Editorial

Bilderberg: Evil cabal or harmless old boys club?

Officially, the annual Bilderberg meeting doesn’t even happen.  There are no press releases, no coverage by the mainstream media, and no swarm of paparazzi outside the hotel door to catch the luminaries as they dash inside.  Timothy Geithners’s public schedule was oddly empty for two days, but if he was at Bilderberg, his staff is mum.

If Bilderberg really did happen in Greece last week, it should have been the media draw of the year.  When else can you find all the world’s richest people, plus all the world’s most powerful people, checking into a five star resort that is guarded by F-16s overhead and the Greek navy off the coast? 

(Yes, two intrepid reporters tried to get close to the action by taking the sea approach – only to be stopped three miles from shore by the Greek navy.)

Besides, if Bill Clinton, Ben Bernanke, Henry Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice, the King of Spain and the heads of Google, the Wall Street Journal and the World Bank did get together in one room, what on earth would they have to talk about?

It’s a question that has more than a few people concerned.

Mere fame will not bring an invite – you won’t find Britney Spears on the guest list.  Running a major corporation, university, media empire or a country – those are the kind of credentials required.

Legend has it that Bilderberg is a confab of rich and powerful conspirators plotting ways to fleece the unsuspecting public and thereby become even more rich and powerful.  There are reports that George W. Bush made an appearance at Bilderberg before taking office, as did Clinton prior to his successful bid for the presidency, and Tony Blair prior to becoming Prime Minister of Britain.  This has led to speculation that these leaders were not so much elected by the public, as appointed by the Bilderbergers. 

The Metropolitan of Glastonbury and Head of the British Orthodox Church believes the Bilderbergers represent a “criminal cabal of world Zionism and its efforts to set up a cruel world dictatorship under the headship of Lucifer.” 

But former British Cabinet Minister Lord Denis Healy, one of the founders of Bilderberg, said that was “crap,” and that the group’s aims were high-minded.  “Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless.  So we felt a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.”

A skeptical observer might note that after 55 years of Bilderberg meetings, wars and homelessness are still going strong.  What exactly has this coterie accomplished?  And if their goals are pure, why the overbearing secrecy?

One answer:  If anything more serious than who goes up next on the parasail is being negotiated, it’s a felony and a violation of the U.S Logan Act, which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.  A conviction, of which there have been zero, could bring a prison sentence of up to three years.   

There are reports that Bilderberg was responsible for both the EU and the Euro.  Paul Joseph Watson reported: “…Belgian viscount and current Bilderberg-chairman Étienne Davignon bragged that Bilderberg helped create the Euro by first introducing the policy agenda for a single currency in the early 1990’s. Bilderberg’s agenda for a European federal superstate and a single currency likely goes back even further. A BBC investigation uncovered documents from the early Bilderberg meetings which confirmed that the European Union was a brainchild of Bilderberg.”

There is also widespread speculation that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met secretly at Bilderberg in Chantilly, VA last year.  Obama’s traveling press corps was loaded onto a plane that they assumed would also contain Obama; it wasn’t until the plane was heading down the runway for takeoff that the reporters realized they’d been conned.  They angrily confronted Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs, who stated obliquely: "Senator Obama had a desire to do some meetings, others had a desire to meet with him tonight in a private way and that is what we are doing."

Daniel Estulin, author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, reported that the 2009 discussion centered around a disagreement about how quickly the world economy should crash. According to Estulin’s sources, we are looking at “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.”

Estulin’s previous predictions, based on the same Bilderberg sources, have been eerily accurate.  He predicted the housing crash and the 2008 economic meltdown.  He says now that unemployment in the US will double by the end of the year, and that there will be another push to enact the Lisbon treaty, which is key to solidifying the power of the European Union as a superstate.  The Irish will be forced to vote on the treaty again in September or October, despite having already rejected it.

British comedy writer Charlie Skelton covered the 2009 meeting for the Guardian with daily dispatches from sunny Greece.  He started out in a light-hearted mood, captioning a photo of the car behind him with:  Tailed from the airport, by this and hundreds of other different cars at different stages. 

But his experience quickly soured, as he was followed, found evidence that his hotel room had been searched, and was arrested for taking a photo of the sea.  After repeated detentions and angry confrontations with Greek feds, he packed and fled the area.  In his final post, six days after his oh-so cheery beginning, he wrote: 

“My experience over the last several days in Greece has granted me a single, diamond-hard opinion…we must fight, fight, fight, now – right now, this second, with every cubic inch of our souls – to stop identity cards.

“I can tell you right now that the argument ‘If I've done nothing wrong, why would I worry about showing who I am?’ is hogwash. Worse than that, it's horse hockey. It's all about the power to ask, the obligation to show, the justification of one's existence, the power of the asker over the subservience of the asked.

“I don't care if you don't love liberty. For the love of yourself: fight identity cards. Don't let them happen. STOP IDENTITY CARDS. Stop identity cards. And while you're about it: stop identity cards. And that's all I have to say, you will be delighted to know, about Bilderberg 2009.”

Video: Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, David Icke and Aaron Russo warn about the coming fascist dictatorship

This 10 minute video is an excellent introduction to the New World Order and the plan for a global dictatorship that will oppress all of humanity in the manner depicted in George Orwell's classic distopian novel 1984. 

Between images of vegged out people munching snacks in front of their TV sets, we see clips of world leaders such as former US Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and ominipresent bad guy Henry Kissinger -- all predicting the coming of a New World Order.  Clearly, these chaps want us to think the NWO will be a good thing, a glorious new day for humanity.

Interestingly, the outcry from the media has come primarily from the right, in the form of Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck.  Although sounding the alarm about the coming totalitarian government and the approaching North American Union, neither broadcaster appears to make the connection with the massive shredding of the Constitution initiated by the Bush administration and continued by Obama.  (I say "appears" because I don't watch their shows and cannot attest to what they have not covered.)

Lou Dobbs: 

It's a new world order they're trying to create...despite the popular will.  This is a straight-forward assault by the elitists in this country.

Glenn Beck:

One world currency and a one world financial system is the end game.

Deceased film maker Aaron Russo, producer of The Rose and Trading Places, states:

Most people don't have a clue that unelected private bankers actually control the governments of the world.

Former Libertarian candidate from Montana, Stan Jones, as recorded in a pre-election debate on C-Span:

It's no longer a theory. What I am about to say is fact.  The secret organizations of the world power elite are no longer secret.  They have planned, and are now leading us, into a one world communist government.

The most eloquent and far-sighted visionary about the coming New World Order is David Icke.  I must admit, I find the idea that the elite are actually shape-shifting lizards hard to swallow.  But I dismiss nothing out of hand, for in the past 20 months, my long-held beliefs about virtually everything have been uprooted and replaced by a more clear eyed view of reality.  Not so long ago, I believed that:

• the USA was a basically good country
• 9/11 was planned by Muslim terrorists
• Martin Luther King was killed by James Earl Ray
• Robert F. Kennedy was killed by Sirhan Sirhan
• The OKC bombing was the work of Tim McVeigh
• elections mean something
• vaccines protect our health
• AIDS is caused by HIV
• I was well-informed because I read The New York Times
• and on and on -- the number of subjects I was wrong about -- that most people are wrong about  -- is unfortunately huge. 

I know better now.  Since I was so wrong -- even while so sure I was right -- about so many things, I am now much more open minded.  I'll consider anything if someone has credible evidence to show me.  Lizards?  Yes, that's a tough one.  But even presuming that Icke is 100% wrong about the lizards, he appears to be 100% right about many other things.  His comments in this clip from 1996 -- 13 years ago--are spot on. 

The media report the world as if presidents and prime ministers are the final arbiters and decision makers in the world.  Which means that the people above the level of presidents and prime ministers that really make the decisions, they're never looked at or exposed by the mainstream media, cause they're not accepted to exist. 

In 1940, science fiction writer H.G. Wells wrote:  

Countless people, from maharajas to millionaires, from pukka sahibs to petty ladies, will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by frustration of their passions and ambitions through its advent, and will die protesting against it.  When we attempt to estimate its promise we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.

Uber-conspiracy researcher Alex Jones is a much attacked visionary who started researching, and putting two and two together, fifteen years ago.  Jones exhorts us to not lose hope, he believes the plans for the NWO can be thwarted:

They think they've beaten us.  They think they're going to have their way with us. But I'm hear to tell them -- we are going to defeat them!

Why the Economic Destruction of America May Be Step One of A Global Banking Power Grab

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, has a piece on Infowars that lays out his view that the collapse of our economy is being done intentionally from the highest (or should we say lowest) people in our government.

For obvious reasons, these people shall go unnamed, but what they’re now telling me is that the economic meltdown is merely a means to an end. It is being done deliberately, they say, at the very highest levels to achieve a well-planned outcome. What outcome is that? Global rule over all banking, of course.

How to take over the world’s finances

Imagine an international Federal Reserve that creates and controls the money supply for the entire world. The centralization of financial power into the hands of the few would be unprecedented. What power the Fed wields over the United States today, a "global Fed" could soon wield across the entire world.

Achieving such a power grab, however, is no small task. Nations will not voluntarily surrender power over their currencies…

Unless there is a crisis!

In a crisis scenario, nations will give up practically anything — freedoms, finances, and yes, even their own currencies if it means avoiding certain economic disaster. If there’s one thing that the world has learned from 9/11, it’s that the best way to grab power from the People is to either engineer a disaster or piggyback on one that occurs on its own. When faced with the fear of annihilation, the People of any nation will not merely surrender their freedoms and finances, they will beg to turn them over to any apparent "authority" who promises a solution.

Four months after this program aired, Congressman Larry P. McDonald was dead. Coincidence?

This 17 minute video shows Congressman McDonald revealing the New World Order on Crossfire in May 1983.  By September 1, 1983, McDonald was dead. 

McDonald didn't die peacefully in his sleep, of a heart attack, or choking on a ham sandwich.  He died in the shootdown of KAL 007 on September 1, 1983.

Seven years earlier, McDonald had said:

The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent; all under their control... Do I mean conspiracy?  Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.

The man on our left is Tom Braden, who was with the OSS, then the CIA.  In this interview with McDonald, Braden is clearly alarmed and pulls out all the stops to discredit and mock McDonald.  Braden uses the word "conspiracy," over and over, which even by 1983 had apparently acquired the connotation of a belief in a plot so ridiculous that we are meant to laugh.  By using the C word repeatedly, he means to belittle McDonald's views, and at the very end, as he breaks into a smile, it becomes obvious that he intends to convey that he finds McDonald's views so preposterous that it gives him a chuckle. 

According to Wikipedia,  Braden had this to say about how the CIA co-opts and manipulates world leaders with money:

Suppose he just thought, this man can use fifty thousand dollars, he's working well and doing a good job - he could hand it to him and never have to account to anybody.... There was simply no limit to the money it could spend and no limit to the people it could hire and no limit to the activities it could decide were necessary to conduct the war - the secret war.... It was a multinational. Maybe it was one of the first. Journalists were a target, labor unions a particular target - that was one of the activities in which the communists spent the most money.

We are so screwed

In Paul Craig Roberts' most recent column, the former Wall St. Journal editor lays out the gravity of the situation for the USA:

The unreality in which the US government operates is beyond belief.  A  bankrupt government  that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.  According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year!  

The world has never seen such total mindlessness.  Napoleon’s and Hitler’s march into Russia were rational acts compared to the mindless idiocy of the United States government.

Obama’s war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.  After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan.  When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, "Frankly, we don’t have one."  NBC reports: "they’re working on it."  

Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid "mission creep without clear parameters," the US "needs a clear mission."

How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed?  How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?

What possible explanation is there for the Executive branch and the Congress to collude in destroying America?  Is there no one to stand up for the American worker or taxpayer or soldier? 

Once again, we will be asked to believe that this crisis was caused by incompetence--just like Iraq, Katrina and 9/11.  There must be no Ph.Ds in government, no one who understands economics, finance or even logic.

Once again, no heads will roll, there will be no demotions for this so-called incompetence.  Instead we see the prime villains--the bankers who first pleaded for less government oversight and then exploited that lack of oversight to build a huge debt bubble and destroy the economy--we see these same people being rewarded with trillions of dollars from the US treasury.  Dollars they can, and do, use for luxury vacations and enormous bonuses for themselves.

Rational economists such as Karl Denninger have argued that the banks need to fail.  In the words of Mexican banker Hugo Salinas Price:

There is no other way out of this swamp of excessive debt - and we state this categorically - other than by the cancellation of enormous amounts of debt, as noncollectable.

If the banks are too big to fail, why was there no anti-trust activity to prevent these behemoths from robbing us? 

It is not incompetence, it is an intentional sinking of the American middle class, ie, everyone other than the super-rich.  In this context, the middle class includes your surgeon, your accountant, your real estate broker. 

Americans who have lost their jobs, now will have time to go on the internet and explore the origins of our failed banking system, and might ask themselves why a private corporation, the Federal Reserve, was given the power to control the US economy. 

Has the Fed fulfilled its mission responsibly?  If not, why is it allowed to continue acting as king and monarch of of a soon to be former SuperPower?

The answer was given to me by film maker Laurel Jensen, who worked in the Reagan White House.  In June of 2008 she told me:

The President is only a PR guy.  He meets every Wednesday afternoon with representatives of the major banking families, who give him his marching orders.  He then goes and sells that plan to the American people.

Have you ever seen an article in the mainstream media seriously questioning the role of the Fed?  Are its decisions subjected to any kind of oversight? 

Of course not, for they are the controllers, dictators and rulers of this world.  Our visible government--Obama, Biden, Hillary--are just the public face of this cabal, the functionaries installed in power by the cabal's PR arm (aka the mainstream media) to implement its desires. 

And 98% of Americans are still oblivious to this. 

Yes, we are screwed.

Why it was time for a Dem in the oval office

The shadow government that controls both parties makes equal use of Democrats and Republicans.  They need to continue to show some small degree of difference between the parties, to maintain the illusion of choice on election day.   These small differences are played up as much as possible, while the huge areas of agreement are ignored. 

People with a conscience generally see the Dems as the good guys and the Repubs as the bad guys.  This is a particularly useful fiction at this point in history because so many progressives were distraught to the point of despair about the Bush administration.  Some reason needed to be held out for hope, and indeed Obama's main theme was hope. 

Millions of deluded Obama supporters wasted their energy on insuring Obama's election rather than working for true change at the top (that layer over the visible government).  Millions more were pacified that change was on its way, and thus took no meaningful action.  If throngs of citizens had descended upon Washington to protest:

• the bailout,
• or the shredding of the Constitution,
• or illegal spying,
• or torture,
• or the members of the Bush administration ignoring congressional subpeonas to appear and answer questions,
• or the obvious snow job from the FBI and DOJ framing Bruce Ivins for the anthrax attacks,
• or the stationing of military troops in the US in violation of posse comitatus, a law prohibiting US military troops being used for domestic law enforcement--

Irish musician Jim Corr speaks out about 9/11 Truth

Jim Corr of the Irish band the Corrs gave an eloquent 10 minute interview back in June about the New World Order, 9/11 and the plan for a global dictatorship. He does a great job of explaining it to his apparently completely naive host. Thank you Jim for speaking out.

Jim has a website, here is an excerpt from his homepage:

The light at the end of the tunnel is that millions upon millions of people are waking up to this unfolding Orwellian nightmarish agenda which I have spoken about on radio, and which will be averted as soon as we collectively wake up! 



The unfortunate reality is that the mainstream media is failing the people in crucial areas. In order for us to get closer to the full truth, we need to circumvent it, because it's controlled and indeed mostly owned by a handful of elite multi-national corporations controlled by the global elite that have a vested interest in keeping the full truth from us lest we awaken to the real agenda that's being played out behind the scenes. Am I saying that Irish national television and radio for example could be lying to the people all the time? Of course not. But they are most likely getting their international news from the likes of either Reuters or the Associated Press which are controlled news agencies. This realisation by a lot of people goes some way toward explaining the dramatic rise in alternative media where more and more of us are now getting our news from sources we feel we can trust better, particularly on the internet.

You will meet people as I do occasionaly who are unable to grasp the reality of what's really going on. You may even meet them amongst family and friends but don't get frustrated, It is understandably inconceivable for some people the contemplation that some governments at the behest of their globalist puppeteers could be staging terrorist attacks against their own populations, particularly for people who's reality doesn't extend beyond the Television set which is being used highly effectively as a Weapon of Mass Deception.

Compound fractured fairy tale

Once upon a time a child was born in a place called the land of the free and the home of the brave.  She was told that she was very, very lucky to be born in this land, the best country on earth.  In school every morning, her entire class stood, placed their hands over their hearts, and solemnly recited a Pledge of Allegiance to her nation’s flag.  After that the class sang a stirring song about the greatness of this land and its purple mountain’s majesty.  The same songs were heard on Independence Day, and, as the music swelled to a crescendo, she felt both gratitude and pride at being a citizen of such a wonderful land. 

In other countries, rulers did terrible things to their people, but few of their people would hear about it, as the newspapers printed only lies in support of the evil rulers.  That would never happen in her country, Amerika, where the right of free speech had been enshrined for centuries as the first and the most important amendment in the founding documents of the republic.  She learned that although her country had fought in many wars, it was always as either a victim of an unprovoked attack, or as a brave ally to those who were innocent victims. 

The years passed and she lived her life with little regard to the work of her government.  She voted every four years, wearing proudly her “I voted” sticker for the rest of the day.

To be sure, there were disturbing occurrences every now and then.  A president was gunned down in broad daylight on a city street, then later his brother, an influential senator, was killed.  A charismatic leader of the descendants of the slaves was shot and killed at the height of his popularity.  But each time, thanks to quick police work, the lone nuts who committed these deeds were located within hours and punished, making the streets safe once again.

The NWO plan for a global dictatorship was described 38 years ago

Interesting quote from former FBI agent and Brigham Young University professor W. Cleon Skousen, on page 6 of his book The Naked Capitalist, published in 1970:

"...there actually exists a relatively small but powerful group which has succeeded in acquiring a choke-hold on the affairs of practically the entire human race.

"Of course, we should be quick to recognize that no small group could wield such gigantic power unless millions of people in all walks of life were "in on the take" and were willing to knuckle down to the iron-clad regimentation of the ruthless bosses behind the scenes.  As we shall see, the network has succeeded in building its power structure by using tremendous quantities of money (together with the vast influence it buys) to manipulate, intimidate, or corrupt millions of men and women and their institutions on a world-wide basis.

PERHAPS WE SHOULD HAVE ANTICIPATED JUST SUCH A DEVELOPMENT

"Anyone familiar with the writings of John's Apocalypse might have suspected that modern history would eventually contain the account of a gigantic complex of political and economic power which would cover the whole earth.

(snip)

"Dr. Quigley assures us that this type of global power structure is on the verge of becoming a total reality."

Is the world ruled by a Satanic cult?

I think you will find this woman's experiences interesting.  Interesting and horrifying.  Evidently the New World Order is already in place and ruling -- just not out in the open yet.

Svali escaped from the Satanic Illuminati cult.

They will force a two year old child to kill a kitten -- or else be shocked mercilessly.  As they get older they are forced to kill larger things, even human babies. 

This corroborates a book I've been reading by researcher Dave McGowan, "Programmed to Kill."  It's the worst thing I've ever read.  The evil of 9/11 is nothing compared to this:  the ritual rape, torture and murder of children, while nations everywhere refuse to prosecute the murderers, despite abundant evidence of their crimes.  

The sadists doing this are the same ones who control our planet from behind the scenes. Through their centuries-old control of banking, they have made vast amounts of money out of nothing, thanks to the sleight of hand known as fractional reserve banking, and now control governments, education, and the media.

There is a reason why you never learned in school exactly where money comes from.  

"Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws." — Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a prominent European banker in the eighteenth century

"This Federal Reserve Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Wilson) signs this bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalized." — Hon. Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., Dec. 23, 1913

"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominate men. I have unwittingly betrayed my country." — President Woodrow Wilson, 1916

"The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent; all under their control... Do I mean conspiracy?  Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent." — Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976.  McDonald died when Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down in 1983.

"Freedom is the absence of awareness of restraint." — David Rockefeller

"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." — J. Edgar Hoover

Why do you suppose there has been such a concerted media effort to paint conspiracy theorists as wacked out looney tunes moonbats?  Because there is a conspiracy, it is huge, and it's completely evil.  By having hipsters like Bill Maher and South Park characters mock conspiracy theorists, the sheep who can't think for themselves adopt that point of view as their own -- and refuse to take anyone seriously who has figured out the conspiracy.

Go ahead and mock if you want to.  Soon enough the truth will be painfully evident for all to see--if you can't see it now. 

Quotes from Carroll Quigley, Bill Clinton's prof at Georgetown University

These quotes are from Quigley's massive 1,348 page opus "Tragedy and Hope,  published in 1966.

"...the powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

"There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network...I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records."

"More than fifty years ago the Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do, since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both. The purpose was not to destroy, dominate, or take over but was really threefold: (1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could "blow off steam," and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went "radical."

George Carlin on how the banksters and NWO are screwing us

Sometime in the last year of his life, George Carlin delivered this stand-up routine to an audience in New York City.  It's not funny.  There is little laughter.  But there is a great deal of truth that you are unlikely to hear from many other sources. 

This video cuts off before Carlin finishes, so you don't get to hear him conclude:

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Thank you George Carlin, rest in peace.

The false hope of Obama

Many of my friends, ardent lifetime  progressives, refuse to see the truth about our corrupt two party duopoly.  After eight awful years under Bush, they cling to the hope that Barack Obama, with his lofty but vague promises of change, will reverse the crimes of the Bushes and bring in a new age of peace and light.

I fear my friends are to be sorely disappointed.  Obama serves the same masters as McCain and Bush, with the added benefit to the Powers that Be of lulling the population into passivity, as they wait for the Golden Age of Obama to begin.

In an article from Aug. 21, 2008 in Rolling Stone titled Candidates for Sale, Matt Taibbi lays out the corporate underpinnings of Obama's campaign.  Some key passages:

The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.

They're succeeding. Both would-be presidents have already sold us out. They've taken the money and run — completing the cyclical transformation of the American political narrative from one of monopolistic Republican iniquity to an even more depressing tale about the overweening power of corporate money and the essentially fictitious nature of our two-party system.

In layman's terms, we've gone from being screwed to being fucked.

Taibbi concludes:

For all the excitement that Barack Obama has garnered, and all the talk about a new day in Washington, it would be tragic if the real legacy of his election victory was to finally expose the essentially unchanging, oligarchic nature of our political system. It's the same old story: Money talks, and bullshit walks.

Bestseller in China: Currency Wars

From Asia Times

 "Currency Wars (Huobi Zhanzheng), a book written by a Chinese native who lived in the United States and worked on Wall Street, has become a runaway bestseller in China in the past nine months. Song Hongbing, the book's author, draws from a wide range of literature in English and argues that the modern history of international finance is primarily a process of how a very small number of powerful families in the West have established their control over governments and international institutions.

"According to Song, there is no such thing as a free market when it comes to global finance and financial institutions. From the Rothschild family at the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the rise of JP Morgan, the Rockefellers and other prominent US financial powerhouses, Song sees all the modern wars, depressions and men-made disasters having a linkage to the manipulation of a handful of Western private bankers.

"The Great Depression of the 1930s, the oil crises of the 1970s, and the fall of the Soviet Union were all apparently masterminded by the small group of Western bankers and financiers."