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Conspiracy Nation Vol. 12 Num. 09
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 12 Num. 09
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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BIG TROUBLE
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Ill fares the land,
To hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates
And men decay.
-- Oliver Goldsmith
First there is money. Then someone gets the idea, "Why not turn
the money itself into a commodity?" From its normal use as a
medium of exchange, the very money becomes something to be
trafficked in and profitable in itself.
Writes Aristotle in *On Politics*:
Money being naturally barren, to make it breed money is
preposterous and a perversion from the end of its
institution, which was only to serve the purpose of
exchange and not of increase.
Usury is most reasonably detested as the increase arises
from the money itself, and not by employing it to the
purpose for which it was intended.
In Rome, in 48 B.C., the issuing of money was done privately by a
few wealthy families. "Julius Caesar took this privilege from
them and restored it to the government to whom it belonged." [1]
For this, Julius Caesar was assassinated.
Jesus Christ dared to oppose the "money changers," and for that
he was murdered. "As long as Christ confined his teachings to
the realm of morality and righteousness, He was undisturbed; it
was not until He assailed the established economic system and
'cast out' the profiteers and 'overthrew the tables of the money
changers,' that He was doomed." [2] Jesus accused the "money
changers" of turning the Temple into a "den of thieves."
Subsequently, "the scribes and the chief priests heard it, and
sought how they might destroy him." [3] The day after Jesus
challenged the money system, He was interrogated. The next day,
He was betrayed. The following day, He was tried, and on the
fourth day He was executed.
Private banks such as the "Bank of England," "The Bank of the
United States," and the "Federal Reserve" are given misleading
names, implying they are government banks. The First "Bank of
the United States" was owned by private interests, most of them
British, including Mayer Amschel Rothschild who said, "Permit me
to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who
makes its laws."
When the charter for the First "Bank of the United States" was
not renewed in 1811, the bank's British owners were enraged.
There followed the War of 1812, during which the British invaded
the U.S. and burned Washington, D.C. to the ground. Shortly
thereafter, in 1816, a charter for the Second "Bank of the United
States" was approved by Congress. Vehemently opposed to the
First "Bank of the United States" had been Thomas Jefferson, who
warned, "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous
to our liberties than standing armies."
When the time approached for renewal of the Second "Bank of the
United States'" charter, our president was Andrew Jackson.
President Jackson called the Second B.U.S. "that thing," and felt
it was a menace. Said Jackson, "If Congress has the right under
the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be
used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or
corporations." The big money interests fought Jackson through
their newspapers and by withdrawing money from circulation. With
less money in circulation, there was an economic depression and,
of course, Jackson was blamed. Nonetheless, the People stood by
Andrew Jackson and the Second B.U.S. was defeated.
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln went to the New York bankers
to obtain loans with which to fund the Union armed forces. The
bankers told him, "Sure. We'll lend the money -- at 30 percent
interest." Disgusted, Lincoln turned down their offer and
devised a plan of his own. He persuaded Congress to pass a bill
authorizing the issuance of legal tender treasury notes. The new
money, called "greenbacks" because of the green ink used to print
them, worked. They were taken "at par" and stayed "at par" until
the Money Barons used the legislators they owned to hurry through
a "refinement" on the greenback law. On Feb. 25, 1862, an
"Exception Clause" Act was passed. Henceforth, the greenbacks
would be "good for all debts both public and private" =except=
duty on imports and interest on government debts. =Then=, the
banksters had an excuse to discount the greenbacks by 30 percent;
if you paid the banker a greenback dollar, he only allowed it to
count for 70 cents.
During the Civil War, the Money Power bought up government bonds.
They paid greenbacks for these bonds. When the Civil War ended,
the government owed these ultra-rich a bonded debt worth billions
of dollars. And these super-wealthy manipulators controlled
things so that, instead of being repaid with the same greenbacks
with which they had bought the bonds, they were repaid with gold.
In April of 1866 "The Contraction Act" was passed. U.S.
currency, including greenbacks, was to be burned. Between 1866
and 1879, the amount of money in circulation evaporated. In
1873, an "Act Revising and Amending the Laws Relative to the
Mints, Assay Offices, and the Coinage of the United States" was
passed. Hidden within the law was a clause which repealed the
"unit clause," previously passed by Congress in 1792. Up until
1873, the monetary unit had been based on silver. Gold was also
money, but its value was based =on silver=. We were =not= using
a "bi-metallic" system. (The wisdom in having silver as the
monetary unit was that silver was less easy to hoard by
unscrupulous persons wishing to make money scarce.) Thus, gold
became, for awhile, the only official money and the Money Barons
who had bought government bonds for greenbacks were repaid with
gold.
As always happens, the shrinking of available money brought on a
severe economic depression. In 1873 alone, 500,000 men lost
their jobs. For those lucky breadwinners who still had work,
their wages were drastically reduced. But the hard times led
many to a political awakening. "A large number of people in the
United States discovered that the economic premises of their
society were working against them." [4] In the South and the
West, the Farmers Alliance was born. More than a political and
economic movement, the Farmers Alliance was "a new way of looking
at society, a way of thinking that represented a shaking off of
inherited forms of deference." [4] With their political
awakening came self-respect and self-education. The Alliance
"pioneered a new political language to describe the 'money
trust,' the gold standard, and the private national banking
system that underlay all of their troubles." [4]
In August of 1886, the allied farmers issued what became known as
The Cleburne Demands
(Excerpts)
1. All land held for speculative purposes (much of it held by
foreign syndicates and domestic railroad syndicates) should be
taxed.
2. Laws to prevent foreigners from speculating in American land.
3. Certain railroad lands to revert to the government (which
had, through bribed legislators, originally given away the lands
to the railroads) and be declared open to purchase by actual
settlers.
4. A halt to "the dealing in futures of all agricultural
products."
5. "A federally administered national banking system embracing a
flexible currency, to be achieved through the substitution of
legal tender treasury notes."
In the latter 19th century, besides the money monopoly, a new
power group emerged: The Associated Press. "In an era of
trusts, it was one of the nation's most effective monopolies."
[5] Most Americans were "aghast," writes J. Anthony Lukas in his
magnificent book, *Big Trouble*, "that a 'great octopus' like the
AP could embrace eight hundred member papers." Wrote one
independent newspaper editor of the time, "Here is the most
tremendous engine for Power that ever existed in this world. If
you can conceive all that Power ever wielded by the great
autocrats of history... to be massed together into one vast unit
of Power, even this would be less than the power now wielded by
the Associated Press." [5] And controlling the Associated Press
was, of course, the Money Monopoly.
The Oliver Stone movie, "JFK," reportedly financed by Rothschild
family funds, focused on the Vietnam angle as the motivation
behind President Kennedy's murder. Not well known is that,
shortly before he died, John F. Kennedy had quietly overseen the
issuance of interest-free notes (some of which are still in
circulation). [6] And Oliver Stone, although a talented
film-maker, portrayed Henry Kissinger as if he was the icon for
elder statesmen in his movie, "Nixon." Why would "rebel" Stone
show Kissinger in such a good light? And why is it that the
high-power public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton, which
coordinated propaganda favoring U.S. entry into the Persian Gulf
War, handled the publicity for Stone's film, "JFK"? [6] Could it
be that, on the road to success, Oliver Stone has had to make
little "compromises"? To paraphrase Mayer Amschel Rothschild:
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care
not who makes its movies."
When the late J. Anthony Lukas decided to call his book "Big
Trouble," was he thinking, "Big Trouble THEN; Big Trouble NOW"?
The Money Power has gone hog wild lately. Citicorp illegally
merges with Travelers Group and takes it for granted that
the Executive branch will not enforce the law and that Congress
will even =re-write= the law and get the newly-formed Citigroup
off the hook. And get ready now for "SuperMarket Banks" allowed
to handle all financial transactions under one roof, including
the buying and selling of stocks. Meanwhile, the average
American worker begs for decent employment, competes with
imported foreign labor for survival wages, has little job
security -- AND turns on his TV to hear that "the economy is
good."
Ill fares the land.
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
[1] *Lincoln: Money Martyred* by Dr. R.E. Search. Omni
Publications, PO Box 900566, Palmdale, CA 93590
[2] *Money and Its True Function* by F.R. Burch. qtd. in
*Lincoln: Money Martyred*.
[3] Mark 11: 18.
[4] *The Populist Moment* by Lawrence Goodwyn. London: Oxford
University Press, 1978. ISBN: 0-19-502417-6.
[5] *Big Trouble* by J. Anthony Lukas. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1997. ISBN: 0-684-80858-7.
[6] *...And The Truth Shall Set You Free* by David Icke. ISBN:
0-952-6147-1-5.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
For related stories, visit:
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html
http://www.netcom.com/~feustel
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Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those
of Conspiracy Nation, nor of its Editor in Chief.
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Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc?
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
