(Previous posts in this series are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)
I begin by presenting a quote from Ralph Nader’s campaign website, from an article entitled Pass It On: Obama’s Money Cartel by Ashley Sanders on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 (the passage references an article by Pam Martens, which will be addressed later in this series):
Obama has sold himself as the candidate of hope and change, a claim bolstered by his promises to refuse campaign money from corporations and lobbyists. His supporters were surprised after the primaries ended and he reneged on almost every promise he had made. But Obama’s about face should have come as no surprise to anyone watching his early contributors who were, despite Obama’s promises to the contrary, the band of usual suspects. Writing toward the end of the primaries, Pam Martens argues that Obama’s financial backers will doom his populist potential — a prediction that came all too true. But the article is not simply about Obama’s hypocrisy; it is a warning against the rise of corporate power and its devastating effects on democracy. In an election year where even the change candidate can’t stand up to Wall Street, Ralph Nader’s principled critiques of corporate power and his refusal to accept corporate campaign contributions are not just crucial; they are the difference between another eight years of distastrous amnesia or real, equitable reform.
The trouble is that Ralph Nader is too mainstream for his people to be able to tell the truth, assuming they themselves are not too mainstream to even find out what the truth is — because anyone who has an identity in the real world risks a great deal to address this openly.
If you look a little farther afield, though, you will find out that this is not just corporate power, and it’s not just about Obama’s hypocrisy. This is about criminal activities that go to the heart of US politics, impacting both political parties.
Michael C. Ruppert of From The Wilderness wrote an article which was published in April of 2000, entitled The Democratic Party’s Presidential Drug Money Pipeline. It begins:
As a Managing Director of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read, Catherine Austin Fitts raised more than $100,000 in 1988 for the Bush Presidential Campaign. Her boss at Dillon, Nicholas Brady, a close Bush confidant, became Secretary of the Treasury after the Bush victory. Fitts, as a reward, was appointed Assistant Secretary at HUD. Last year, in numerous radio and print interviews, Fitts was quick to make the following revealing observations:
“California, Florida, Texas and New York are, far and away, the states where most illegal drugs enter the United States. California, Florida, Texas and New York are also the states responsible for laundering most of the $200-250 billion dollars of drug money that pass through the U.S. economy and banking system every year…
“Eighty per cent of all Presidential campaign contributions come from California, Florida, Texas and New York.”
FTW asks, “With Bushes governing Texas and Florida, is there any wonder why Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party need, so desperately, to control New York?
Elsewhere in From The Wilderness, Ruppert addresses the connections between the trafficking of illegal drugs and Republican politicians; this article, however, is one where Ruppert addresses the connections that lead to Democrats.
Recall from the Sibel Edmonds case, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds, Page Two by Chris Deliso, July 1, 2004:
CD: But what do think, within departments such as the Pentagon and the State Department. Do you suspect certain high officials may be profiting from terrorist-linked organized crime?
SE: I can’t say anything specific with regards to these departments, because I didn’t work for them. But as for the politicians, what I can say is that when you start talking about huge amounts of money, certain elected officials become automatically involved. And there are different kinds of campaign contributions — legal and illegal, declared and undeclared.
In an article entitled CIA, Drugs, and Wall Street, Ruppert makes the point rather bluntly:
This is a sign of true desperation as the Republican controlled Committee must absolutely close the issue – to protect George W. Bush – before the 2000 Presidential campaign begins in earnest in October. It must also protect the biggest secret of all from the American people: The entire economy, and the entire political system itself, is currently hooked and dependent upon – drug money.
(snip)
Contributing Editor Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Managing Director at Dillon Read before becoming Assistant Secretary of Housing under George Bush and who holds an MBA from Wharton makes things very simple. She points out that the four largest states for the importation of drugs are New York, Florida, Texas and California. She then points out that the top four money laundering states in the U.S. (good for between 100 and 260 billion per year) are New York, Florida, Texas and California. No surprise there. Then she rips the breath from your lungs by pointing out that 80 per cent of all Presidential campaign funds come from – New York, Florida, Texas and California.
(snip)
The Pop
Corporations trading on Wall Street, including many implicated in money laundering schemes where products are sold with questionable bookkeeping throughout drug producing regions, all have stock values that are based upon annual net profits. Known as “price to earnings” or “The Pop” the multiplier effect in stock values is sometimes as much as a factor of thirty.
(snip)
Every major media corporation in the country trades on Wall Street. There are no “independents” left and the American people are left with the increasing cognitive dissonance of recognizing that they are being fed useless bullshit. I wonder how they would respond to real a news corporation if they saw or heard one.
One big reason why Bush pushed this bailout scheme, and Obama took the ball and ran with it, is to pay back their big-money sponsors.
But, it is important to note that much of the money these sponsors control is illegal, generated by a variety of criminal activities, most significantly including trafficking in illegal drugs.
Since at least the 1980’s, terrorists, guerrillas and “freedom fighters” have funded their wars of liberation and jihads in part through criminal activities, especially trafficking in illegal drugs.
Again from the Sibel Edmonds case, Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 7, 2004:
JH: Can you explain more about what money you are talking about?
SE: The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations.
You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points — and they [the intelligence community] are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing “foreign relations” which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels. And I keep underlining semi-legit organizations and following the money. When you do that the picture gets grim. It gets really ugly.
Following the money…
Also from Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 7, 2004:
JH: Here’s a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?
SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it’s extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it’s what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don’t hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It’s extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap — money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That’s what I’m trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it’s getting into somebody’s political campaign, and somebody’s lobbying. And people don’t want to be traced back to this money.
The War on Terror is just like the War on Drugs — it will not be won, because the leaders on both sides are de facto partners in the same illegal businesses, businesses that fund both terrorism and political campaigns, and money from the sales of cocaine and heroin is finding its way into the hands of our elected (and appointed) government officials.
I estimate the world illegal drug trade to be easily a trillion-dollar-a-year industry, and when there’s that much money floating around the world — of necessity, hidden from the public view — it is easy to buy a president for $100 million, or even for $1 billion.
The Democratic Party’s Presidential Drug Money Pipeline concludes with this assessment:
Throughout their careers Tony Coelho and Charles Manatt have done one thing better than all the rest. They raised money. Now, with Coelho as Chairman of the campaign and Manatt protecting the money flow from the DR – especially just after the Clinton controlled DEA has disrupted all Caribbean competition – the Democrats stand a chance to compete financially with the decades old entrenched drug money behind the Bush family. The politicians know the truth and it is just as simple as Catherine Austin Fitts has stated, “Those with access to capital and those with the lowest cost of capital win. If you don’t play with drug money you can’t play at all.”
And therein lies the certainty that the American political system can do nothing but decline from here on out. Once criminal activity and rule breaking is established and enshrined there is no course left but a steady descent into collapse and chaos. Rome is a good case in point. And perhaps this is a well deserved and a good thing for America. It certainly is if fresh blood and thinking can rise to the top in the middle of the descent.
This has not been a story about how the Democrats are bad and the Republicans are good – although I am sure that I’ll be getting more calls from Republican talk show hosts next month. This is a story about how the system has become and IS organized crime. If there are three “branches” of government today they are the banks and financial institutions, the government as enforcer, and the criminal syndicates. There is no rule of law, there is only the rule of money. And I am often amazed at how conservative Christians sometimes ask me to label Democrats, Socialists, Communists, Illuminati, Trilaterals, Jews, Bliderbergers, Masons, or Nazis as the source of evil in this world. I wonder why they don’t read their own book. It says it quite clearly there – in the words of their own Master – “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
It’s not the Jews, or Illuminati, or whoever else — it’s people… people who will cooperate with each other to do anything, including break the law, for money.
Now there‘s a conspiracy I can understand and believe in.
More to follow as this series continues.
Die Hard 