All B-Cruz: married into the TPP/NAU establishment

Not a US citizen? No problem, it doesn't matter anymore! ¿No un ciudadano estadounidense? ¡No hay problema, no importa más!

If you consider yourself a Cruzer supporter watch where you step. If you think the "tea party" is your safe haven, you'll be disappointed when you find out it's just another appendage for GOP neocon leadership propaganda. 

The mouse trap is baited, don't lunge for the cheese. Promise us all you'll jump off a bridge after you support whom you thought was the 'lesser of two evils', when in fact there is no lesser! The Cruzer and an opponent  worship at other alters than you or me.

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Dr. Joel McDurmon

Mar 10, 2014

 

Good Fellas Blankfein, Goldman CEO and
Head Abortion Meister Buffett

During his CPAC speech this weekend, Senator Ted Cruz took shots at previous Republican presidential candidates Dole, McCain, and Romney, for lacking a “clear distinction” from big-government democrats. Well, I think Mr. Cruz has got some ‘splaining to do. It seems he’s just as married—literally—to the establishment as any of them.

A report from the ever-busy infowars.com reveals that Cruz’s wife, Heidi, has some rather behemoth credentials:

Cruz’s insider connection is a family affair. His wife, Heidi, is a Goldman Sachs vice president in Houston, Texas, according to her LinkedIn profile. She also served as an economic advisor for the Bush administration. In 2011, a Cruz campaign spokesman portrayed Heidi as “an expert on North American trade,” in other words she is savvy when it comes to globalist transnational trade deals like NAFTA, the single most destructive government move against the American worker in history.

She was also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (see her bio at Claremont McKenna College), a position that expired prior to her husband’s attack on the globalist organization.

The details come from a page listing Clermont-McKenna College’s Board of Advisors, on which Mrs. Cruz apparently served. In addition to being one of only three of W’s economic advisors,

She also served in the Administration as the economic director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council at the White House, advising the President and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. She also is a former director at the U.S. Treasury Department and was special policy assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, then Chief U.S. international trade negotiator.

It also reveals that before Goldman Sachs, she worked for another tentacle of the vampire squid, JPMorgan, “focusing on international structured finance.”

None of this says “Tea Party,” “small government,” “sound money,” and contrary to Cruz’s latest pitch, it also does not much support “standing on principle”—unless that “principle” is fiat money, TARP bailouts, financing wars, revolving doors, etc.

Now perhaps Mrs. Cruz’s career is not representative of the Senator’s views. Or, if it is, perhaps the Senator has changed views in recent years. He did later blast the CFR, but that seems to have come only after his wife’s Term ended, and only when trying to present himself as a Tea Party candidate.

But Cruz has wasted no time showing us to his views. Only a day after falling a distant second behind Ran Paul (Paul 31%, Cruz only 11%) in the CPAC straw poll, Cruz took a swipe, albeit a weak one, at Paul. Breitbart.com reports that despite being a “big fan” of Rand Paul, Cruz stated, “I don’t agree with him on foreign policy.”

There’s no doubt Paul is not an imperialist or a warmonger, but he has certainly deviated from his father’s uncompromising non-interventionism. When Fox News Sunday asked about his foreign policy, Paul answered,

I see my foreign policy in the same line as what came out of, probably, the first George Bush. Henry Kissinger wrote something in the Washington Post two days ago [here] which I agree with. I see it coming out of the mainstream of the Republican position.

I opposed with real fervor the involvement of us in Syria, and that became the dominant position in the country—both Republican and Democrat. There’s not one Republican who’s saying we should put military troops in Crimea, in the Ukraine. So I think I’m right in the middle of that position.

And I think that those who would try to argue that somehow I’m different than the mainstream Republican opinion are people who want to take advantage for their own personal political gain. I’m a great believer in Ronald Reagan. I’m a great believer in a strong national defense. . . .

It’s perhaps not surprising then that in his sideswipe at Paul, Cruz didn’t really give any real specifics, just vague sentimental references:

U.S. leadership is critical in the world. I agree we should be reluctant to deploy military force aboard, but there’s a vital role, just as Ronald Reagan did. When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an Evil Empire, when he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and said ‘Tear down this wall.’ Those words changed the course of history. The United States has a responsibility to defend our values.

Of course, Paul seems to share all of these platitudes: who doesn’t believe in “defending our values”? Who doesn’t believe in “U.S. leadership”? So as criticisms these fall flat.

The real questions are things like, “Do we need 800 international military bases to accomplish this?” “Do we need to maintain military bases in 63 countries?” “Do we need standing armies of 255,000 soldiers in foreign countries?” “Can anyone who believes in fiscal responsibility and small government seriously maintain $680+ billions each year in ‘defense’ spending?” And this is all not even considering the biblical doctrines regard the military and war (Paul has hinted at some. Cruz has not, as far as I know).

Since Paul shares the views Cruz mentioned, it seems that Cruz is either uniformed (unlikely), dishonest (harsh), or is engaging in careless political volleys.

Consider the results of CPAC, the latter seems most likely.

In fairness, Cruz was asked about Paul by an interviewer, so he had no choice but answer. But his answer is vague grandstanding on things Paul agrees with.

So, if we are to believe that Cruz’s answer distinguishes him from Paul somehow, then he must have very different definitions of “U.S. leadership” and “defending our values” than those articulated by Paul. For Cruz, these must be euphemisms for “imperialism” and “interventionism.”

If Cruz’s familial associations—Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, W, CFR— are any indication, then I think we know the answer. I suspect there is, therefore, some truth in Infowar.com’s conclusion:

Like the domestication of the Tea Party and the expulsion of its more purist liberty-minded activists, the Cruz the warrior pitted against the establishment motif is another slick subversion directed at the political elite’s most puissant opposition – the real Tea Party and a threatening number of patriot activists gnawing at the edges of the political establishment.

If Cruz gets more prominent for the 2016 primary, I suspect there will be an attempt to scrub these associations.

UPDATE: Paul fires back:

Many forget today that Reagan’s decision to meet with Mikhail Gorbachev was harshly criticized by the Republican hawks of his time, some of whom would even call Reagan an appeaser. In the Middle East, Reagan strategically pulled back our forces after the tragedy in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 Marines, realizing the cost of American lives was too great for the mission.

Without a clearly defined mission, exit strategy or acceptable rationale for risking soldiers lives, Reagan possessed the leadership to reassess and readjust.

Today, we forget that some of the Republican hawks of his time criticized Reagan harshly for this too, again, calling him an appeaser. . . .

How many leaders were as great as Reagan, willing to admit their mistakes, learn from them and put their country before their own reputation and legacy?

Today’s Republicans should concentrate on establishing their own identities and agendas, as opposed to simply latching onto Ronald Reagan’s legacy—or worse, misrepresenting it.

Source AmericanVision

US CORPORATE DESTROYERS URGING NEXT FASCIST FAST TRACK ATTACK 0N AMERICA

Wall Street Titans Who Crashed Global Economy in 2008 Go Big for TPP

As billionaire class and financial elites push corporate-friendly pact, new data shows empty promises and 'job-killing' reality of previous agreements

by

Jon Queally, staff writer

Executives from the financial institutions who received TARP funds, (L-R) Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, The Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robert P. Kelly, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis and State Street Corporation CEO and Chairman Ronald Logue testify before the House Financial Services Committee February 11, 2009 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

1. [CV ...a trinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries. Read more] and more ...Ted Cruz: married to the establishment

1. [CV ... Rand Paul Supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Trade Deal. Read more

Even as millions and millions of Americans—represented by thousands of labor, environmental, family farm, consumer, faith, Internet freedom and other advocacy organizations—continue to stand firmly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, those backing the TPP, including President Obama and a large majority of the Republican caucus, still have two dedicated demographic groups pledging their allegiance to the cause and arguing the so-called "free trade agreement (FTA)" would be good for average workers and the economy overall: billionaires and Wall Street titans.
As Zach Carter of the Huffington Post reports:

Last week, dozens of New York City's power elite signed a letter to the state's congressional delegation, urging lawmakers to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership now in negotiations. Democrats in Congress largely oppose the TPP, and Republican leaders have said they don't have the votes needed to pass it without Democratic support.
But while Obama has struggled to win over members of his own party -- he has been publicly feuding with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) -- wealthy CEOs probably aren't the ideal pitchmen to skeptical Democrats. Even if their letter hails the TPP as "a catalyst for creating new jobs in the United States" that will benefit "American workers in a broad range of industries."

Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch signed the letter. So did Steven Schwarzman, who once compared the prospect of raising taxes on private equity magnates like himself to Hitler's invasion of Poland. John Paulson, the Republican mega-donor who made a fortune betting against the housing market with Goldman Sachs, is also a signee. So is vulture investor Wilbur Ross, who spent six figures to support GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 and has backed such conservative hardliners as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.).

Other signatories include real estate billionaire Jerry Speyer, who recently attended a $100,000-per-person fundraiser to bolster former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's White House hopes. The host of that event, private equity kingpin Henry Kravis, also signed.

News of the letter, which can be read in full here, came on the same day as new trade data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, covering the full first three years of the bilateral trade deal between the U.S. and South Korea, revealed that the U.S. goods trade deficit with that country has more than doubled since the agreement, first signed in 2007 and amended in 2010, was implemented.

What the new data shows, according to the advocacy group Public Citizen, is economic outcomes that are the opposite of the Obama administration’s "more exports, more jobs" promise used to push through that deal, which are the same promises the administration and those supporting TPP are now using as they attempt to persuade Congress to approve Fast Track authority and ram it through Congress without debate or amendment.

The new economic statistics, explains Public Citizen, offer a damning indictment of the promises on which such deals are sold:

U.S. goods exports to Korea have dropped 6 percent, or $2.7 billion, under the Korea FTA’s first three years, while goods imports from Korea have surged 19 percent, or $11.3 billion (comparing the deal’s third year to the year before implementation). As a result, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has swelled 104 percent, or more than $14 billion. The trade deficit increase equates to the loss of more than 93,000 American jobs in the first three years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs ratio that the Obama administration used to project gains from the deal." [...]
Record-breaking U.S. trade deficits with Korea have become the new normal under the FTA – in 35 of the 36 months since the Korea FTA took effect, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has exceeded the average monthly trade deficit seen in the three years before the deal. In January 2015, the monthly U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea topped $3 billion – the highest level on record.

The administration has tried to deflect attention from the failure of its Korea FTA by claiming that its poor performance has been caused by economic stagnation in Korea. However, Korea’s economy has grown during each year of the Korea FTA, while U.S. exports to Korea have not.

Despite those figures and the collapse of the U.S. manufacturing sector in the age of neoliberal globalization, the repeated line from TPP supporters is that these deals are 'job creators.' As the letter from the billionaire elites to the New York Congressional Delegation stated, "TPP would be a catalyst for creating new  jobs in the United States, attracting more foreign investment to this country, and  benefitting American workers in a broad range  of industries."

But that's simply not what the evidence from past FTAs shows, said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, in a statement on Tuesday.

"Who’s going to buy the argument about Fast Track and the TPP creating 'more exports, more jobs' when Obama’s only major trade deal, used as the TPP template, was sold under that very slogan and yet has done the opposite?"

And Dave Johnson, from the Campaign for America's Future, explained in a Tuesday post how none of this "just happened" by accident, but that corporate-friendly trade policies have created these 'job-killing' conditions:

Globalization is not some kind of inevitable natural process of history that has caught up with us. This was and is the result of intentional policy choices, designed to force deindustrialization, break unions, drive down wages and benefits and increase inequality as that pay differential is pocketed by a few. This is the result of the “free market, free trade” ideology that rose up in the late 70s. Free trade policy was and is designed to give a few plutocrats and their giant corporations — “the 1 percent” — increased power over governments.

 Dean Baker, in “Globalization Was Policy, Not Something That Happened,” explained, “… inequality, like the path of globalization, is not something that happened. It was and is the result of conscious policy. We won’t be able to deal with it effectively until we acknowledge this simple fact.”

In his reporting for Huffington Post, Carter makes it clear that it wasn't only billionaires who signed the letter urging for Fast Track and TPP approval. Some, he told his readers, were "merely millionaire CEOs" like Goldman Sach's Lloyd Blankfein, Kenneth Chenault of American Express, and JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon.

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Mystery of the Knights Templars

29 April, 2015 - 04:23 Bryan Hilliard

Protectors or Treasure Hunters on a Secret Mission?

The Knights Templars were a secret society whose true purpose remains a mystery or is at least vigorously debated among scholars and historians to this day.  The Templars left behind many clues of their actions which have been passed down through generations, hidden in ancient manuscripts and discovered by archeologists in the modern era.  Their story is one that has captured the fascination and curiosity of people throughout the ages – were they sent to the holy land in Jerusalem to protect Christians on pilgrimages, or were they sent there on secret missions by higher authorities in order to unearth lost artifacts and buried treasure under temples and sacred holy sites? 

Artist’s impression of a Templar Knight (Wikimedia Commons)

The Knights Templars were members of a religious military order of Christian knighthood founded around 1118-1119 in Jerusalem by the French knight Hugh des Payens.  For nearly two centuries this organization was the most powerful order in the medieval world.  They were the first standing army in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire and by the time they reached their pinnacle of power in 1300, it is said they numbered in the tens of thousands.  In the beginning, there were a total of nine founding knights who made up the organization and were all related to one another through blood or marriage.  As both monks and soldiers, they were a paradox without precedent since there had never been praying priests who took up arms who also took vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy.  Knights Templars did not surrender unless they were outnumbered three to one and believed that since they were fighting for God they would be immediately sent up to heaven upon falling in battle.

BaldwinII ceeding the location of the Temple of Solomon to Hugues de Payns and Gaudefroy de Saint-Homer. The fourth person is Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem. (Wikimedia Commons).

Today in Europe, there are hundreds of former templar sites scattered across the continent showing how influential they were centuries ago.  At their peak, there were approximately 15,000 Templars houses with a network stretching from England to Egypt with the center of power situated in the then heart of the medieval world, France.  Conventional history says the Knights Templar’s purpose was to protect travelers traveling along the coast of the Mediterranean to Jerusalem.  In the middle ages, pilgrimages were made by westerners who had been guaranteed their safety in the city and templars protected them through the passes and mountains.  In addition to protection of the pilgrims, Templars also defended the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem and other holy sites as part of their duty.

• The intriguing carvings of the impressive Rosslyn Chapel.
• Walking the Camino de Santiago - Retracing the footsteps of our ancestors.

Crusades and Escort Service

For two hundred years, the Crusades were fought in the name of God and were considered to be a clash of civilizations.  Enemies were formed between the Christian west and Muslim east, which have endured to this day.  In 1065, Jerusalem was taken by the Turks and the Christians were treated badly enough to where, throughout Christendom, people were stirred to fight and recapture the city.  Another reason for the Crusades stems from the Church‘s desire to block any Islamic incursion into Christian lands.  On November 27th 1095, Pope Urban II gave a speech in which he exhorted Christians to rise up against Muslims in the Holy Land.  At this point in time, Muslims controlled Spain and parts of Eastern Europe.  Thousands responded to the call and took up the sword but only around 1,000 ever made it to Jerusalem.  The western Christians united with the Byzantines in the east and in 1099, the Crusaders, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, captured Jerusalem back from the Turks after a five week siege.  When the holy sites were in Christian hands, Westerners began traveling to the area in record numbers.  Outside the city walls, life was dangerous and there became a need for an escort service which is when the first Knights Templars came forward. 

Pope Urbanus ll preaching the First Crusade. (Wikimedia Commons).

Banking Back Home

During the third crusade, the Christians were decimated at the battle of Hattin.  It was the single worst military disaster in the holy land and one of the worst defeats for Christianity.  The Templars were all put to the sword by their Muslim conquerors who would go on to take the city of Jerusalem a few months later.  Subsequent crusades by later generations would come to be known as failures.  When they returned home after the first crusades in 1128, the Templars were rich and influential and answered to no one but the pope.  They also did not have to pay taxes and were allowed to cross through the borders of European countries unrestricted.  From 1150 on, they stopped guarding the road to Jerusalem.  Instead they devised a system which allowed pilgrims to travel without cash and valuables that might otherwise make them targets.  The Templars entered into the banking business and the Temples (local lodges) were established throughout Europe, drawing deposits of massive wealth.  The services the templars offered became the model for today’s banking system, money transfers, pension plans and traveler’s checks.  Their wealth made them the prominent bankers of their age and the first western multi-national corporation.  The most controversial service the Templars offered was the issuance of high profile loans.  Princes and commoners alike banked with the Templars, and many states became indebted to them.  The church, adamantly against usury at this time, looked the other way.

Crusader coins of the kingdom of Jerusalem, Denier in European style with Holy Sepulchre. British Museum, 2007. (Wikimedia Commons).

Decline of the Templars

With the fall of the Holy Land to the Muslims in 1187, the Templar order lost its founding purpose and became a target for unhappy debtors.  With the failure of the crusades and subsequent closures of the passage to the holy land, there no longer became a reason for the Knights Templars to exist.  Imagine a standing army roaming Europe that answered to no one and with no battle to fight.  This attracted attention and due to the wealth and political power the Templars had, they were seen as a threat to the power structure.  During the early 14th century, the order experienced a sudden decline.  In 1302, King Philip IV of France came into conflict with the pope.  Needing cash for his wars, he waged a vicious and skillful campaign aimed at suppressing the Templars, gaining their wealth while simultaneously, striking a blow against the papacy.  
On Friday October 13, 1307, all the Knights Templars in France were arrested by agents of King Philip and he ordered any still residing in the country to be thrown into prison where they were tortured until confessing to accusations of heresy, homosexuality, and dishonest business activities.  They were charged with capital offenses and their properties seized.  More than likely, many of the confessions were meaningless but following these admissions, a Papal command was issued by Pope Clement V to all Christian sovereigns in 1312 which ordered that all Knights Templars be disbanded.  The order of the Templar Knights went underground and their movements have been shrouded in mystery ever since.  Friday the 13th is linked with this historical event.

Execution of the Templars in the presence of Philip ‘the Fair’. Bedford Master 1415-1420, France. (Wikimedia Commons).

Conspiracy

After Clement’s edict in 1312, the Templars virtually vanished from the pages of history.  Of the hundreds, possibly thousands of Templars who were not arrested, there is little record of what happened to them.  There is documentation that their large fleet of ships vanished and it’s possible that they fled to Scotland since the country was something a Templar stronghold at the time.  They might have gone to Switzerland or hidden in the Alps which bordered southern France (its endless mountain range would have been a perfect hiding spot for treasure).  Some survivors of the Templar order can be traced and they simply changed their name becoming the Knights of Christ in Portugal for example.
But of all the mysteries surrounding the Knights Templars, the most puzzling one concerns their time spent in Jerusalem. The Templars literally disappeared there for nine years and what they did in their time there remains mostly unknown.  There were nine middle aged monks who were hardly in a position to protect travelers coming in and out of Jerusalem.  There also doesn’t seem to be a written account of any pilgrims being guarded by the Templars.  In 1867 a clue came to light when a British archaeological team excavated under the site of the temple mount in Jerusalem.  There, they uncovered tunnels extending vertically from a mosque for some twenty five meters which fanned out horizontally under the dome of King Solomon’s temple.  Templars spurs and various pieces of armaments were found as proof that the tunnels had been used by them.  A prevailing theory is that the Knights Templars were digging under the Temple for treasure left there by the Jews after the invasions by the Romans in 70 AD.  Other theories suggest the knights were guarding the Holy Grail and in possession of major treasures.  The biblical temple of Solomon once housed the Ark of the Covenant and Ten Commandments.  There are early masonic writings in the 1800’s citing documents which allegedly link the Templars with the arc of the covenant and treasure buried in the Temple of Solomon.   Regardless of which theory is the right one, when they emerged again in Europe they were more wealthy, powerful and influential than ever.
Featured image: Image of the Templar Knights ( brother-servant, brother and brother-knight priest). Ukraine, 1870. (Wikimedia Commons).
By Bryan Hilliard

References:

1.)  Wasserman, James. "Secret Societies: The Knight Templars and the Assassins." Secret Societies: The Knight Templars and the Assassins. N.p., 8 Dec. 2006. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://jameswassermanbooks.com/templar-lecture.html>.
2.)  Timbers, Alex. "Knights Templar." Knights Templar. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://morrischia.com/david/portfolio/boozy/research/knights_20templar.html>.
3.)  The Templar code. Dir. Marcy Marzuki. Perf. Various. A & E Television Networks :, 2009. DVD.
4.) The Bible's buried secrets. Dir. Gary Glassman. Perf. Various. WGBH Boston Video, 2009. DVD.
5.)  The Knights Templar. Dir. Steven R. Talley. Perf. various. A & E Television Networks :, 2005. DVD.
6.)  Ralls, Karen. Knights Templar encyclopedia: the essential guide to the people, places, events, and symbols of the Order of the Temple. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, 2007. Print.
7.)  "Templarhistory.com » Blog Archive » Philip IV – 1268 – 1314." Templarhistory.com » Blog Archive » Philip IV – 1268 – 1314. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://blog.templarhistory.com/2010/03/philip-iv-1268-1314/>.
8.)  "Who Were the Knights Templar?." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 26 July 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://www.history.com/news/who-were-the-knights-templar>.
9.)  The Templar code. Dir. Marcy Marzuki. Perf. Various. A & E Television Networks :, 2009. DVD.
10.)  "World Of The Wicked." World Of The Wicked. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://2012data.webs.com/knightsofthetemplar.htm>.
11.)  Hammer, Josh ua. "Smithsonian.com." Smithsonian magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/What-is-Beneath-the-Temple-Mount.html>.
12.)  Ralls, Karen. Knights Templar encyclopedia: the essential guide to the people, places, events, and symbols of the Order of the Temple. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, 2007. Print.
13.)  The Templar code. Dir. Marcy Marzuki. Perf. Various. A & E Television Networks :, 2009. DVD.

           

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Government Schools—the god that failed on purpose

 

By Al Benson Jr.
Posted on April 21, 2015
 
In the past I have commented on how most people view public schools, how many have commented on their gross failure to educate and I have stated that the public schools have really not failed—at what they were instituted to do—the dumbing down of our kids. At this they have been a smashing success.

What they have failed to do, and this is on purpose, is to educate the children committed to their charge. They continue to turn out graduates who don’t even know what century the War of Northern Aggression was fought in or who Hitler was, or who was president before our current Commissar took the office.

I am not saying that every public school teacher is a “bad” person or even that everyone working for a public school system is a bad person—I have a niece that is a public school teacher and she is well acquainted with many of the tragic problems in that system. There are lots of good folks that, in one way or another, work in the public school system and it’s not them that are evil—it’s the system itself and the agenda of the Educational Establishment in this country.

The main problem with the public, or government, school system is that its founders and true adherents have a messiah complex. The wish to replace the Triune God with their educational system—not to educate children, but to control and manipulate them—to make them into compliant little robots to be used by the New World Order as they deem fit. The mindset of those running the current governmental education establishment goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel—they are going to build a tower that reaches to Heaven and make a name for themselves and create a people that will do their will, not God’s.

Unfortunately “their will” is something most Christians and patriotic people wish to remain blissfully unaware of. “Don’t tell us that “right-wing stuff” we don’t want to be aware of all that. If we are we might have to assume some responsibility personally for our kids’ education, and that’s the absolute last thing we want.” 

Personal responsibility—ugh!!! Forget that—let the schools do it—and the public schools are only too happy to do it—at the expense of your kids’ souls!

Just recently, I came across an article on http://www.thearrowsoftruth.com titled The Rockefeller School System: Compulsory Indoctrination Camps for Social Control that was published back in November of 2012. The article stated: “The first federalized U.S. educaton boar was the 1870 founded NEA (National Education Administration) which quickly announced that countrywide school science courses must be restructured to teach ‘evolution’ as fact, not theory. Having gained a fair amount of pull in the NEA, in 1903, John D. Rockefeller created the GEB (General Education Board) in an effort toward ‘this goal of social control.’ Later, in 1923 he would also created the International Education Board providing over $20 million to promote education abroad. The Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford groups have often funded (and thus steered) American education more so even than the government.” One thing you need to realize here from this statement is that these people are the “real government” that calls the shots and the people you thought you elected to office are often little more than political puppets being directed by the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Fords, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers. That’s where the real power in this country lies—not in those you voted for—they are just the “house slaves” carrying out Massa’s orders, for which they get “house privileges” and assorted perks.

The article continues: “Reading through the papers of the Rockefeller Foundation’s General Education Board an endowment rivaled in school policy influence in the first half of the twentieth century only by Andrew Carnegie’s various philanthropies, seven curious elements force themselves on the curious reader: 1. There appears a clear intention to mold people through schooling. 2. There is a clear intention to eliminate tradition and scholarship. 3. The net effect of various projects is to create a strong class system verging on caste. 4. There is a clear intention to reduce mass critical intelligence while supporting infinite specialization. 5. There is clear intention to weaken parental influence. 6 There is clear intention to overthrow accepted custom. 7. There is a striking congruency between the cumulative purposes of GEB and the utopian precepts of the oddball religious sect, once known as Perfectionism, a secular religion aimed at making the perfection of human nature, not salvation or happiness, the purpose of existence. 

The agenda of philanthropy, which had so much to do with the schools we got, turns out to contain an intensely political component.” And this is a quote from the John Taylor Gatto book The Underground History of American Education.

And the article gives a short list of organizations funded by the Rockefellers. Some of them are: Atlantic Union, Council on Foreign Relations, Federation of World Governments, The Trilateral Commission World Affairs Council, United World Federalists. Notice any trends in this list? All of these groups in one way or another promote World government.

In his informative book The Rockefeller File which I believe can be found on the Internet, author Gary Allen noted comments by a former Baptist pastor, Frederick Taylor Gates, who had pastured a church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gates left that pastorate, was appointed secretary of the American Baptist Education Society, and, in that post, he championed a Baptist university in Chicago, which became the University of Chicago—one of the most leftist universities in the country. In 1889, Gates met John D. Rockefeller and became one of his advisors. Gary Allen has observed that: “Daddy Oilbucks (Rockefeller) put his assistant, Fred Gates, in charge of his General Education Board. Gates tipped the Rockefeller philosophy on education in the Board’s Occasional Paper No. 1: In our dreams we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. 

The present educational conventions fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.” Gives you the warm fuzzies doesn’t it?

Some commentators have claimed this quote was taken out of context and really doesn’t mean what it sounds like, but if “Rev.” Gates ended up as an advisor to Rockefeller then you have to know that this One World mindset about educational control is where he was coming from. Had it not been, then Rockefeller would have had no use for him. And you have to wonder, looking at the University of Chicago now, where the Baptists lost control. I recall reading a little book, years ago entitled How Red is the University of Chicago?

Allen also noted that “The Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations, which often had interlocking directorates and many times acted in unison, began in the early Thirties to back John Dewey and his Marxist educationists with enormous amounts of money.” This is the same John Dewey that had so much to do with shaping public education in this country, the man that was a signer of Humanist Manifesto 1. Check that one out on the Internet too, while you still can.

The thing to remember here is that those who ran these foundations and had a One World Government mindset are the very ones that financially helped to design the curriculum that most of us were taught in government schools, and they are still doing it. Your kids today are getting fed the same One World Swill we were fed in government schools. It was, and still is, anti-Christian, as it was intended to be from the beginning. You can have all the Christian teachers you want in public schools, but if they are forced to teach this stuff, whether knowingly or not, where is their Christian testimony? The sincere teachers and the kids have been sold down the river and are forced to partake of the One World outlook that goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel. I realize the folks, even Christians, that prefer to have their kids “educated” in this setting won’t be influenced by what I have written here, but at least they will not be able to say no one ever told them. Lots of folks over the past hundred or so years have told them and the fact that they are not listening in the main is one reason this country will be judged.

And, coincidentally, in this vein, Sam Blumenfeld and Alex Newman have just written a book called Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools To Destroy America’s Children. This was published by WND Books in April of this year.

Neocons Guided Petraeus on Afghan War

March 9, 2015

From the Archive: Before Gen. David Petraeus was caught giving secrets to his biographer-mistress, he was giving special favors and access to influential neocons, one reason why Official Washington was so happy that he received only a hand-slap for his crime, ties that Robert Parry examined in 2012.

By Robert Parry (Originally published on Dec. 19, 2012)

Even after the Iraq War disaster and Barack Obama’s election in 2008, neoconservatives retained their influence over U.S. war policies in Afghanistan through their close ties to George W. Bush’s national security holdovers, such as Gen. David Petraeus who partnered with neocon war hawks in escalating the Afghan War.

How tight Petraeus’s relationship was with two neocons in particular, Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, was explored in a Washington Post article by war correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran who described how Petraeus installed the husband-and-wife team in U.S. offices in Kabul, granted them top-secret clearances and let them berate military officers about war strategy.

Gen. David Petraeus posing before the U.S. 
Capitol with Kimberly Kagan, founder and 
president of the Institute for the Study of 

War. (Photo credit: ISW’s 2011 Annual Report)

Though the Kagans received no pay from the U.S. government, they drew salaries from their respective think tanks which are supported by large corporations, including military contractors with interests in extending the Afghan War. Frederick Kagan works for the American Enterprise Institute, and Kimberly Kagan founded the Institute for the Study of War [ISW] in 2007 and is its current president.

According to ISW’s 2011annual report, its original supporters were mostly right-wing foundations, such as the Smith-Richardson Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, but it was later backed by national security contractors, including major ones like General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and CACI, as well as lesser-known firms such as DynCorp International, which provides training for Afghan police, and Palantir, a technology company founded with the backing of the CIA’s venture-capital arm, In-Q-Tel. Palantir supplies software to U.S. military intelligence in Afghanistan.

In her official bio at the ISW’s Web site, Kimberly Kagan touts her work “in Kabul for fifteen months in 2010 and 2011 as a ‘directed telescope’ to General David H. Petraeus and subsequently General John Allen, working on special projects for these commanders of the International Security Assistance Force.”

In the ISW’s 2011 annual report, Petraeus praises Kagan as “a barracuda at some times,” hails her leadership and poses with her for several photographs, including one in his dress uniform with the U.S. Capitol in the background.

The Post article noted that “For Kim Kagan, spending so many months away from research and advocacy work in Washington could have annoyed many donors to the Institute for the Study of War. But her major backers appear to have been pleased that she cultivated such close ties with Petraeus, who went from Kabul to head the CIA before resigning this fall over his affair with [biographer Paula] Broadwell. …

“On Aug. 8, 2011, a month after he relinquished command in Afghanistan to take over at the CIA, Petraeus spoke at the institute’s first ‘President’s Circle’ dinner, where he accepted an award from Kim Kagan. … ‘What the Kagans do is they grade my work on a daily basis,’ Petraeus said, prompting chortles from the audience. ‘There’s some suspicion that there’s a hand up my back, and it makes my lips talk, and it’s operated by one of the Doctors Kagan.’ …

“At the August 2011 dinner honoring Petraeus, Kagan thanked executives from two defense contractors who sit on her institute’s corporate council, DynCorp International and CACI International. The event was sponsored by General Dynamics. All three firms have business interests in the Afghan war.

“Kagan told the audience that their funding allowed her to assist Petraeus. ‘The ability to have a 15-month deployment essentially in the service of those who needed some help — and the ability to go at a moment’s notice — that’s something you all have sponsored,’ she said.”

Earlier Warning Signs

Though the Post article provides new details about Petraeus’s coziness to Washington’s neocons, there have been warning signs about this relationship for several years. In 2010, I wrote articles describing how Petraeus and other holdovers from George W. Bush’s administration, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, had trapped the inexperienced Obama into expanding the Afghan War.

On Sept. 27, 2010, I noted that “after his solid victory in November 2008, Obama rebuffed recommendations from some national security experts that he clean house by installing a team more in line with his campaign pledge of ‘change you can believe in.’ He accepted instead the counsel of Establishment Democrats who warned against any disruption to the war-fighting hierarchy and who were especially supportive of keeping Gates. …

“Before Obama’s decision to dispatch [an additional] 30,000 troops [in an Afghan War ‘surge’ in 2009], the Bush holdovers … sought to hem in the President’s choices by working with allies in the Washington news media and in think tanks. …

“For instance, early in 2009, Petraeus personally arranged for Max Boot [a neocon on the Council on Foreign Relations], Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan to get extraordinary access during a trip to Afghanistan. … Their access paid dividends for Petraeus when they penned a glowing report in the Weekly Standard about the prospects for success in Afghanistan – if only President Obama sent more troops and committed the United States to stay in the war for the long haul. …

“‘Fears of impending disaster are hard to sustain, … if you actually spend some time in Afghanistan, as we did recently at the invitation of General David Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command,’ they wrote upon their return.

“‘Using helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and bone-jarring armored vehicles, we spent eight days traveling from the snow-capped peaks of Kunar province near the border with Pakistan in the east to the wind-blown deserts of Farah province in the west near the border with Iran. Along the way we talked with countless coalition soldiers, ranging from privates to a four-star general,’ the trio said.”

(Frederick Kagan is the brother of Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, which began the drive in 1998 for invading Iraq. Robert Kagan, now with the Brookings Institution and a columnist for the Washington Post, is married to Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who oversaw last year’s coup in Ukraine. For more on the outsized influence of the Kagans, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Obama’s True Foreign Policy ‘Weakness.'”)

Trapping the President

How Obama was manipulated by Bush’s holdovers – with the help of the neocons – was chronicled, too, in Bob Woodward’s 2010 book, Obama’s Wars, which revealed that Bush’s old team made sure Obama was given no option other than to escalate troop levels in Afghanistan. The Bush holdovers also lobbied for the troop increase behind Obama’s back.

Woodward’s book notes that “in September 2009, Petraeus called a Washington Post columnist to say that the war would be unsuccessful if the president held back on troops. Later that month, [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Adm. Mike] Mullen repeated much the same sentiment in Senate testimony, and in October, [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal asserted in a speech in London that a scaled-back effort against Afghan terrorists would not work.”

This back-door campaign infuriated Obama’s aides, including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Woodward reported. “Filling his rant with expletives, Emanuel said, ‘Between the chairman [Mullen] and Petraeus, everyone’s come out and publicly endorsed the notion of more troops. The president hasn’t even had a chance!’” Woodward reported.

According to Woodward’s book, Gates, Petraeus and Mullen refused to even prepare an early-exit option that Obama had requested. Instead, they offered up only plans for their desired escalation of about 40,000 troops.

Woodward wrote: “For two exhausting months, [Obama] had been asking military advisers to give him a range of options for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he felt that they were steering him toward one outcome and thwarting his search for an exit plan. He would later tell his White House aides that military leaders were ‘really cooking this thing in the direction they wanted.’”

Woodward identified Gates, Petraeus and Mullen as “unrelenting advocates for 40,000 more troops and an expanded mission that seemed to have no clear end.”

The Bush holdovers even resisted passing along a “hybrid” plan that came from outside their group, from Vice President Joe Biden who had worked with JCS vice chairman, Gen. James Cartwright. The plan envisioned a 20,000 troop increase and a more limited mission of hunting Taliban insurgents and training Afghan government forces.

Woodward reported, “When Mullen learned of the hybrid option, he didn’t want to take it to Obama. ‘We’re not providing that,’ he told Cartwright, a Marine known around the White House as Obama’s favorite general. 

Cartwright objected. ‘I’m just not in the business of withholding options,’ he told Mullen. ‘I have an oath, and when asked for advice I’m going to provide it.’”

Rigged War Game

Later, Obama told Gates and Mullen to present the hybrid option as one possibility, but instead the Bush holdovers sabotaged the idea by organizing a classified war game, code-named Poignant Vision, that some military insiders felt was rigged to discredit the hybrid option, Woodward reported.

According to Woodward’s book, Petraeus cited the results of the war game to Obama at the Nov. 11, 2009, meeting as proof the hybrid option would fail, prompting a plaintive question from a disappointed President, “so, 20,000 is not really a viable option?” Without telling Obama about the limits of the war game, Mullen, Petraeus, Gates and then-field commander McChrystal asserted that the hybrid option would lead to mission failure.

“Okay,” Obama said, “if you tell me that we can’t do that, and you war-gamed it, I’ll accept that,” according to Woodward’s book.

Faced with this resistance from the Bush holdovers – and unaware that their war game may have been fixed – Obama finally devised his own option that gave Gates, Petraeus and Mullen most of what they wanted – 30,000 additional troops on top of the 21,000 that Obama had dispatched shortly after taking office.

Obama did try to bind the Pentagon to a more limited commitment to Afghanistan, including setting a date of July 2011 for the beginning of a U.S. drawdown. Though Obama required all the key participants to sign off on his compromise, it soon became clear that the Bush holdovers had no intention to comply, Woodward reported.

Backstabbing

The incoming Obama administration was warned of this possibility of backstabbing by Gates, Petraeus and other Bush appointees when it was lining up personnel for national security jobs.

As I wrote in November 2008, “if Obama does keep Gates on, the new President will be employing someone who embodies many of the worst elements of U.S. national security policy over the past three decades, including responsibility for what Obama himself has fingered as a chief concern, ‘politicized intelligence.’ … It was Gates – as a senior CIA official in the 1980s – who broke the back of the CIA analytical division’s commitment to objective intelligence.”

More than any CIA official, Gates was responsible for the agency’s failure to detect the collapse of the Soviet Union, in large part because Gates had ridden roughshod over the CIA analysts on behalf of the Reagan administration’s desire to justify a massive military buildup by stressing Soviet ascendance and ignoring evidence of its disintegration.

As chief of the CIA’s analytical division and then deputy CIA director, Gates promoted pliable CIA careerists to top positions, while analysts with an independent streak were sidelined or pushed out of the agency.

“In the mid-1980s, the three senior [Soviet division] office managers who actually anticipated the decline of the Soviet Union and Moscow’s interest in closer relations with the United States were demoted,” wrote longtime CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman in his book, Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

Instead of heeding these warnings, Obama’s team listened to Establishment Democrats like former Rep. Lee Hamilton and former Sen. David Boren, who were big fans of Gates. [For more on Gates’s role, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative.]

Petraeus was much the same story. A favorite of Official Washington and especially the influential neocons, he was credited with supposedly winning the war in Iraq by implementing the “surge” in 2007, which was advocated strongly by Frederick Kagan and other key neocons.

However, in reality, all Petraeus did was extend that misguided war for another few years – at the cost of nearly 1,000 more U.S. dead and countless more dead Iraqis – thus giving President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney time to get out of Washington before the ultimate failure of the mission became obvious. The last U.S. troops were forced to leave Iraq at the end of 2011.

Begging Boot

Petraeus had such close ties to the neocons that he relied on them to pull him out of difficult political spots. In one embarrassing example in 2010, e-mails surfaced showing the four-star general groveling before Max Boot, seeking the neocon pundit’s help heading off a controversy over Petraeus’s prepared testimony to Congress which contained a mild criticism of Israel.

The e-mails from Petraeus to Boot revealed Petraeus renouncing his own congressional testimony in March 2010 because it included the observation that “the enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests” in the Middle East.

Petraeus’s testimony continued, “Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. … 
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

Though the testimony was obviously true, many neocons regard any suggestion that Israeli intransigence on Palestinian peace talks contributed to the dangers faced by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan – or by the U.S. public from acts of terrorism at home – as a “blood libel” against Israel.

So, when Petraeus’s testimony began getting traction on the Internet, the general turned to Boot at the high-powered Council on Foreign Relations, and began backtracking on the testimony. “As you know, I didn’t say that,” Petraeus said, according to one e-mail to Boot timed off at 2:27 p.m., March 18. “It’s in a written submission for the record.”

In other words, Petraeus was saying the comments were only in his formal testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee and were not repeated by him in his brief oral opening statement. However, written testimony is treated as part of the official record at congressional hearings with no meaningful distinction from oral testimony.

In another e-mail, as Petraeus solicited Boot’s help in tamping down any controversy over the Israeli remarks, the general ended the message with a military “Roger” and a sideways happy face, made from a colon, a dash and a closed parenthesis, “:-)”.

The e-mails were made public by James Morris, who runs a Web site called “Neocon Zionist Threat to America.” He said he apparently got them by accident when he sent a March 19 e-mail congratulating Petraeus for his testimony and Petraeus responded by forwarding one of Boot’s blog posts that knocked down the story of the general’s implicit criticism of Israel.

Petraeus forwarded Boot’s blog item, entitled “A Lie: David Petraeus, Anti-Israel,” which had been posted at the Commentary magazine site at 3:11 p.m. on March 18. However, Petraeus apparently forgot to delete some of the other exchanges between him and Boot at the bottom of the e-mail.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

source consortiumnews