by Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

Treason

trea·son (trzn)
n.
1. Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.

It has been said that a Democracy will only last as long as it takes the citizenry to figure out they can vote themselves money out of the treasury. I would like to add my corollary to this: A Republic will only last as long as it takes the Plutocrats to figure out a way to buy the Democratically elected Representatives. This pretty much sums up where we are today. But how did we get here? It was not always this way. While a thorough examination of the history of this nation is beyond the scope of this article, there are some milestones, some key indicators that show an America that might have been had we not allowed the greed of a few to seduce us from the path of progress.

The Bankers

What is the biggest concern in the world today? Food? Medical care? Access to technology? Education? Clean water? All these things are vitally important to be sure, but none of them are within reach without access to energy. Energy makes modern life possible. When our Earth is viewed from Space at night, you can tell where the wealth, industry and technology centers are merely by looking at the portions which are lit up. You can tell where poverty is by noting the darkness. Imagine what this planet would look like, where we’d be if people everywhere had access to abundant free energy. It almost happened.

In 1903 Nikola Tesla was finishing up work on his “Wardenclyffe Tower.” It was built with the backing of financier J.P. Morgan. Yes, the same J.P. Morgan now associated with the J.P.Morgan/Chase name. It was nearing completion when Mr. Morgan learned that it would transmit electrical power for free through the air. Upon learning this, he was stunned. He immediately withdrew his backing causing the project to halt just prior to completion. Why did he do this? As it turns out, J.P. Morgan was heavily invested in copper and had anticipated making a fortune off of the copper wiring needed to bring electricity into each and every home and business. Had Nikola Tesla’s project come on line, Morgan’s profit stream would have vanished like a light fog on a windy day.

We were that close! Imagine a world with no power outages. A world where electricity was free. A world where power could be brought to every hamlet and village without the need to run wiring. Power to run pumps for water. Power to run your electric vehicle with no need for a battery. Power to run factories and food processing plants. Think of how much cleaner the air would be. Mountains and hilltops that have been strip mined for coal would still be in their pristine condition. Streams that were defiled by slag and run off from the mining process would be clear and clean. There never would have been a BP oil spill because we wouldn’t need oil except for the production of some polymers. Our demands for that could be easily filled by the oil wells we already have.

The banking houses were not finished with us by a long shot. There has been a war for primacy which has been going on between banking houses for maybe 1,000’s of years. It started in the “Old World” and moved here. Just as with the Hollywood serials we grew up with, Banking Houses have been having showdowns and shoot-outs with the American economy caught in the crossfire. Make no mistake, this game is about global domination and in the words of the Highlander, “there can be only one.”

Think of the movie Underworld. The movie about a war between Vampires and Lycans. Society was blissfully unaware – as sheep often are – of the battles raging all around them. Though unstated in the movie, the ultimate prize was to have the human population as a prey item all to themselves. The banking houses like packs of Werewolves were battling between themselves using full automatic weapons and hand grenades. It occurred to some of them that in their fight for supremacy, the very people who’s harvested money made their profits possible were being destroyed. The “Great Depression” was symptomatic of this.

Stock manipulation, insider trading, leaking of false information caused bank stocks to plummet and the blood letting was fierce. J.P. Morgan and others were behind this. In the process people lost everything. So vicious were these internecine banking wars, people were rapidly losing confidence in the entire banking system. The only purpose for banking – particularly at that time – was the assumption that it was safer to store your money at a bank than under your mattress at home. It was being proven in the most poignant way possible that this was simply not the case. If people began taking their money out of banks, the entire banking system would collapse and none of the Banking Houses would make any money. In fact, like a virus this realization could spread to Europe and the global game for world domination could come crashing down. Something had to be done and it had to be done quickly.

The Not So Federal Reserve

Just as smart farmers practice crop rotation and soil conservation, the Banking Industry needed a set of rules and guidelines to protect the crop of human sheep they depended upon for economic sustenance . Think about how bad things must have been for natural rivals, foes and in some cases outright enemies, to come together and put in place rules and regulations limiting to what extent they could “gut” the American people.

In 1910 a group of high ranking banking cartel members met on Jekyll Island – a resort island off the coast of Georgia owned by J.P. Morgan – to draft the plans for a “Central Bank” that would serve to regulate how much blood letting banks could do and protect the crop of American sheep so desperately needed for their profits to continue. Although there were several fully owned, bought and paid for Congressmen present, the Federal Reserve law was crafted and written in it’s entirety by the Banking Houses. It was a law for the Bankers, of the Bankers and by the Bankers. The U.$. citizens were being sold into slavery. The dollar sign actually stands for the “slave behind bars.” Fitting.

Think about it this way. If I owe you a sum of money… but the only money you will accept in payment is money I have to borrow from you, will I ever be able to pay off my debt? This is the Federal Reserve System in a nutshell. Back when the national debt was only $400 million dollars – owed to the Federal Reserve – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy realized the scam being perpetrated on the American people. On June 4, 1963 he issued Executive Order 11110. This order brought the printing of money back under the Federal Government. These dollars printed became known as “Red T-Notes” or “Red Treasury Bills” instead of the “Green Treasury Seal” you’re so accustomed to seeing, the seals on these bills were printed in “red.” President Kennedy paid off our national debt and America was debt free. 5 months later he was dead. One of the first acts by President Lyndon Baines Johnson was

to put us back under the Federal Reserve. Coincidence? Only if you believe in the “accidental theory of history.” To my Republican friends, that’s right, the only time in living memory when the entire national debt was paid off was under a Democratic President. I suspect it cost him his life.

Treason

The Banking Houses are by no means the only villains we’ve had to contend with. Wealthy Industrialist, owners of some of the largest corporations of their time, were supplying and supporting the NAZI war machine at the same time our boys were fighting and dying to stem the tide of Nazism and liberate Europe. Below is a partial list of some of the companies and industrialist that supported Hitler and supplied the Nazi war machine with much needed goods and services.

• J.P. Morgan
• Rockefeller
• Henry Ford
• Prescott Bush (Grandfather of President G.W. Bush)
• General Electric Company
• Standard Oil
• National City Bank
• Chase Manhattan Bank
• Kuhn Loeb and Company
• General Motors
• Ford Motors
• DuPont
• Warburg Manhattan Bank
• Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH)
• International Business Machines (IBM)

These are but a few of the companies and industrialist who put profits above American lives. Did they have to wring the American blood from those dollars before stacking them in their vaults? Isn’t it comforting to know that these things are no longer happening today? Or are they?

Same Game With Players Added

First it was just the Banking Houses playing for total Global domination. The Game hasn’t changed. The goal is still the same. All we’ve done is added more players. No matter how it goes. No matter whom wins, for you the end objective remains the same. Your destiny is to be a totally controlled slave. Your only reason for existence will be to benefit and power their wealth. Nothing more. Nothing less. Here is the hard truth put in a way that is easy to understand.

All one need do is look around. What you see happening is not happening by random chance. It is not the chaos principle rolling the cosmic dice. What you see is the result of planning and scheming. When you’re not a part of the plan, chances are better than average, the plan doesn’t benefit you!

Grazing Our Way to the Slaughterhouse

Anyone who’s ever taken “Economics 101,” was taught three seminal principles. The first is that the self-regulating “Invisible Hand of the Market” is the best, most efficient way to run an economy. The second is “Supply and Demand.” As supply goes up, demand goes down and vice versa. According to your instructor this is what causes the fluctuations in price. The third principle is what is known as the “Guns vs. Butter Paradigm.” The more you spend of your Gross Domestic Product on “guns” – hard items, infrastructure what have you – the less of your GDP you can spend on “Butter” – the luxury items – such as entertainment, ball games, nights out to the cinema or more relevantly, PBS, Sesame Street and Big Bird.

It makes sense. It is easy to understand. It can be regurgitated on demand for tests… and it’s all a total fantasy! I can prove it to you right now. Consider the price of gas. Republicans will tell you that gas is so high because President Obama won’t let Big Oil drill in our National Parks and other precious federal lands. Yet, when you look at the actual facts – something Republicans run from like they’re the plague – Oil production is at an all time high. Thus the supply from the United

States – which by the way only controls 20% of the worlds oil reserves – is higher than what it was under the Bush Administration. If the price of gas had anything to do with the supply of oil from the United States, our gas prices should be hovering around $1.40 per gallon. One myth down. Two to go.

What about the “Invisible Hand of the Market?” The problem with this myth goes to the definition of “Free Market.” Take the Stock Market. Is the Stock Market free? Of course it isn’t. To be free everybody would have to have equal information. Equal ignorance and equal opportunity to buy and sell. You only make a profit in the stock market one of two ways. You have the luck of the Irish – not that the Irish have ever been particularly lucky – or you know something your fellow traders do not yet know. For example. A buddy of mine calls me up and gives me a stock tip. A company he’s working for is about to bring a new widget to the market. Their stock is about to “spike” up significantly. I call my broker and buy 5,000 shares. Sure enough, within a month I’ve tripled my initial investment. Is this the Free Market at work? Of course not. He could have just as easily told me that he’d gotten word that the profit and loss statements due to be released were going to show a loss for the quarter and that I should sell.

They’re not even bashful about things any longer. They pay analyst huge sums of money to predict what a stock is likely to do. Investors live by those reports. It never occurs to them, these analyst might be getting a check under the table to upgrade or downgrade a stock to benefit the bottom line of some huge corporation. Is the Market free? Of course not! If I know something you don’t know then I have an advantage. When it comes to money there is nothing some people and corporations will not do to gain an advantage. Am I saying they are all corrupt? No, of course not. However, how do you know which ones are and which ones are not?

The “Guns vs. Butter” paradigm is probably the most easy to see through. Sure it makes sense in the civilized confines of the economics classroom. It’s an excellent exercise in erudition to juggle the numbers, plug them into spreadsheets and watch the colorful graphs and projections tumble across your screen. The real world is quite a bit different however. What happens if I simply spend all my GDP on guns, then come and take your butter? This worked for Russia and led to the formation and consolidation of the Soviet Union. It worked for Hitler and brought us WWII. In point of fact, this is exactly how many countries in the real world work. All that stuff they taught you in school is just a fantasy. It gives you just the background trivia you need to become a trainable drone for the corporate machine.

TREASON! How America was Bought, Stolen and Sold!

In my perfect world, all those who worship at the altar of capitalism would be rounded up and put into an institution for the criminally insane. Sound harsh? Perhaps. However, when we look at some of the things that have been done to the American people in the name of Capitalism and the free market I think my response is actually rather mild.

In truth when one examines American corporations and their history, one might be looking at a book review for “Angels and Demons.” There have been some corporations that have been very beneficial to these United States and whom were essential for it’s growth and development. However, if I set before you a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes with a large pat of butter melting in a pond on top… and you look down and notice a large green housefly swimming in that butter, what do you see? All those nice fluffy mashed potatoes? Or that hideous housefly? Suppose I told you to just eat around the fly, would you? Perhaps if you merely fished the fly out? Would the potatoes be all better now? Somehow I get the feeling that the entire bowl of mashed potatoes would have to go.

So it is for me when I look at some of the horrific things corporations have done to the American people and the American Economy. It is not my purpose to give an exhaustive list, but I will hit a few highlights or perhaps we should call them “low-lights?”

ENRON a Tragedy in 2 Parts

Remember Enron? This mega-corporation nearly cornered the American Energy Market. Be it electrical, gas or oil, Enron had it’s fingers all in it. Things got so good for them, they began creating the demand to justify raising their prices by creating “rolling brown-outs” on the west coast during the height of the summer heat. These brown-outs were artificially induced. They caused auto-accidents and people died!

 The first part of this tragedy is what was done to the entire west coast of our nation. The traffic accidents, people who died because ambulances couldn’t reach them in time or couldn’t get them to the hospital in time, What price would you place on those lives? What if it were a family member? Your grandmother suffering in the heat of an apartment or nursing home with no power. The only reason? To artificially inflate the price that a vastly overvalued stock was being traded at, and to artificially inflate the cost of energy. Had a foreign nation done this, we would have considered it an act of war. However because it was an American corporation, we bowed at the altar of Capitalism.

What Enron did in California and up the West Coast was the “bridge too far” that brought about their ultimate ruin. Market analyst were already noticing anomalies with their stock price. They began digging a little deeper. Once you come on the radar, people notice and start to investigate. The house of cards was starting to crumble. This response by then CEO of Enron, Ken Lay, to columnist, Paul Krugman on Mr. Krugman’s New York Times column pointing out that Enron was the quintessential example of why we need more regulation, Mr. Lay said the following:

“The broader goal of [Krugman’s] latest attack on Enron appears to be to discredit the free-market system, a system that entrusts people to make choices and enjoy the fruits of their labor, skill, intellect and heart. He would apparently rely on a system of monopolies controlled or sponsored by government to make choices for people. We disagree, finding ourselves less trusting of the integrity and good faith of such institutions and their leaders. The example Mr. Krugman cites of “financialization” run amok (the electricity market in California) is the product of exactly his kind of system, with active government intervention at every step. Indeed, the only winners in the California fiasco were the government-owned utilities of Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. The disaster that squandered the wealth of California was born of regulation by the few, not by markets of the many.”

Here is a company who’s accounting practices were so corrupt they brought down Arthur Anderson one of the largest and most reputable accounting firms in the nation. They were hiding money in dummy companies all around the globe, they were transferring losses from Enron to other dummy companies and it all came crashing down when they attracted intense scrutiny because of their criminal conduct in managing the power and dealing with their customers on the west coast.

This brings us to part 2 of the tragedy. Many people had an awful lot of Enron stock in their portfolios and pension plans. A whole lot of people lost their shirts. If you had an IRA or a Pension plan back then, you probably took a hit as well. Although you may have never even considered buying Enron stock, the mutual funds that pensions and IRA’s invest in often have holdings investors are not aware of. One pension fund in Florida lost over $300 million when Enron’s stock dropped to $1. If you’re in your 20’s and just starting out, no big deal. However if you were close to retirement, that type of loss to a pension fund would be devastating.

Outsourcing

There’s nothing quite like buying a brand new American Flag, reading the tag only to discover it was made in China! Here are a few facts. The average median income here in America is right around $48k per year. The average median income in China is around $6,700 per year. There is no way we can compete with those labor rates nor should we.

When an American worker makes $48k, out of that money comes taxes which support our schools, roads, infrastructure, police and fire departments, hospitals etc. Also, out of that $48k groceries are purchased which help the American farmer. Products are purchased at shopping malls which help other businesses. Cars are bought and maintained and the money that is paid to the American worker is circulated all throughout our economy benefiting all of us.

When that American worker’s job is outsourced to China, yes he’s in a world of hurt, but the reality is, all of us are hurt. Yet, many continue to graze like dumb sheep. The wolves grab one of their brethren and their position is, “well, at least it wasn’t me. He/She must have done something wrong.” This is a recipe for ultimate disaster. One by one the sheep are picked off until they finally get around to you. You are on the menu and they will get to you eventually.

Let’s say you’re retired and living happily on your pension and Social Security. The Social Security fund is set up on the premise that people who are currently working and paying their Social Security are funding the program for you. As more and more jobs are transferred out of the country, the Social Security fund will shrink. This is true for Medicare as well. No matter where you are, where you live, you are affected by factories closing and those jobs being sent to other countries. Even if you’re self-employed, you’re affected.

The only way to compete with China is for us to become China. One China is enough. We do not want to lower our lifestyle to that of the people of China. You wouldn’t want to live here if we did. Thus when they talk about the American worker not being as competitive on the world market as the Chinese worker, understand what they’re really saying. What they’re saying is they don’t want to pay American wages period.

Sensata is a company in Freeport, IL. In the 4th quarter of 2011 they had a net revenue of $453.4 million dollars. This was up 16.9% from the 4th quarter of 2010. They were acquired by Bain Capital – Mitt Romney’s Company – and Bain decided that they could greatly increase their profits by moving operations to China. How much profit is enough? Do we sit quietly by while the wolves pick those employees off one by one? At what point do we rise up and say enough is enough? With each job shipped overseas we move one step closer to becoming a 3rd World Nation.

Corporate Misdirection

Make no mistake, the corporate objective is no different than the big banking houses. They too are playing a zero sum game for total global domination as well. If you’ve ever watched Survivor on CBS, this should be familiar to you. In the beginning of the game alliances are formed. People work together to eliminate other people in the group. The problem is, there can only be one winner. Thus you know at some point in the game, treachery will ensue. Someone is going to get stabbed in the back. I suppose some find this entertaining which is why the show is still on.

Right now corporations and industrialist are working together. They’re working to break up the Labor Unions that made the “Middle Class” possible. They’re working together to buy congressmen and by extension they’re stacking the courts, getting rid of regulations and slowly their noose is tightening around the necks of the American people. They’ve been working on their plan for years now. There has been a steady stream of propaganda that goes out over the talk radio networks they own, vilifying Labor Unions. Drip, drip, drip it’s been going on for years now. Most people have a dim view of Labor Unions. They forget that Labor Unions are the reason they only have to work 40 hr. weeks. Labor Unions are the reason that kids aren’t working in factories. It was Labor Unions that forced corporations to profit share with their employees. Labor Unions are the reason you have health care. Paid vacations? Labor Unions. Yet, many people now believe that Labor Unions have outlived their usefulness.

Corporations spend copious sums of money lobbying and advertising. It’s all about control and if you think they’re not spending equal amounts of money to frame and shape the debate and conversation, you’re naive. The “Tea Party” is an excellent example of this. TEA Party = Taxed Enough Already Party. Most of these people aren’t even paying taxes to speak of. They’re out fighting against the very revenue stream that benefits them and will help them make it into the Middle Class or remain there if they’re borderline Middle Class.

A tax is a fee for services provided by the government. If your issue is all about how much you’re paying, shouldn’t you be focusing on the corporations that are gouging you at the gas pump, grocery store, interest rates and all those other things we purchase everyday? We can elect our public officials. We cannot elect those corporate board members who make the polices that really gouge our pocketbooks. The only agency that can protect us from them, is our government.

I’m not going to tell you that government is our saviour because it’s not. However, government is not our enemy. It is there to protect and serve the people and we do have control over our government through our vote. The large corporation that’s charging you usurious interest rates? The only advocate you have against them is government. This is why they’re trying to use you to hamstring government by putting the people they’ve already bought into power.

This is a zero sum game. The wolves are hungry and you’re on the menu. It has always been about the control and enslavement of the world. Unless you’re sitting in a spaceship with some sort of a warp drive, you don’t have a lot of options. We outnumber them. This is why one of their main techniques has been “divide and conquer.” Black against White against Latino. Man against woman, pseudo-rich against the poor. It’s all a game but it’s played “for keeps.”

TREASON! How America was Bought, Stolen and Sold

Think about the contrived “undocumented worker” problem. Why is everyone up in arms about shutting down our borders? It is an expensive, wild goose chase that won’t be effectve. Undocumented workers come here to work. If they really wanted to stop them from coming, there would be no need to play hide and go seek along the border. All you’d have to do is start arresting CEO’s and business owners who hire people who are here illegally. It is simple and cost effective and it would solve the problem with in a month, two months at the most.

The truth of the matter is, this is yet another case of corporate misdirection. They’ve got you looking at the border for the people who they’ve got working in their back rooms and factories. They’re telling you that the reason your pay check is so low is because of the people they’re hiring illegally. Instead of picketing these businesses and demanding the arrest of these employers, we’ll get shirt tail militias to sit in lawn chairs watching the border.

We complain about how bad things are and make noises about our jobs being shipped overseas and then go shop at Wal-Mart where most of their inventory comes from China. We have the power to choose. We should use it wisely. Don’t bank with banks who don’t have your best interests or this nation’s interest at heart. Don’t buy things not made in America. Don’t elect politicians who are owned by corporate America and for God’s sake! Do not vote Republican. At some point in the future? Maybe. However, right now, the Republicans have been co-opted by corporate interests that are antithetical to what is best for this nation.

I don’t want to live in a 3rd world nation. If I did, I could move to one. I like children having good schools. I like teachers to make a decent living. I like fire fighters, police and medical responders to be well paid. I like having our roads cleared in the winter and potholes filled in the spring. I think Social Security and Medicare are just fine the way they are. I believe we owe the young men and women who serve in our military a job when they get back and the peace of mind knowing that their families are well fed, cared for and bills paid while they’re gone. Gosh darnit! I want the pilots who are flying the plane paid well enough that they’re not distracted by thoughts of making ends meet while they’ve got my life in their hands at 30,000 feet. I’m not interested in a race to the bottom. I want us to race to the top. How do we do all this? The first step is you’ve got to wake up.