Nuremberg, USA or Impeach Now So That It Will Happen Never Again

[McCamy Taylor]

“The trail of Richard Nixon, if it happens, will amount to a de facto trial of the American Dream. The importance of Nixon now is not merely to get rid of him; that’s strictly political consideration…The real question is why we are forced to impeach a president elected by the largest margin in the history of presidential elections…The necessity of actually bringing Nixon to trial, in order to understand our reality in the same way the Nuremberg trials forced Germany to confront itself…” Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Washington: The Boys in the Bag 1974 The Great Shark Hunt

Would the history of the American West have been different if the Andersonville Trial had been different? What a silly question. The mind of the United States would have to be different for that to happen. Especially in its early days, this country had a slash and burn mentality. You don’t like the place you are or what you have? Cut it down, pack up your belongings and move west to start over again.

Though Swiss born Confederate Major Henry Wirz made a convenient scapegoat for the 13,000 Union soldiers who died at Andersonville Prison from exposure, disease and violence, he was hardly the only one in the Confederate Army making decisions. Someone higher up chose to continue overcrowding the facility built for many fewer, someone chose to under supply it. Union forces chose not to bargain harder for their prisoners’ release. Lots of things were done during time of war for the sake of expediency. War brings out the worst in everyone. And after the war is over, it is easier to pick out one or two “bad apples”, say “He is an abomination! Inhuman! None of us would ever act like that!” The chosen scapegoat is tossed into the sacrificial fire, and we are cleansed of our collective guilt, free to go out and do it again. And again.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/civilwar/p/andersonville.htm

We did it on another Civil War battlefield, Sandcreek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_Massacre

Black Kettle, a chief of a group of around 800 mostly Southern Cheyennes, reported to Fort Lyon in an effort to declare peace. After having done so, he and his band, along with some Arapahos under Chief Left Hand, camped out at nearby Sand Creek, less than 40 miles north. The Dog Soldiers, who had been responsible for much of the conflict with whites, were not part of this encampment. Assured by the U.S. Government's promises of peace, Black Kettle sent most of his warriors to hunt, leaving only around 60 men in the village, most of them too old or too young to participate in the hunt. Black Kettle flew an American flag over his lodge since previously he had been assured that this practice would keep him and his people safe from U.S. soldiers' aggression.<11>

Setting out from Fort Lyon, Colonel Chivington and his 800 troops of the First Colorado Cavalry, Third Colorado Cavalry and a company of First New Mexico Volunteers marched to Black Kettle's campsite. On the night of November 28, soldiers and militia drank heavily and celebrated their anticipated victory.<12> On the morning of November 29, 1864, Chivington ordered his troops to attack. One officer, Captain Silas Soule refused to follow Chivington's order and told his men to hold fire. Other soldiers in Chivington's force, however, immediately attacked the village. Disregarding the American flag, and a white flag that was run up shortly after the soldiers commenced firing, Chivington's soldiers massacred the majority of its mostly unarmed inhabitants.

snip

Between 150 and 200 Indians were estimated killed, nearly all elderly men, women and children. In testimony before a Congressional committee investigating the massacre, Chivington reported that as many as 500-600 Indian warriors were killed..

Snip

During these investigations, numerous witnesses came forward with damning testimony, almost all of which was substantiated by other witnesses. At least one of those witnesses, Captain Silas Soule, was murdered in Denver just weeks after offering his testimony. However, despite the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the Wars' recommendation, justice was never served on those responsible for the massacre. A Civil War memorial installed at the Colorado Capitol in 1909 listed the Sand Creek massacre as one of the Union's great victories.

We did it over and over again on countless battlefields against the indigenous peoples of this land and then in the reservations where they were forced to live. I have to wonder, if the people of the nineteenth century had been the kind of people to sit down and reflect upon how it was that Andersonville Prison came to be----how the generals on both sides reached the conclusion that it was better to let prisoners of war rot to death in violation of all previous standards of warfare than to try to work out a compromise which might jeopardize temporary military gain---if maybe we would have been the kind of people who would have had second thoughts about doing what we did in the American west.

So, what does any of this have to do with Nixon or Nuremberg or impeaching Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and indicting all the criminals within the Bush administration?

Once the west was won, we “forgave” the indigenous people. We even began to idealize them. Since there was no more land to steal to get rich quick, robber barons began to get rich off the labor of other human beings. Families like the Rockefellers started a new kind of warfare. When they took the war abroad as capitalist-colonialists, Americans either cheered them on or grumbled about soldiers dying to make rich men richer. When they fought the wars on US soil by dividing and conquering the working class, Americans either cheered them on or grumbled. And “that’s”, to quote Walter Cronkite, “the way it was” for over the last one hundred years. That's the way it is right now. Your son or daughter is dying in Iraq so that the misbegotten progeny of Standard Oil can stake a claim to that country's crude. It was planned that way as long ago as the 1970s, way back when the NeoCons were still Democrats with Scoop Jackson, the Senator from Boeing.

America is not the only country with a capitalist elite. As Max Weber points out, Protestantism is a powerful motivator for the formation of capitalist enterprise in Europe, too. Nazi Germany rose to power, in part, because of its big business. You need tanks and tires and chemicals to fight a war. The Nazis had Flick, Farben and Krupp among others. I mention these three uber-rich families and their mega-companies, because each family and each company had its own Nuremberg Trial, just like the Judges and Doctors and every other group which participated in facilitating the Nazi’s scheme to take over a huge chunk of the world and rid it of a whole bunch of “undesirables”.

I suspect that this is what Thompson was referring to when he wrote that the Nixon trials would be the U.S. equivalent of our Nuremberg Trials, in which the American Dream would be exposed. The old fashioned American way of dealing with problems like Richard Nixon was to sweep them under the rug. Kick him out of office in disgrace, arrange a pardon so that his actual crimes---and especially the identities of his coconspirators in high places, such as the business community—could never be revealed. Ensure that the mechanisms that he used to steal power are left in place so that the same methods can be used again, as Noam Chomsky so presciently noted in 1973:

“But the conditions that permitted the rise of McCarthy and Nixon endure. Fortunately for us and for the world, McCarthy was a mere thug and Nixon's mafia overstepped the bounds of acceptable trickery and deceit with such obtuseness and blundering vulgarity that they were called to account by powerful forces that had not been demolished or absorbed. But sooner or later, under the threat of political or economic crisis, some comparable figure may succeed in creating a mass political base, bringing together socioeconomic forces with the power and the finesse to carry out plans such as those that were conceived in the Oval Office. Only perhaps he will choose his domestic enemies more judiciously and prepare the ground more thoroughly.” Noam Chomsky Watergate: A Skeptical View The New York Review of Books, September 20, 1973

The Nuremberg Trials could have stopped at the first phase, in which the Name Brand Nazis like Goring and Hess were tried. However, someone wisely decided that it might be a good idea to make sure that the same thing did not happen again. After all, a Goring and a Hilter and a Von Ribbentrop do not an Auschwitz build. Not without a lot of help from people who know exactly what they are doing.

So, the Allies went further, exploring the people in power who could not claim to have been forced or threatened to participate in the Nazi’s atrocities. Doctors who performed inhuman experiments. Judges who sentenced people for bogus crimes like mental retardation. Members of death squads who might argue that they were just carrying out orders. And businessmen who knowingly used slave labor.

Funny thing. The prosecution of the businessmen and corporations was never as popular with either the Germans or the Americans as the prosecutions of the others. Note how light the sentences of these slave masters were and how quickly they were released from prison and how quickly they regained their place in society. And most businessmen never were tried.

http://books.google.com/books?id=h-QM56pLM-gC&pg=PR18&lpg=PR18&dq=flick+farben+krupp&source=web&ots=FkxO60gJhP&sig=b6Uc6ChS-9zdWSgGQ0PkX5o3Iok

It is pretty common knowledge that companies like Farben had dealings with American companies, and that some of our richest, most respected families, like the Rockefellers and Bushes barely got off by the skin of their teeth when the U.S. government investigated them for their participation in assisting the rise of Germany’s war machine. Here is just one source with a few names to gawk at.

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_11.htm

At the end of World War II, Wall Street moved into Germany through the Control Council to protect their old cartel friends and limit the extent to which the denazification fervor would damage old business relationships. General Lucius Clay, the deputy military governor for Germany, appointed businessmen who opposed denazification to positions of control over the denazification proceeds.

Now, fast forward to Watergate. Nixon did not get to where he was in 1972 simply by creating an enemies list and telling the IRS to audit the people on it. Nor could the Plumbers burglarize every office of every journalist or whistleblower or whistleblower’s psychiatrist. Nixon needed money. Lots of it. Where did he get his cash? What did he do in exchange for it? These are the kinds of secrets that would have come out during comprehensive trials.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/history/history2.html

A turning point in campaign finance history took place after the scandalous "Watergate election" of 1972, in which President Nixon's re-election committee received millions of dollars in secret, and often illegal, donations from, among others, Robert Vesco ($200,000 cash delivered in an attaché case), Howard Hughes ($100,000 contribution purportedly via a locked safe deposit box belonging to Nixon's long-time friend, Bebe Rebozo), Clement Stone ($73,000 reported, $2 million unreported) and, according to a 1974 Senate Select Committee, "at least 13 corporations" and their "foreign subsidiaries" (which made over $780,000 in "illegal corporate contributions").

Sound bad? It was actually much worse than that. This source says that over 300 corporations gave money to Nixon, that only a handful were convicted and that they paid token fines of around $2000. Good luck finding any of their names. Gulf Oil, one of the ones mentions, claims that Nixon held a loaded gun to its head. Yeah, right. At the same time he was exploring South East Asia for oil?

http://books.google.com/books?id=uNM9ybnZxj8C&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=illegal+corporate+contributions+to+nixon&source=web&ots=2ZAYRycVrr&sig=mpiUSsXnIQ67Khz9hqdFES7wyOw#PPA159,M1

The Nixon trials had to be shut down fast. Too many important people were being compromised. Ford’s pardon and the American people’s Tomorrow is Another Day tendency was just the ticket. Then, since Ford was now compromised, it was time to use the presidential election as the final touch on the ritual purification ceremony by which America would officially proclaim Out with the old, In with the new.

Guess who backed Jimmy Carter and his Change candidacy in 1976? Guess who is widely rumored to be the bag man for George Herbert Walker Bush’s Hostages for Votes deal in 1980? David Rockefeller. If you can convince the American public that they have used the all powerful voting lever to magically get rid of the problem, then you do not need to actually do anything to fix the problem. That leaves the mechanism for another executive coup in place.

This is where the Neo-cons and Dick Cheney come in. They did not waste any time. Forget about burglaries and IRS audits. From day one it was domestic spying with AT&T screening every single telephone call, fax and email in the whole god damned country. That would help keep Democrats in Congress in line. Karl Rove took care of the press, which proved to be Richard Nixon’s downfall, by bribing them with FCC favors. In exchange for their assistance in selling the War of Choice with Iraq, they got a June, 2003 decree by Michael Powell of the FCC allowing expanded media mergers. In exchange for attacking Kerry, crucifying Rather and ignoring Ohio 2004 they were promised that the administration would appeal Powell’s administrative decree all the way to the Supreme Court. (The promise turned out to be a lie, one of Karl Rove’s big mistakes. Hell hath no fury and all that.) Ronald Reagan had already begun to take care of the courts. The all important Article II Clause was invoked on 9/11, an attack of the type which James Baker and others had said was essential.

Noam Chomsky was correct in 1973 when he said that McCarthy and Nixon were just test runs and that the same forces that tried with them would try again. And now that they are failing once again, with W.’s popularity in the teens, they will do everything in their power to make sure that the mechanism which is in place to let them seize power in a democracy remains in place---because they fully intend to try and try again.

That is why Dick Cheney, the true architect of the Nixon II Administration must be impeached. Further, he must be tried in criminal court for his crimes, starting with the no-bid contracts Halliburton and others received in Iraq and in the US after NOLA. These are important, because Americans can not tolerate war profiteering and also because they reveal the intersection of the mad executive power grab with American business.

If the Democrats buckle their belts and get with it, Cheney will be advised to resign “for his health”. This will be used to inspire sympathy. Once he has resigned, Bush will give him a pardon. That’s ok. Cheney does not actually have to go to jail. He can be investigated publicly by Congress . With no 5th Amendment plea, he will have to talk---either before or after W. leaves office. After, there will no longer be an executive immunity argument. The focus of the investigation can even be redirected to Halliburton itself and each of the programs that Cheney oversaw. This might be best, in that it would demonstrate to the public that Cheney was not the only person responsible. The people who oversee Homeland Security, Halliburton, domestic spying, torture and all the rest also played their part.

The hearings should not consume all of Congress's resources. One committee can handle it on an ongoing basis. But they need to be thorough. Each time a new crime is uncovered, it needs to be referred to federal prosecutors (by then, there should be a Democrat in the White House). Every aspect of the Bush/Cheney coup should be covered. For example the corruption of science to help Big Business and weaken existing laws designed to protect consumers, the environment etc. Why should "scientists" who sold their souls for research grants get a free ride? Or the people who refused to get the troops decent armor, because they were waiting for companies that give jobs to retired military people to produce their own versions. That is a form of kickback.

The clock is ticking. If McCain is elected (which is highly unlikely) Bush and Cheney get blanket pardons and his Justice Department will be told that no one in the previous administration gets indicted for anything. If Obama is elected, there will be such a public clamor for a new kinder, friendlier politics that Congress and the new DOJ may be hesitant to fully investigate the crimes of the present administration—especially with the corporate media and all of America’s richest men and companies insisting that it is time to move on . “McCain was defeated,” they will say. “Karl Rove and Bush and Cheney were defeated. Right has triumphed. We have learned our lesson. Never again.”

Yeah, sure. Never again. Even as they groom their next corporatist candidate for the next executive coup. Because the elite made out like bandits under George W. Bush, and if they lose this year, they will see this as just a temporary set back.

We need Nuremberg, USA, the way that a cancer patient sometimes needs chemotherapy. It may not be fun while it is happening. Americans may not like what they are seeing. However, citizens of the United States are not nearly as fragile or as idealistic as some would have us believe. I think more than anything else, they are sick and tired of hearing bullshit from their elected officials. If someone in Washington got up and said “We are now going to start telling the truth. Here is exactly how we got into Iraq. Here is exactly where all your money has been going. Here is why NOLA has not been rebuilt” I think it would make for better TV news viewing than the Watergate hearings 35 years ago. And though I was only 14 at the time, I remember it well. That was the hottest ticket around in the summer of 1973. Monica's Blue Dress never could compare.

[Hugabear]

1. We need comprehensive war crimes trials

First we need to go after those at the top, who orchestrated Junior's little adventure. Once these thugs are in prison, we then need to go after those in the military who have committed war crimes. Most of our troops have served honorably, or at least as honorably as can be expected in such situations. But there are still quite a few who have engaged in heinous war crimes - murder, rape, chemical warfare (white phosphorous in Fallujah), torture, etc. The officers and soldiers who participated in these acts need to be held accountable for their actions.

Only after we have purged our military of its criminal element can we hope to restore it to the prestige it once held.

[L. Coyote]

2. K & R & Impeach two too.

[grace0418]

3. They all need to be tried and convicted for war crimes.

All of them.

[Usrename]

6. All of their assets should be seized.

In order that some form of restitution can be paid from the proceeds of their war profiteering.

[Hydra]

4. You think the corporatists are going to give up power?

Whoever "wins" this election will be their tool.

BTW, Thank you for helping me understand why Nuremberg has always gotten under my skin- it's because war crimes and world-crippling events became entertainment, not much different than today.

[tbyg52]

13. No, I think it has to be taken from them.

And you're certainly right about most politicians being corporate tools. Thank god some aren't, and hoping to elect more.

[angrycarpenter]

5. Bravo!

best post I have read in days. Recommended.

I was 8 during watergate. I think that I became politically aware because of it.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. "You're an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect the bill" video from APOCALYPSE NOW

I think it is stuff like this that caused the critics to pan this wonderful film when it was released (yes, film critics, you did pan it. I read the reviews. I remember them) even though it now keeps getting released in one masterpiece edition after another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BqloFdNq2Y

Same goes for Ridley Scott's Blade Runner Whenever an artist gets too close to showing that corporate greed is responsible for most of the suffering of the modern world, the corporate media steps right in to squash that truth.

I include this, because it seems to set the right mood about the unfinished business we have left over from the Nixon administration.

[Karenina]

21. A stellar post!

:applause::applause::applause:

[G_j]

8. excellent post!

U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert L. Jackson was the Chief U.S. Nuremberg Tribunal Prosecutor. On August 12, 1945, Justice Jackson stated the Tribunal’s conclusions prohibiting aggressive war. “We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.”

[McCamy Taylor]

9. This makes me want to cry! How did WE become the Nazi war machine?

Sigh, upon reflection, I guess we only stopped our colonial wars during the Depression and we resumed them just as soon as WWII was over.

[G_j]

11. no one can convince me

that the War against Iraq isn't the same policy of "Manifest Destiny" that was used to justify genocide against the Native Americans.

[hootinholler]

42. Good question...

It's not clear that we weren't that different from the nazis in the ways that matter long term. Then there was Prescott Bush, banker to nazis (who begat Nixon, who begat Cheney, Rumsfeld and Poppy...), operation paperclip sweeping up not only nazi rocket scientists, but nazi spy networks as well. Add in Wall Street to seed the management of the new CIA and the toxic brew is almost complete. Shaken, not stirred.

-Hoot

[G_j]

12. a bit more..

Justice Jackson said, "Any resort to (aggressive) war, any kind of war is a resort to means that are inherently criminal as means. War inevitably is a course of killings, assaults, deprivations of liberty and destruction of property."

[puebloknot]

50. The irony is that while we were playing the role of guardians of all...

...that's right and true in the world, and hanging top Nazis, we were spiriting the ones we wanted to play ball with out of the country.

As someone whose father fought in WWII, and as an army brat who spent time in Germany as part of the force for good we claimed to be there after the war, I want to cry, I want to go back to sleep, I want to tell Chomsky and Zinn and all their fellow truthmongers to just shut up and let me dream on.

I don't mean it, but this great awakening I'm experiencing as a older American is a mournful experience. "And nothing is but what is not."

[abq e streeter]

10. What a compelling post

Occasionally I see something here that I wish would be required reading for everyone from high school students to our Democratic "leadership" . This is one of those.

[Laelth]

14. Hear, hear!

Nice work. My signature line has been whispering the same message (though not so eloquently) for a couple of years now.

:toast:

-Laelth

[trthnd4jstc]

15. I have wondered if Impeaching Clinton, helped the Republicans...

because the American People, and the DLC would not want to have another Impeachment, and Trial, again, hence allowing GWB and DC to trample all over our Constitution.

[CubicleGuy]

36. The Dems shot themselves in the foot with the Clinton impeachment...

The Democrats and their "this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment" excuse for Clinton never understood that the outrage wasn't about a President who couldn't keep his pants zipped; it was about a President who would lie to the American public while wagging a finger in their faces.

Americans hate being lied to. And that is what this President has been doing since day 1. But the Democrats who refused to convict Clinton didn't think it was the principle of telling the truth that mattered, they thought that it only matters depending on what the lie is about.

So, yes, the impeachment of Clinton that ended without Clinton being removed from office sent the message that a President who lies to the American people can get away with it and that it's really no big deal, because it's not the public's business.

So, to all those Democrats who let Clinton skate even though he committed perjury, look what you gave us.

[bagrman]

16. The Clinton impeachment was such a farce that it insured that it wouldn't be used again.

They killed 1M Iraqies to get their oil, what do you think they would do to stay in power, or to keep an investigation away?

[Echo In Light]

22. Agreed. The Clinton impeachment was indeed a showboat for affect

[Pappy]

24. Agreed, there were other things they could have gotten Clinton on if they wanted it to look legit

Of all the scandals Clinton was mired in, I would have thought they would have brought up the bombing of Yugoslavia first for impeachment, at least that sounds legit, but getting a hummer in the White house, what a farce. At least Bush/Cheney co. had a good reason to go into Iraq for their corporate masters and that was oil, but bombing Yugoslavia, what the hell was that about?

[McCamy Taylor]

34. Read the Chomsky piece. He talks about Cambodia/Laos, asks why no one impeached Nixon for those

war crimes, why no one even thought about impeaching him (in the Congress and the corporate media anyway) for those war crimes.

Says a lot about U.S. imperialism.

[G_j]

17. kick

[puebloknot]

18. A stellar article. Sending it to friends.

"Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it." Before people can forget the past, they have to know what happened in the past. This is a great summing up of our history that never gets an airing in America's schools.

As the daughter of a WWII soldier who fought at Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, I've heard all my life about the defects in the German character which led to Hitler's madness. Nuremberg was We the Good Guys, making an example of those who started the war. And now, "How fallen are the mighty." We've lost our moral standing in the world. Impeachment would give us a place to stand to restore our reputation in the world, and to safeguard freedom for future generations.

I wonder how much of the population even really knows what Nuremberg was about!

Thanks for the work you put into writing this article. Much appreciated.

[Diclotican]

19. McCamy Taylor

McCamy Taylor

The big questing here are not that US need a type of Nuremberg trial. But if US dear to start down that path, and to get into what has happened the last 8 year now.. If the can of worms are open fully, and the whole thing is open, the whole existence of what US are about would fall.. And millions of american wake up to a reality they really don't want to wake up to...

I fear that many american live in denial of what is happening, and are willing to live in denial, before smell the shit, and try to do something with it. Better to take the under the rug, then to clean it up. Others can try to clean it up later..

If US was to start a US type of Nuremberg trials against the current Administration all hell would be out. Extremely many in the right wings would be in the dock. Together with the Administration... And I doubt that a court house would be big enough to hold all the criminals.. In Nuremberg it was just 21 who was accused.. 12 was hanged the rest was given long prison sentences.. In a american Nuremberg Trial... It would be more than 100 accused, just in the main trial I guess. And maybe many more in subsistent trials there after.. The Nuremberg Trial of 1946 was just the first in many courts where different parts of the nazi regime was tried... And many more was hanged then the 12 who was the main war-criminals...

Even that I hope that non of the current administration would be hanged, i don't believe in death penalty, I would hope that they would give the penalty they deserve... But that is maybe up to US anyway

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language

[puebloknot]

52. I understood your "bad English," and appreciate your input here.

I agree that what is preventing impeachment, and certainly what would prevent a broader holding to account, is that no one has clean hands. The co-equal branches of government are all so compromised that we would need a "change of venue" to get a fair proceeding, and that would entail other countries holding American to account.

Who wants to hold to account a bully with all the guns, or the majority of them. The David and Goliath story from the bible is charming, but was written well before we knew anything about nuclear weapons.

Keep posting. Your English is good enough.

[Senator]

20. Impeachment Is The Only Road To Any Of This

Which is why it is past time to stop being "Pro/Anti-Hillabama" and start being Pro-Impeachment.

No, you can't ride two horses with the same behind.

Failure to impeach is complicity -- approval -- exoneration for the regime.

===

[WritersBlock]

23. KICK!

Yes. This is what I've been saying for months. Excellent post!

[Phred42]

25. FUll Blown Impeachment is the ONLY way to validate

The Rule of LAW!

[navarth]

26. k & r, sure, but aren't we preaching to the converted?

This is a terrific post. But I don't need to be convinced!!

How do we get the rest of the country on board? That's my question.

I'm emailing John Conyers, calling Levin and Stabenow. But is it enough?

Just yesterday, I came out of a restaurant in 'Liberal' Ann Arbor, Michigan. Somebody had been tearing off my bumper sticker. "BUSH LIED SOLDIERS DIED". At this late date!!

How are we going to get the rest of the country on board?

Still a terrific post by McCamy Taylor.

[Mark D.]

27. FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY

Someone mentions the global elite and ties it to the neo-con fascist power grab. Finally I feel I'm not alone in pointing this out. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Morgans are all still ALIVE AND WELL, the kids just keep doing the job their parents did. They're three legs of Bilderberg, the other leg is a mass of global corporate honchos and the politicians they'll buy and control.

It's that simple. If the works of those three families were eradicated from history, there would have been no world wars, no rise of Hitler, Stalin, Hirohito, no great depression and yes, no Federal Reserve lending us spontaneously created currency with interest to pay for all the wars the elite know is the best source of income (the 2nd best is corporations, they supply the equipment in wars and to control the obedient masses, the 3rd best is commodities, and the 4th is income tax...)

What it is that makes these sociopath neo-cons push endlessly for what they do isn't some 'zionist plot', it's not just control of fossil fuels / resources, it's money. The bankers control the money, so that means they control everything else. Rockefeller isn't a banker, but a great resource to get control over the fuels that keep the world's lights on and transportation running. You simply can't ever expect any govt. to be by the people, for the people, when the bankers are that involved in it.

If you think this is baseless, see "The Money Masters" on Google Video (there in one uncut film, unlike You Tube which breaks it up). EVERY major war the US was involved in had the same families funding not only both sides (with interest, pun intended) but paying for the rise of the ones we see everyone blame (Hitler, Hirohito, etc.). Yeah, those are the vicious dogs that bit you, but who fed the dogs and let them in, in the first place? We can throw Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz and the other scum of the PNAC in jail. Until we put the dog-breeder out of business, we'll all just get bitten again.

It's going to take the masses learning how this system works at the top of the pyramid. We're going to have to learn for ourselves. With the Bilderberg global banker elite calling the shots, we cannot expect who we elect to do it all. Occasionally, we elect someone who's not bought and controlled by them (Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, JFK) and the last two died for trying to get the masses involved in taking the govt. back from central bank control. Lincoln was able to issue a govt. backed currency, not lent to us with interest, in the Civil War (they started for just that reason, to get back to them controlling it) and Booth (who admitted European bankers hired him) took care of him. Damage already done, a war went by without profit, but the message was clear.

Well, other presidents learned from it, but Garfield dared to run on the notion of doing that again and he barely got any time at all in the Oval Office before they took him out. Blame the CIA for JFK but clearly, they hired them. Only Jackson issued the currency and shut down the central bank concept for 70 years (well after his death) and not surprisingly was the last president to go and entirely pay down the national debt. Nobody else has, nobody else can, when the very money used to pay it down is borrowed from the same people you owe most of the money to.

Many will turn away from this as too complex, too 'Wizard of OZ', and go back to re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic and rooting for one or the other side to win in the chess match taking place (ie. Bush vs. Clinton, Right vs. Left, etc.) in a locked room. The lock (money) on the door is still there no matter who wins. And that's the reason why all of this happens. As he locked the door, the one who controlled those who control the money threw arguments over religion/morals, political and Hollywood scandal, junk food, drugs, race and gender, sexuality, welfare recipients, immigrants, sports, 9/11, etc., up in the air to distract us from it, and it worked.

[Deny and Shred]

30. Mark D - your post ought ot be a Discussion itself.

Your global macroeconomic/political/fascist critique/salvo is refreshing and clear, despite the darkness it portends. It is in the wheelhouse of my issues with US policy and the underpinnings of what's behind global problems. I will check out The Money Matters. Keep posting.

No folks, I'm not talking to myself, Mark D hadn't posted yet when I posted the next one, forgive the awkward chronology.

[Mark D.]

32. Thanks

Much appreciated. Much of what I say often is alluded to as 'tinfoil hat' but The Money Masters (it is 3 1/2 hours, make sure you've got time) is created and narrated by an economist/historian and is chock full of not only fully verifiable data, but solutions. I am a realist, which can seem dark, but it's what folks need to hear. I fear too many want to just hear a new prez will fix it all. I gave up that illusion after the Bush/Clinton/Bush (not Clinton again, please!) power switch. How many golf carts did we need to see the first two I mention driving around in to get it. They were 'rivals' at one level, but work for the same 'employer' (money, ie. who controls it).

Clinton DID enact huge changes, many not just temporary, not all good. But the undercurrent didn't get addressed. The monetary policy went unchanged, in fact, the Federal Reserve was frequently praised by Clinton himself (and the MSM) as a big part of the fiscal improvements of the 90s, with the interest rate cuts and the Greenspan reptile slithering out to give his forecasts. As surely as I had to roll my eyes when I heard the Fed say it would try to repair the issues with the dollar and with the sub-prime crisis. Sending bankers to fix problems they helped create is like sending Godzilla to fix power lines. There is literally no better analogy for this.

The bankers goal for a North American currency, to eventually merge with the Euro and Asian currency to a global currency (we already have a 'world bank' and 'word trade organization') is accelerated by the decline of the dollar. The hedge fund debacle is one of the largest catalysts of the current sub-prime debacle. Do the math. The largest hedge fund is Morgan Stanley. The banker who almost single handedly orchestrated the great depression (see the Zeitgeist Part 3 video) was who? MORGAN. Now what's shaping up to be the worst economic slump since the Depression was pretty much caused by the same one who drummed up the Depression.

Many don't like Alex Jones, but he makes good points. Check out Endgame, and take note that the biggest of big-wigs at the Bilderberg is in fact Rockefeller. Furthermore, he explains well what is alluded to in Zeitgeist and Money Masters. That all of the countries involved in the war of 1812 had borrowed money from Rothschild's banks. When Napoleon lost, Rothschild got a courier back to the UK to inform them Napoleon WON. The market crashed, Rothschild bought up stock, companies, banks, pretty much all of the financial base of everything in England right after that for a pittance on the pound. When the news came in Napoleon lost, the markets went way over where they were at before the crash and Rothschild then controlled more wealth than anyone, ever, to that point.

That's a long-assed bumper sticker, isn't it? It's hard and lengthy to explain, but if you are willing to sit through Orpheus' lecture about how the Matrix works, you'll take the right pill. That's the problem though, ignorant folks are asleep by the second line, and the folks who think they are smart and only out to prove you are not (in vain) call you 'tinfoil hat' despite there being complete legitimacy to the story. It's so much easier to just call Hillary and Obama names, get scared of manufactured 'terra' and vote for McCain, and put on the sports game, video game, hip hop or whatever your choice of distraction is. Too few people fighting the real power.

[sellitman]

41. Please post this on its own

Your post is dead on accurate and needs its own venue.

Keep posting too. There are few too many people here that "get it".

[Deny and Shred]

43. That makes two. Mark D - I will also be reading Endgame.

Yes, a bumper sticker that would stretch around to the windshield. That is part of the strategy, like money laundering. Wash the dirty dealings through lots of institutions, make it too complex for the Average Joe to follow, and pick up potential scapegoats along the way. Any investigation might fall apart at any one of the links in the chain.
Love the Godzilla metaphor - 'He's headed for the power plant, here Fido.' Given the 6-string icon, I'm hoping you get the Zappa reference.

This topic has struck a chord with a lot of DU youngsters, like myself. I am encouraged by this deeper post producing good stuff from many corners.

[Deny and Shred]

28. Chomsky's right, exposing the apparatus is paramount.

Quality post, M Taylor, I'll read what you have to say anytime. Thanks for the links to those books.
This power play does go in cycles. Each time around, they aggregate a little more power for themselves, and the masses are a bit more used to it. With the Bush-7-year power grab behind the veil of National Security, we don't know what little clauses they've added to executive orders, etc that will be used the next time around.
His power grabs that the public ARE aware of are downright Orwellian, and I do fear we are at a tipping point. The one that I've found scary lately :

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2964.shtml

[puebloknot]

45. From the link you posted here...

...is this short paragraph:

Otherwise known as a continuity of government plan, REX 84 involved an actual civil readiness exercise in April 1984 by FEMA in association with 34 other federal agencies. In a combined exercise with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Night Train 84 involved multi-emergency scenarios at play inside and outside the U.S. Confronted with civil disturbances, major demonstrations and labor strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization, and to fight subversive activities, the military was authorized to arrest as many as 400,000 people and to move them to military facilities for confinement.

The choice of that name for this proposed exercise harks back, too suggestively, to the trains that ran on time in Nazi-controlled Europe.

Like the Germans, for all these years, "We Thought We Were Free."

[Deny and Shred]

47. Yes. Too many similarities, so far right, they are Reichwing.

[Spurt]

29. K&R

[bpeale]

31. WOW! you're a scholar Mac! thanks for the info. BOOKMARKED & recommended

[f the letter]

33. Accountability demanders unite!

We cannot afford to let crimes of this magnitude go unpunished, let alone un-acknowledged. Impeach now!

[CubicleGuy]

35. The biggest problem with the impeachment of Cheney...

... is that the Congress has sat on its hands and has looked the other way too long. There's no way they're going to impeach when it'll quickly become obvious as to who wasn't guarding the hen house while the foxes did their thing.

They're almost all complicit for signing off on the PATRIOT act without having read it first, and for voting for the funding for the war in Iraq without doing a formal declaration of war as the Constitution specifies.

If Cheney is impeached, then practically all of them need to be run out of town on a rail as well, and they all darn well know it.

[zytime]

37. After reading this post, I am hoping against hope

that the current power grab isn't being set up to continue into the next administration. Considering the unceremonious dumping of over a century of true experience in the beginning of the current primary season where "qualification" has been a four letter word, I wonder if we're being set up to get fed another Carter or Harding. I hope that what we are currently in is truly a grass-roots movement against the status quo, but I fear that is a naive point of view. In the meantime, keep kicking this. More people need to see this and hopefully have it sink in.

[tblue37]

38. But the Dems with the power to do all this won't do it, for a

variety of reasons.

First, there is all that blackmail material that has been keeping many of them in line all along. The only real reason for domestic spying is blackmail.

Then there is the Dems'(and mdoerate Republicans') awareness that anyone who pushes too hard for transparency can be Wellstoned or anthraxed and that even their loved ones can be targeted. Certainly they know these moneyed interests are absolutely ruthless. Remember when Paul O'Neill tried to tell truth about the administration? When asked if he was afraid the administration might retaliate, he said they couldn't do anything to him because he was old and rich. Yet the very same week he backed down on his accusations. Wanna bet they reminded him he had grandchildren--or some other such threat?

And then there is the reason I keep hearing about why Wexler, Leahy, and Conyers won't lsiten to Sibel Edmonds or follow up her claims--that they fear some Dems will be caught up in the scandal, risking the Dems' majority status and undermining their power.

And don't forget, many Dems want what the Republicans have had for so long--a pipeline from the moneyed interests directly into their own pockets. WHy would they want to kill the goose just when it's time for it to start laying its godlen eggs directly in their pockets.

I think that those Dems who still don't do the people's business while in power need to be targeted in primaries. But even if new Dems mean to be honest, the threats might turn them even if the promise of wealth and power do not.

[G_j]

39. kick

[Cherchez la Femme]

40. Didn't Barak Obama say

something to the effect that Bush and Cheney have done nothing criminal, or at least nothing indictable?

That's a HUGE warning flag. To me, it even tops the Iraq War.

The very first order of business is to hold ALL White House miscreants accountable. No question.

If I have to vote on this one issue, unfortunately, I will. It is THAT important and to only for me, but to the great majority of U.S. citizens.

[Hugabear]

44. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for either one of them to indict BushCo

Don't expect to see either Hillary or Obama sic the justice department on Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Powell, and company.

And due to the US having veto power in the UN, I doubt that you'll get anything going there either.

The best chance lies with our Congress.

[puebloknot]

48. Paint it true! Our best chance is pretty depressing. Mr. Conyers...

...is playing it safe, and Madame Speaker Pelosi is acting like a monarch.

I am dutifully "keeping hope alive."

[Cherchez la Femme]

53. I agree

but I'm used to the top-down politics we've sadly had to witness these past 7 years...

I'd love to depend on Congress, sadly it's been independable
even with a Democratic majority.


Is it a pipe dream to hope we can truly clean our government up, so that it works FOR the people instead of in spite of them?

[puebloknot]

46. He may have said that. I've also seen him quoted as saying...

...he does not support impeachment and does not feel impeachable acts have been committed.

Many hope that, lacking impeachment and removal, Bushco can be held legally accountable -- as opposed to the political process of impeachment -- in domestic courts, or internationally in The Hague.

I don't think either of the candidates will touch impeachment *or* legal accountability with a ten-foot pole. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" sort of thing!

[Hugabear]

49. What would it take to try ihim in The Hague?

What is the process in that? Is that a United Nations thing (where the US has veto power), or could other countries indict him?

[puebloknot]

51. Not being a lawyer, I sought the advice of Wikipedia:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt)<1> was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although it cannot currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression.<2> The Court came into being on July 1, 2002 — the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, entered into force<3> — and it can only prosecute crimes committed on or after that date.<4>

As of February 2008, 105 states are members of the Court.<5> A further 41 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute.<6> However, a number of states, including China, India and the United States, are critical of the Court and have not joined.

The Court can generally exercise jurisdiction only in cases where the accused is a national of a state party, the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council.<7> The Court is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.<8><9> Primary responsibility to investigate and punish crimes is therefore reserved to individual states.<10>

To date, the Court has opened investigations into four situations: Northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and Darfur.<11> The Court has issued public arrest warrants for ten people; five of them remain free, two have died, and three are in custody, awaiting trial.

The official seat of the Court is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere.<12> The ICC is sometimes referred to as a "world court"; it should not be confused with the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, which is the United Nations organ that settles disputes between nations.

I assume Milosevic was tried by the ICC, but I'm unclear about that. I hope someone will weigh in here and explain this.

Under what jurisdiction were the Nuremberg trials held? Was that simply a procedure that was put together by the American, French, and Russian governments as conquerors, or was it held under some specific legal precedent. The UN hadn't been born yet, had it?

History lesson will be appreciated.

[DrDebug]

54. Milosevic was tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The ICC has been initially created in order to prevent ad-hoc tribunals like Nuremburg and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The ICTY was established by Resolution 827 of the United Nations Security Council.

Nuremberg was put together by the conquerors. The United Nations didn't exist yet and the League of Nations basically failed in its mission before World War II started.

The problem with the ICC is that it has no jurisdiction over the United States because they have not ratified the treaty and the Bush administration passed the American Servicemembers' Protection Act a.k.a The Hague Invasion Act instead authorizing George W. Bush to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”.

In short the ICC is not an option for the George W. Bush. The only known alternative is the Belgian War Crimes Law, however the previous Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt tried scrapping that one after cases were filed against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, etc. however the case was taken to the Court of Arbitration in Belgium and the changes were deemed unconstitutional.