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Debt and Bombs
A Brief History of The Federal Reserve System and Post-World War I United States Foreign Policy
As seen, in full, at The Piedmont Chronicles, with the following note:
*Ed. note: what follows is a commissioned, feature piece on a subject that is key to a true understanding of what exactly is the REAL Story as it applies to…almost everything related to D.C., banking, foreign policy & the military. It is a critical analysis of how the two gravest threats to the endurance of the Republic – the Fed & the MIC/War Machine – work in concert & feed off of one another to continue to erode our national sovereignty & enrichen the power elite. Now, add to that, the current phenomenon of an attempt at a “great reset” & one can safely assume that those of us who prefer Freedom & Liberty have a lot to be concerned about; however, like any true threat, one must know the full backstory. This is a piece that I’ve had in the mental backburner for years but could never really get any traction on — Perrin the Pro knocked it out in less than a week. A slightly longer read, but a necessary one. As always, we appreciate you reading. — MBM
During the same week, news broke that former Fed Chairman Janet Yellen was under consideration for Treasury Secretary in a putative Biden administration and that the current President had explored the option of bombing Iran. Debt and bombs, together, and not for the first time. These two topics in American history and geopolitical policy are intrinsically, intricately related and intertwined, one dependent on the other in a strange dual parasitic relationship. You, dear American, are the host.
The Federal Reserve sprang forth from the aptly-named Federal Reserve Act of 1913. United States foreign policy, post-WWI, unsurprisingly started in or after 1918, though the foundations were laid well before the War to End All Wars (that didn’t) began in 1914. Again the astute reader might notice close temporal proximity. That is no coincidence.
However, outside of an American connection, these twin matters are near-eternal in nature. Long has the world hosted and suffered international meddling, for good or ill, and usurious, nefarious lending schemes, always for ill.
Show Me The Coin
Some 2,000 years ago, a certain itinerant street preacher conversed with the leading client-state religious leaders of His day:
“‘Show Me the money you pay the tax with.’ They handed Him a denarius, and He said, ‘Whose portrait is this? Whose title?’ They replied, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then He said to them, ‘Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and God what belongs to God.’ When they heard this they were amazed; they left Him alone and went away.”
-Matthew 22:19-22 (KJV)
We’re not so lucky; if only they would leave us alone. Of course, not long after that meeting and following a lecture on their paternity, these wayward leaders delivered the Son up for Imperial judgment. There is, in this short passage, a lesson and a warning. Contrary to popular belief (or lack thereof), this dialogue is in no way an endorsement of taxation. Rather, Jesus exposed the Pharisees as blasphemous hypocrites. The coin in question was not a standard Imperial Roman model. It was a newly devised silver piece, especially for use by Tiberious and the elites of his day, and which bore allegiant inscriptions to both Athena and to Augustus, the “living god.” To bring such money into the Temple – for any purpose – was a direct affront to Our Heavenly Father. Thus, Christ instructed that it stay with its proper debased and debasing owners.
This was but one of the examples innumerable of coin shaving, coin substitution, and numismatic treachery throughout history. And again, it was no coincidence that this particular example happened concurrently with Roman expansion into the Levant, Gaul, Britannia, and other foreign spheres. It is unusual in that the replacement metal was of greater value than the bronze denarius, a distinction erased as years slipped by. Our own experience these past 107 years has been a steady devaluation, from valuable metal-based currency to metal-linked paper, to paper, attractive yet worthless, and now, to ones and zeros in computers.
“Money,” like all other words, has a definition. What has been historically traded as currency, in lieu of bartering, has been: portable, fungible, scarce, and intrinsically valuable. Gold – rare, uniform, and useful in its own right – meets the definition nicely. By itself, how much value is held in a line of code? What is the literal measure and value of the thing itself, the screen of binary characters? These questions and these contrasts matter. And, they are not unique to the last century in American history.
Vipers and Thieves
Given enough time and enough exposure to human reality, any monetary system will evolve or devolve the same as any other custom or practice. Yet, for truly exceptional malfeasance, one needs a centralized banking system. “Free” banking, or national banking, or even state or private banking, even if they are chaotic, with their structural de-linking are somewhat immune to total debasement due to forces of competition; if Bank X’s currency or the currency of North Carolina goes bad, then a user may always resort to the money of Texas or of Bank Y. A mandatory monopoly presents a more dire environment.
The Federal Reserve is the fourth central bank foisted upon the nation and the people. The first three were ill-fated and short-lived. They were the Bank of North America (effective 1782 – 1791), the First Bank of the United States (1791 – 1811-ish), and the Second Bank of the United States (1816 – 1836 (or 1841)). Yes, somehow America existed, grew, and prospered in the absence of a central bank for some 70 years.
Most famous in the telling of these former institutions was the demise of the Second Bank, at the capable hands of Andrew Jackson who declared unto the speculators and grifters of his day, “You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, I will rout you out!” He did.
No character of the magnitude of Jesus has been seen since His Ascension. Sadly, later-day America lacked and lacks even a man the likes of Jackson. What was once routed managed to creep back, its malice all the greater and its plan the vaster.
Enter The Creature
Read – and this is mandatory – The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin (American Media, 1994). Griffin’s stout book is both a practical, well-explained, and documented manual of how the Fed operates and a detailed history of how it descended upon the burgeoning Empire.
1913 was more of a process than an event or a single year, per se; it was a meeting of forces. Names are named and agendas are (belatedly) exposed by Griffin. In short summary, various dark groups converged in the well-appointed shadows and created a monster of a machine perhaps unequaled in history. Their final Act, Pub. L. 63-63 (1913) (an astounding section of which we will read, below), occurred near-simultaneously with other major changes that collapsed what remained of the old American Empire (your Republic died in 1861) into the new US Empire.
1909 saw both the Dick Act (stripping states of military power) and the introduction of Scofield’s fantasy Bible (paving the way of rapture dispensationalism and the eventual Judaizing of American Evangelism, which heavily impacted affairs domestic and foreign). 1913 also ushered in the 16th Amendment (confiscatory taxation to support the Fed) and the 17th Amendment (ending state control of the Senate). The politically demographic-crushing 19th Amendment was only a few years away. Why so many changes in such close proximity?
Because, in the eyes and minds of the elites of the early-20th Century, the time had come to implement their many agendas. Among them were: the replacement of Great Britain as the world’s economic and military superpower, the demographic alteration and replacement of the heritage American population, the astronomical growth of federal reach, power, and spending, the subjugation of American power to an alien entity, debt for debt’s sake – all else be damned, and global overreach – war without end.
Beyond displacing England, the Fed itself accomplished several things. It provided the stupid and diabolical political class with a mechanism for entering into all facets of life, public and private; money was no longer any impediment. For the greedy, pharisaical banksters, it allowed a gradual, yet total absorption of all true wealth and value from the nation and the people. Somewhere in between, the “titans of industry” couldn’t have been happier. A 1,000-word picture from The Creature, page 211, of a 1911 newspaper cartoon, says it all: the men of industry, willing to trade all they had, skin for skin, were “Dee-Lighted” … to meet Karl Marx. In truth, they and the rest of us received something far worse than nascent communism.
So, what exactly, does the Fed do? What is its purpose? According to the “About the Fed” page at federalreserve.gov (which is utterly misplaced as a URL and a concept – it’s not federal and there are no reserves), the answer is: “The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 established the Federal Reserve System as the central bank of the United States to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system.” What benevolent-sounding bullshit.
They make “money,” literally creating it out of thin air. As such, what is produced – by the tens of trillions of dollars – does not meet the definition of real money. It is a fiat currency and no more. Concerning those Federal Reserve Notes in the wallet, which we all foolishly exchange as real money, the law is clear:
“Federal reserve notes, to be issued at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for the purpose of making advances to Federal reserve banks through the Federal reserve agents as hereinafter set forth and for no other purpose, are authorized. … They shall be redeemed in lawful money on demand at the Treasury Department of the United States, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, or at any Federal Reserve bank.”
-12 U.S.C. § 411.
If they can be redeemed for lawful money, then they themselves are not lawful money. But, go ahead – try toting a bill, of any amount, into a Fed bank for redemption. Don’t really! There could only be a few outcomes for such action, including arrest or being violently bounced out on the head. They cannot be redeemed because we no longer have actual money in this country. Real money was minted by the Treasury, under laws established by Congress in fulfillment of some moot, antiquated clause from Article One of the dead and bygone Constitution. There was some vague idea about silver and gold. But, no longer.
The mechanisms of accomplishment are both extravagant and simple. I intentionally steer away, here, from the concept of “fractional reserve” lending, because the reserves have been fractured into nothingness. And, the “multiplier” effect, which Griffin equates to a comedic magic trick, has multiplied the supply of false money into the realm of pure fantasy. The periodic adjustments to the process (Bretton Woods, etc.), while interesting, are effectively moot for our examination.
Action after clandestine conference after allegiances with foreign central banks (to include the master vampire, the Bank for International Settlements, CH) after sleight of hand removed the underlying specie from the fiat. What one now holds is backed merely by lies and the threat of violent reprisal. Nixon closed the final link to the gold standard, long watered-down by the time of his Presidency; Congress made permanent the decree a few years later. Real value is for the money changers. You can make do with debts and paper promises. They literally stole the gold:
“Section 2. All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve Bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933…”
-Executive Order 6102 (April 5, 1933).
FDR’s theft was soon codified on a corrupt Capitol Hill. The strong-armed AU was not, please note, surrendered to the President, Congress, or any other entity or agent of the government. Rather, it was handed over directly to a private banking cabal. With real money in their possession, they were free, working with the politicians, to flood the nation with almost limitless fake currency.
Here, a short break:
Fun Fact One! Any contract or, more particularly, any debt instrument that one might sign today is denominated in United States Dollars – which no longer exist. However, it is universally paid in Federal Reserve Notes. The latter also technically does not exist before the signing, therefore the money for the loan is created by the loan. (How one pays usurious interest in such circumstances is another matter – of time, sweat, and life-stealing work, something akin to slavery or partial murder). All of these loans are impossible, fraudulent, and void, and would be so declared if the rule of law still held sway.
Fun Fact Two! There was, some sixty years ago, a President who stood up for sanity against this long, slow slide into oblivion. He noticed a lack of certain bills and asked the Fed to print more. They refused. Over their objections, he ordered the Treasury to print a batch of real dollars. (Should one be found, it is a collector’s item as most were removed from circulation by around 1970). Something bad happened to that President in the streets of Dallas.
Now, there is a little more to add concerning the net effect of and the more recent history of the devil’s bank. But, first, I thought it might be wise to quickly examine how some of that fake money secured, for a short while, America’s preeminence in the world.
An abundance of spending power, feeble legal limitations literally notwithstanding, allowed Washington to do many, many curious things. The encroachment on domestic affairs is a subject for another day. Overseas, the Empire operated and operates in several ways. In general, it buys influence. The Fed’s backing has allowed what may best be termed “bribery” of and for our friends and foes alike. See, here, the US involvement in the United Nations, NATO, other international organizations, and additional regional or nation-specific policies. In other ways, at other times, the US trades away resources and influence. American foreign economic policy has become little more than the giving away of American wealth and jobs. Take your pick of any “free trade” agreement – NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. – all of them resulting in deficits for the US. Any nation on the negative side of a commercial relationship is necessarily losing; it would be better if the US engaged in no foreign trade, under such terms, at all. On its end of the lopped-sided agreements, the US imports materials, including junk products and spyware along with a steady supply of incompatible, mostly-third world migrants. The US losses, relentlessly, on both the “front” and the “back” end of these deals.
However, most attention-grabbing foreign adventures involve war.
Bombs Away
Here follow a short and partial list of the places and wars in which the US Empire has engaged itself since the hatching of the Creature: WWI, Philippines, China, Cuban, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Liberia. There are many more, some you probably have never heard of. Each had a purpose and each was greatly enabled by the easy credit provided by the Federal Reserve system. These interventions frequently involve second, third, and even more episodes and often stretch over decades. They provide several things, including: a false sense of jingoistic pride; something for the government to do; ways to distract the people from domestic changes and challenges; ways for the government, the bankers, and the corporations to control and fleece the distracted people; large profits for profiteers, mercenaries, and assorted vultures; huge profits for the military-industrial complex; and; massive profits for the international banking cabal.
WWI and WWII, which Pat Buchanan collectively refers to as the Great Civil War of the West, were tests, the first to see if they “could do it,” the second to cement the fact they could. Interestingly, the on-again, off-again pattern of Congressional declarations of war ended in 1941. Any pretense of compassion and civility ended in 1945. Centuries of Anglo-American legal traditions and protections ended by 1946. A new world order was forged in atomic fire with the United States seemingly at its head – a fleeting moment, for things rapidly devolved.
Few can intelligently articulate why the US was ever involved in Vietnam, fewer still as regarding Iran and Panama. Since no later than 1990, all foreign adventures were based on lies, deceptions, and overt, blind, and reckless projection of force for its own sake. More recently, even the lamest of excuses were abandoned. “Here’s why…” was replaced with “we just are.”
The past few years have witnessed a shift in the global paradigm of military power and effectiveness. The Empire that hadn’t won a war since 1945 (and, then, only with astounding Soviet assistance and sacrifice) began to face a series of checkmates among the small, virtually-powerless nations the kind of which it had in previous decades dominated (though always without victory). This change was the product of many factors, not the least of which was the fulfillment of the bankers’ goal of subsuming all wealth and capacity from host America. The objective of the game had become waste and, at a certain point, enough was wasted to blunt any martial effectiveness. Another splendid little war was halted in Syria by a Russia armed with a sane mandate, advanced weapons, and free from the parasitic encumbrances that had eaten the core of America. Another cakewalk in Venezuela was similarly checked from Moscow. The neocons’ satanic dream of all-out war with Iran met a thundering roadblock one night in Iraq, a defeat delivered by the Iranians themselves. China now rules the waters in her backyard, projecting an ability to scatter the Seventh Fleet and the collected USAF air wings from the region at will. North Korea, with kilotons and rockets, is essentially immune to all American reprisals. The Pentagon, Langley, and the RAND Corporation all readily admit, upon consultation with experts human and computer, that the US cannot win any substantial engagement against Russia, China, or certainly a combined alliance of those rising powers. The same models predict woeful, impossible performance from the “mighty” US war machine even as against a determined coalition of American patriots at home – should any exist.
Another aspect of foreign policy, which directly impacts the homefront, bears mentioning here. As Donald Trump admitted during the fall of 2020, the US has been involved in the affairs and conflicts of the Middle East not on its own behalf, but on that of Israel. Our banking friends have also benefited handsomely. The price was paltry (by apocalyptic standards) with only millions killed, maimed, and displaced. This manner of bringing light unto the world naturally engendered hostility in certain quarters; the US kicked a hornet’s nest, repeatedly. That violence alone was poor enough judgment. Yet, then, the most impressive betrayal of intelligence occurred! Thanks to the law of 1965, long in the planning – perhaps as far back as, say, 1913 – a horde of the enraged hornets were courteously imported into the remains of the American nation. Some were brought in under the auspices of a specific plan, some as free agents of whatever chaos they might sow, and still more for the mere, constant shifting of demographic destiny. On all of these fronts, the new invaders initially flourished – 9/11, Pulse, the great Ohio Honda attack, etc. Yet, in the mind of your author, the outright attacks have of late subsided. The agents are still here, still ready, but they are not stupid. Theirs has become more of a waiting period, to see what comes and to allow growing internal divisions to deal the heaviest blows. The optimists among us might declare that the Fed and the nation-destroyers, for all their faults innumerable, have at least tamed ISIS! Realistically, we may have reached the point where the veracity of their notions simply no longer matters.
The hour grows late.
Several Seconds Until Midnight
Equalizing for robust monetary inflation one may compare prices and costs over time. In such fashion and relative to prices in 1952, the current price of a house in the US is 3.5 times as expensive as it was then. The price of a new automobile has more than doubled. Tuition at our “best” universities has increased over eight-fold. Yet, over the same 68 years, incomes have been cut in half. Again, that giant sucking sound one hears is the vampire draining away the last drops from a necrotic host. And, it is all a proposition of real value, of tangible useful things, idiotically traded away for fake paper or electronic debt. Just as the US currently lacks any coherent, responsible, or humane foreign policy, it also suffers from a complete lack of real money. One feels the imbalance anywhere and everywhere.
Your author suspects there may be a few more milliliters left for the leeches in both areas. A wounded, even dying predator is still dangerous at its end – perhaps more so being freed of constraining caution. It may lash out one final time. Internationally, the world presents a host of potential military targets and last-second trading disasters. At least a few will likely see commitment. Yes, Tehran dealt a staggering and unexpected defensive blow last January, not that you read much truth about it in the controlled media. And yes, the fools in DC are stupid enough to test the odds again. In fact, they’re even more stupid than that.
Monetarily, financially one finds the same scenario unfolding on behalf of the Fed. Since February, the people have been treated to lies about a financial recession in an otherwise healthy economy caused by a virus. This does not explain why the Fed began engaging in nightly lending to the commercial banks, to the tune of trillions or tens of trillions of dollars, in September of 2019. Nor is there any popular explanation why that graft and trillions more conjured “under Corona” have none little more than boost the appearance of a head above water. If it’s their last dance, they don’t have time for explanations.
Keeping Janet Yellen within the United States, let alone as Treasury Secretary would be uncommonly unwise. Equally stupid would be attacking Iran. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Those monetary and geopolitical phenomena Christ observed during His earthly tenure eventually helped collapse the Roman Empire, just as similar afflictions have dissolved or diminished all great powers. The exact processes, likely in their final phases, now hasten the end of the United States. Of course, as bad as the foregoing matters are and have been, they are but symptoms of the real disease and not themselves the ultimate issues.*
Where do we go next? That destination depends on faith, fortitude, and more than a little wisdom and wariness.
Originally at TPC!
*In summation, the main underlying ultimate issues, which I shall explore further at a later date, are wickedness and a lack of general intelligence, each feeding off of and worsening the other. Also, I note the note about “the Republic” and the most dangerous issues – an agreement to disagree, but valuable libertarian insight! Onward.
