[Sosfbay-discuss] Evolution of the Apocalypse- Empire’s Demise­Human Renaissance

[Carol Brouillet]

Posted this 
at-  http://questioningwar-organizingresistance.blogspot.com/ with links.

Evolution of the Apocalypse
Empire’s Demise­Human Renaissance
by Carol Brouillet


Apocalypse 
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language>Greek: 
Apokálypsis; "lifting of the veil") is a term 
applied to the disclosure to certain privileged 
persons of something hidden from the majority of 
humankind. Today the term is often used to refer 
to the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_event>end 
of the world, which may be a shortening of the 
phrase apokalupsis eschaton, which literally 
means "revelation at the end of the æon, or age.[1]"

      The unraveling of the US and global 
financial system should not be a surprise to 
anyone who has been paying attention, doubted the 
news headlines over the past decade, or plunged 
into an odyssey of self- and world-discovery by 
reading books, studying history, or seeking the 
truth behind the cultural myths that cocoon 
Americans into the notion that they live in the 
world’s beacon of democracy and freedom.  The 
most surprising factor is that people who have 
created the crisis think that they can continue 
the scam by stealing another $850,000,000,000 
overtly through the bailout, and even larger 
amounts covertly, to keep the game going for the 
world’s wealthiest people at the expense of everyone else.

      In the past, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and 
Rome fell when a small percentage of the 
population controlled nearly all of the wealth. 
[2] Today, the rich have never been richer nor 
the poor poorer. The concentration of wealth has 
been achieved by conquest, as well as by one of 
the most powerful tools of empire­money.

      Debt-based monetary systems are the 
building blocks of empires, and generally empires 
collapse or topple when they have destroyed their 
ecological base.  The current global empire 
severely threatens the forests, the oceans, the 
climate, the fertility of the soil, the aquifers, 
the bees, and innumerable other species, including humanity.

There is a Cree prophecy that goes as follows[3]:

“When all the trees have been cut down, when all 
the animals have been hunted, when all the waters 
are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to 
breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”

      Caught up in the empire game, many have 
forgotten the difference between money and real 
wealth. Money is a human invention. It is not 
neutral. Who creates it, how it flows in a 
society, a nation, and the world is important and 
subject to change.  Money is an agreement that 
can be backed either by force or by a spirit of cooperation.[4]

      Bankers, like magicians, do not want to 
reveal their secrets. Able to create money out of 
thin air, they have learned that belief in the 
value of money is the key to their success. When 
people begin to doubt the purchasing power of 
money, banks fail and currencies collapse.

     The “modern” fractional reserve banking 
system has evolved over centuries.[5] “Mortgage” 
literally means “death-gamble.” When mortgages 
were first introduced, those who risked their 
land to borrow money were literally risking the 
lives of their families, their liberty, and their 
hopes for the future.  Only gradually, over eons 
of time, did the idea of a “mortgage” become more 
commonplace, acceptable, and even encouraged. 
Mortgages became attached to the “dream of home 
ownership” and provided the liquid currency to fuel “national economies.”

     The origins of paper money can be traced to 
receipts that goldsmiths provided to their 
customers, who would leave their gold with a 
goldsmith for safekeeping. Centuries ago 
goldsmiths began giving out receipts for the gold 
that they safeguarded, and people soon learned 
that the receipts were more useful for business 
transactions than heavy amounts of gold. Some 
enterprising goldsmith figured out that it was 
not necessary to maintain a supply of gold equal 
to all the receipts issued, because all the 
customers would never come to claim their gold at 
the same time. Because large amounts of gold 
weren't necessary to ensure the utility of 
receipts, the goldsmith was able to issue many 
times as many receipts as he had gold in his 
vault, and the fractional reserve system was 
born. Since goldsmiths began to loan gold and 
receipts at interest, the system of "debt money" 
was born in which customers had to pay back more 
money (receipts) than were in circulation­thus 
ensuring that the community as a whole would 
always be in debt to the goldsmith.

         When money is created by the banks and 
loaned to governments or business at interest, it 
is mathematically impossible to pay back all the 
money with interest. Not all debts can be repaid, 
so foreclosures occur. In this way wealth is 
continually transferred from the poor to the rich.

      Kings, queens, and nations have succumbed 
to the power of those who lend them money, 
finance their wars, pay their armed forces­and 
own the means of communication, which either 
provide rulers their aura of legitimacy or can 
just as easily demonize and dethrone them.

      Over a hundred years ago, the populist 
movement in the United States rose up in the wake 
of the collapse of agricultural prices that 
threatened farmers and enriched bankers.  The 
farmers pushed for monetary reform, including the 
demand that dollars be backed by silver rather 
than gold. The populists also argued that money 
should be created by the government for the 
benefit of the people, rather than by banks for the benefit of the bankers.

     In 1890 the German economist Silvio Gesell 
formulated a theory of money that was as 
revolutionary as the notion that the earth 
circles the sun, rather than the other way 
around­despite appearances. Gesell suggested 
securing the money flow by making money a 
governmental service subject to a use fee. 
Instead of paying interest to those who have more 
money than they need, people would pay a small 
fee if they kept money out of circulation. The 
fee would serve as income to the government and 
would reduce the amount of taxes needed to carry out public tasks.

Gesell's ideas were tested by the mayor of Worgl, 
Austria, in 1932 when economic conditions were 
deplorable. The mayor proposed to substitute a 
local currency for the national currency­which he 
called “work certificates.” On the first of every 
month the holder had to affix a 1 percent stamp 
of the face value of the certificate. The "taxes" 
went into the community chest, to provide a 
relief fund for the invalids or elderly who were 
unable to work. Because of the stamp tax, taxes 
were paid quickly, accounts were settled without 
the usual delays, and even the bank became eager 
to loan out money, as fast as it received it.

         The mayor then embarked upon a public 
works program "to alleviate want, give work and 
bread," which exceeded his highest hopes. The 
conditions of the streets of Worgl had been a 
standing joke to the people in the surrounding 
countryside. In less than four months, sewers and 
improvements were completed. Later, other streets 
were paved, and even streets outside of Worgl 
were repaired. Prosperity blossomed throughout Worgl.

         Inspired by Worgl’s success, a meeting 
of 200 Austrian mayors decided unanimously to 
follow the Worgl example in their impoverished 
communities. At this point, fearful of losing its 
power, the private Austrian National Bank 
protested against the shattering of its 
money-making monopoly. After a legal fight, the 
Austrian Supreme Court sided with the bank, as 
might be expected. Although this experiment was 
abruptly terminated in Austria, the Worgl 
experience inspired three or four hundred scrips 
in circulation in the United States, Canada, and 
Mexico during the Great Depression.[6]

       If the Federal Reserve were actually a 
part of the US government, would the US 
government need to borrow money? Wouldn’t it be 
able to just print its own? In 1913 the Federal 
Reserve Act took away Congress’s Constitutional 
power of regulating the value of money and 
bequeathed it to private banks.[7]  Since then 
the financial plight of the US government has 
been dire and under pressure from the very rich, 
who choose which candidates and politicians will 
serve their interests and oust those who threaten them.

      In recent times there have been numerous 
communications revolutions, including radio, 
television, and the Internet, and social 
movements have also arisen.  At the same time 
there has also been the consolidation and 
expansion of corporate power served by new 
centers of supranational power, such as the World 
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the 
World Trade Organization. Alex Carey said:

"The twentieth century has been characterized by 
three developments of great political importance: 
the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate 
power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as 
a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.''[8]

      During this time money and resources have 
flowed from poor countries to rich industrialized 
nations. The Structural Adjustment Programs 
forced upon nations by the World Bank and the IMF 
have meant shifting food production from domestic 
needs to export crops, devaluing  local currency 
to encourage exports, cutting social spending on 
health and education, reducing wages, privatizing 
national industries, selling off natural 
resources, and removing tariff protections for 
local industries. Hunger, unemployment, hardship 
and inequality are the direct and calculated 
results of these World Bank policies.

      The vertical integration of entire 
industries has taken place with the rise of giant 
transnational corporations whose economies are 
larger than that of many countries.

      At the end of World War II, when the 
Bretton Woods Agreements were signed, the dollar 
became the de facto “world currency” and was 
backed by American gold reserves. In 1972, in the 
midst of the Vietnam War, when President Nixon 
detached the dollar from the gold standard, he 
detached the dollar from anything of real 
tangible value and basically allowed the currency 
rates of every nation to fluctuate in 
relationship to one another’s currencies.  The 
dollar was then backed by oil and American military might.

      In those days 98 percent of foreign 
exchange transactions had to do with the exchange 
of goods and services and only 2 percent were 
speculative. Today the vast majority of foreign 
exchange transactions have been speculative and 
less than 2 percent are for the exchange of real goods and services.

      Measurements have inherent limitations and 
biases. The family existed before money did. 
Villages grew out of interdependent relationships 
between families. As societies have grown more 
complex, hierarchies have developed and the 
"public family" or the state has created 
institutions that have taken over many of the 
functions once met within the household, such as 
educating children and caring for the sick. [9]

      In urban environments, basic living skills 
have been lost, people are more dependent than 
ever on the state or a monetized economy to meet 
their basic needs. In order to get slaves or 
labor to serve industries, people had to be 
forced away from the land where they once were able to sustain themselves.

      In the film “Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring 
on Sex, Lies and Global Economics,” Marilyn 
unravels many of the problems in the global 
system. The IMF and the World Bank were created 
to maintain certain power relations and exercise 
control over the world's resources. The U.N. 
System of National Accounts was based upon a 
pamphlet entitled "How to Pay for the War." That 
system, imposed upon every country that joins the 
U.N., enables the global elite to finance their 
militaries, to engage in conflicts with other 
nations, and to build internal security forces to 
control populations who might not agree with the 
expropriation of their country's resources.

         The system assumes that the unpaid work 
of women­who are bearing children, raising them, 
feeding them, carrying for the sick and aged, and 
maintaining a home or garden­is of little or no 
importance. Nor does the system recognize the 
value of forests or the natural world unless they 
can be chopped down and sold or monetized in some 
way. Monetary transactions are measured, no 
matter how devastating their effects are on the 
environment. The arms industry is the most 
lucrative of all industries. It is in the 
economic interest of the major powers that there 
always be a war going on somewhere. This 
pathological system does not recognize the 
inherent value of life, peace, or the earth 
itself. It does not even notice anything of 
unquantifiable value; it only sees that which it measures­money.[10]

         Maximizing profits is the primary value 
in modern economics. The economic measure of 
monetary flow is directly related to the rape of 
the earth, the amount of exploitation occurring 
within a country, and how effectively the world's 
parasites are expropriating the labor of others and the natural world.

     Because the greatest profit can be made 
through war and drugs, the global economy is a 
war economy. While the importance of oil for both 
energy and military purposes is enormous, 
dwarfing the oil industry in monetary terms is 
the illegal trafficking in drugs. Laundered drug 
money in enormous quantities has always found its 
way into the large financial centers and into key industries.

In 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_law>criminal 
law, fraud is the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime>crime or 
offense of deliberately 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception>deceiving 
another in order to damage them – usually, to 
obtain property or services unjustly. 
<http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f079.htm>[1] 


Fraud for profit is often perpetrated by industry 
professionals. There are generally multiple loan 
transactions with several financial institutions 
involved. These frauds 
include  misrepresentations including the 
following: Income is overstated, assets are 
overstated, collateral is overstated, the length 
of employment is overstated (or fictitious 
employment is reported), and employment is 
backstopped by conspirators. The property value 
is inflated (faulty appraisal) to increase the 
sales value to make up for their being no down 
payment and to generate cash proceeds in fraud for profit.[11]

      In the 80s, Congress paved the way for the 
savings and loan scandal by loosening 
regulations, which cost taxpayers $160.1 billion. 
John McCain was one of the “Keating Five” rebuked 
by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising 
"poor judgment" for intervening with the federal 
regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who was 
at the center of the scandal and convicted of 
fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy.

      The history of the stock market reveals a 
transition from investments in real companies 
producing tangible, measurable products and 
services toward “financial instruments” of an 
increasingly speculative nature.  Electronic 
money, borrowed and loaned into existence, 
flowing through cyberspace, can wreak havoc and 
collapse entire nations’ economies.  In the 90s 
the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) 
was devised to ensure the ability of speculators 
and multinational corporations to move capital in 
and out of countries without governmental 
involvement or public interest safeguards.[12] 
Recognizing the dangers of this agreement to the 
interests of people everywhere, civil society 
organized global resistance via the Internet to defeat the MAI.

     The 90s also witnessed major consolidation 
of the mass media, the frenzy of speculation in 
the high-tech industry, and the development and 
expansion of Internet commerce.  New technologies 
permitted local, national, and international 
communications and organizing to occur, which 
profoundly challenged the credibility and 
legitimacy of established governments, corporations, and the corporate press.

      Global resistance to corporate 
globalization broke through the mainstream media 
barrier in the US in 1999 in Seattle, Washington, 
when tens of thousands of protestors tried to 
peacefully shut down a World Trade Organization 
meeting. The first Indymedia.org website was 
created specifically for that protest to share 
information from the point of view of activists. 
Since then the Indymedia network has grown to 
span the globe­particularly in those cities where 
international protests have been organized, the 
main website is accessible in eight languages.

       Under President Clinton in 1999 and the 
leadership of Senator Phil Gramm (now co-chair of 
the McCain campaign), Congress repealed the 
Glass-Steagall Act which removed Depression-era 
laws separating banking, insurance, and brokerage 
activities and helped pave the way for the next 
wave of financial integration and fraud. In late 
2000 when Gramm chaired the Senate Banking 
Committee, he pushed through the Commodity 
Futures Modernization Act­which prohibited 
federal agencies from regulating financial 
products called credit default swaps, which have 
been used to back up the mortgage-based 
securities. The credit default swaps are the 
major reason for the 54 trillion dollar 
liabilities that are threatening financial 
institutions worldwide.[13] (After the 
legislation passed, the Swiss bank UBS purchased 
American institutions. UBS then hired Gramm as a 
lobbyist and paid him over $750,000. UBS alone 
issues over $18 billion in subprime mortgages.) [14]

      Throughout history there has been a 
struggle in all societies between a ruling class 
and the many who are not so privileged.  Toynbee 
noted that the world struggle takes place between 
a few vested interests and social justice.  There 
has always been a struggle between tyrants and 
ordinary people, where the people have made some 
gains and have also had setbacks.

    Social movements are born when public myths 
are shattered, societal secrets are revealed, and 
people realize that powerholders are acting in 
violation of deeply held values. In the current 
era, the Internet has allowed for the 
increasingly rapid transmission of information 
challenging powerholders, institutions, and cultural myths.

      Social movements are collective actions 
that alert, educate, and mobilize the public to 
redress social problems or grievances. With all 
the problems confronting humanity there are 
innumerable social movements, which have evolved 
and learned from one another.  At times they have 
come together in increasingly powerful 
coalitions. Professor and author Anthony Hall has 
called them “the fourth world,”[15] and others 
refer to them as the “anti-corporate 
globalization movement” or the “global justice movement.”

       In January of 2001 while the World 
Economic Forum was meeting in Switzerland, 
thousands of people from hundreds of countries 
met at the first World Social Forum in Porto 
Allegre, Brazil, a convergence of social 
movements. Their points of agreement included 
opposition to the policies of the IMF, World 
Bank, and WTO; opposition to militarism, 
corporate globalization, and environmental 
destruction; and support for public participation 
in decision-making processes, and for the respect 
for people and life over profits. Social 
movements are an evolutionary force that pushes 
people to live up to their ideals and values and 
enables people to exercise their collective power.

       When people believe that power flows 
downward from those at the top of institutions 
towards the helpless at the bottom of the 
pyramid, tyranny rules. Most people believe in 
this model. Under this model, change can be 
achieved only by appealing to elites, using 
persuasion. However, when people discover their 
own power and belief in democracy­that government 
should be “of, by, and for the people”­power 
flows from them through institutions to 
powerholders and public servants. True democratic 
power comes from the bottom, results in social 
progress, and powerholders and policies are 
changed to meet popular social demands.[16]

     The strategy of the powerholders is not to 
broadcast the truth about their beliefs, actions, 
policies, and programs. They know who benefits 
from the unfair distribution of benefits and 
costs within the existing system. They must keep 
their actual policies hidden from the public, 
because they rightly fear that the majority would 
rebel if they knew the truth.  Powerholders 
habitually use myths, slogans, and rhetoric to 
sell their policies and programs to the public.

      One of the great American myths that is 
promulgated by powerholders is the idea that we 
have a watchdog press. Over 3,000 people attended 
the last two National Conferences on Media 
Reform, primarily because of their deep concern 
about the failure of the traditional media. Lord 
Northcliffe said, “News is something that someone 
wants suppressed; all the rest is advertising.”

      Colossal crimes have been committed and 
then masked by the media for centuries. But the 
larger pattern in this era of 
information­including names, dates, evidence, and 
various kinds of documentation­is coming to light 
at a staggering rate, beyond the capacity of any 
one individual to absorb, read, process, and 
disseminate all the details.  In turn the 
information is gradually reaching the most 
heavily propagandized target audience­the 
American public, who are increasingly losing 
faith in their government, the war, the Congress, and the financial system.

           As Aung San Suu Kyi wrote, "It is not 
power that corrupts, but fear­fear of losing 
power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it."

      Fear, war, and terror are routinely used to 
shut down rational thinking processes­a tactic 
that Naomi Klein outlines in her book The Shock 
Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism[17] (as 
well as in the video[18]).  Klein fails to 
recognize, however, that 9/11 was designed to 
terrorize Americans and the world into going 
along with the bogus “War on Terror,” to forget 
about the missing $2.3 trillion on the Department 
of Defense books[19], the stolen election[20], 
the evidence destroyed in the Securities and 
Exchange Commission’s offices in World Trade 
Center 7,[21]  to not even notice the massive 
insider trading,[22] and then  to permit a giant 
escalation in the military budget and the 
construction of the surveillance industry. The 
plunge in the stock market and the “apparent 
attack” on America’s financial center also 
prompted the Fed to lower interest rates, which 
helped the housing market­and Bush encouraged folks to “go shopping.”

      The best historical parallel to 9/11 would 
be the Reichstag fire, which Hitler used to 
vilify and target “communists” and pass the 
Enabling Act (similar to the PATRIOT Act), before 
launching wars of aggression. The PATRIOT Act was 
mirrored by legislation passed in Canada, 
Australia, and the UK, severely eroding civil 
rights and granting more power to governments to 
chill dissent­to monitor and crack down on those they considered a threat.

      With the bust of the dot com bubble, 
speculative money went into real estate, housing, 
and derivatives[23]. Congress and the Bush 
administration changed laws and regulations to 
lure people into borrowing money, purchasing 
homes, and investing their savings in the 21st 
century Ponzi schemes. Elliot Spitzer was 
vilified by the press the day before he wrote an 
article naming Bush as the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime," saying

     “In 2003, during the height of the predatory 
lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 
1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state 
predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them 
inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules 
that prevented states from enforcing any of their 
own consumer protection laws against national banks. 


      "Not only did the Bush administration do 
nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an 
aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent 
states from protecting their residents from the 
very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye."[24]

      Close scrutiny of powerholders running the 
government, institutions, and corporations 
reveals conflicting loyalties and economic 
interests.  Legislators in fact represent the 
millionaires and billionaires who fund them and 
who continually rewrite the rules in their own 
favor and have decided that the Constitution is obsolete.

     The unfolding financial crisis has been 
arriving in wave after destructive wave.  People 
have lost their homes, their jobs, their savings, 
their health, their marriages, their kids, and finally their hope.

      The housing bubble began to burst when home 
prices in the US began to decline in March and 
April of 2007.  The IMF warned of risks to global 
financial markets.  Bear Stearns was in trouble 
in June 2007 because of its mortgage-backed 
securities.  In the summer of 2007 German banks 
were in trouble and foreclosures in the US almost 
doubled. In September 2007 there was a run on 
Northern Rock, which the British government 
nationalized, and the Fed began to drop interest 
rates to help the housing market. In January 
2008, UBS reported $18 billion in write-downs due 
to US real estate exposure.  In February, Fannie 
Mae reported a $3.55 billion loss. [25]

      In March, however, the Federal Reserve and 
the Treasury Department directed money towards 
the 85-year-old investment bank Bear Stearns, via 
JP Morgan[26] and $200 billion went to prop up 
Fannie Mae. By April the IMF projected $945 
billion in losses. In June housing possessions 
doubled again, and the FBI announced the arrest 
of over 400 people charged with mortgage fraud, 
including two senior managers of the failed Bear 
Stearns Hedge Funds.[27] In July Congress passed 
the Foreclosures Prevention Act, which was a $33 
billion hand-out to those who helped create the 
problem, according to a report by the Laborers' 
International Union of North America. Under the 
bill's little-publicized "carry-back" provision, 
builders would get billions in tax breaks and the 
15 largest corporate homebuilders, who made $16 
billion in profits on $100 billion in revenues, 
would receive a third of the benefits.[28]

      In September 2008, the Fed, in an 
unprecedented move, lent $85 billion to the 
American International Group (AIG), the nation’s 
largest insurance company, which also handled 
credit default swaps and suffered losses from its 
subprime mortgage-backed securities holdings.[29] 
Then Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and 
Bank of America devoured Merrill Lynch.  Soon 
there was a run on money market funds, and short 
selling of financial stocks was suspended 
globally. Bush made a speech acknowledging that 
there was a serious crisis, and backed Paulson’s bailout plea.

         There were only a few voices in Congress 
that dared to challenge the current bailout of 
the speculators so intimately involved in created 
the current financial crisis. Anyone could look 
up Henry Paulson on the internet to discover his 
ties to Goldman Sachs, but these ties were not 
emphasized in the mainstream media.  According to Wikipedia notes:

      “Paulson was Staff Assistant to the 
Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon 
from 1970 to 1972
 He joined Goldman Sachs in 
1974
 He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 
until 1988, Paulson led the Investment Banking 
group for the Midwest Region, and became managing 
partner of the Chicago office in 1988. From 1990 
to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment 
Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from 
December 1994 to June 1998; eventually succeeding 
Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its 
chief executive. His compensation package, 
according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, 
and US$16.4 million projected for 2006. His net 
worth has been estimated at over US$700 million. 
Paulson has personally built close relations with 
China during his career. In July 2008 it was 
reported by The Daily Telegraph that: "Treasury 
Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations 
with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at 
Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times. 


      “There is increasing evidence that Paulson 
was influential with two U.S. Securities and 
Exchange Commission Chairmen, William H. 
Donaldson and Christopher Cox, in receiving 
restraint in the Commission's exercise of 
oversight requirements. In 2004
the Commission 
agreed unanimously to release the major 
investment houses from the net capital rule, the 
requirement that their brokerages hold reserve 
capital that limited their leverage and risk 
exposure. The complaint that was put forth by the 
investment banks was of increasingly onerous 
regulatory requirements­in this case, not U.S. 
regulator oversight, but European Union 
regulation of the foreign operations of US 
investment groups. In the immediate lead-up to 
the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US 
pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign 
firms' reserve holdings if the SEC agreed to do 
so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 
however, put the parent holding company of each 
of the big American brokerages beyond SEC 
oversight. In order for the agreement to go 
ahead, the investment banks lobbied for a 
decision that would allow "voluntary" inspection 
of their parent and subsidiary holdings by the SEC.

      “During this repeal of the net capital 
rule, SEC Chairman Donaldson agreed to the 
establishment of a risk management office that 
would monitor signs of future problems. This 
office was eventually dismantled by Chairman Cox, 
after discussions with Paulson. According to the 
New York Times, ’While other financial regulatory 
agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, 
the [new] Treasury secretary, that proposed to 
reduce their stature ­ and that of the S.E.C. ­ 
Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to 
three former Democratic and Republican commission 
chairmen to complain that the blueprint would 
neuter the agency.’ Only in late September 2008, 
Chairman Cox and the other Commissioners agreed 
to end the 2004 program of voluntary regulation.”

      With the unregulated credit default swaps 
posing enormous liabilities to the financial 
institutions  that dwarf the global economy, 
Paulson’s allegiances to Goldman Sachs and AIG 
will help determine which institutions will 
fail­or escape, survive, and profit­in the current turmoil.[30]

      Henry Paulson asked for and received over 
$700 billion in taxpayer money with little or no 
oversight as to who will actually get the money. 
It is clear that it won’t be going to Main 
Street, and it is more than likely to go to 
Paulson’s Wall Street and foreign friends.

       Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur spoke out 
bravely against the bill, explaining precisely 
how it was being rushed through Congress[31], and 
Dennis Kucinich condemned it as well. Their token 
resistance was swept aside, even as 
Representative Brad Sherman pointed out the fear 
mongering and panic pressure placed on Congress 
to push it through.[32]  The fear that was 
generated by insiders and the media, as well as 
some token pork, helped to get the bill passed on 
Friday, October 3, 2008. Democrats, Republicans, 
and both presidential hopefuls were behind the bailout.

     Amongst Obama’s advisers are Franklin 
Raines, who was a chairman and chief executive 
officer at Fannie Mae; and Tim Howard, who was 
the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae; and 
Jim Johnson, who was an executive at Lehman 
Brothers and later forced from his position as 
Fannie Mae CEO.  Howard was forced to retire when 
auditing discovered severe irregularities in 
Fannie Mae's accounting activities. The books ran 
afoul of generally accepted accounting principles 
for four years, and Fannie Mae had to reduce its 
surplus by $9 billion. The Government filed suit 
against Raines and Howard when the scandal became 
clear[33]. The court ordered Raines to return $50 
million he received in bonuses based on the 
misstated Fannie Mae profits.  The government 
investigation determined that "Chief Financial 
Officer Tim Howard failed to provide adequate 
oversight to key control and reporting functions 
within Fannie Mae." Raines and Howard resigned 
under pressure in late 2004. Howard's golden 
parachute was estimated at $20 million.  Raines 
left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 
million in benefits. A look at the Office of 
Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 
report on mismanagement and corruption inside 
Fannie Mae reveals that Fannie Mae had hidden a 
substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation 
from the public, reporting that it was between $6 
million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 
million."   Johnson is currently under 
investigation for taking illegal loans from 
Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie 
Mae.  Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.[34]

          Any close scrutiny of  the financial 
ties of major politicians­particularly those in 
office such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pelosi, 
and Feinstein­reveal major conflicts of interest 
between the politicians and the military, oil, 
and pharmaceutical industries. At the highest 
levels, however, there is no accountability. Laws 
are meaningless to these people. They have the 
power and influence to pass murderous legislation 
that enriches and empowers them and their cronies 
and threatens and impoverishes the rest of us, 
all of this veiled by a subservient corporate 
press that bestows upon them an aura of 
legitimacy. Within government agencies there is 
corruption, fraud, and the persecution­rather 
than protection­of whistle-blowers.

      When Congress voted $87 billion to occupy 
Afghanistan and Iraq, some of that money was 
earmarked to suppress dissent in the US. In 2003, 
thousands of protestors gathered in Miami to 
oppose the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of 
the Americas. Pre-emptive arrests, violent 
violation of civil rights, brutal treatment of 
innocent medics, and criminalization of dissent 
became known as “the Miami model.”  The 
militarization of the police and Homeland 
Security’s targeting of anti-war and peace 
activists have continued and expanded since 
then­as seen most recently in the protests at the 
Democratic and Republican Conventions where even 
the regular press was arrested, and organizers 
were arrested and charged with “terrorism.”

      There is a battle going on­a clash of 
worldviews over what is true, legal, and moral; 
over who is a terrorist, and who is serving 
humanity; over who has the right to live, and who 
has the right or duty to jail, kill, or torture 
anyone. Every individual will have to decide for 
themselves what is true and what is 
legitimate­what is best for themselves, their 
families, their country, and the whole planet.

       The strategy of all social movements is to 
convince the public that a problem exists and 
that policies must be changed, and to exercise 
the people power that resides within themselves 
into a force that finds solutions to commonly recognized problems.

      The perpetrators of 9-11 had a different 
strategy. Their strategy was to terrify the 
American people into silence and submission, then 
bully the Congress into nearly unlimited funding 
for war and a greatly expanded surveillance 
industry (the anthrax attacks came at a 
convenient time for this).  The perpetrators of 
9/11used a BIG LIE to sell a “bogus protection 
racket” to their victims­to institutionalize 
under the guise of “National/Homeland Security” a 
greater concentration of wealth and power into 
fewer hands. Their tools were violence, fear, 
criminal fraud, manipulating the financial 
markets, and selling it all to the American 
people through the megaphone of the mainstream media.

      Cheney, like Napoleon, believes that you 
don’t have to suppress a truth­just delay it 
until it no longer matters. There are a growing 
number of people who are challenging the lies, 
especially through the Internet.  It is apparent 
that those in power are very much afraid of the 
Internet, of people’s ability to share 
information and communicate so that they can 
organize in unprecedented ways using emerging 
technologies, or simply gather together in a 
public space where free speech is still possible.

      The deeply held values, symbols, beliefs, 
sensibilities and traditions that are important 
to the public are being violated today by the 
power elite. The majority of people are against 
the war, torture, and the bailout of Wall Street. 
Those in power depend on the public to be stupid, 
uninformed, disengaged, apathetic, cynical, 
powerless, and silent. Social movements are 
dependent on empowered, engaged, informed people 
at every level of society to uphold the values 
and principles that are being violated by 
powerholders and their policies. Will the 
American people continue to wake up and begin to 
exercise more control over the US government to force changes in policy?

      A major cause of social problems is the 
concentration of political, economic, and 
military power in the hands of relatively few 
people.  An informed, empowered, and politicized 
population is required to resolve today’s 
problems and to establish a just, peaceful, 
sustainable world for all. Political and economic 
power ultimately rests with the majority 
population; rulers can only rule with the consent 
and acquiescence of the people. Where people put 
their time, energy, and money has a greater 
impact on society and the world than who they 
vote for.  Elections have been stolen for 
decades; only an awakened citizenry can oversee and ensure honest elections.

    The most important issue is the age-old 
struggle between the majority of people and the 
individual and institutional powerholders to 
determine whether society will be based on the 
authoritarian model­where power flows from the 
top down­or the “people power” model of genuine participatory democracy.

Kevin Barrett expressed the following in a talk 
entitled “A Folklorist Looks at 9/11 ‘Conspiracy 
Theories’” (folk meaning “the people,” as opposed 
to the “rulers and the press” who in the past 
have authoritatively defined “event/reality”):

      “Marshall McLuhan’s famous line “the medium 
is the message” could describe the way the 9/11 
Truth movement is an artifact of the Internet, 
and the radically-enhanced folk-communications it 
has brought. Thanks to digital audiovisuals, 
email and the world-wide web, the folk are now a 
leg up on their would-be manipulators, those 
well-paid professionals in corporate media, 
public relations, marketing, and psychological 
warfare or psy-ops, whose collective job is to 
reify and manipulate their fellow human beings.

      “It is one thing for the content of 
informal, non-institutional, “folk” communication 
to subvert institutional authority. It is another 
and more significant thing for the very medium of 
folk communication to radically shift in a way 
that empowers the folk and disempowers the 
institutions. And that is what has happened. The 
world has been turned upside-down as the old 
oral-transmission grapevine has gone digital


     “Today’s digitally-enhanced subversives and 
skeptics can spread large numbers of copies of 
audio, video and photographic evidence, along 
with an unlimited amount of writing, for pennies. 
This digital awakening may turn out to be our 
second post-Gutenberg revolution in half a 
century. Its importance may rival the emergence 
of writing, which created hierarchical societies 
of kings, priests and scribes; with the invention 
of the printing press, which created the kind of 
mass-literate societies we call “democratic”; and 
with the invention of television, which McLuhan 
suggests created a global village of creeping 
Orwellian fascism. 9/11, in this view, was the 
last gasp of television as a means of 
mind-control via mass hypnosis, while the 9/11 
Truth controversies may represent the birth pangs 
of the new, digitally-enhanced democracy.”

     It is sobering to know that if the world’s 
population was reduced to 100 representatives, 
only 1 would have a computer, or have attended 
college, and he would have more wealth than all 
the others and be from the United States. While 
70 percent of American homes may have access to 
the Internet, they are not representative of the 
world. However, an enlightened American people 
would be a grave danger to the advancement of the 
American Empire. We are uniquely responsible and 
able to thwart or advance the aspirations of the 
US oligarchy. We are also directly under attack 
by that oligarchy, who view us as a threat and 
are trying to criminalize dissent.

      The financial crisis that faces America and 
the world today was as orchestrated as the events 
of  9/11. Similar to what transpired after 9/11, 
it is likely that the financial crisis will be 
used to further concentrate wealth and power, 
crush dissent, criminalize larger and larger 
numbers of people, trash civil liberties, and 
generally replace the “rule of law” with the “rule of fear.”

      There is another possibility, however, 
which we the people can promote. We can join 
together to speak up, organize, and challenge the 
lies, crimes, and illegitimacy of the 
powerholders and corporations that threaten the 
well-being of the people of the world. We can 
create and nurture new organizations to fulfill 
real needs and aspirations. This is already 
taking place and can be seen in the rise of 
nonprofit organizations over the past decade. 
Ignored by the corporate media, Ron Paul, Cynthia 
McKinney, and Ralph Nader have raised key issues 
that the corporate-anointed candidates won’t 
discuss. The public must search the Internet for 
the statements of these courageous challengers to 
the oligarchy, because their views are ignored, 
marginalized, or dismissed in the corporate 
press­but they nonetheless provide a rallying cry 
for people looking for true change. At a recent 
press conference, the third-party candidates 
clearly represented majority opinions and 
interests, far better than McCain or Obama.[35]

      Repression, reform, revolution or renaissance?

     When revolutions occur simultaneously in 
many different areas, the transformation of 
society can be called a renaissance.  We are 
witnessing changes happening at a rapid pace in a 
multitude of areas, and few can begin to keep up 
with the new technologies and research.  As 
traditional power structures are threatened, new 
possibilities and synergies are emerging.  If the 
traditional banking system or the dollar 
collapses, money will be reinvented at the local, 
regional, national, and probably international levels.

      Mike Nickerson, author of Life, Money, & 
Illusion: Living on Earth as If We Want to Stay, wrote:

      “An alternative to panicking when GDP stops 
growing is to view it as a sign of maturity. 
Human activity cannot expand forever on our 
finite planet. Fuel prices, climate change and 
the sub-prime mortgage crisis are all symptoms of 
one cause. When we stopped growing as 
individuals, it was not the end of the world. 
Indeed, for most of us, life had scarcely begun 
before physical maturity. Even as physical growth 
ended, we became better informed, more 
comfortable in ourselves and we developed the 
skills and relationships that define our lives. 
The same can be true for civilization.”[36]

     The convergence of various crises­including 
the financial system, peak oil, climate change, 
population growth, resource depletion, and mass 
extinctions­is forcing humanity to collectively 
recognize its limits and mature as a species, simply to survive.[37]

      In order to behave maturely, wisely, and 
responsibly­and to make wise rational 
decisions­people need to know what is true, what is real.

      Mike Nickerson has been championing the 
Genuine Progress Index to provide more accurate 
information about how people are affecting the 
planet and one another. If economic indicators 
were aligned with universal values such as life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, economists 
would ignore the marketplace and concern 
themselves with the health and well-being of the 
environment, the health and well-being of every 
person, and whether the basic human needs for 
food, water, shelter, clothing, and education were being met.

      One of the heftiest charges against members 
of the Bush Administration is their attack upon 
science.[38]  There is ample evidence that they 
have ordered agencies to be silent about their 
findings, or to fudge data to suit political 
purposes and shape public opinion.  Only Bush 
science, as exemplified in the NIST report, could 
explain the collapse of all three World Trade 
Center buildings at free-fall speed as due to 
fire alone. Hundreds of independent scientists, 
architects, and engineers have rejected the 
conclusions of the NIST report. The scientific 
evidence indicates that two planes could not have 
shredded three steel-framed buildings, but that 
controlled demolition does explain their rapid disintegration.

       It is increasingly challenging to evaluate 
scientific studies without knowing who has funded 
them, and for what particular 
purpose.  Researchers whose findings challenge 
government or corporate objectives are vilified 
and lose their funding.  Citizen-supported 
scientific research and data collection whose 
intention and purpose is clearly in the interests 
of the health and well-being of people and their 
environment­whose data can be shared, checked, 
verified, and corroborated by others in a 
transparent manner­will ultimately gain the widest acceptance.

      Satyagraha, or “the force of truth,” 
pioneered by Gandhi, has inspired the social 
movements of today.  According to Schopenhauer, 
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it 
is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. 
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”[39]

      The individual and human journey also 
passes through stages. As proposed by Abraham 
Maslow in his classic study Toward a Psychology 
of Being, healthy people outgrow the 
self-centered need for material acquisition and 
find greater joy and purpose in more expansive 
activities­such as developing friendships, being 
of service to others, expressing creativity, and 
joining together with others to solve problems. 
The deliberate infantilization of the public and 
the manipulation of the public mind has 
contributed to the current crisis in values, 
where people seem to be concerned only for 
themselves and are cynical about what is 
happening in the world. The cure lies in the 
maturation of our species.  The times that we 
live in are calling to us to grow up, 
individually and collectively. We need to develop 
a greater understanding of ourselves and our 
world, to develop our talents and skills to make 
this a better world. Despite the dangers and 
challenges of the time we live in, we can find 
meaning and joy through joining together in the 
search for truth, peace, justice, and, freedom. 
As Gandhi and others have demonstrated, the 
truth, combined with love and compassion, will 
set us free. As we work together to pursue the 
truth and expand our awareness, we are lifting 
the veil and awakening from a media-induced 
trance so that we can more clearly see how we 
have allowed our power to be taken from us. This 
knowledge will empower us to reform the outmoded 
structures that are so oppressive and to create 
new systems that truly serve the needs of the 
people and the planet for current and future generations.



















[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse
[2] Debt Virus: A Compelling Solution to the 
World's Debt Problems, 1995 by Jacques S. Jaikaran
[3] http://www.unahi.org/quotes/native-american-quotes.htm
[4] Bernard Lietaer, ex-central banker, author of  The Future of Money:
Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World, 
2001, http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html
[5] Money as Debt, Paul Grignon's video 
production, available at 
<http://www.moneyasdebt.net/>http://www.moneyasdebt.net/ 
and viewable online at http://tiny.cc/z30uD
[6] Interest and Inflation Free Money, 1995 by 
Margrit Kennedy, http://tiny.cc/FQtb3
[7] Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace 
Mullins, http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html
[8] How Corporations Destroyed US Democracy by Propaganda, http://tiny.cc/UCT9Q
[9] Hilkka Pietila, The triangle of the human 
economy: household - cultivation - industrial 
production, http://www.kasakobiet.ngo.org.pl/teksty/hilkka_pietila_eng.html
[10] Whose Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies 
and Global Economics, http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
[12] http://www.citizen.org/trade/issues/mai/
[13] http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?p=608
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm
[15] http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1628
[16] Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for 
Organising Social Movements, by Bill Moyer,  http://tiny.cc/KB6W9
[17] http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
[18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc
[19] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
[20] http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248
[21] http://www.wtc7.net/articles/kimball/thirdskyscraper.html
[22] http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html
[23] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8634
[24] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8376
[25] http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3689713,00.html
[26] http://tiny.cc/dYeSJ
[27] http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june08/malicious_mortgage061908.html
[28] http://tiny.cc/1dQZI
[29] http://tiny.cc/0WX1c
[30] 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html, 

http://www.crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/60-minutes-wall-streets-shadow-market
[31] <http://tiny.cc/kRIcq>http://tiny.cc/kRIcq
[32] 
http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/h-r-1424-brad-sherman-one-minute-speech/11766853/
[33] http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/
[34] http://tiny.cc/E3K4h
[35] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LMoWqXrE4
[36] http://www.shanejolley.com/2008/09/05/silver-lining-economic-downturn
[37] http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak-oil-b
[38] http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62339

[39] Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
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