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    Is an International Finacial Conspiracy Driving World Events

    Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?

    By Richard C. Cook


    Global Research, March 27, 2008

    "They make a desolation and call it peace." -Tacitus

    Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down?

    Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world’s financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, "accidentally on purpose"?

    And if so, why?

    Let’s turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world’s financial elite.



    The lengthy Wikipedia article on Rockefeller provides the following version of a celebrated statement he allegedly made in an opening speech at the Bilderberg conference in Baden-Baden, Germany, in June 1991:

    "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries."

    This speech was made 17 years ago. It came at the beginning in the U.S. of the Bill Clinton administration. Rockefeller speaks of an "us." This "us," he says, has been having meetings for almost 40 years. If you add the 17 years since he gave the speech it was 57 years ago—two full generations.

    Not only has "us" developed a "plan for the world," but the attempt to "develop" the plan has evidently been successful, at least in Rockefeller’s mind. The ultimate goal of "us" is to create "the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers." This will lead, he says, toward a "world government which will never again know war."

    Just as an intellectual exercise, let’s assume that David Rockefeller is as important and powerful a person as he seems to think he is. Let’s give the man some credit and assume that he and "us" have in fact succeeded to a degree. This would mean that the major decisions and events since Rockefeller gave the speech in 1991 have probably also been part of the plan or that they have at least represented its features and intent.


    David Rockefeller at Harvard in 2006

    Therefore by examining these decisions and events we can determine whether in fact Rockefeller is being truthful in his assessment that the Utopia he has in mind is on its way or has at least come closer to being realized. In no particular order, some of these decisions and events are as follows:

    The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations has led to the elimination of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs as well as the destruction of U.S. family farming in favor of global agribusiness.

    Similar free trade agreements, including those under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, have led to export of millions of additional manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere.

    Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million.

    The housing bubble has led to a huge inflation of real estate prices in the U.S. Millions of homes are falling into the hands of the bankers through foreclosure. The cost of land and rentals has further decimated family agriculture as well as small business. Rising property taxes based on inflated land assessments have forced millions of lower-and middle-income people and elderly out of their homes.

    The fact that bankers now control national monetary systems in their entirety, under laws where money is introduced only through lending at interest, has resulted in a massive debt pyramid that is teetering on collapse. This "monetarist" system was pioneered by Rockefeller-family funded economists at the University of Chicago. The rub is that when the pyramid comes down and everyone goes bankrupt the banks which have been creating money "out of thin air" will then be able to seize valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, as J.P. Morgan Chase is preparing to do with the businesses owned by Carlyle Capital. Meaningful regulation of the financial industry has been abandoned by government, and any politician that stands in the way, such as Eliot Spitzer, is destroyed. 

    The total tax burden on Americans from federal, state, and local governments now exceeds forty percent of income and is rising. Today, with a recession starting, the Democratic-controlled Congress, while supporting the minuscule "stimulus" rebate, is hypocritically raising taxes further, even for middle-income earners. Back taxes, along with student loans, can no longer be eliminated by bankruptcy protection.

    Gasoline prices are soaring even as companies like Exxon-Mobil are recording record profits. Other commodity prices are going up steadily, including food prices, with some countries starting to experience near-famine conditions. 40 million people in America are officially classified as "food insecure."

    Corporate control of water and mineral resources has removed much of what is available from the public commons, and the deregulation of energy production has led to huge increases in the costs of electricity in many areas.

    The destruction of family farming in the U.S. by NAFTA (along with family farming in Mexico and Canada) has been mirrored by policies toward other nations on the part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Around the world, due to pressure from the "Washington consensus," local food self-sufficiency has been replaced by raising of crops primarily for export. Migration off the land has fed the population of huge slums around the cities of underdeveloped countries.

    Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war.

    The expansion of the U.S. military empire abroad is mirrored by the creation of a totalitarian system of surveillance at home, whereby the activities of private citizens are spied upon and tracked by technology and systems which have been put into place under the heading of the "War on Terror." Human microchip implants for tracking purposes are starting to be used. The military-industrial complex has become the nation’s largest and most successful industry with tens of thousands of planners engaged in devising new and better ways, both overt and covert, to destroy both foreign and domestic "enemies."

    Meanwhile, the U.S. has the largest prison population of any country on earth. Plus everyday life for millions of people is a crushing burden of government, insurance, and financial fees, charges, and paperwork. And the simplest business transactions are burdened by rake-offs for legions of accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, brokers, speculators, and middlemen.

    Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects.

    This list should at least give us enough to go on in order to ask a hard question. Assuming again that all these things are parts of the elitist plan which Mr. Rockefeller boasts to have been developing, isn’t it a little strange that the means which have been selected to achieve "peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity" involve so much violence, deception, oppression, exploitation, graft, and theft?

    In fact it looks to me as though "our plan for the world" is one that is based on genocide, world war, police control of populations, and seizure of the world’s resources by the financial elite and their puppet politicians and military forces.

    In particular, could there be a better way to accomplish all this than what appears to be a concentrated plan to remove from people everywhere in the world the ability to raise their own food? After all, genocide by starvation may be slow, but it is very effective. Especially when it can be blamed on "market forces."

    And can it be that the "us" which is doing all these things, including the great David Rockefeller himself, are just criminals who have somehow taken over the seats of power? If so, they are criminals who have done everything they can to watch their backs and cover their tracks, including a chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media.

    One thing is certain: The voters of America have never knowingly agreed to any of this.


    Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites. His book on monetary reform entitled We Hold These Truths: The Promise of Monetary Reform is in preparation. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years." His website is at www.richardccook.com.



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    Who and When will give Justice to the Iraqi People?

    This is published in oped news and the direct link is: http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=6540

     

     

    Who and When Will Bring Justice to the Iraqi People?

     

     

    If there was a divine or humane justice, those that have reduced a country like Iraq to absolute chaos, would be sitting in front of an international penal court answering for their crimes against humanity, life and the world. But the team that is the leader in the world power game remains with all its tranquillity working on the destruction.

     

    Today, human life in Iraq has no value. Barbarism has cleared way as a form of survival, the majority of the infrastructures have been destroyed; to sum it up, they have assassinated a country and given the people up to the murderers and thieves. Here we have the results of the United States invasion. Decided by one man and his malicious team influenced by profound racism and religious fanaticism under which they hide and their interests covered decoratively under the name of democracy.

    The country finds itself without any form of structure. The society devastated. The religious beliefs serve as a starting point for a few. The Shiites are in power, put there by the United States of America. The Sunnis fight against them. Almost no foreign journalist ventures to this country. The kidnapping and executions of various has completed persuading any possible safe visit undercover or as said profession. There are eighteen hostages who remain in the hands of killers.

     

    We have all seen the images of Baghdad, the historically rich history and beauty. Today it is a combat zone, as has been for the past 5 years and counting. People die without knowing why and others fight as mercenaries without knowing who benefits from their actions. These attacks themselves mainly affect women and children. Life in Iraq no longer resembles anything at all….Those that can run- do so, others exist as they can- and a few double their fierceness in an unwanted war whose necessity and end does not come far from astonishing all.

     

    It has become an ideal stage for the mafia to prosper and do business. The fact is that it comes under the same credentials as foreign army that has invaded Iraq- “Bringing Democracy and Well-Being to the Country” These said businessmen hold tight onto their picture of a religious leader with confidence in obtaining protection. One owner of a business has confessed that he has lost his faith, he no longer believes in anything and he only confides in one day the ability to leave this Hell. But Mr. War and Company continues to puppeteer and never stops getting richer. An old story, but know too well!

     

    In this war where religion plays the most detestable role that one could imagine, where religion divides without truce and arms one against another, the human being no longer knows which God to go to. Many Iraqi Christians have been massacred. No one has spoken of these. Those that have been able to exile are the few and lucky (they are a minority, in truth, in the mortal game). It is the hour of fanaticism and without reasoning, the fanaticism without hue or comparison.

     

    A friend of mine, had discovered this delightful country in 1975, Sadam had not reached the presidency. He told me about a country that invested everything in its culture. He spoke of a country that was fed by artists and writers who had not suffered any censorship. There was a phenomenal university. The state retained a good portion of money from petroleum for Arts and Philosophy. It was when Baghdad inspired to be as Cairo, capital of Arab culture. It was not a western democracy, but the Baas party bet on culture and respected the creators.

     

    Later Sadam came to power and misfortune took over the country. Actually, today, the disgrace is named Bush. Sadam began the mass destruction of Iraq; Bush took over the crowning of the task with the worst possible conditions.

     

    So again I ask, who and when will bring justice to the people of Iraq?

    Happy Birthday DHS

     
    Antiwar.com
     
    March 10, 2008
    Happy Birthday, DHS!
    by Ivan Eland

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday.

    The department's growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim. Yet, as Congress frequently does in times of crisis, the legislative body, in the wake of 9/11, had to be seen as doing something – anything – to respond to the crisis, even if its actions were ineffective and even counterproductive.

    And predictably, the Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster. In the wake of the federal government's failure to prevent or stop 9/11 – when the principal problem was the failure of large, slothful security agencies to coordinate against a small, agile terrorist group – the last thing the country needed was another ponderous department. Yet Congress glued together 22 disparate agencies, superimposed another layer of bureaucracy on top of them to manage the new department, astronomically increased the department's budget to $38 billion per year and its personnel from 170,000 to 208,000 employees, and oversaw the department's activities with 86 congressional committees and subcommittees. In creating more bureaucracy to coordinate, Congress never told the American people exactly how security against nimble, non-bureaucratic terrorist groups would be enhanced.

    In fact, over its five years, the department has become the butt of jokes for its color-coded terror warning system, grossly incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, pork-barrel spending, intrusive and largely ineffectual airline security, and expensive security projects gone awry.

    Throughout its history, the color-coded warning system seems to just toggle between the mid-levels, orange and yellow, leading to suspicion that it is designed as merely for show, to demonstrate to the American public that their government is ever vigilant against terrorists. Setting the dial at red would cause everyone to stay locked down in their homes – afraid to go to the shopping mall to buoy the faltering economy. If the government were to move the indicator to blue or green and a terrorist attack occurred, fingers would be pointed at DHS for sleeping as the threat worsened. So the indicator stays between orange and yellow, even though the department has not made clear what the public should do at any of the levels.

    Most politically damaging to DHS was its abysmal and incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina. Yet many members of Congress became "disgusted" with the department's response in New Orleans at the same time they were sending DHS money elsewhere to their own states and congressional districts for useless pork-barrel projects. Much of DHS spending still spreads the pork to cities and states around the country to help the reelection chances of politicians, rather than sending money to cities that might actually have a remote chance of being hit by a terrorist attack (for example, New York and Washington).

    Politics has also been involved in security for air travel. Even if the federal government had done nothing, air security would have improved dramatically after Sept. 11. Prior to 9/11, airline crewmembers and passengers had been encouraged to cooperate with any airplane hijackers. In many hijackings over the years, a familiar pattern had emerged, wherein the hijackers would at worst shoot a couple of passengers to show they meant business and order the plane to Cuba or some other remote location. The hijackers' purpose was to draw attention to their cause, and if the crew and passengers played ball, most could expect to live. That paradigm changed drastically on 9/11. On the fourth plane, apparently the passengers and crew realized that they were being forcibly recruited for a suicide mission that would end not only all of their lives, but potentially those of many more people in any building the plane would hit. Heroically, they evidently got nasty with the terrorists and foiled the hijacking attempt. Later, a similarly surly crew and passengers famously foiled an attempt by Richard Reid to set his explosive shoes on fire. With far more aggressive passengers and crew – having visions of dying in a mass suicidal bombing mission – pity (not really) the terrorists who try to take over or destroy a plane in a post-9/11 world.

    If this monumental security improvement, which DHS had nothing to do with, was not enough, the department probably could have stopped once it had hardened cockpit doors. Federalizing airport security checkpoints, making passengers partially disrobe and requiring them to throw away liquid toiletries, provides only marginal security improvement but much passenger frustration. Despite such security "enhancements," repeated investigative studies have shown that alarming amounts of contraband still get through the checkpoints undetected. DHS overinvests in such checkpoint measures because many voters fly and thus are reminded that their government is taking very visible actions (however annoying) to make them safe. In contrast, less money is spent, for example, on the security of air cargo, ports, or chemical plants, because few voters visit air cargo terminals (or even the baggage compartment of their own plane), the dock where their new Toyota is being delivered, or the factories where the petrochemical ingredients of many consumer products are made. Once again, DHS' priorities are based more on politics than on actual threats.

    Finally, the DHS bureaucracy has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars by blowing the development and purchase of many new high-tech security systems. Even with the excessive emphasis on air security, the department has projected that it could require $22 billion and 16 more years to deploy advanced systems for screening airline baggage, and has been inept at fielding new "puffer devices," which blow air on passengers to detect explosives, according to the Washington Post.

    At the ports and borders, DHS is also struggling. Granted, the congressional demand that all inbound shipping containers be scanned is unrealistic, unnecessary, and ridiculous, but Congress was reacting to DHS' having put port security on the back burner. In addition, DHS has proven incompetent in fielding equipment to detect nuclear devices. At the borders, despite prescient warnings by outside experts, the expensive "virtual" border fence of sensors was so poorly designed that DHS had to pay the contractor to start over, and the first phase of the project may not be completed until 2011. Finally, the project to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors using photos and fingerprints has been scrapped indefinitely (on the exit side) because of its excessive cost and technological difficulties.

    Thus, at the age of five, DHS has all the bureaucratic sclerosis of an octogenarian and is on the road to juvenile delinquency.

     
     
     
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