Friday 26 June 2009

It Is Worse Than I Had Thought

This post is dedicated to a new friend, who re-awakened my awareness of a piece of legislation that was very unpopular in The Netherlands, and about which most Americans seem to be ignorant.

Under the guise of protecting its Services Personnel from being tried for war crimes in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, it became law in 2002. At the time I had heard of it of course, but not paid it a lot of attention, apart from the fact that I felt that if someone did commit a war crime there should be some agency that ought to be able to deal with that matter. I have now had the time to do some research.

This law does not just protect American Service Personnel from being tried for war crimes in the ICC, when reading it completely it actually states:

The President is authorized all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US States and Allied Person who is being detained or imprisoned by, or on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.

US does not recognize the ICC and that is of course its right. US wants to protect its own service personnel from being tried for war crimes, to some extent I can understand that, as long as the US gives a guarantee that if any of their personnel commit a war crime they will themselves deal with the matter in the same way they dealt with the war crimes committed during the Second World War in Nuremberg (somehow I doubt they will give that guarantee, looking at some of the sentences passed during the Abu Ghraib trial for war crimes which were rather light when compared to the executions of war criminals following the Nuremberg trials).

The really bad part of this act is the Allied person bit. This might mean for example that if the ICC wanted to try a foreign head of state for human rights abuse or war crimes, and the US did not want this person tried, in theory the US would have the right to invade any country holding that person at the request of the ICC or, if the person was already in The Hague, it would have the right to invade The Netherlands. Furthermore, this does not require the House of Representatives or the Senate to consent, that decision can be made by the President alone.

If this is how the US treats its Allies, is it any wonder that more and more people this side of The Pond, are getting just a bit worried about US policies, and wonder why not more Americans listen to Ron Paul, who advocates a policy of non-involvement in foreign affairs.

Saturday 20 June 2009

The Federal Reserve Scandal

The Federal Reserve does not belong to the people of America and it is not Federal at all. It belongs to a group of very rich families and privately owned Banks. Odd that the only five Presidents of the USA who wanted to take the control of the money supply away from the Federal Reserve, all had assassination attempts on their lives - they were Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F Kennedy. Only Andrew Jackson survived. They all wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve and take control of the printing and supply of money back into the hands of the Government.

These are the Banks that own the Federal Reserve :-

1) Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin; 2) Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris; 3) Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy; 4) Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam; 5) Lehman Brothers of New York; 6) Kuhn, Loeb Bank of New York (Now Shearson American Express);7) Goldman, Sachs of New York.

The Federal Reserve has never been audited, and Congressman Ron Paul has been lobbying for this for a long time now. One week ago he finally reached the magical figure of 218 supporters in Congress to attempt to get a bill passed so that the Federal Reserve will finally be subjected to the scrutiny of auditors and the American Taxpayer. So there may be a possiblity now that the American Taxpayer will see why it is they are paying their taxes to support a failing Banking system and how much money has been lost by the Federal Reserve, money which the taxpayer now has to pay back into the pockets of the few wealthy families that own the Fed Reserve.

It is surprising then, in view of the mounting criticism from all sides of the policies of the Federal Reserve, that Team Obama has now decided to give the Fed Reserve even bigger powers. Apparently the Fed are now given more power to oversee any financial institution deemed too big to fail.

Team Obama seems to have decided that the Fed should emerge as the premier financial regulator, even though it has just as much egg on its face as the much-maligned Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to blow the whistle on Wall Street's excesses. The same process appears to be happening in London, where the Bank of England has been given greater powers and in Germany.

This then is a trend. The 'central' banks are given bigger powers, are outside the area of audit and will now control all other financial institutions. Whilst the inhabitants of the countries where these banks operate will have to work harder and pay more taxes to finance the rich families that own these banks. Sounds like slavery to me.

President Lincoln warned the people of America :-
The money power preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed.

President Jackson said:-
You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.

President Obama has just given this den of vipers even greater power. Draw your own conclusions.