posted 02-09-2003 01:50 AM            

THE NATIONAL DEBT

Let us imagine for a moment that you go to a restaurant, you place an order for a hamburger. The proprietor of the restaurant tells you the cost is $5 for the hamburger, and you pay $5 for the hamburger. You get your food. No problems. Well worth the money you paid for it. No complaints.

Then when you are done eating, the owner of the restaurant shows up at your table, apologizes profusely, explains that he underestimated the real cost of providing you with the hamburger he agreed to serve you and hands you a bill for an additional sum he had to borrow in order to provide the meal plus interest since the start of your meal. Do you pay it? Of course not. You, the customer, entered into a verbal contract with the proprietor of the restaurant to provide you with your meal at the price agreed to by all parties prior to the transaction.

If the proprietor of the restaurant has miscalculated the cost of meeting his agreed-to obligation to the customer, is the customer obligated to cover the shortfall? No. The proprietor of the restaurant is responsible for the error, and if he cannot meet his agreed-to obligations for the agreed-upon price, he should declare bankruptcy, go out of business, and make way for a new restaurant with better fiscal sense.

Simple common sense.

Let us imagine for a moment that you live in a nation, and you request some benefits. The government tells you the cost is $500 for the benefits, and you pay $500 in taxes for the benefits. You get your benefits. No problems. Well worth the money you paid for them. No complaints.

Then when you have your benefits, the government shows up at your door, apologizes profusely, explains that it underestimated the real cost of providing you with the benefits it agreed to provide and hands you a bill for an additional sum it had to borrow in order to provide the services, plus interest since the start of your use of the benefits. Do you pay it? Of course not. You, the citizen, entered into a verbal contract with the government to provide you with your benefits at the taxes agreed to by all parties prior to the transaction.

If the government has miscalculated the cost of meeting the agreed-to obligation to the citizen, is the citizen obligated to cover the shortfall? No. The government is responsible for the error, and if it cannot meet it's agreed-to obligations for the agreed-upon price, it should declare bankruptcy, go out of business, and make way for a new government with better fiscal sense.

The claim is constantly made that "we" (meaning the citizens) have already spent the almost 6 trillion dollars that the Federal Government owes and that therefore "we" (meaning the citizens) must repay it.* This is nonsense. No taxpayer alive now ever voted or otherwise agreed to allow the government to borrow money on their behalf and agreed to underwrite the resultant ruinous interest obligation. No citizen spent that money. The government spent it, to keep promises it had no business making in the first place.

The Federal Reserve Act (Otherwise known as the currency act) was voted into law December 23, 1913. The people who voted in that law are all dead.

No taxpayer alive today had anything to say about repaying any money the government borrowed to keep it's promises. We did not have any choice in the matter. We did not choose to accept this obligation. It has been forced on us. It was manufactured for us.

Certainly the young people who are becoming voters and taxpayers this year have had no say at all about the almost 6 trillion dollar debt that our government hands to them and says, "This thou shalt pay". To so encumber our children without their permission is at best indentured servitude; at the worst outright slavery.

We The People didn't borrow that 6 trillion dollars. We The People, those of us alive today, paying taxes today, have never had the opportunity to decide whether or not we are obligated to cover the bad debts of a government that gets elected by selling $5 dollar hamburgers, only to tell us after election day that they really cost $7 and we are now obligated for that additional $2.

Every man, woman, retired senior citizen and even the tiniest newborn baby are being told that they owe $22,556 extra for services that were bought and paid for by an agreed-to tax rate.

Are those tiny newborn babies really obligated for $22,556 because of a law passed 84 years before they were born?

Are those tiny newborn babies really obligated for $22,556 because our government makes promises it cannot keep?

Or is it time for the Federal Government to declare bankruptcy and make way for something better?

* To conceal the true size of the debt problem, the Federal Government has been returning less money to the states, forcing the states to borrow to meet their obligations. This transfers the debt from the Federal Government to the States. Taken together, the debt of the states and the debt of the Federal Government totals approximately $14 trillion. Guess who they want to pay it?

posted 02-09-2003 04:54 PM            

Money is created by monetary loans from the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) to the United States, and by the fractional reserve banking system. The fractional reserve system works as follows: banks promise delivery of balances to depositors and borrowers many times the amount of money on simultaneous deposit, so that checks and other instruments of bank-account-level monetary transfer in circulation drawn on these accounts, denominated in the same monetary units as the common currency, increase the total amount of money. A bank's minimum ratio of deposits on hand and deliverable (as Federal Reserve Notes, coins, or in some systems, precious metals) to total bank debts embodied in positive account balances, is set by the Federal Reserve, and is called the reserve ratio. Fractional banking is the principal mechanism by which money has been created in the US in the 20th century, and it is a form of institutionalized fraud that puts private bankers in a position to command the economy.

The other mechanism by which money is created is that practiced by the Federal Reserve itself. The US assigns to the Fed bonds (representing the amount borrowed, and earning interest at a rate set by the Fed), the Fed assigns the US a corresponding balance, in what amounts to a bank account from which the government can make withdrawls or draw checks. This is an exchange, and often the bonds are actually purchased from private banks that previously bought them directly or indirectly from the government (loaning money to the government), creating a balance in a Fed account payable to that private bank. Some of this balance is turned into actual paper money when an entity with a Fed account balance (a private bank or the government) requests that some portion of that balance be converted to paper money. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (part of the government) then cranks the presses, creating Federal Reserve Notes, and the paper money is physically delivered. The money is no more or less real in electronic form than in printed form. Most money is ephemeral, moved around using Electronic Funds Transfer and the like, and EFT money can be turned into paper Federal Reserve Notes at any ATM. EFT and paper money are totally fungible (interchangeable).

The Fed has no significant assets other than its portfolio of US government securities - insofar as they can be considered assets at all; their productivity is all "on paper" hocus pocus. This begs the question. The balance in that bank account is just made up, as directed by the Federal Open Market Committee. The designation of the FOMC's twelve voting members (the seven Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed members of the Board of Governors, the president of the New York regional bank, and the presidents of a rotating subset of four other regional banks: currently, the presidents of the Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Minneapolis Federal Reserve regional banks) is controlled by the President (in modern times, perpetually an instrument of the private bankers, and directly by private (``member'') banks located in the regions covered by each Federal Reserve regional bank, with the influence of each on the election of its region's president proportional to its size. Moreover, the FOMC's operations are not subject to external audit. All of this - excepting, of course, the control of the the Presidency by private bankers - is by statute.

When the FOMC orders money into existence, the value of the money that existed before that order is reduced, as a consequence of the law of supply and demand. The value of a quantum (a unit) falls when M1 (the on-demand liquid money supply) grows (is "inflated"). When this happens, wealth in private hands denominated in the units of the inflated money, whether on paper, in minted coins, or in some electronic form, is quietly redistributed to the people who control the money ordered into existence. The controllers are the private banks and the federal government - evidently, a monolith; there is no clear boundary between them. Even though other forces - improvements in industrial efficiency and productivity, for example - can increase the buying power of a monetary unit, the redistribution of wealth is not thereby made less certain or real, nor less grave in its import.

Since the Fed trades non-interest-earning money for interest-earning bonds, the system tends to inflate the money supply essentially eternally, in a quiet, endless campaign of wealth confiscation from the public, in order that the government can honor the bonds held by the Fed. That the Fed's profits are assigned to the Treasury does not change this, and since the two are just components of a single monolith, it's really just a change of pocket, not a change of pants.

That portion of the mature debt that is not honored through inflation is honored by taxation, mostly by income taxation, which of course is widely recognized as confiscatory prima facie. Income taxation is usually set as high as is politically feasible.

When debts are retired by income taxation, the money supply contracts, increasing the value of a quantum. This is because the Fed throws away money it is paid - which, of course, is no less unreasonable than making up money to pay out. With income taxation, wealth is redistributed from those who pay taxes to those who do not (notably, ``philanthropic'' foundations), without any explicit pay-out. Importantly, the architecture of the system necessarily inflates the money supply whenever debts are retired by means other than taxation, and inflation is no less clearly confiscatory than is explicit income taxation itself. That is, one way or the other, intrinsic to the architecture, wealth is confiscated from the public. Even the presumption of a benevolent FOMC cannot avoid this - only retirement of the entire national debt (over $6 trillion, or about $20000 per human living in the United States), proscription of deficit spending, deprecation of income (and sales and property) taxation, and cessation of so-called Federal Open Market activities, can end the cycle of theft.

The total engine pumps vast wealth from the productive public to the unproductive government/banking monolith, placing that monolith in a position of absolutely dominant power in the economy, and hence in the society. The monolith systematically redistributes wealth from those it disfavors to those it favors, and it favors those people and processes that its members expect to maintain and consolidate the existing power structure. The actual taxation and spending patterns are defined by that lumbering committee known as Congress, and consist principally of capital purchases, salaries, commercial contracts for delivery of products and performance of services, and entitlements.

Several quotes underscore the scam:

``By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens...''
-John Maynard Keynes

``In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.''
-Alan Greenspan, 1967

Keynes is the father of the activist monetary policy that is in practice today in the industrialized world. Greenspan, of course, is the current chairman of the Federal Reserve and of the FOMC.

``The Federal Reserve Banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this Nation is run by the International Bankers.''
-Congressman Louis T. McFadden

``...From now on depressions will be scientifically created.''
-Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., 1913, on the Federal Reserve Act

posted 02-09-2003 05:07 PM            

The Constitution and Paper Money

The United States Constitution does not mention paper money by that name. Nor does it refer to paper currency or fiat money in those words.1 There is only one direct reference to the origins of what we, and they, usually call paper money. It is in the limitations on the power of the states in Article 1, Section 10. It reads, "No State shall ... emit Bills of Credit. . . ." Paper that was intended to circulate as money but was not redeemable in gold and silver was technically described as bills of credit at that time. The description was (and is) apt. Such paper is a device for expanding the credit of the issuer. There is also an indirect reference to the practice in the same section of the Constitution. It reads, "No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.. . ."Legal tender laws, in practice, are an essential expedient for making unredeemable paper circulate as money. Except for the one direct and one indirect reference to the origin and means for circulating paper money, the Constitution is silent on the question.

With such scant references, then, it might be supposed that the makers of the Constitution were only incidentally concerned with the dangers of paper money. That was hardly the case. It loomed large in the thinking of at least some of the men who were gathered at Philadelphia in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention. There were two great objects in the making of a new constitution: one was to provide for a more energetic general government; the other was to restrain the state governments. Moreover, the two objects had a common motive at many points, i.e., to provide a stronger general government which could restrain the states.

Measures to Prevent a Flood of Un-backed Paper Money
One of the prime reasons for restraining the state governments was to prevent their flooding the country with un-backed paper money. James Madison, one of the leaders at the convention, declared, in an introduction to his notes on the deliberations there, that one of the defects they were assembled to remedy was that "In the internal administration of the States, a violation of contracts had become familiar, in the form of depreciated paper made a legal tender."2 Edmund Randolph, in the introductory remarks preceding the presentation of the Virginia Plan to the convention, declared that when the Articles of Confederation had been drawn "the havoc of paper-money had not been foreseen." 3

Indeed, as the convention held its sessions, or in the months preceding it, state legislatures were under pressure to issue paper money. Several had already yielded, or taken the initiative, in issuing the un-backed paper. The situation was out of control in Rhode Island, and had been for some time. Rhode Island refused to send delegates to the convention, and the state's reputation was so bad that the delegates there were apparently satisfied to be spared the counsels of her citizens. Well after the convention had got underway, a motion was made to send a letter to New Hampshire, whose delegates were late, urging their attendance. John Rutledge of South Carolina rose to oppose the motion, arguing that he "could see neither the necessity nor propriety of such a measure. They are not un-apprized of the meeting, and can attend if they choose." And, to clinch his argument, he proposed that "Rhode Island might as well be urged to appoint & send deputies." 4No one rose in defense of an undertaking of that character.

The ill repute of Rhode Island derived mainly from that state's unrestrained experiments with paper money. Rhode Island not only issued paper money freely but also used harsh methods to try to make it circulate. The "legislature passed an act declaring that anyone refusing to take the money at face value would be fined E100 for a first offense and would have to pay a similar fine and lose his rights as a citizen for a second." 5 When the act was challenged, a court declared that it was unconstitutional. Whereupon, the legislature called the judges before it, interrogated them, and dismissed several from office. The legislature was determined to have its paper circulate.

The combination of abundant paper money and Draconian measures to enforce its acceptance brought trade virtually to a halt in Rhode Island. A major American constitutional historian described the situation this way:

The condition of the state during these days was deplorable indeed. The merchants shut their shops and joined the crowd in the bar-rooms; men lounged in the streets or wandered aimlessly about. ... A French traveller who passed through Newport about this time gives a dismal picture of the place: idle men standing with folded arms at the corners of the streets; houses falling to ruins; miserable shops offering for sale nothing but a few coarse stuffs ... ; grass growing in the streets; windows stuffed with rags; everything announcing misery, the triumph of paper money, and the influence of bad government. The merchants had closed their stores rather than take payment in paper; farmers from neighboring states did not care to bring their produce. . . . Some ... sought to starve the tradesmen into a proper appreciation of the simple laws of finance by refusing to bring their produce to market.6

But there was more behind the Founders' fears of paper money than contemporary doings in Rhode Island or general pressures for monetary inflation. The country as a whole had only recently suffered the searing aftermath of such an inflation. Much of the War for Independence had been financed with paper money or, more precisely, bills of credit.

A Surge of Continentals
Even before independence had been declared the Continental Congress began to emit bills of credit. These bills carried nothing more than a vague promise that they would at some unspecified time in the future be redeemed, possibly by the states. In effect, they were fiat money, and were never redeemed. As more and more of this Continental currency was issued, 1776--1779, it depreciated in value. This paper was joined by that of the states which were, if anything, freer with their issues than the Congress. In 1777, Congress requested that the states cease to print paper money, but the advice was ignored. They did as Congress did, not what it said.

At first, this surge of paper money brought on what appeared to be a glow of prosperity. As one historian described it, "the country was prosperous. . . . Paper money seemed to be the 'poor man's friend'; to it were ascribed the full employment and the high price of farm products that prevailed during the first years of the war. By 1778, for example, the farmers of New Jersey were generally well off and rapidly getting out of debt, and farms were selling for twice the price they had brought during the period 1765--1775. Trade and commerce were likewise stimulated; despite the curtailment of foreign trade, businessmen had never been so prosperous.7

The pleasant glow did not last long, however. It was tarnished first, of course, by the fact that the price of goods people bought began to rise. (People generally enjoy the experience of prices for their goods rising, but they take a contrary view of paying more for what they buy.) Then, as now, some blamed the rise in prices on merchant profiteering.

As the money in circulation increased and expectations of its being redeemed faded, a given amount of money bought less and less. This set the stage for speculative buying, holding on to the goods for a while, and making a large paper profit on them. There were sporadic efforts to control prices as well as widespread efforts to enforce acceptance of the paper money in payment for debts. These efforts, so far as they succeeded, succeeded in causing shortages of goods, creditors to run from debtors trying to pay them in the depreciated currency, and in the onset of suffering.

Runaway Inflation
By 1779, the inflation was nearing the runaway stage. "In August 1778, a Continental paper dollar was valued (in terms of gold and silver) at about twenty--five cents; by the end of 1779, it was worth a penny." "Our dollars pass for less this' afternoon than they did this morning," people began to say.8 George Washington wrote in 1779 that "a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions." 9 It was widely recognized that the cause was the continuing and ever larger emissions of paper money. Congress resolved to issue no more in 1779, but it was all to no avail. Runaway inflation was at hand. In 1781, Congress no longer accepted its own paper money in payment for debts, and the Continentals ceased to have any value at all.

A good portion of the dangers of paper money had been revealed, and reflective people were aware of what had happened. Josiah Quincy wrote George Washington "that there never was a paper pound, a paper dollar, or a paper promise of any kind, that ever yet obtained a general currency but by force or fraud, generally by both." 10 A contemporary historian concluded that the "evils which resulted from the legal tender of the depreciated bills of credit" extended much beyond the immediate assault upon property. "The iniquity of the laws," he said, "estranged the minds of many of the citizens from the habits and love of justice. . . . Truth, honor, and justice were swept away by the overflowing deluge of legal iniquity. .. ."11

But the economic consequences of the inflation did not end with the demise of the Continental currency. Instead, it was followed by a deflation, which was the inevitable result of the decrease in the money supply. The deflation was not immediately so drastic as might be supposed. Gold and silver coins generally replaced paper money in 1781. Many of these had been out of circulation, in hiding, so long as they were threatened by tender law requirements to exchange them on a par with the paper money. Once the threat was removed, they circulated. The supply of those in hiding had been augmented over the years by payments for goods by British troops. Large foreign loans, particularly from the, French, increased the supply of hard money in the United States in 1781 and 1782. A revived trade with the Spanish, French, and Dutch brought in coins from many lands as well. In addition, Robert Morris's Bank of North America provided paper money redeemable in precious metals in the early years of the decade.

The Impact of Depression
By the middle of the 1780s, however, the deflation was having its impact as a depression. Trade had reopened with Britain, and Americans still showed a distinct preference for British imports. That, plus the fact that the market for American exports in the British West Indies was still closed, resulted in a large imbalance in trade. Americans made up the difference either by borrowing or shipping hard money to Britain. Prices fell to reflect the declining money supply. Those who had gone into debt to buy land at the inflated wartime prices were especially hard hit by the decline in the prices of their produce. Foreclosures were widespread in 1785-1786. This provided the setting for the demands for paper money and other measures to relieve the pressure of the debts. Some people were clamoring for the hair of the dog that had bit them in the first place - monetary inflation - and several state legislatures had accommodated them.

Though there is evidence that the worst of the depression was over by 1787, if not in the course of 1786,12 paper money issues and agitations for more were still ongoing when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia. In any case, those who had absorbed the lessons of recent history were very much concerned to do something to restrain governments from issuing paper money and forcing it into circulation. There were those who met at Philadelphia, too, who took the long view of their task. They hoped to erect a system that would endure, and to do that they wished to guard against the kind of fiscal adventures that produced both unpleasant economic consequences and political turmoil. Paper money was reckoned to be one of these.

The question of granting power to emit bills of credit came up for discussion twice in the convention. The first time was on August 16, 1787. (The convention had begun its deliberations on May 25, 1787, so it was moving fairly rapidly toward the conclusion when the question arose.) The question was whether or not the United States government should have power to emit bills of credit. Congress had such a power under the Articles of Confederation, and most of the powers held by Congress under the Articles were introduced in the convention to be extended to the new government.

Constitutional Convention Debates
Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania "moved to strike out' and emit bills on the credit of the United States'." That is, he proposed to remove the authority for the United States to issue such paper money. "If the United States had credit," Morris said, "such bills would be unnecessary: if they had not, unjust & useless." His motion was seconded by Pierce Butler of South Carolina.

James Madison wondered if it would "not be sufficient to prohibit making them a tender? This will remove the temptation to emit them with unjust views. And promissory notes in that shape may in some emergencies be best." (Madison's distinction between bills of credit that may be freely circulated and those whose acceptance is forced by tender laws should remind us that paper instruments serving in some fashion as money are not at the heart of the problem. After all, private bills of exchange had for several centuries been used by tradesmen, and these sometimes changed hands much as money does. They are what we call negotiable instruments, and the variety of these is large. What Madison was getting at more directly, however, was that governments, if they are to borrow money from time to time, may issue notes, and these may be negotiable instruments which may take on some of the character of money in exchanges. But Madison's objection was overcome, as we shall see.)

Gouverneur Morris then observed that "striking out the words will leave room still for notes of a responsible minister which will do all the good without the mischief. The Monied interest will oppose the plan of Government, if paper emissions be not prohibited."

However, Morris had moved beyond his motion, which was for removing the power, not specifying a prohibition, and Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts brought him back to the point. Gorham said he "was for striking out, without inserting any prohibition. If the words stand they may suggest and lead to the measure."

Not everyone who spoke, however, favored removing the power. George Mason of Virginia "had doubts on the subject. Congress he thought would not have the power unless it were expressed. Though he had a mortal hatred to paper money, yet as he could not foresee all emergencies [sic], he was unwilling to tie the hands of the Legislature. He observed that the late war could not have been carried on, had such a prohibition existed."

Nathaniel Gorham tried to reassure Mason and others who might have similar doubts by declaring that "The power so far as it will be necessary or safe, is involved in that of borrowing."

Both Positions Argued
On the other hand, John Francis Mercer of Maryland announced that he "was a friend to paper money, though in the present state & temper in America, he should neither propose nor approve of such a measure. He was consequently opposed to a prohibition of it altogether. It will stamp suspicion on the Government to deny it a discretion on this point. It was impolitic also to excite the opposition of all those who were friends to paper money. The people of property would be sure to be on the side of the plan [the Constitution], and it was impolitic to purchase their further attachment with the loss of the opposite class of Citizens."

Oliver Elsworth of Connecticut pronounced himself of the opposite view. He "thought this a favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money. The mischiefs of the various experiments which had been made, were now fresh in the public mind and had excited the disgust of all the respectable part of America. By withholding the power from the new Government more friends of influence would be gained to it than by almost any thing else. Paper money can in no case be necessary. Give the Government credit, and other resources will offer. The power [to emit bills of credit] may do harm, never good."

Edmund Randolph of Virginia still had doubts, for he said that "notwithstanding his antipathy to paper money, [he] could not agree to strike out the words, as he could not foresee all the occasions which might arise."

James Wilson of Pennsylvania favored removing the power: "It will have a most salutary influence on the credit of the United States to remove the possibility of paper money. This expedient can never succeed whilst its mischiefs are remembered, and as long as it can be resorted to, it will be a bar to other resources."

Pierce Butler "remarked that paper was a legal tender in no country in Europe. He was urgent for disarming the Government of such a power."

George Mason, however, "was still averse to tying the hands of the Legislature altogether. If there was no example in Europe as just remarked, it might be observed on the other side, that there was none in which the Government was restrained on this head." His fellow delegates fore-bore to remind Mason that except for Britain there was hardly a government in Europe that was restrained on that or any other head by a written constitution.

In any case, the last remarks were made by men vehemently opposed to the power. George Read of Delaware "thought the words, if not struck out, would be as alarming as the mark of the Beast in Revelations." John Langdon of New Hampshire "had rather reject the whole plan [the Constitution] than retain the three words," by which he meant "and emit bills."

Denying the Power to Emit Bills of Credit
The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of removing the authority of the United States to emit bills of credit. The delegates voted by states, and 9 states voted in favor of the motion while only 2 opposed it. (New York delegates were not in attendance, and Rhode Island, of course, sent none.) It is a reasonable inference from the discussion that the delegates believed that by voting to strike out the words they had removed the power from the government to emit bills of credit. George Mason, who opposed the motion, admitted as much. Moreover, James Madison explained in a footnote that he voted for it when he "became satisfied that striking out the words would not disable the Government from the use of public notes as far as they could be safe & proper; & would only cut off the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender for public or private debts." 13

The other discussion of paper money took place in connection with the powers to be denied to the states in the Constitution. The committee report had called for the states to be prohibited to emit bills of credit without the consent of the United States Congress. James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who was from Connecticut, "moved to insert after the words 'coin money' the words 'nor emit bills of credit, nor make any thing but gold & silver coin a tender in payment of debts'," thus, as they said, "making these prohibitions absolute, instead of making the measures allowable (as in the XIII article) with the consent of the Legislature of the U.S."

Nathaniel Gorham "thought the purpose would be as well secured by the provision of article XIII which makes the consent of the General Legislature necessary, and that in that mode, no opposition would be excited; whereas an absolute prohibition of paper money would rouse the most desperate opposition from its partizans."

To the contrary, Roger Sherman "thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money. If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money, would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to license it." 14

Eight states voted for the absolution prohibition against states issuing bills of credit. One voted against it, and the other state whose delegation was present was divided. The prohibition, as voted, became a part of the Constitution.

Paper Money Rejected
Three other points may be appropriate. The first has to do with any argument that there might be an implied power for the United States government to issue paper money since it is not specifically prohibited in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton, the man credited with advancing the broad construction doctrine, maintained the opposite view in The Federalist. While he was making a case against the adding of a bill of rights, his argument was meant to have general validity. He declared that such prohibitions "are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do." 15 In short, the government does not have all powers not prohibited but only those granted.

Second, this point was driven home by the 10th Amendment when a Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. It reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The power to emit bills of credit or issue paper money was not delegated to the United States. More, it was specifically not delegated after deliberating upon whether to or not. The power was prohibited to the states. The logical conclusion is that such power as there may be to emit bills of credit was reserved to the people in their private capacities.

And third, not one word has been added to or subtracted from the Constitution since that time affecting the power of government to emit bills of credit or issue paper money.

Since the United States is once again in the toils of an ongoing monetary inflation, it is my hope that this summary review of the experience, words, and deeds of the Founders might shed light on some of the vexing questions surrounding it.

At the time of the original publication, Dr. Carson had written and taught extensively, specializing in American Intellectual history. He is the author of several books, his most recent was Organized Against Whom? The Labor Union in America. He was then working on A Basic History of the United States.

1. Actually, the phrase, "fiat money," did not come into use until the 1880s. It might have helped the Founders to specify more precisely what they had in mind to prevent, but they had no such term.

2. E. H. Scott, ed., Journal of the Federal Convention Kept by James Madison (Chicago: Albert, Scott and Co., 1893), p. 47.

3. 1bid., p. 60.

4. Charles E. Tansill, ed., Formation of the Union of the American States (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1927), p. 306.

5. Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), p. 324.

6. .Andrew C. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 107-08.

7.John C. Miller, Triumph of Freedom (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1948), p. 438.

8. Ibid., p. 462.

9. Quoted in Albert S. Bolles, The Financial History of the United States, vol. I (New York: D. Appleton, 1896, 4th ed.), p. 132.

10. Ibid., p. 139.

11. Quoted in ibid., pp. 177-78.

12. See Jensen, op. cit., pp. 247-48.

13. AII the discussion and quotations can be found in Tansill, op. cit., pp. 556-57. While there is no way to know if the record of the debates on this and other matters is complete, nothing has been omitted from Madison's notes.

14. Ibid., pp. 627-38. The committee on style eventually reduced the number of articles in the Constitution to seven, so there is not now an Article X111, of course.

15. Alexander Hamilton, et. al., The Federalist Papers (New Rochelle, N. Y: Arlington House, n. d.), pp. 513--14.

posted 02-09-2003 05:54 PM            

If you can work your way through the Modern Architecture of Political Power web site you'll really be on to the truth of why it seems we are constently forced to choose between the lesser of two evils at the voting booth. http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp (I do not agree with the anti religion views Daniel Pouzzne espouses on this site but most of it is dead on from my research)

As much as I loathed Klinton and his administration I cannot defend Bush and his total disregard for our liberty. You cannot honestly believe that giving up our liberties, freedom and privacy (what's left of it) for so called safety is a workable solution.

Now back to the fiat fed notes, that is the cause of our economic woes...

Coup d'état in 1913

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© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

Few Americans realize how radically America was changed in 1913 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act.

Maybe most Americans don't even care.

"How does the Federal Reserve Board affect my life?" they think. "What do I know from Alan Greenspan? He's the guy who decides what interest rates are, right?"

The truth is the Federal Reserve, created in 1913, is a wholly unaccountable, private institution that affects the lives of every American -- probably more directly and profoundly than does the president of the United States. That's why Greenspan is often referred to as the most powerful man in America.

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was an attempt to take advantage of popular opinion in the United States for banking reforms. In effect, however, it was not reform at all. It was a power transfer -- a coup in which a small group of bankers got a blank check to set monetary policy, and, thus, all policy, for the entire nation. No watchdogs. No guardrails. No accountability. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Perhaps Rep. Charles A. Lindberg Sr. said it best at the time: "It is common practice of congressmen to make the title of acts promise a right, but in the body or text of the acts to rob the people of what is promised in the title."

The very name "Federal Reserve Bank" was designed to deceive. It is not federal. It is not a government agency. It is privately owned. In short, it is nothing more than a group of private banks charging interest on money that never actually existed.

"Oh, Farah," you're probably saying right now. "Whoa, fella. This is too much for me to absorb. Are you sure about this? This sounds like conspiracy stuff? Why isn't anyone talking about something so amazing?"

Well, the good news is that WorldNetDaily.com is about to launch a major salvo to wake up Americans about who really owns their country -- or, at least, who acts like they own it.

In the current issue of WorldNet magazine, being mailed to subscribers this week, an expert on the subject of the Fed and a top-notch journalist, Anne Williamson, will break the bad news in clear, understandable, accessible terms that even your child in high school will be able to comprehend.

Williamson has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Spy magazine, Film Comment and Premiere. An expert on Soviet-Russian affairs, she is currently working on a book, "Contagion: The Betrayal of Liberty; Russia and the United States in the 1990s." She has so much expertise on Russia, the Fed and the International Monetary Fund that she has been asked to testify to Congress, so that those ladies and gentlemen can get a better understanding of the institutions Williamson has covered most of her adult life.

Her exhaustive report in WorldNet will be promoted in TV and radio appearances this week. Don't miss them. And don't miss her report in the magazine. If you are not yet subscribing, order it right now. This may be America's last best chance to learn who is pulling our strings.

In a nutshell, here's how this Fed scheme works, ladies and gentlemen. Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this?

The government prints $100 billion in interest-bearing U.S. bonds and takes them to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve places the $100 billion in a checking account and the government writes checks against the balance.

In other words, we -- the American people -- allow this private banking system to create money out of thin air. And the bankers get interest on it -- forever.

It's a legalized counterfeiting operation -- pure and simple.

Way back in 1931, Louis T. McFadden, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, saw the problem: "The Federal Reserve Board and banks are the duly appointed agents of the foreign central banks of issue and they are more concerned with their foreign customer than they are with the people of the United States. The only thing that is American about the Federal Reserve Board and banks is the money they use."

posted 02-09-2003 07:12 PM            

These are factual statements, not statements of bias. This is a matter of record.

Your theory however, that everything is illusion and deception by the "Globalists" (the latest catch phrase for what people on this board used to call The Powers That Be) is unsubstantiated opinion that is easily contradicted by simple observation of logic and current events.

In order for your assumptions to work, we would also have to assume that the voting process does not work or is all illusion as well. Sure, Democrats cheated at the polls, but the fact is, people still voted, and those votes were still counted despite the cheating that went on. The voting process is imperfect and flawed (as we recall the chads that littered the floor like a bad case of giant’s dandruff during the Gore/Bush fiasco)...yes, but people still elected their representatives by a health\y margin of error in the last elections. Bush won the Florida popular vote, (around 5 times!) and was constitutionally elected via majority of electoral votes. The voting process is still very much intact.

Well, what do I mean to say by bringing up this point? Well, this means that people elect exactly the representation that they vote for....not the mysterious "Global elite" or TPTB. People still wield the power in this representative Republic, not these invisible Globalists you keep talking about, because the voting system is still very much in tact. Only through a concentrated effort of spin and lies have the Democrats been able to get people to vote for tyrants who destroy economies. California's Gray Davis is a case in point. But the fact remains...people, deluded as they might by political propaganda, still elect their representatives, not these invisible Globalists.

What can we therefore conclude from this? We can conclude that the real war of powers is exactly what you hear talked about by people like Rush Limbaugh. It's between the conservative and liberal philosophies waged between Democrats and Republicans, via representation of the voters who elect them.

For your theory to be true, on the other hand, then this would have to be no longer a representative government. Reality indicates that this is certainly not the case, or Tom Daschle wouldn't be out trying to drum up public hatred and lies to convince the public to vote against GW Bush. If the vote were irrelevant, you wouldn't hear from people like Tom Daschle. They wouldn't spend millions on campaigns, often millions of their own money, because public opinion and vote wouldn't matter, and there would therefore be no need to spend so much time and effort and personal fortunes trying to persuade people one way or the other.

Point is....the public is in control. They get the representation that they vote for.

posted 02-09-2003 08:07 PM            

Democrats steer us there overtly, Republicans covertly...the destination is the same.

The Background
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Council on Foreign Relations and the New World Order
By Charles Overbeck (PSCPirhana)
Matrix Editor
The Council on Foreign Relations, housed in the Harold Pratt House on East 68th Street in New York City, was founded in 1921. In 1922, it began publishing a journal called Foreign Affairs. According to Foreign Affairs' web page (http://www.foreignaffairs.org), the CFR was founded when "...several of the American participants in the Paris Peace Conference decided that it was time for more private American Citizens to become familiar with the increasing international responsibilities and obligations of the United States."

The first question that comes to mind is, who gave these people the authority to decide the responsibilities and obligations of the United States, if that power was not granted to them by the Constitution. Furthermore, the CFR's web page doesn't publicize the fact that it was originally conceived as part of a much larger network of power.

According to the CFR's Handbook of 1936, several leading members of the delegations to the Paris Peace Conference met at the Hotel Majestic in Paris on May 30, 1919, "to discuss setting up an international group which would advise their respective governments on international affairs."

The Handbook goes on to say, "At a meeting on June 5, 1919, the planners decided it would be best to have separate organizations cooperating with each other. Consequently, they organized the Council on Foreign Relations, with headquarters in New York, and a sister organization, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London, also known as the Chatham House Study Group, to advise the British Government. A subsidiary organization, the Institute of Pacific Relations, was set up to deal exclusively with Far Eastern Affairs. Other organizations were set up in Paris and Hamburg..."

The 3,000 seats of the CFR quickly filled with members of America's elite. Today, CFR members occupy key positions in government, the mass media, financial institutions, multinational corporations, the military, and the national security apparatus.

Since its inception, the CFR has served as an intermediary between high finance, big oil, corporate elitists and the U.S. government. The executive branch changes hands between Republican and Democratic administrations, but cabinet seats are always held by CFR members. It has been said by political commentators on the left and on the right that if you want to know what U.S. foreign policy will be next year, you should read Foreign Affairs this year.

The CFR's claim that "The Council has no affiliation with the U.S. government" is laughable. The justification for that statement is that funding comes from member dues, subscriptions to its Corporate Program, foundation grants, and so forth. All this really means is that the U.S. government does not exert any control over the CFR via the purse strings.

In reality, CFR members are very tightly affiliated with the U.S. government. Since 1940, every U.S. secretary of state (except for Gov. James Byrnes of South Carolina, the sole exception) has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and/or its younger brother, the Trilateral Commission. Also since 1940, every secretary of war and every secretary of defense has been a CFR member. During most of its existence, the Central Intelligence Agency has been headed by CFR members, beginning with CFR founding member Allen Dulles. Virtually every key U.S. national security and foreign policy adviser has been a CFR member for the past seventy years.

Almost all White House cabinet positions are occupied by CFR members. President Clinton, himself a member of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group, employs almost one hundred CFR members in his administration. Presidents come and go, but the CFR's power--and agenda--always remains.

When it was founded in 1921, the CFR was dominated by J.P. Morgan. Morgan is a Rothschild tentacle. This simply reinforces the obvious, that the CFR is a Rothschild instrument operated by the Rockefellers. The CFR is the immediate progeny of Rhodes' Round Table, which was underwritten by the Rothschilds.

David Rockefeller is the chairman emeritus of the CFR. Rockefeller also founded in 1973, and is honorary chairman of, the Trilateral Commission. In 1979, Barry Goldwater published this treatise on the subject:

from http://www.ptialaska.net/~swampy/illuminati/cfr_2.html:

Goldwater Sees Elitist Sentiments Threatening Liberties
By U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater (1979)

In September 1939, two members of the Council on Foreign Relations visited the State Department to offer the council's services.

They proposed to do research and make recommendations for the department without formal assignment or responsibility, particularly in four areas - security armaments, economic and financial problems, political problems, and territorial problems. The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to finance the operation of this plan.

From that day forward, the Council on Foreign Relations has placed its members in policy-making positions with the State Department and other federal agencies. Every Secretary of State since 1944, with the exception of James F. Byrnes, has been a member of the council.

Almost without exception, its members are united by a congeniality of birth, economic status and educational background. The organization itself began in 1919 in Paris when scholars turned their attention to foreign affairs after the end of World War I. It remains a non-governmental private grouping of specialists in foreign affairs.

A number of writers, disturbed by the influential role that this organization has played in determining foreign policy, have concluded that the council and its members are an active part of the communist conspiracy for world domination.

Their syllogistic argument goes like this: the council has dominated American foreign policy since 1945. All American policy decisions have resulted in losses to the communists. Therefore, all members of the council are communist sympathizers.

Many of the policies advocated by the council have been damaging to the cause of freedom and particularly to the United States. But this is not because the members are communists or communist sympathizers. This explanation of our foreign policy reversals is too pat, too simplistic.

I believe that the Council on Foreign Relations and its ancillary elitist groups are indifferent to communism. They have no ideological anchors. In their pursuit of a New World Order, they are prepared to deal without prejudice with a communist state, a socialist state, a democratic state, a monarchy, an oligarchy - it's all the same to them.

Their goal is to impose a benign stability on the quarreling family of nations through merger and consolidation. They see the elimination of national boundaries, the suppression of racial and ethnic loyalties, as the most expeditious avenue to world peace. They believe economic competition is the root cause of international tension.

Perhaps if the council's vision of the future were realized, it would reduce wars, lessen poverty and bring about a more efficient utilization of the world's resources. To my mind, this would inevitably be accompanied by a loss in personal freedom of choice and re-establishment of the restraints that provoked the American revolution.

When we change presidents, it is understood to mean that the voters are ordering a change in national policy. Since 1945, three different Republicans have occupied the White House for 16 years, and four Democrats have held this most powerful post for 17 years. With the exception of the first seven years of the Eisenhower administration, there has been no appreciable change in foreign or domestic policy direction.

There has been a great turnover in personnel, but no change in policy. Example: during the Nixon years, Henry Kissinger, a council member and Nelson Rockefeller protegé, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a council member and David Rockefeller protegé.

Starting in the '30s and continuing through World War II, our official attitude toward the Far East reflected the thinking of the Institute of Pacific Relations. Members of the institute were placed in important teaching positions. They dominated the Asian affairs section of the State Department. Their publications were standard reading material for the armed forces, in most American colleges, and were used in 1,300 public school systems.

The Institute of Pacific Relations was behind the decision to cut off aid to Chiang Kai-Shek unless he embraced the Communists, and the Council on Foreign Relations is the parent organization of the Institute of Pacific Relations.

In 1962, Nelson Rockefeller, in a lecture at Harvard University on the interdependence of nations in the modern world, said: "And so the nation-state, standing alone, threatens in many ways to seem as anachronistic as the Greek city-state eventually became in ancient times."

Everything he said was true. We are dependent on other nations for raw materials and for markets. It is necessary to have defense alliances with other nations in order to balance the military power of those who would destroy us.

Where I differ from Rockefeller is in the suggestion that to achieve this new federalism, the United States must submerge its national identity and surrender substantial matters of sovereignty to a new political order.

The implications in Nelson Rockefeller's presentation have become concrete proposals advanced by David Rockefeller's newest international cabal, the Trilateral Commission.

Whereas the Council on Foreign Relations is distinctly national, representation is allocated equally to Western Europe, Japan and the United States. It is intended to act as the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States.

Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller screened and selected every individual who was invited to participate in shaping and administering the proposed New World Order.

In the late 1950s, Brzezinski, an accepted member of the inner circle of academics, asserting the need for global strategies, was openly anti-communist. By 1964, he had modified his criticism of communism.

In his prospectus describing the Trilateral commission, David Rockefeller said that he intended to bring the best brains of the world together to bear on the problems of the future.

I find nothing inherently sinister in this original proposal, although the name he gave his new creation strikes me as both grandiose and presumptuous. The accepted definition of a commission is a group nominated by some higher authority to perform a specific function.

The Trilateral organization created by David Rockefeller was a surrogate - its members selected by Rockefeller, its purposes defined by Rockefeller, its funding supplied by Rockefeller.

Whether or not the approximately 200 individuals selected for membership on the commission represent the "best brains" in the world is an arguable proposition.

Examination of the membership roster establishes beyond question that all those invited to join were members of the power elite, enlisted with great skill and singleness of purpose from the banking, commercial, political and communications sectors.

Nor was the governmental community over-looked, Invitations to join were extended to Sen. Walter Mondale, Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia, George Ball, Cyrus Vance, Paul Warnke and Reps. Donald Fraser and John Brademas, among others.

In my view, the Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical.

All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. I have no hesitancy about judging its wisdom and the results of its actions.

A report presented at the plenary meeting of the Trilateral Commission in May 1975, at Kyoto, Japan, called for an enlargement of central authority and expressed a lack of confidence in democratically arrived at public decisions.

It also suggested that it would be helpful to impose prior restrictions on the press and to restructure the laws of libel to check the power of the press.

I've suffered as greatly from an abusive press as any man in public life, but I get an itchy, uncomfortable feeling at the base of my spine when someone suggest that government should control the news.

The entire Trilateral Commission approach is strictly economic. No recognition is given to the political condition. Total reliance is placed on materialism. The commission emphasizes the necessity of eliminating artificial barriers to world commerce, tariff, export duties, quota - an objective that I strongly support. What it proposes to substitute is an international economy managed and controlled by international monetary groups.

No attempt has been made to explain why the people of the Western world enjoy economic abundance. Freedom - spiritual, political, economic - is denied any importance in the Trilateral construction of the next century.

The Trilateral Commission even selects and elevates its candidates to positions of political power.

David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski found Jimmy Carter to be an ideal candidate, for example. They helped him win the Democratic nomination and the Presidency.

To accomplish their purpose, they mobilized the money power of the Wall Street bankers, the intellectual influence of the academic community - which is subservient to the wealthy of the great tax-free foundations - and the media controllers represented in the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

It was no accident that Brzezinski and Rockefeller invited Carter to join the commission in 1973. But they weren't ready to bet all their chips on Carter.

They made him a founding member of the commission but to keep their options open, they also brought in Walter Mondale and Elliot Richardson, a highly visible Republican member of the Nixon administration, and they looked at other potential nominees.

After his nomination, Carter chose Mondale as his vice president. He chose Brzezinski as his foreign affairs adviser and Cyrus Vance as his secretary of state.

Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in New York, Carter denounced those "unholy, self-perpetuating alliances that have formed between money and politics."

The outsider, Carter, had been co-opted by the insiders in the power elite.

the following is an abridged version of a speech given by Senator Jesse Helms (on the Senate floor) on 1987-Dec-15, from the Congressional Record 1987-Dec-15 p.S18146 (et seq), from http://users.itsnet.com/~foodnow/jesse.htm:

This campaign against the American people -against traditional American culture and values - is systematic psychological warfare. It is orchestrated by a vast array of interests comprising not only the Eastern establishment but also the radical left. Among this group we find the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the money center banks and multinational coporations, the media, the educational establishment, the entertainment industry, and the large tax-exempt foundations.

Mr. President, a careful examination of what is happening behind the scenes reveals that all of these interests are working in concert with the masters of the Kremlin in order to create what some refer to as a New World Order. Private organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Trilateral Commission, the Dartmouth Conference, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Atlantic Institute, and the Bilderberger Group serve to disseminate and to coordinate the plans for this so-called New World Order in powerful business, financial, academic, and official circles. . . .

The psychological campaign that I am describing, as I have said, is the work of groups within the Eastern establishment, that amorphous amalgam of wealth and social connections whose power resides in its control over our financial system and over a large portion of our industrial sector. The principal instrument of this control over the American economy and money is the Federal Reserve System. The policies of the Industrial sectors, primarily the multinational corporations, are influenced by the money center banks through debt financing and through the large blocks of stock controlled by the trust departments of the money center banks.

Anyone familiar with American history, and particularly American economic history, cannot fail to notice the control over the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency which Wall Street seems to exercise....

The influence of establishment insiders over our foreign policy has become a fact of life in our time. This pervasive influence runs contrary to the real long-term national security of our Nation. It is an influence which, if unchecked, could ultimately subvert our constitutional order.

The viewpoint of the establishment today is called globalism. Not so long ago, this viewpoint was called the "one-world" view by its critics. The phrase is no longer fashionable among sophisticates; yet, the phrase "one-world" is still apt because nothing has changed in the minds and actions of those promoting policies consistent with its fundamental tenets.

Mr. President, in the globalist point of view, nation-states and national boundaries do not count for anything. Political philosophies and political principles seem to become simply relative. Indeed, even constitutions are irrelevant to the exercise of power. Liberty and tyranny are viewed as neither necessarily good nor evil, and certainly not a component of policy.

In this point of view, the activities of international financial and industrial forces should be oriented to bringing this one-world design - with a convergence of the Soviet and American systems as its centerpiece - into being. . . . All that matters to this club is the maximization of profits resulting from the practice of what can be described as finance capitalism, a system which rests upon the twin pillars of debt and monopoly. This isn't real capitalism. It is the road to economic concentration and to political slavery.

an excerpt from How you became the enemy: America's Military Looks Inward, by Sam Smith, from The Progressive Review:

Of course, just as people really can be out to get paranoids, so even a rampantly misguided military establishment can really face some serious threats. This fact raises America's military myopia from absurdity into the realm of justifiable concern.

An open discussion of such threats, however, is virtually impossible. Even the right to talk about such things is a tightly held prerogative of the mandarin class. The Council of Foreign Relations, a cult-like like organization that journalist Richard Hardwood approvingly calls "the nearest thing to a ruling establishment in America," routinely holds meetings at which participants (including guests) are prohibited from speaking about what transpired.

It's not that one would really want to listen to much of it. The men and women who have designated themselves the guardians of America's future policies are among the most boring and unimaginative folk one finds in Washington. Many are like those described by LBJ as having gone to Princeton and ended up in the CIA because their daddies wouldn't let them into the brokerage firm. Still it is not too comforting to realize that in the quiet places of Washington, the first half of the 21st century (as they never tire of calling what the rest of us call the future) is in the hands of the conceptually dyslectic.

And the media is not about to challenge these folk. One good reason may be found in a 1995 membership roster of the Council on Foreign Relations as reported by Public Information Research. Here are just a few of the media CFRers:

Roone Arledge, Sidney Blumenthal, David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, William F. Buckley Jr., Hodding Carter III, John Chancellor, Arnaud de Borchgave, Joan Didion, Leonard Downie Jr., Elizabeth Drew, Rowland Evans Jr., James Fallows, Leslie Gelb, David Gergen, Katharine Graham, Meg Greenfield, Jim Hoagland, Warren Hoge, David Ignatius, Robert Kaiser, Marvin Kalb, Joe Klein, Morton Kondrake, Charles Krauthammer, Irving Kristol, Jim Lehrer, Anthony Lewis, Michael Lind, Jessica Matthews, Jack Nelson, Walter Pincus, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Rather, Stephen Rosenfeld, A. M. Rosenthal, Diane Sawyer, Hederick Smith, Laurence Tish, Garrick Utley, Katrina vander Heuval, Milton Viorst, Ben Wattenberg, Lally Weymouth, Roger Wilkins, and Mortimer Zuckerman.

Ask any of these people what went on at their last CFR tête-à-tête and you'll probably find their concern for a free press rapidly evaporating. Katherine Graham, for example, once told a CIA gathering: "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't."

There are substantial implications to all this. If, for example, the CFR puts out a report decrying restraints on the CIA, may we infer that the aforementioned concur? If not, how many have publicly stated their disagreement? How, in fact, can we tell what is going on if foreign policy discussions are handled in the manner of meetings of the Masons, Montana Militia, or Skull & Bones?

From The Roundtable Pages, here is a complete list of all 3000 CFR members as of 1992.

Also from The Roundtable Pages, here is a complete list of all 337 Trilateral Commission members, as of 1992.

excerpt from http://www9.pair.com/xpoez/money/shadow.html, "The Shadow Government of the United States and the Decline of America" by Richard D. Eastman (November 1994):

CFR control in government actually began in earnest in 1939 by establishing within the U.S. State Department a "Committee on Post-War Problems", the group (staffed and funded by the CFR) which designed the United Nations. (the story of which is contained in State Dept. Publication 2349-"Report To The President On The Results of the San Francisco Conference").

Since WWII, the CFR has filled key positions in virtually every administration since then. Furthermore, since Eisenhower, every man who has won the nomination for either party (except Goldwater in 1964 and Reagan in 1980) has been a member of the CFR:

Democrats

John W. Davis(1924)
Adlai Stevenson (1952,56)
John F. Kennedy (1960)
Hubert Humphrey (1968)
George McGovern (1972)
Jimmy Carter (1976,80)
Walter Mondale (1984)
Michael Dukakis (1988)
Bill Clinton (1992)
Republicans

Herbert Hoover (1928,32)
Wendell Wilkie (1940)
Thomas Dewey (1944,48)
Dwight Eisenhower (1952,56)
Richard Nixon (1960,68,72)
Gerald Ford (1976)
George Bush (1988,92) (who was also a director of the CFR 1977-1979)
[...]

from , 1999-Jan-22:

CFR Secretaries of Defense
The National Security Act of 1947 established the office of Secretary of Defense. Since 1947 there have been 19 Secretaries of Defense. At least nine of them have been Council on Foreign Relations and/or Trilateral Commission members.

According to Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 525-7-1, The Art and Science of Psychological Operations,

"The Secretary of Defense is the principal assistant to the president in all matters relating to Department of Defense, and exercises direction, authority, and control over the department. He serves as a member of the National Security Council. Among the several principal military and civilian advisor and staff assistants to the secretary, his assistant secretary for international security affairs, has major Psychological Operations(PSYOP) related responsibilities."1

President Clinton has appointed three Secretaries of Defense -- William Cohen, William Perry, and Les Aspin. As Under Secretary for International Security Affairs, Lynn Etheridge Davis, has been coordinating Psychological Operations under all three. Davis has been involved with the US intelligence community and a part of every administration from the 70's through the 90's.

Davis, Clinton and Perry are Trilateral Commission members. Davis, Clinton, Cohen, and Aspin all belong to the Council on Foreign Relations. Davis published a book titled "The Cold War Begins - Soviet-American Conflict Over Eastern Europe" (1974). Council on Foreign Relations members Warner Schilling, William Fox, Howard Wriggins, Marshall Shulman, and Henry Graff, are acknowledged in the beginning of her book.

Davis is also a Vice President at Council on Foreign Relations member David Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan bank. Does Davis help plan Psycho-political operations whose focus is economic warfare?

The RAND Institute is a federally-funded Council on Foreign Relations think-tank. Clients, include the Pentagon, the Atomic Energy Commission, and NASA. RAND's Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, was formerly called RAND/UCLA Center for the Study of Soviet International Behavior. Many RAND studies deal with how to manipulate large groups of people.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense sponsors the RAND National Defense Research Institute, headed by Council on Foreign Relations member Michael D. Rich. Fifty per cent of RAND's work is labeled secret. Despite the secrecy governing its activities, RAND has a prodigious outpouring of books, reports, memoranda, briefings, and communications. Joseph Kraft summed up the propaganda effect of this material, "Though little known, RAND has had an enormous impact on the nations strategic concepts and weapons systems, and in one way or another RAND has affected the life of every American family. " Members of the Council on Foreign Relations play a crucial role in RAND's application of strategies and techniques to purposely keep the American public misinformed.

In July 1992, the RAND convened a group of outside experts and RAND staff to discuss the problems of peacekeeping and peacemaking in the new world environment brought on by the collapse of Soviet power and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Dr. Davis, then RAND's Vice President, Army Research Division, prepared a paper setting issues for the group's discussion. The paper was revised and published as a RAND Summer Institute Report titled Peacekeeping and Peacemaking After the Cold War. In the report the word peace is used in an Orwellian doublethink manner. We are told the Secretary General of the UN "defines peace building as post conflict action... The Secretary General has linked preventive diplomacy with preventive deployments of military forces". We learn, "The Secretary General in his Agenda for Peace... emphasizes the need for governments to share information on Political or military situations, and in so doing, he is asking for an expansion of the intelligence sharing... "2

There were thirteen other participants at the RAND Summer Institute Peacekeeping and Peacemaking After the Cold War workshop.At least six belong to the Council on Foreign Relations including: Professor Robert D. Blackwill, Harvard University, Professor Richard Gardner of Coudert Brothers, Mr. James Hoagland The Washington Post, Ambassador Thomas Pickering NEA/INS Department of State, Dr. Enid Schoettle Council On Foreign Relations and Dr. Charles J. Zwick. At least one of the thirteen is connected to the CIA - Professor Thomas C. Schelling University of Maryland. 3

When World War I broke out in 1914, Elihu Root displayed antagonism to Woodrow Wilson's neutrality and was an avid proponent for promoting America's entry into the war, and uncritically backed Allied proposals that American Troops be integrated into British and French armies. When America entered the war in April of 1917 Wilson rejected the notion of having American troops commanded by foreigners and selected Major General Pershing to command an expeditionary force to Europe. When the Council on Foreign Relations was formally established, Elihu Root became its first Director. 4

Eighty-Five years latter the Council on Foreign Relations is still trying to put American Troops under foreign command. The last sentence of the Council on Foreign Relations RAND Summer Institute Report is,"The most important step would be for government to place "volunteer" military forces under UN command. "5

Should appointed officials who belong to an organization whose members are closely connected with industries that profit from war be making decisions that will send American Troops into battle? Are peacekeeping operations designed to maximize the profit of Council on Foreign Relations controlled, medicine, media, food, banking and energy industries?

Is this the next stage in a plan to maintain the most powerful military establishment in peace time history; the next stage in a plan to establish a new world order; the next stage in a plan for the men in control of that world order to be members of the Council on Foreign Relations, Royal Institute of International Affairs, and their branch organizations in other nations? Why are we readying two military bases to launch US Troops on UN Peacekeeping missions, under the command of non-US military personnel to fight in wars that have not been sanctioned by congress?

A list of US Secretaries of Defense, indicating Council on Foreign Relations membership follows:

posted 02-10-2003 11:42 AM            

Why are you wasting your precious time and wonderful fact-finding on knucklehead McAllister? According to him, if you even have 10% liberal views, you are the enemy. Amazing how Kook, Mech, and I can get along and even respect each other's views, but pudding head BJM, can't. Every person is a certain pertentage of left and right, but that doesn't change the fact of being decent or just an a..hole. Oh, by the way BJM, you referred to the new catch phrase on this board as "The Globalists". You have used the term "whipped with a wet noodle", three times now. Is this your imaginative new quote? Keep calling anyone who isn't 100% republican right, conservative idiots, and you get the same back. You play nice, we play nice. That hard to understand?

posted 02-10-2003 12:39 PM            

Democrats

John W. Davis(1924)
Adlai Stevenson (1952,56)
John F. Kennedy (1960)
Hubert Humphrey (1968)
George McGovern (1972)
Jimmy Carter (1976,80)
Walter Mondale (1984)
Michael Dukakis (1988)
Bill Clinton (1992)
Republicans

Herbert Hoover (1928,32)
Wendell Wilkie (1940)
Thomas Dewey (1944,48)
Dwight Eisenhower (1952,56)
Richard Nixon (1960,68,72)
Gerald Ford (1976)
George Bush (1988,92) (who was also a director of the CFR 1977-1979)
[...]
Didn't answer his question than nothing will.