machine tool capacity and other industrial assets, as well as infrastructure rip-offs through what's now politely termed, "Public Private Partnerships." The poster boy for this process is Felix Rohatyn, long at Lazard, and now a top consultant for Lehman. Also in the line-up is George Shultz, direct collaborator of Rohatyn et al. One view of how the networks operate, is provided by John Perkins' book, "Economic Hit Man."
This gang is now under scrutiny for their global equity fund and hedge fund frenzy of LBO grabs of companies, whose operations are then indebted, downsized and ruined.
Below Economic Breakeven
The net effect on the physical economy, of the years of out-sourcing industry, "global-sourcing" food supply and all related hallmark practices of globalization, has been a net reduction of productive capacity and living conditions overall, so that the world economy as a whole is way below even a breakeven threshold of required activity. Specifically: shutting down manufacturing and farming in the United States, and relocating it abroad to cheap labor and low infrastructure sites, causes harm and a net reduction in productivity in all nations involved. Look at some of the features of this, sector by sector.
Industry. There has been an absolute loss of 5.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1979--including elimination of nearly half the employment in the aerospace and auto industries, the two major machine-tool reserves of the economy. The re-employment of contingents of these former manufacturing workers at less-skilled, lower-wage jobs has lowered the productivity of the American workforce. U.S. consumption of machine tools is now only 60% of the 1980 level, and 60-70% of that consumption is imported machine tools.
What remains of global industrial capacity is now being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, for example, the Mittal Steel empire, part of the Anglo-Dutch imperium. Steel and heavy industrial goods--measured on a per capita basis of consumption, are declining.
Agriculture. The United States is now food import dependent for 30 to 80 percent of various consumption items, from fruits and vegetables to seafood, even while its former farm counties are experiencing drastic population reductions. On the continent of Africa, food availability per capita is declining. Expected life span itself is dropping in Sub-Saharan Africa. A very few agro-cartels now exert vast control of global food supply lines, including such names as Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, as well as Smithfield, Suiza and others. International retail food sales are now dominated by Wal-Mart, Carrefour and a few others.
Population Millions of people are being dislocated by the takedown of national economies. In the United States, there are 12 million Mexicans who would otherwise be in their homeland, but for the free-trade breakdown process. The nation of the Philippines is dependent on remittances from its citizens who are forced to seek work abroad. This is true for all of Central America. In Africa, the refugee population is in the millions. The population of Russia is declining in absolute numbers.
Biological Breakdown With the decline in infrastructure over the past years--water, power, transportation, health care--the rise of new and resurgent diseases now poses the threat of biological holocaust. This is typified, but not confined to avian flu, or to the new strain of "super"-tuberculosis, now spreading in southern Africa.
Food shocks are also in store, because of the absence of food reserves, and contingencies for botanical pests. A new wheat rust is making its way from eastern Africa, across the Arabian Peninsula, eastward toward the Indian sub-continent, on a spread-path potentially involving 25% of global wheat output. The reason for the danger is that in recent decades, resources were not put into having stand-by resistant wheat varieties, but instead, private agro-companies came to dominate seed development--including gaining sweeping patent rights--for their own purposes of control and furthering monoculture.
Emergency Measures/The FDR Paradigm
These then, are just a few elements of the "Big Picture" of how far gone we are under globalization. No fix-ups will work, of labor standards or environmental codes, or the like. Emergency action is required. In brief, there are two main areas for legislative initiative. First, to stabilize currency exchange, and put in place measures to prevent insolvencies causing out-of-control shutdown of vital goods and services activities. In particular, the Federal Reserve banking system--with trillions in unpayable claims of derivatives and other "assets"--is bankupt; and government action is required to place the Federal Reserve under bankruptcy protection and re-organization, in order that required levels of banking function are maintained and obligations honored, but claims equivalent to gambling are frozen at lowest priority.
Going along with this, is the need to initiate nation-to-nation agreements for mutually beneficial fair trade, and to call a halt to the harmful "free trade" commitments and flows. Roll-back the free trade agreements completely.
Secondly, for both domestic and state-to-state economic activity, initiatives are needed to further large-scale shifts away from the so-called "services economy" model, and shift into a capital-intensive production model, for all national economies. For the U.S. economy, draft legislation has been provided to your Committee, in testimony for your Jan. 23, 2007 hearing, called the "The Economic Recovery Act of 2006."
What is involved most simply, is to take a "capital budget approach," in which the Federal government initiates low-interest credit for priority national infrastructure projects, to be carried out by private contractors. The precedents are clear from the FDR period. And today, the range of infrastructure required is also crystal clear--as described, for example, by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Dams, bridges, new health facilities, ports, water treatment and conveyance, and as the centerpiece: high-tech railroads and advanced nuclear power.
Gearing up to fulfill these infrastructure projects generates the need for millions of new skilled jobs, and for re-tooling, restoring, and expanding the U.S. machine tool/manufacturing capacity.
A detailed policy document on this process is available: "What Congress Needs to Learn: The Lost Art of the Capital Budget," Dec. 22, 2006, by Lyndon LaRouche. (Available in EIR, Vol. 34, No. 2, Jan. 12, 2007, on www.larouchepub.com).
Science Driver
In summary, the program that is now required to bury globalization can be accomplished by a "return to the kind of thinking associated with a 'fair trade,' rather than 'free trade' economy." LaRouche describes this as, "thinking about physical and financial capital as we did under Franklin Roosevelt.
"The principle on which the success of such a program depends, is the principle of fostering the increase of physical productivity, per capita and per square kilometer, through science-driven technological progress in the improvement of the productive powers of labor. This means technological progress as expressed by emphasis on a science-driver economy of the type which brought the U.S. and its allies to victory over Hitler et al. in the preparation for, and conduct of World War II.
"Against the customary carping critics of such measures, consider the following.
"Had Franklin Roosevelt lived, the freeing of the world from the imperial legacy of colonialism and the like, would have created a vast capital market for the products of a converted U.S. war production buildup, the reinvestment of the war debt margins in new capital formation, here and abroad, although it would have been associated with the combination of a temporary austerity, but a healthy accumulation of real capital..."
Now, over 50 years later, we face the severe depletion of our capital stock after three decades of globalization. But the principles of "FDR thinking" still apply. If we take the right emergency measures during the transition, we can drive the economy ahead through resuming the science associated with nuclear power--the "fourth generation" (high temperature) reactors, the R&D to harness fusion power, and the entry into an "isotope economy" of man-made "natural" elements to overcome exhausted resources. There can be life after globalization, better than ever.
Hearing on Trade and Globalization by the Ways and Means Committee
of the House of Representatives
Jan. 30, 2007
GLOBALIZATION, THE NEW IMPERIALISM
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
October 9, 2005
http://larouchepac.com/pages/writings_fi...istory.htm
By traditional standards, the accelerating degeneration of the U.S. military-political occupation of Iraq, has already entered the terminal phase of the currently failed war policies of the U.S. George W. Bush, Jr. Administration.The global strategic situation of the moment can be brought into focus by saying simply that the presently advanced state of degeneration of the U.S. military operations in both Iraq itself and the adjoining region, interacts with a threatened early disintegration of the world's present IMF monetary-financial system.
We have entered a time during which only the combined dumping of the policies of the current Bush Administration, and the launching of first steps toward a new world monetary-financial system akin to that of the original Bretton Woods system, could prevent the otherwise inevitable early plunge of the planet as a whole into a new dark age.
We have entered a time in world history, when any different remedy than that which I have just recommended, were the wishful dream of self-damned fools.
To rational elements among the more well-informed circles of the planet, as one month follows another, the evidence to that effect is now more and more painfully clear. Were the present majority among the leading management cadres of today's world fully rational, the wild-eyed monetarist experiment launched under the U.S. current Bush Administration would be declared a bad job, and a return to the relatively successful economic and related policies of the immediate two post-war decades, would be rapidly resumed.
For example: In the case of the U.S.A. itself, although I warned, repeatedly, during the Spring and early Summer of this year, that we must prepare for the chain-reaction-like effects of an early "crash" in the automotive sector, no significant action was taken, either in the Executive or Congress, on that specific account.
The most notable point to be made on this present occasion is, that the argument for avoiding the urgently needed precautionary measures, was that relevant circles were advised that I had been mistaken respecting the factors of timing and more deep-going issues of policy in this matter. It is typical of the conditioned state of mind among our nation's and Europe's makers and shakers, that we are met, in each recent stage of a growing national and global economic crisis, by the potentially fatal effects of a reluctance of the presently reigning political generation to "put the toothpaste back into the tube," a reluctance to tamper with those habituated, recent decades' changes in policy which have now led us to the brink of the greatest global financial-monetary and economic collapse in modern history.
Now, the consequences of that Hamlet-like kind of inaction, motivated in that Hamlet-like fashion, have brought our republic, and much of the world besides, into a situation far more deadly than existed those few months ago, when precautionary action against the principal, presently looming effects of the General Motors crisis might have been set into motion.
What Must Now Be Done
The problem which needs urgently to be corrected, is not only that the currently ruling, powerful combination of international monetary-financial interests has been ignorant and increasingly irrational. The problem is the conditioned fear of the power of the financier class, which has been spread among the political and other leading currents of our society, both in the Americas and Europe. It is the policies of those financier circles which have intentionally ruined what had been once the flourishing economies of the U.S.A. and western Europe of the period prior to the great Anglo-American financial paradigm-shift of the 1964-1972 interval.
Today, the policies of those financier interests have ruined the Americas and Europe almost irreparably, especially during the nearly sixteen years since the close of 1989, when the Soviet challenge no longer existed to prompt our maintaining our economies. Today, those financier interests which triumph over the ruin they have wreaked upon us, insist that they will never permit national economies, ever again, to reach for supremacy of the sovereign nation over the predatory lurchings of that global slime-mold-like financier oligarchy, which has looted nations down to levels of productive output which are currently actually below breakeven for the national economies of Europe and the Americas as a whole.
The generally expressed intent of practice among those financier circles, whose current majority, whatever their level of intellectual development, is typified by its mad obsession, its intent to bring about a modern caricature of the old medieval, ultramontane system in which Europe was under the tyranny of an anti-nation-state alliance of Venice's predatory financier oligarchy, with that self-styled holy league of butchers known as the Norman chivalry. Today, the mad dash for such an ultramontane form of global imperialism is called by such names as "globalization."
This intent by such financier "slime-molds," has been the underlying issue of two so-called "world wars" and the great thermonuclear conflict of the century just concluded. This intent is the key for understanding the military and related policies of the Vice President Cheney-directed U.S. Bush Administration today.
Said otherwise, the presently avowed goal of these slime-mold-like aggregations of private financier interest, is to establish a world system in which either nation-states cease to exist, or they are degraded to lackeys, begging at the footstools of financier-oligarchical power. It is that kind of a system which these oligarchical circles demand now; it is a system known popularly today as "globalization."
In effect, it could be said of some very influential circles, that the financier slime-mold of the same Synarchist International which created the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco, wishes presently to have something like a nuclear "Battle of Armageddon," and to win it, soon. The purpose of launching such a horror is to clear away the residues of former nation-state institutions, including those of our Federal Constitution. Although these forces could never succeed in their attempt to establish a permanent new world empire, the intended results imply that the power they serve is perhaps the true whore of the earlier Babylons, imperial Rome and medieval Venice.
Once any intelligent person understood the present resurgence of the same policies which motivated England's Edward VII to organize what became known as "World War I," what I have just stated should also be readily and correctly understood. The financier attempt would fail, catastrophically, for both assailant and victims, alike, but the evidence of such a looming reality never convinced the victim of a true obsession.
In the meantime, the present situation is as follows.
There is the growing popular sense of things, among those of us who represent the relatively economics-literate circles of Europe and the Americas, that the strategic and economic situations of these regions of the world are now verging upon a highly explosive state of over-ripeness for a general collapse. The most menacing feature of this present crisis, is the widespread lack of competent strategic insight, even among most relevant specialists and political authorities, alike, into the causes and underlying character of the complex, general global situation which the immediately recognized crisis-developments only reflect. The true, deeper origins, causes, and probable historical outcomes of these looming catastrophes, are not yet generally understood, even among the relatively best-informed leading circles of governments in North America and Europe.
The worst aspect of this, is not that leading political and related authorities do not recognize the nature and causes of this onrushing crisis. The worst aspect is that most among them, so far, now, as on the eve of crises such as that of 1929, have not wished to know, even to hear the truth about this onrushing situation.
This is, in itself, a correct view of the immediate expression of the danger, but it, too, fails to look deep enough.
It must be fairly said, that, while more and more leading U.S. circles are reacting to the perceived reality of the symptoms this situation presents, they have yet to find in themselves the willingness to accept the more essential fact of the matter. Until this point, they have remained blinded to the existence of the actual, underlying disease which these symptoms reflect. A growing minority of the leading relevant circles in North America and Europe recognize many of the symptoms; but even all of them, so far, refuse to accept the fact of the disease itself.
It is my intention, in this present report, to correct the widespread ignorance of the deeper causes for today's actual, currently rapidly worsening world situation.
To restate the case: As a result of that discrepancy in general understanding of the problem, even among leading circles, current directions in policy thinking are fairly characterized as growing zeal for ameliorating the most obvious and immediate symptoms, without willingness to challenge the long-ranging, globally disastrous threats posed by the relevant, potentially fatal disease. They overlook the deeper, real causes of our growing tribulations, in their zeal to blind themselves to the deeper causes for the mere symptoms. The manifest intent of their practice is to reform the enemy without actually annoying him.
In the closing portion of this present report, I shall touch the core of this problem in mass political behavior; but, to be understood thus, in the end, we must proceed in the fashion of peeling away layers of the proverbial onion, turning first to the matter of recent generations' experience of major wars, and finally reaching the core of the problem, through progress in examining a series of successive, intervening, deeper layers of the problem overall.
On the first of these layers, the outer layer, so to speak, is the root of this failure of leading circles of governments of, most notably, North America and Europe, to recognize and attack the disease of recently experienced recurrence of world war itself, to attack the propensity for misunderstanding war. This is a propensity which can be traced, in its essentials, to the prevailing academic and popularized misconception of the actually primary cause of the principal wars and related crises which have afflicted globally extended European civilization since that famous Paris Treaty of February 1763, which launched the people of English-speaking North America into what became the 1776-1783 war for national liberty.
Therefore, this present report is given as a summary of that specific historic problem which underlies the mounting global, existential complex of crisis of today. I shall now preface that summary at the door of today's White House. In earlier reports, I have addressed some of the crucial, leading facts treated here. The difference is, that, in this report, I focus on the same specific, centuries-old feature of the military strategic situation which modern European governments have stubbornly, repeatedly refused to take efficiently into account, up to the present moment.
Therefore, to complete this preface, I begin now with an introduction to the matter of current threats of warfare, taking as an example, the tragic case of the present U.S. Bush Administration.
At the White House Press Conferences
Like the President George W. Bush, Jr. Administration's stubbornly lying about his seemingly endless war in Iraq, most of what has been taught about the causes of modern warfare, in our history lessons, and by notable political leaders, is conventional fraud, when it is not outright stupidity, like that of President Bush himself.
To be fair to that President, we must concede that he rarely knows the actual meaning of the words coming out of his mouth. It often appears, that he is to be seen on our television screens as gaping in wonder at the spectacle of that flow of words from that orifice. Nonetheless, he lied repeatedly, as a way of getting us into that war. That much conceded, whether he lied in the fashion of Vice-President Cheney's "Mortimer Snerd"-like wooden puppet, or otherwise, it has been just those lying words from his mouth which got us into an Iraq from which, it seems, more and more, that there is neither hope of victory, nor honorable escape, for as long as the "Bergen-Snerd" team of that Vice-President and his President remains in office.
So, it is the case, that impeachments, or a decent sort of timely resignation from office, as was used to settle the breakdown of government threatened by Nixon's continued incumbency, are on the tips of the tongues of more and more sensible political leaders of our nation today.
Under other circumstances, where decency permitted us to be more generous in our description of that poor President, we would then treat him gently, and view him charitably, as a poor fellow who could read neither a page, nor a map, nor, probably, distinguish between the two. He has, like all persons, his rightful place in the enjoyment of life, but the terrible price our nation has already paid for his mistakes in that office, shows all sentient beings that his personal right does not include the U.S. Presidency.
In any case, we must put the blame where it belongs. Those failings of that President are no excuse for the relevant behavior of the U.S.A. itself; the people of the U.S.A. can make no acceptable evasion of the fact of their own guilt, if it were only the great guilt in allowing such a wretched incompetent as poor George W. Bush, Jr., to be seriously considered by them as a contender for election as President. When the people stop blaming Washington as much as they do, and blame their own cowardly political evasion of a citizen's responsibility more, the challenge might be quickly addressed.
The fact remains, that what the U.S. public, up to very high ranks in office, have been swindled into believing about modern warfare in general, is not merely deliberately misleading hokum. What they have been told, is the proverbial big lie. These poor people of ours, in general, soaked in cheap and tawdry forms of entertainment, have recently shown little or no comprehension of the actual nature of the world in which they live. Even notable Presidents of our republic, or heads of government abroad, have often mistaken their privileged familiarity with some among the sensitive predicates of current history for the actual subject of the long-ranging dynamics of history as such.
So, today's political idiot, like a character in a script by the utterly depraved Bertolt Brecht, marks his entry on the stage of current history, by babbling his lunatic sophist's chant, "I don't believe in conspiracy-theories."
To understand the dynamical, determining character of the deeper, determining, real issues of these times, especially today's pressing military issues, look at some recent history, not as a mechanical interplay of memorized events collected from a fact-stuffed illiterate's googling of the Internet, but as a lawfully ordered, dynamic process. Look at history not as gossip, but as a lawfully ordered, dynamic process, based on ideas, extended around much or all of the world, and over a span of time reaching back thousands of years. Look, first, at the origins of the two so-called "World Wars" of the just recently concluded century.
1. Two World Wars and More
To begin, take the case of what is called "World War I." On numerous earlier, public occasions, I have pointed to the facts about that war. However, the inclusion of the following crucial facts about that history, here, is a required element of the list of crucial facts to be considered in beginning to address the escalating, deadly global issues facing us now.
Without considering those often ignored facts, we can not understand modern warfare and its relevant ancient and medieval roots in the way the intelligent and worried U.S. citizen would wish to know the truth today. Until and unless the popular and kindred falsification of the history of those developments, is replaced by the true facts of the situation, it would be almost impossible to prevent existing nations from repeating follies which are, in principle, the same kinds of errors as the Senate's vote for the Iraq war: errors which carry a heavier price today than on earlier occasions.
What is called "World War I" actually began in 1890 with a series of crucial events, among which the notably sufficient instances for our present consideration are the following.
The sequence of the great blunders by relevant leading states, began with the 1888 accession of a new German Kaiser and that Kaiser's discharge of his Chancellor, the great reformer Otto von Bismarck, on March 18, 1890. The new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was the biological nephew, and dupe, of the British Prince of Wales, that then future King Edward VII who bears. still today, the principal personal guilt for organizing and motivating what was to become World War I. Wilhelm II's discharge of Bismarck was the first major, preparatory step, by Germany, toward implementing that Prince of Wales' scheme for what became World War I.
The next crucial steps toward a terrible war came in France, where the underlying motive of the Prince of Wales' intent for his dupes in France, was to break Germany's close relations with Russia, and to create the foundations of an Anglo-French, anti-Germany alliance with the Russia of the Prince of Wales' other foolish nephew, Czar Nicholas II.
"All," so to speak, " 'in the family.' "
To that same end, the President of France, the scientist-grandson of Lazare Carnot, was assassinated on June 24, 1894, and, in a related development, to the same purpose, the fraudulent charges and conviction, reeking of anti-Semitism, of France's Captain Alfred Dreyfus, were perpetrated on December 22, 1894. With the 1898 defeat of France by Lord Kitchener at Sudan's Fashoda, the residual forces remaining after the assassination of President Carnot, forces represented by French Minister Hanotaux, were pushed out, and the mechanisms began to be rapidly set into place for the later formal French alliance with Britain's King Edward VII. This was the alliance which was the crucial step toward setting the intended launching of what became World War I fully into motion.
In that process of change over the course of the 1890s, the patriotic impulses of France were swamped, increasingly, by a financier-controlled coalition of Synarchists of sundry Legitimist, Bonapartist, and leftist pedigrees and dispositions, constituting that war-party of World War I France which Georges Clemenceau led to the table at the Versailles Treaty of Paris, the same banker-controlled Synarchist International which, later, gave the world Adolf Hitler and so-called "World War II."
Betwixt and between those events of 1890-1894 and war, there were several additional developments of most notable relevance, beginning with the British monarchy's personal orchestration of Japan's long-term role in the Far East, over the interval 1894-1945. The first Sino-Japanese war, the conquest of Korea, and the Russo-Japanese war, were a crucial, London-directed set of developments setting the pace for Pacific events over the entire span of 1894-1945.
The allies, Britain and France, set the Balkan wars into motion, thus ensuring the anti-Slavic alliance of the silly Austro-Hungarian Kaiser with Germany, and the role of a Turkey which had been destabilized by London's Synarchist "Young Turk" organization and the genocidal slaughters which London's "Young Turk" organization perpetrated within Turkey for the intended strategic benefit of the British Empire.
Inside the U.S.A., the British monarchy's preparations to advance the cause of Edward VII's war-party, included the opportune incident of the U.S. battleship Maine and the assassination of President William McKinley, the key among a combination of events which brought London's accomplice, the nephew and political protégé of the former head of the Confederacy's intelligence service, Theodore Roosevelt, into the Presidency. That pair of jingoists, that Roosevelt and Ku Klux Klan fanatic Woodrow Wilson, were chiefly responsible, politically, for establishing the Federal Reserve System and for launching the U.S.A. into playing a deciding role in shaping the outcome of World War I, thus preventing what would have been otherwise a virtually inevitable German victory, and defeat of the imperial legacy of England's Edward VII, on both fronts.
The same Anglo-Dutch Liberal financier interests which created World War I, by aid of such mechanisms, created the fascist movements and regimes which led Europe into a second World War. The crucial difference between this so-called world war and its predecessor, was U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The election of Franklin Roosevelt proved to be an immediate defeat for those U.S. financier circles which not only had supported the fascist Mussolini in Italy, but had joined the Bank of England's Montagu Norman in funding the insertion of Adolf Hitler into the German Chancellory, and Hitler's receipt of dictatorial powers, just weeks before the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt. The relevant affinities were made clearer in the plot for a military coup d'état against the Franklin Roosevelt Presidency. President Roosevelt's leadership of the economic recovery of the United States produced, by 1940, a nation prepared for the mobilization which was to be the decisive factor in the defeat of Hitler.
But, no sooner had Roosevelt died, than the same Anglo-American financier circles which had backed Hitler's rise to power earlier, rallied around the long-term perspective of bringing the Roosevelt legacy to a grinding halt, and for launching a new world war, a special kind of 1945-1989 "Third World War," as they had the preceding two. It is that continued dedication to a "Third World War of a special kind," which supplied the impulses expressed by Vice-President Cheney and Britain's Liberal Imperialist Prime Minister Tony Blair today.
This time, the plan launched by the foe of Franklin Roosevelt, Britain's Winston Churchill,induced the U.S. Truman Administration to adopt the perspective later renewed by sometime U.S. Secretary of Defense and Vice-President Dick Cheney, the perspective of launching a pre-emptive nuclear war with the aim of eliminating the modern nation-state and establishing an imperial, Anglo-Dutch Liberal form of world government, such as that being pushed into the world's foreground today.
The present name of that new imperialist world order, is "globalization": global "free trade." It is a system in which governments either cease to exist, the category of so-called "failed states," or, as is intended for the U.S. itself, become merely the puppets of syndicates of financier cartels, puppets which are merely pawns of international financier institutions of the type illustrated by the current European Central Bank.
Why 'World War I'?
The Prince of Wales' motive for organizing what became known as "World War I," is rooted in London's fearful reaction to the triumph of President Abraham Lincoln over both the British puppet known as the Confederate States of America (CSA), and over London's direction of the invasion and subjugation of Mexico as part of British Lord Palmerston's orchestration of an 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War, which had been intended to break up the U.S.A. into a quarrelling pack of competing tyrannies.
With the death of Palmerston, and the growing personal incapacity of a widowed Queen Victoria, the campaign to destroy the U.S. constitutional form of national government fell, increasingly, under the hand of that Palmerston-trained Prince of Wales, sometimes referred to, more or less interchangeably, as "The Prince of the Isles" and "The Lord of the Isles."
Already, from the beginning of the U.S. Civil War, the shift of the U.S. Federal government, away from the "free trade" and related dogmas which had crippled the U.S. economy's prosperity, from the Andrew Jackson through Buchanan Presidency, there was a rising trend of net development in the territories of the Union. By the time of the 1876 U.S. Centennial celebrations in Philadelphia, the superiority of what was known as the American System of political-economy of Alexander Hamilton, the Careys, and the German-American Frederick List, was so evident that emulation of that American System spread throughout much of South and Central America, and in such Eurasian nations as France, Bismarck's Germany, Alexander II's Russia, Japan, and elsewhere. The combination of rapid technological progress in agriculture and industrial development, interlocked with promotion of general welfare systems such as those adopted in Bismarck's Germany, and the emergence of a significant U.S. naval power, was viewed with alarm in the Prince of Wales' London, as a threat to the continued global imperial authority of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal financial-monetary, gold-standard system.
By the 1890s the name given by the British monarchy to the perception of that threat from the spreading influence of the American System was "geopolitics," so named by Britain's Mackinder and Germany's Haushofer. As I emphasized in my Sept. 16, 2005 Washington, D.C. international webcast,and again with relevant remarks included in my "The Shape of Empty Space,"it was the combination of the rising economic power of the nations of continental and adjoining Eurasia, with the spread of the influence of the U.S. pioneering in transcontinental railway development, which threatened to shift the predominance of global power from maritime power, to land-based economic development.
As the speed and efficiency of rail-transport was increased, not only were areas earlier economically inaccessible to efficient transport of bulk freight made competitive with water-borne transport, but transport along interior land-routes by rail had the double advantage of not merely competing effectively with ocean-borne freight, but also of developing regions of nations otherwise hampered by lack of direct access to large-scale water-borne transport. Thus, the combination of the U.S. national rail-system, the extension of the navigable river-system between the Alleghenies and Rockies, and the Great Lakes as a transport medium, defined the development of U.S. machine-tool-keyed heavy industry in Western Pennsylvania, the Buffalo, New York area, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and so on. The growth in density of agriculture and industry, per capita and per square kilometer, over the course of much of the Twentieth Century, illustrates the point, as does the devastating pattern of decline and ruin of these same regions over the course of the recent three decades. [See Figure 1 .]
As a result of the form of progress led by the post-Gettysburg U.S.A., the productivity of a national territory per square kilometer was increased in ways not possible otherwise. Thus, through these combined benefits, land-based transport was made more than competitive with sea-borne transport. This economic gain had a congruent impact upon strategic military potentials.
Only long-range strategic aerial bombardment threatened the growing advantage of rail for interior economic development, where highway transport was emphasized as a complement, and then rival to rail.
To sense the history of those times, look at the changes in the U.S.A. since the time John Quincy Adams systematized U.S. diplomacy in his role as Secretary of State under President James Monroe. Not only had the "insolent Americans" burst free of the Allegheny boundaries, which the French and British colonial powers alike had sought to enforce, but through the Louisiana Purchase and complementary developments, Secretary Adams was able to efficiently define the United States as a continental power spread from Atlantic to Pacific, with northern and southern continental borders approximately those of today.
To consolidate and develop this vast territory, the American patriot, often a West Point graduate working as an engineer, had addressed the challenge of integrated development and security of what was, by European standards, a vast territory. Although the genesis of the later transcontinental railway system was already in motion under the guidance of Frederick List, the development of the actual transcontinental system, and the matching rapid expansion of the production of grains from within the territory thus opened for development and commerce, became the model dream of the enlightened statesmen and others of continental Europe and nearby Eurasia.
As I have demonstrated by aid of my published treatments of the work of V.I. Vernadsky on the subjects of the Biosphere and Noösphere, the strategic implications of this U.S.A. transcontinental development reach far beyond the comprehension of the leading policy-shapers of that time, but the implications of what I have been able to present in my writings were already implicit.
Under the impact, and further implications of such trends, the neo-Venetian form of maritime power of Anglo-Dutch Liberalism could not be maintained into the foreseeable future. The Prince of Wales' drive for what became known as World War I ensued. The shift of the definition of strategy to British Admiral John A. Fisher's "dreadnoughts" and the complementing definitions of strategy as essentially geopolitics, were reflections of this reaction to the perceived threat posed to the British imperialists by the rise of the U.S. economy, and its influence throughout much of Eurasia and the other parts of the Americas, during and after the U.S. Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
Grand strategy was now explicitly geopolitical, and had already become so implicitly before the Mackinder-Haushofer rivalry became known by that name.
The British strategic reaction to these and related implications of the threat from the influence of the rise of U.S. economic power, was twofold. First, simply crush the nations which threatened to continue economic development along the lines of the model of the American System of political-economy. Second, seek to virtually eradicate generalized scientific and technological progress in economy from the planet. Two World Wars were the expression of the first alternative. The spread of the wild-eyed cult of the so-called "environmentalist movement," has reflected the choice of the second alternative.
Both of these Anglo-Dutch Liberal reactions against the influence of the American System of political-economy, can be properly seen, in first-approximation terms, as simply strategic knee-jerk reactions of the Liberal-Imperialist interest; but, there is also a much deeper, and more deeply impassioned reflection of the ancient cult of Dionysius' legacy spilled over from ancient times into modern life, as the case of the existentialist Friedrich Nietzsche illustrates that point, and as the case of the Olympian Zeus from Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound illustrates the same connections.
2. 'Kill Even the Memory of FDR'
To understand the world's perilous situation today, we must consider the preparations and consequences of World War II in retrospect. One of the most crucial clues to understanding that process to date as a whole, is the case of Banque Worms, one of the relatively most exposed of the creatures of that fascist movement among international private bankers, which is known as the Synarchist International. Banque Worms was discreetly put away in the aftermath of that war; the network of organizations which served as a front for Banque Worms in those relevant past times, remains today. That latter cabal is among the principal threats to civilization world-wide today.
The most relevant highlights of that part of the strategic study in progress here, are as follows.
Initially, the Anglo-French imperial plan for World War II did not intend the inclusion of a U.S. war-time partner for a second time. Without taking into account the British motive for that initial intent to exclude the U.S.A. from Anglo-French intentions for a "second world war," there could be no competent understanding of modern European and world history, dating from that time to the present day. Therefore, to understand the present world situation competently, we must first consider this often-neglected, crucial feature of Twentieth-Century history as a whole.
The original intention of the British Empire's plan for a second world war, had been one more replay of the war-policy which had been used to give birth to the empire of the British East India Company at the February 1763 Treaty of Paris. It had been the Anglo-Dutch Liberals' orchestration of the so-called "Seven Years' War," the war which had unleashed that mutual weakening of the nations of continental Europe, through which the initial phase of imperial, maritime-based supremacy of Britain was brought into being with that Paris Treaty.
This "Seven Years' War" is a distinct phenomenon, in the respect that it generated the initial establishment of the British Empire as an empire of the British East India Company. However, to understand how and why the Anglo-Dutch Liberal interest orchestrated the particular kind of policy which produced the Seven Years' War, we must study the way the Anglo-Dutch Liberals lured France's defective, Fronde-allied "Sun King," Louis XIV, into the Dutch wars, against the warnings of Jean Baptiste Colbert. These were the wars which consolidated the Anglo-Dutch Liberal monarchy's rule over Britain.
It is, therefore, of crucial importance to recall, that it had been Cardinal Mazarin who had played the key role in bringing about the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the 1492-1648 reign of Venetian-orchestrated religious warfare in Europe, and that France under Mazarin and Jean Baptiste Colbert launched the modern economy which had a spirited development, centered in France. This benefit continued, until Louis XIV's follies ruined France by plunging into the trap of those Netherlands wars which established the Anglo-Dutch Liberal forces as a leading, maritime-based power in Europe. It was this experience which shaped Anglo-Dutch policy in the orchestration of the Seven Years' War.
Since the Anglo-Dutch Liberals' imperial triumph in the Seven Years' War, new wars based on that model had been the continuing chief source of the repeated ruin of the continent of Europe, and of Eurasia. It was this British policy and its practice. rooted in the model of the Seven Years' War, which had been the original source of the recurring mortal conflict between the future U.S.A. and the British Empire.
It had been the orchestration of the French Revolution by the British Foreign Office and the Martinist freemasonic agents, which had used both the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic wars to do again to continental Europe what had been tried in the Seven Years' War. British naval supremacy kept Napoleon bottled up on the continent of Europe, while the depletion of Europe by Napoleon's continental wars worked to the further enhancement of British imperial supremacy throughout the globe.
Meanwhile, these developments, beginning Summer 1789 in France, isolated the young U.S.A., an isolation which was exploited by British Foreign Office assets of Jeremy Bentham, such as agent Aaron Burr, and such Burr followers as a series of British-controlled U.S. Presidents, from Andrew Jackson through Martin van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, and 1864 Democratic Party, pro-separation Presidential candidate McClellan. Up through and beyond the Union victory at Gettysburg, London had been committed to the reconquest, or destruction of its lost colonies. From 1863-1865 on, the British imperial policy adopted a relatively more realistic approach, of working for the ruin of the American System of political-economy, with the intention to subvert the young U.S.A. from within, by promoting London's New York- and Boston-centered London financier assets, with the long-term objective of bringing the U.S.A. within the embrace of the British Commonwealth.
London-linked New York bankers included such heirs-in-fact of Aaron Burr as the architect of the 1837 Land Bank Swindle of Martin van Buren, Jackson's political controller. Bankers such as van Buren and August Belmont, controlled the Democratic Party from Jackson through Woodrow Wilson, and assumed increasing degrees of control over both the Republican and Democratic Party machines of New York City, producing, thus, the Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Coolidge, and Hoover Presidencies. The later Presidencies of Truman, Nixon, and father and son Bush, have been crafted and controlled by the same Anglo-American financier-oligarchical gang, the London-centered crowd which hated the patriot Franklin Roosevelt while he was alive, and has hated him ever more since he died.
The Nineteenth-Century, and still later wars in Europe, and related conflicts within the Americas, up through 1932, were also essentially Anglo-Dutch Liberalism's imperial exports, designed to defend and enforce the reign of the British fleet and gold standard upon the world at large. Do not be shocked! How could it have been otherwise? The British East India Company had established an empire in the February 1763 Treaty of Paris, an empire which Shelburne's ideologue Gibbon intended should make itself eternal by avoiding such alleged fatal mistakes of ancient Rome as tolerating the intrusion of Christianity into statecraft. Britain had secured a neo-Venetian financier-oligarchical empire, and intended to build and maintain it forever in one guise or another. Only a silly, Romantically sentimental goose would be shocked to hear that the British Empire acted in ways intended to be as thoroughly and effectively imperialistic as possible!
All the major wars of Eurasia's Twentieth Century, from 1894 on, belong under the same overarching category as the Seven Years' War and Napoleonic wars, as instruments crafted in nominally British imperial interest. As Lord Shelburne's Gibbon specified these long-term, Anglo-Dutch Liberal goals, these wars have been crafted and conducted in fully witting emulation of the imperialism of ancient Rome and the medieval ultramontane imperialism shared by the Venetian financier-oligarchy and its partners of the Norman chivalry. With one crucially important qualification, the three great wars, including what came to be known as "the Cold War," of 1945-1989, were no exception.
That said as preparatory remarks on background, now proceed to the early 1930s, before the British Empire decided, coincidentally, to dump King Edward VIII, and to bring Franklin Roosevelt's U.S.A. into the game.
The Anglo-French, Sykes-Picot-like strategic outlook of the 1920s and early 1930s, had been premised largely on the memory of the surprising economic and military power which the U.S.A. had shown in securing the Allied victory in World War I. The fear was, that including the U.S.A. as a participant in the first World War, experience had shown that under conditions of a second world war, a United States led by Franklin Roosevelt would end up as the dominant world power, dwarfing the British Empire. It was only to the degree that France and Britain discovered that the German attack would open to the West, first, and only later against the Soviet Union, that forces of terrified London and its Paris ally came reluctantly to share Winston Churchill's view of the U.S. alliance as the lesser evil.It was not any goodness in Churchill which was responsible for his role on this account; it was his loathing of the prospect that Herr Hitler might gobble up the British Empire. Otherwise, the British establishment, including its imperial Fabian element, was largely pro-Hitler, as Averell Harriman's banking partner, the Bank of England's Montagu Norman, had been in putting Hitler into power in the first place.
The relevant Twentieth-Century, British view of the U.S.A. as an adversary, had been exhibited already in the naval parity disputes of the immediate post-World War I period, when the British plan for the Japan naval attack on Pearl Harbor was hatched as part of the plan for a naval alliance of Britain and Japan against the threat of U.S. naval power's development.
This Japan war plan of the 1920s, later carried out in December 1941 without the British ally of the 1920s, had been originally intended as part of a joint British-Japanese, two-front naval assault on the United States, with the intent of doing to the U.S.A. what Admiral Nelson had done to France at Trafalgar.Times and sides had changed, but the actual issue of the court-martial trial of General Billy Mitchell was, as Mitchell stated at his hearing, the issue of U.S. use of aircraft-carrier-based air power in the Pacific in defense against what U.S. intelligence had already defined, from the period of the early 1920s, in U.S. naval war plans, as the pending operational threat of Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as a Japanese component of a British plan to demolish U.S. naval power.
From the aftermath of the Versailles Treaty, the policy of the British imperialist and France-based Synarchist International, had been to install a fascist government in Germany, using elements such as those associated with Coudenhove-Kalergi and what was later restated as a doctrine of "total war," to strike against the Soviet Union, and then to fall upon the rear of a Germany whose forces were deeply mired in Soviet territory. This was the period during which British imperialist assets inside the U.S.A. formed the America First Committee, which intended to prevent the realization of the U.S. capability for military intervention against the war for which Anglo-French allied circles were preparing at that time.
Stalin and Soviet intelligence also knew the game, and had an experienced revolutionary's fearful appreciation of the internal danger from left-wing and other assets of the Synarchist International inside the Soviet system itself. Perhaps Stalin knew, by then, that the notorious "Parvus" had been a Zubatov-linked British agent, or not, but he was convinced of something to that general effect. Essentially, therefore, Stalin approached the relevant military and related circles in Germany, putting strong emphasis on the fact of the Anglo-French intent to fall upon the rear of a Nazi thrust into the Soviet Union.
The rebuff which the British and French governments gave to the mission of visiting Soviet Marshal Tukhachevsky, was the crucial development which left Stalin no visible option but to proceed with continuing negotiation of Molotov's pact with Ribbentrop.
The fact that the turn to a German assault on the western front first, was under serious negotiation between Soviet and German back-channel and other representatives, prompted a growing portion of those, such as New York's Brown Brothers, Harriman, who had funded Hitler's coup d'état effort, to break with their former protégé Hitler. By the point of the Dunkirk evacuation, a Winston Churchill who was a backer of fascism, second, but the British Empire first, made the formal step of a pact with President Franklin Roosevelt on transfer of the British fleet to Canada should Hitler's forces land in Britain.The subsequent victory over the Axis powers at Midway and Stalingrad, already defined a continuing U.S. engagement in a two-front, global war, a prospect of global victory which Roosevelt's policies and role had, in principle, already thus snatched from the paws of Hitler's regime.
Then, even before President Roosevelt's death, during the early months of 1945, Churchill et al. had gone back to their earlier overt backing of the financier forces which had put Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco into power. The issues of the early 1920s naval-power conflict between the U.S.A. and Britain, came to the fore in a new way.
The Banque Worms Scandal
What became known as Twentieth-Century fascism had been born in France, as part of an operation directed by London's Lord Shelburne, which was aimed to destroy the alliance between France and the newborn United States of America. The latter operation, which was set in motion during Shelburne's 1782-1783 term as Britain's Prime Minister, was coordinated by the circles under the operational boss of the political operations of the British East Company, Lord Shelburne, using agents associated with the circles of the notorious Voltaire in France. Relying upon cooperation within the section of international freemasonry violently opposed to the international networks of the influential scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin, they created the London-directed freemasonic association, the Martinists, which prepared and both orchestrated the French Revolution of July 1789, and controlled the career of Robespierre asset Napoleon Bonaparte, and its outcome, through a point long after Napoleon's death, all the way into Napoleon's successor Adolf Hitler, and beyond.
[b][b]The Martinist freemasonic order, which has been the most freakish of important orders of this nomenclature, was a late Eighteenth-Century spin-off of the freemasonry brought into London, from Venice, during the Sixteenth Century. On record, the Martinist freemasonry itself was founded in France about 1785 by the notorious charlatan Allessandro Cagliostro, the architect of the "Queen's Necklace" against the Bourbon monarchy, together with the also notorious Giovanni Casanova. This was the instrument used, by the British East India Company's sometime British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne and the British Foreign Office, to orchestrate the French Revolution of 1789 and the ensuing Terror from which the career of the tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte sprang, to dominate, and ruin continental Europe over the 1789-1815 interval. This organization continues to the present day in its incarnation as the Synarchist International which launched the pre-1914 Balkan war and the fascist movements of the 1922-1945 interval, through Martinist-Synarchist figures such as the Giuseppe di Misurata who was associated with the notorious Parvus and Jabotinsky in London's ...[/b][/b]
THE ISSUE IS GLOBALIZATION
http://www.larouchepac.com/pages/speeche...tion.shtml
The following opening statement was delivered by Lyndon LaRouche, at a Feb. 8 meeting of diplomats in Washington, D.C.
I'd like to bring to your attention an item in the latest edition of the London Economist magazine. I recommend that you look at it, particularly the article on page 12, which is a one-page reference to a special central feature in the same edition of that magazine: because this refers to what I'm going to deal with here today.
Now, looking at the U.S. Presidential candidacies: It's a farce. These people that are running are not a farce, but what they're saying is a farce. It's totally irrelevant to anything of importance to the world today; but it's very important to them, because it's an ego-trip.
But the realities are far different. You should know, first of all, that we are on the verge of the greatest financial crisis in all modern history: that is, in modern European history since the great crash in the middle of the 14th Century.
The urgent financial situation is absolutely impossible; there is no solution. Present policies will lead to an absolute disaster, globally. Not just the United States, the whole world will go down; because, obviously, a collapse of the U.S. economy would mean a collapse of the China economy: because China depends currently upon exports to the United States.
A similar thing is true with respect to the rest of the world. Europe, continental Europe, is essentially non-functional. It has a role to play, but, it is not an independent power. The nation-states of central and western Europe are not functional, apart from the British, which is significant.
We recently had an incident that occurred involving China; that incident involved the illumination of a U.S. satellite passing over China. And, then there was a second incident, where China has shot down one of its own bodies in space, with the aid of a laser-guidance system. Now, this is not the most sophisticated system that can be used; but, it portends what is going on.
For example, China today is expending more effort in terms of scientific personnel on developing laser and related systems than the United States was expending during the 1980s. It's a much higher level, over 300 such cases. You never had that in the U.S. The problem that comes up that causes this, is the behavior, particularly, of the present Bush Administration in two terms, which has been moving toward a globalized world: which is why I referred to this China coverage in Britain, in which the intention is to have a world system of weapons, controlled entirely by the United States, which would be able to rain death on any part of the world it chooses. It is assumed that the economy of the United States is broken down, the economy of Europe is broken down; they are no longer industrial economies.
We are now, in the United States, as in continental Europe, we are in a post-industrial economy. In an economy of stupid people, who don't know how to do anything, because they are not bred to do anything, they're not educated to do anything. So, you have the idea of a kind of super-science-fiction kind of system, around the planet, in which the United States can rain death on any part of the system it wants.
Now this kind of thing is foolish. Because an automatic system, or a quasi-automatic system of the type that's being proposed now from the United States by this Administration, is vulnerable. Automatic systems depend upon the control system which controls them.
Therefore, if I'm Chinese, I'm going to develop a system to knock out the control system. We have enough junk flying around the planet in outer space, that we can create all kinds of things, one nation can create all kinds of things which can wreck the functioning of the control system. And, what you're seeing as was developed in Russia, which is echoed in India and in China—you're seeing the development of systems which could be used to disrupt such a control system, by going after the control mechanism.
The Drive for World Empire
That's what is at stake. So therefore when you're talking about important issues, like the issue of Southwest Asia or the current Iran issues, these are not the real issues. These are issues, but they are not the real issues.
The real issue is the attempt by a group centered in the United Kingdom, and integrated with forces in the United States, typified by the circles represented by the Bush Administration—these circles are moving toward total globalization. The environmentalist turn of the current President of the United States is a featured example of that.
What they're headed for, is a world empire, a world empire of a type which is modeled on what happened when Byzantium collapsed as an imperial force, around A.D. 1000. At that point, the Venetian financier oligarchy took control of the European Norman chivalry, and ran what was called a medieval (ultramontane) system, which was based on attacking Islam and also on anti-Semitism, back during the period of 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries.
What you're looking at is an apparently stateless system like that in medieval Europe under the Crusaders and the Venetian oligarchy. Today Venice is still a factor—the Venetian oligarchy; but, the key thing is the Anglo-American or the Anglo-Dutch liberal financial oligarchy,*[1] which is now running the world. It's crazy, but it's running the world.
Defend National Sovereignty
And Britain is a power which says we can not have a globalized system if there is a big power alliance in Asia plus the United States: that is, if the United States, Russia, China, and India are determined to defend the principle of national sovereignty, and agree to agree on defending that principle of national sovereignty, then, globalization cannot happen. Therefore, the immediate enemy, the target of what Cheney represents, and what Blair represents in London, are Russia, China, and currently India. These are the primary targets. Not Iran, Not Iraq. Not Southwest Asia. Southwest Asia, including Iran, are targets precisely because they are the door to an open attack on China, Russia, India, so forth. And that's what we've said.
Now the politicians in the United States, the ones who are running for office, are largely from the U.S. Senate. They are not quite as stupid as they seem. What they are, is they are opportunists. You, looking from the outside, must recognize, that when they run for office, they become prostitutes, walking the streets looking for customers. But when they are in the Senate they tend to be a little better quality. The problem is, when they're running for office, as for President, they become stupid even in their behavior in the Senate, because their Senatorial actions are conditioned by their Presidential campaign ambitions. So we now have that kind of situation.
But the important thing for nations to understand, is that there are four key nations on this planet, on which the fate of the planet as a whole depends. These four nations are the United States, Russia, China and India. If we can establish an agreement among Russia, China, India and the United States, to defend the principle of sovereignty and to make agreements which will serve that purpose, then we can defend the world from chaos and we can come out of the current mess.
I emphasize that here, because this is reality. What you get from the press here, is not reality. What you get from the mouths of politicians running for office here, is not reality. The reality is that the Anglo-American crowd, of which we have a big chunk inside the United States, is typified by the Bush Administration, and also by dubious Democrats like Gore and Lieberman. This crowd is moving around the policy of globalization, a global reduction of the population of the planet, total control over the planet of a medieval type, of a type based on the model of Venice, the Venetian financial system, which was the imperial power of the Middle Ages, which was allied then with the private interests of the Norman chivalry.
What we're getting today is a pattern of private armies, eliminating state power, replacing this with private armies controlled by large corporations such as the Halliburton complex, which is taking the place of the military forces. These are the policies which are inside the United States government. These are the policies associated with Cheney today, to eliminate the military. They don't care if they lose the United States Army; they'll transfer the power to private forces, such as Halliburton. They're destroying the rest of the world economically; they hope to establish an empire.
This is the real issue. And the threats to Russia, China, and India in Asia, are the real issues. Because, if the United States defends the right of Russia, China, and India to have national sovereignty, then we can unite the world around the idea of restoring the principle of national sovereignty, and can eliminate these evils. If we do not understand this, if we think that the issue is Iran, or we think the issue is Iraq, then we are fools. Because these are merely the doorways into the major crisis.
And what you see with the talk now in response to this discussion of the Chinese development of laser-assisted—and they're not just laser-assisted, we're talking about all kinds of systems way beyond lasers involved in this, which are being developed by serious countries. And these issues have come on the table now. And, when they start talking about China and its lasers; about breaking China; when they talk about attacks on Russia; when they talk about trying to disrupt India's sovereign development of its own economy, you're getting signs of what the real issue is.
The issue is globalization. And this little issue of the publication, the London Economist, if you read it carefully with what I have just said in mind, you will know exactly what I'm talking about.
So the question is, we have to have a system which deals with a general collapse of the world financial system. The world financial system is now immediately doomed. Nothing could save it in its present form. It's finished. There is no way to reform it, you must eliminate it. There are ways to eliminate it.
There are ways to deal with that; but, we must save the nation-state system. We must set up a system under which nation-states are protected in their rights to sovereignty; and, we must organize methods of cooperation in the economic field, as well as otherwise: where we provide not competition, not cutthroat treatment of one nation by another, but we provide security for the nations of the world for their development.
The FDR Legacy
And, this goes back to Franklin Roosevelt's death. When Franklin Roosevelt died, we had one policy. The policy of the United States was, that all the former colonialized nations would be free in their national sovereignty. The United States would take the great industrial military power we had built up, we would use, we would convert that, to develop the world, to develop the nations, like India, to develop projects for Africa, which were the projects that Roosevelt threw in the face of Winston Churchill in Morocco.
But, the moment that Roosevelt died, the Anglo-Dutch Liberal crowd, using President Truman, took over and reversed every policy that they could that Roosevelt represented. My view today, to sum it up, is, the policy of the United States must be—and this is what I fight for—to return to the policies of Franklin Roosevelt at the moment of his death, or to the modern equivalent of those policies.
We must set up what Roosevelt intended as the United Nations, as a system of cooperation among respectively sovereign nation-states, which must cooperate in their common interests and establish treaty-systems which provide for the separate, and independent role, but cooperative role, among nation-states. By treating this part of our memory, of our historic memory, and going back to that point, saying, "This is the policy the United States must return to, the policies of Franklin Roosevelt up until his death." And look at nearly everything that was done after that as a big mistake.
We are forced to do that now, because the entire financial monetary system which has dominated the world increasingly, especially since the Nixon Administration, especially since the middle of the 1960s, that system is now finished. And if we don't replace it, we will have chaos on this planet, and we will not have much to salvage, that's the essential part. And I think this is the crux.
I think every other leading issue of this jigsaw puzzle, is irrelevant. We must establish, among nations, a consciousness that this is the problem: that we have to understand what the meaning is of four major world powers, leading world powers, which, if they can come to an agreement on this issue, we can create a system under which all nations can be protected, including the nations that are too weak to fight for themselves.
That is what I think are the real issues on the table at this time in history.
[*] Cf. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden (New York: Books in Focus, 981).
GLOBAL RULING CLASS:
BILLIONAIRES AND HOW THEY "MADE IT"
Prof. James Petras
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...iewArticle&code=PET20070323&articleId=5159
Even as the world's billionaires grew in number from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings became commonplace in China and India. In India, which has the highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth of $191 billion, Prime Minister Singh declared that the greatest single threat to 'India's security' were the Maoist-led guerrilla armies and mass movements in the poorest parts of the country. In China, with 20 billionaires with $29.4 billion net worth, the new rulers, confronting nearly a hundred thousand reported riots and protests, have increased the number of armed special anti-riot militia a hundred fold, and increased spending for the rural poor by $10 billion in the hopes of lessening the monstrous class inequalities and heading off a mass upheaval.
The total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion, while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world's 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world's population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35 per cent increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services.
Among the newest, youngest and fastest-growing group of billionaires, the Russian oligarchy stands out for its most rapacious beginnings. Over two-thirds (67 per cent) of the current Russian billionaire oligarchs began their concentration of wealth in their mid to early twenties. During the infamous decade of the 1990's under the quasi-dictatorial rule of Boris Yeltsin and his US-directed economic advisers, Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar the entire Russian economy was put up for sale for a 'political price', which was far below its real value. Without exception, the transfers of property were achieved through gangster tactics assassinations, massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock manipulation and buyouts. The future billionaires stripped the Russian state of over a trillion dollars worth of factories, transport, oil, gas, iron, coal and other formerly state-owned resources.
Contrary to European and US publicists on the right and left, very few of the top former Communist leaders are found among the current Russian billionaire oligarchy. Secondly, contrary to the spin-masters' claims of 'communist inefficiencies', the former Soviet Union developed mines, factories, energy enterprises were profitable and competitive, before they were taken over by the new oligarchs. This is evident in the massive private wealth that was accumulated in less than a decade by these gangster-businessmen.
Virtually all the billionaires' initial sources of wealth had nothing to do with building, innovating or developing new efficient enterprises. Wealth was not transferred to high Communist Party Commissars (lateral transfers) but was seized by armed private mafias run by recent university graduates who quickly capitalized on corrupting, intimidating or assassinating senior officials in the state and benefiting from Boris Yeltsin's mindless contracting of 'free market' Western consultants.
Forbes magazine puts out a yearly list of the richest individuals and families in the world. What is most amusing about the famous Forbes magazine's background biographical notes on the Russian oligarchs is the constant reference to their source of wealth as 'self-made' as if stealing state property created by and defended for over 70 years by the sweat and blood of the Russian people was the result of the entrepreneurial skills of thugs in their twenties. Of the top eight Russian billionaire oligarchs, all got their start from strong-arming their rivals, setting up 'paper banks' and taking over aluminum, oil, gas, nickel and steel production and the export of bauxite, iron and other minerals. Every sector of the former Communist economy was pillaged by the new billionaires: Construction, telecommunications, chemicals, real estate, agriculture, vodka, foods, land, media, automobiles, airlines etc..
With rare exceptions, following the Yeltsin privatizations all of the oligarchs quickly rose to the top or near the top, literally murdering or intimidating any opponents within the former Soviet apparatus and competitors from rival predator gangs.
The key 'policy' measures, which facilitated the initial pillage and takeovers by the future billionaires, were the vast and immediate privatizations of almost all public enterprises by the Gaidar/Chubais team. This 'Shock Treatment' was encouraged by a Harvard team of economic advisers and especially by US President Clinton in order to make the capitalist transformation irreversible. Privatization led to the capitalist gang wars and the disarticulation of the Russian economy. As a result there was an 80 per cent decline in living standards, a devaluation of the Ruble and the sell-off of invaluable oil, gas and other strategic resources at bargain prices to the rising class of predator billionaires and US-European oil and gas multinational corporations. Over a hundred billion dollars a year was laundered by the mafia oligarchs in the principle banks of New York, London, Switzerland, Israel and elsewhere funds which would later be recycled in the purchase of expensive real estate in the US, England, Spain, France as well as investments in British football teams, Israeli banks and joint ventures in minerals.
The winners of the gang wars during the Yeltsin reign followed up by expanding operations to a variety of new economic sectors, investments in the expansion of existing facilities (especially in real estate, extractive and consumer industries) and overseas. Under President Putin, the gangster-oligarchs consolidated and expanded from multi-millionaires to billionaires, to multi-billionaires and growing. From young swaggering thugs and local swindlers, they became the 'respectable' partners of American and European multinational corporations, according to their Western PR agents. The new Russian oligarchs had 'arrived' on the world financial scene, according to the financial press.
Yet as President Putin recently pointed out, the new billionaires have failed to invest, innovate and create competitive enterprises, despite optimal conditions. Outside of raw material exports, benefiting from high international prices, few of the oligarch-owned manufacturers are earning foreign exchange, because few can compete in international markets. The reason is that the oligarchs have 'diversified' into stock speculation (Suleiman Kerimov $14.4 billion ), (Mikhail Prokhorov $13.5 billion ), banking (Fridman $12.6 billion ) and buyouts of mines and mineral processing plants.
The Western media have focused on the falling out between a handful of Yeltsin-era oligarchs and President Vladimir Putin and the increase in wealth of a number of Putin-era billionaires. However, the biographical evidence demonstrates that there is no rupture between the rise of the billionaires under Yeltsin and their consolidation and expansion under Putin. The decline in mutual murder and the shift to state-regulated competition is as much a product of the consolidation of the great fortunes as it is the 'new rules of the game' imposed by President Putin. In the mid 19th century, Honoré Balzac, surveying the rise of the respectable bourgeois in France, pointed out their dubious origins: "Behind every great fortune is a great crime." The swindles begetting the decades-long ascent of the 19th century French bourgeoisie pale in comparison to the massive pillage and bloodletting that created Russia's 21st century billionaires.
Latin America
If blood and guns were the instruments for the rise of the Russian billionaire oligarchs, in other regions the Market, or better still, the US-IMF-World Bank orchestrated Washington Consensus was the driving force behind the rise of the Latin American billionaires. The two countries with the greatest concentration of wealth and the greatest number of billionaires in Latin America are Mexico and Brazil (77 per cent), which are the two countries, which privatized the most lucrative, efficient and largest public monopolies. Of the total $157.2 billion owned by the 38 Latin American billionaires, 30 are Brazilians or Mexicans with $120.3 billion . The wealth of 38 families and individuals exceeds that of 250 million Latin Americans; 0.000001 per cent of the population exceeds that of the lowest 50 per cent. In Mexico, the income of 0.000001 per cent of the population exceeds the combined income of 40 million Mexicans. The rise of Latin American billionaires coincides with the real fall in minimum wages, public expenditures in social services, labor legislation and a rise in state repression, weakening labor and peasant organization and collective bargaining. The implementation of regressive taxes burdening the workers and peasants and tax exemptions and subsidies for the agro-mineral exporters contributed to the making of the billionaires. The result has been downward mobility for public employees and workers, the displacement of urban labor into the informal sector, the massive bankruptcy of small farmers, peasants and rural labor and the out-migration from the countryside to the urban slums and emigration abroad.
The principal cause of poverty in Latin American is the very conditions that facilitate the growth of billionaires. In the case of Mexico, the privatization of the telecommunication sector at rock bottom prices, resulted in the quadrupling of wealth for Carlos Slim Helu, the third richest man in the world (just behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) with a net worth of $49 billion . Two fellow Mexican billionaires, Alfredo Harp Helu and Roberto Hernandez Ramirez benefited from the privatization of banks and their subsequent de-nationalization, selling Banamex to Citicorp.
Privatization, financial de-regulation and de-nationalization were the key operating principles of US foreign economic policies implemented in Latin America by the IMF and the World Bank. These principles dictated the fundamental conditions shaping any loans or debt re-negotiations in Latin America.
The billionaires-in-the-making, came from old and new money. Some began to raise their fortunes by securing government contracts during the earlier state-led development model (1930's to 1970's) and others through inherited wealth. Half of Mexican billionaires inherited their original multi-million dollar fortunes on their way up to the top. The other half benefited from political ties and the subsequent big payola from buying public enterprises cheap and then selling them off to US multi-nationals at great profit. The great bulk of the 12 million Mexican immigrants who crossed the border into the US have fled from the onerous conditions, which allowed Mexico's traditional and nouveaux riche millionaires to join the global billionaires' club.
Brazil has the largest number of billionaires (20) of any country in Latin America with a net worth of $46.2 billion , which is greater than the new worth of 80 million urban and rural impoverished Brazilians. Approximately 40 per cent of Brazilian billionaires started with great fortunes and simply added on through acquisitions and mergers. The so-called 'self-made' billionaires benefited from the privatization of the lucrative financial sector (the Safra family with $8.9 billion ) and the iron and steel complexes.
How to Become a Billionaire
While some knowledge, technical and 'entrepreneurial skills' and market savvy played a small role in the making of the billionaires in Russia and Latin America, far more important was the interface of politics and economics at every stage of wealth accumulation.
In most cases there were three stages:
1. During the early 'statist' model of development, the current billionaires successfully 'lobbied' and bribed officials for government contracts, tax exemptions, subsidies and protection from foreign competitors. State handouts were the beachhead or take-off point to billionaire status during the subsequent neo-liberal phase.
2. The neo-liberal period provided the greatest opportunity for seizing lucrative public assets far below their market value and earning capacity. The privatization, although described as 'market transactions', were in reality political sales in four senses: in price, in selection of buyers, in kickbacks to the sellers and in furthering an ideological agenda. Wealth accumulation resulted from the sell-off of banks, minerals, energy resources, telecommunications, power plants and transport and the assumption by the state of private debt. This was the take-off phase from millionaire toward billionaire status. This was consummated in Latin America via corruption and in Russia via assassination and gang warfare.
3. During the third phase (the present) the billionaires have consolidated and expanded their empires through mergers, acquisitions, further privatizations and overseas expansion. Private monopolies of mobile phones, telecoms and other 'public' utilities, plus high commodity prices have added billions to the initial concentrations. Some millionaires became billionaires by selling their recently acquired, lucrative privatized enterprises to foreign capital.
In both Latin America and Russia, the billionaires grabbed lucrative state assets under the aegis of orthodox neo-liberal regimes (Salinas-Zedillo regimes in Mexico, Collor-Cardoso in Brazil, Yeltsin in Russia) and consolidated and expanded under the rule of supposedly 'reformist' regimes (Putin in Russia, Lula in Brazil and Fox in Mexico). In the rest of Latin America (Chile, Colombia and Argentina) the making of the billionaires resulted from the bloody military coups and regimes, which destroyed the socio-political movements and started the privatization process. This process was then even more energetically promoted by the subsequent electoral regimes of the right and 'center-left'.
What is repeatedly demonstrated in both Russia and Latin America is that the key factor leading to the quantum leap in wealth from millionaires to billionaires was the vast privatization and subsequent de-nationalization of lucrative public enterprises.
If we add to the concentration of $157 billion in the hands of an infinitesimal fraction of the elite, the $990 billion taken out by the foreign banks in debt payments and the $1 trillion (one thousand billion) taken out by way of profits, royalties, rents and laundered money over the past decade and a half, we have an adequate framework for understanding why Latin America continues to have over two-thirds of its population with inadequate living standards and stagnant economies.
The responsibility of the US for the growth of Latin American billionaires and mass poverty is several-fold and involves a wide gamut of political institutions, business elites, and academic and media moguls. First and foremost the US backed the military dictators and neo-liberal politicians who set up the billionaire-oriented economic models. It was ex-President Clinton, the CIA and his economic advisers, in alliance with the Russian oligarchs, who provided the political intelligence and material support to put Yeltsin in power and back his destruction of the Russian Parliament (Duma) in 1993 and the rigged elections of 1996. And it was Washington, which allowed hundreds of billions of dollars to be laundered in US banks throughout the 1990's as the US Congressional Sub-Committee on Banking (1998) revealed.
It was Nixon, Kissinger and later Carter and Brzezinski, Reagan and Bush, Clinton and Albright who backed the privatizations pushed by Latin American military dictators and civilian reactionaries in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's . Their instructions to the US representatives in the IMF and the World Bank were writ large: Privatize, de-regulate and de-nationalize (PDD) before any loans should be negotiated.
It was US academics and ideologues working hand in glove with the so-called multi-lateral agencies, as contracted economic consultants, who trained, designed and pushed the PDD agenda among their former Ivy League students-turned-economic and finance ministers and Central Bankers in Latin America and Russia.
It was US and EU multi-national corporations and banks which bought out or went into joint ventures with the emerging Latin American billionaires and who reaped the trillion dollar payouts on the debts incurred by the corrupt military and civilian regimes. The billionaires are as much a product and/or by-product of US anti-nationalist, anti-communist policies as they are a product of their own grandiose theft of public enterprises.
Conclusion
Given the enormous class and income disparities in Russia, Latin America and China (20 Chinese billionaires have a net worth of $29.4 billion in less than ten years), it is more accurate to describe these countries as 'surging billionaires' rather than 'emerging markets' because it is not the 'free market' but the political power of the billionaires that dictates policy.
Countries of 'surging billionaires' produce burgeoning poverty, submerging living standards. The making of billionaires means the unmaking of civil society the weakening of social solidarity, protective social legislation, pensions, vacations, public health programs and education. While politics is central, past political labels mean nothing. Ex-Marxist Brazilian ex-President Cardoso and ex-trade union leader President Lula Da Silva privatized public enterprises and promoted policies that spawn billionaires. Ex-Communist Putin cultivates certain billionaire oligarchs and offers incentives to others to shape up and invest.
The period of greatest decline in living standards in Latin America and Russia coincide with the dismantling of the nationalist populist and communist economies. Between 1980-2004, Latin America more precisely Brazil, Argentina and Mexico stagnated at 0 per cent to 1 per cent per capita growth. Russia saw a 50 per cent decline in GNP between 1990-1996 and living standards dropped 80 per cent for everyone except the predators and their gangster entourages.
Recent growth (2003-2007), where it occurs, has more to do with the extraordinary rise in international prices (of energy resources, metals and agro-exports) than any positive developments from the billionaire-dominated economies. The growth of billionaires is hardly a sign of 'general prosperity' resulting from the 'free market' as the editors of Forbes Magazine claim. In fact it is the product of the illicit seizure of lucrative public resources, built up by the work and struggle of millions of workers, in Russia and China under Communism and in Latin America during populist-nationalist and democratic-socialist governments. Many billionaires have inherited wealth and used their political ties to expand and extend their empires it has little to do with entrepreneurial skills.
The billionaires' and the White House's anger and hostility toward President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is precisely because he is reversing the policies which create billionaires and mass poverty: He is re-nationalizing energy resources, public utilities and expropriating some large landed estates. Chavez is not only challenging US hegemony in Latin America but also the entire PDD edifice that built the economic empires of the billionaires in Latin America, Russia, China and elsewhere.
US ECONOMY: RACING TO THE BOTTOM
Si Contino
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CON20070503&articleId=5560
Because so many notable business pundits appear to be bemused by America’s most recent economic vexation, specifically the collapse of the mortgage markets; I thought I’d take a crack at edifying your readers, to the extent I’m capable, as to its true nature and causes.
To begin with one must remember that all the statistics kept on our economy are bogus. They are contrived in such a manner, compiled explicitly for casual regurgitation, so as to never display anything less than full employment, wage growth and a serendipitous lack of inflation.
With that as a foundation, what’s actually occurring in this economy is the globalization of assets and wealth. That is to say, because the value of American labor is falling so precipitously, (due to the utilization of cheap foreign labor around the world), the value of the assets held by them is falling in direct correlation with their declining wages. It must.
Here’s why:
A worker formerly employed in a lost economic sector, (manufacturing for example), earned between $50 - 60,000 annually. That job gets outsourced. Now that worker takes a job paying $20 – $25,000 annually. All the tax cuts, cheap foreign goods, and low paying jobs being created by President Bush and globalization aren’t going to restore this worker’s former standard of living.
Presently, someone trying to pay down a debt service based on their former “un-globalized” salary, and prior level of affluence, just can’t do it. The fact is, now that America’s been globalized, that worker – along with all others of the same economic rank – can’t afford the assets they’ve purchased and are trying to hold on to.
Just as wages within their economic sector are being deflated; so must the value of their assets be deflated. This has to occur so that new members of their socioeconomic group, those just entering America’s global workforce, can afford to participate; including those living and working here illegally.
What we’re seeing now is just the beginning of a global revaluation; a downward harmonization of American worker’s livelihoods with the livelihoods of the world’s other working people. Furthermore, this state of affairs isn’t going to end any time soon; not until the descending worth (wages and assets) of America’s working classes, meets the ascending worth (wages
and assets) of the labor they compete with globally.
Therein lays the rub. Most of the rest of the world’s labor works for nothing, or almost nothing, and holds no assets. Truth be told, the only country whose entire economy has prospered due to Globalization is communist China; where free market capitalism doesn’t exist [officially]
and where every societal need is [supposedly] provided for by the government.
As Ross Perot so aptly phrased it during his debate with Vice President Gore in 1993, we’re in: “a race to the bottom”.
Exacerbating this crisis is the fact that, while the wages and assets of those forced to compete globally are deflating; the costs of goods and services they must purchase to subsist are inflating. The primary sources of this inflation being deregulation and President Bush’s lust for printing money; principally to pay for the globalization of Iraq.
As for the true health of America’s overall economy international spending is out of control; Iraq alone is costing American taxpayers over $412 billion! Yet the Washington oligarchs have no compunction.
Across the board Americans have experienced the steepest decline in their standard of living since the Great Depression, as America become a debtor nation. Bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and personal debt are at an all time high, as is our trade deficit; while concurrently, real wages and property values plummet.
Still Globalist fanatics boldly proclaim their manifesto: “Free Trade will promote a global ecumenism and provide us economic prosperity” All the while America’s two greatest exports remain her jobs and wealth.
With the mendacious predictions which brought about Globalism in the first place, (being implemented without the true consent of the governed), and with America’s economic power declining; here’s the real question. What type of country is America destined to become in the twenty-first century?
Perhaps the answer can only be found in the past. Perhaps in Charles Dickens in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities.
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