About Money

On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business.

The Christian Law Fellowship has exhaustively researched this matter through the Federal Register and Library of Congress. We can now safely conclude that this Executive Order has never been repealed, amended, or superceded by any subsequent Executive Order. In simple terms, it is still valid.

When President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - the author of Profiles in Courage - signed this Order, it returned to the federal government, specifically the Treasury Department, the Constitutional power to create and issue currency - money - without going through the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 [the full text is displayed further below] gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority: "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This means that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation based on the silver bullion physically held there. As a result, more than $4 billion in United States Notes were brought into circulation in $2 and $5 denominations. $10 and $20 United States Notes were never circulated but were being printed by the Treasury Department when Kennedy was assassinated. It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the united States of America.

United States Notes" were issued as an interest-free and debt-free currency backed by silver reserves in the U.S. Treasury. We compared a "Federal Reserve Note" issued from the private central bank of the United States (the Federal Reserve Bank a/k/a Federal Reserve System), with a "United States Note" from the U.S. Treasury issued by President Kennedy's Executive Order. They almost look alike, except one says "Federal Reserve Note" on the top while the other says "United States Note". Also, the Federal Reserve Note has a green seal and serial number while the United States Note has a red seal and serial number.

President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the United States Notes he had issued were immediately taken out of circulation. Federal Reserve Notes continued to serve as the legal currency of the nation. According to the United States Secret Service, 99% of all U.S. paper "currency" circulating in 1999 are Federal Reserve Notes.

Kennedy knew that if the silver-backed United States Notes were widely circulated, they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve Notes. This is a very simple matter of economics. The USN was backed by silver and the FRN was not backed by anything of intrinsic value. Executive Order 11110 should have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level (virtually all of the nearly $9 trillion in federal debt has been created since 1963) if LBJ or any subsequent President were to enforce it. It would have almost immediately given the U.S. Government the ability to repay its debt without going to the private Federal Reserve Banks and being charged interest to create new "money". Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S.A. the ability to, once again, create its own money backed by silver and realm value worth something.

Again, according to our own research, just five months after Kennedy was assassinated, no more of the Series 1958 "Silver Certificates" were issued either, and they were subsequently removed from circulation. Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to all future presidents not to interfere with the private Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money. It seems very apparent that President Kennedy challenged the "powers that exist behind U.S. and world finance". With true patriotic courage, JFK boldly faced the two most successful vehicles that have ever been used to drive up debt:

2) the creation of money by a privately owned central bank. His efforts to have all U.S. troops out of Vietnam by 1965 combined with Executive Order 11110 would have destroyed the profits and control of the private Federal Reserve Bank.

Executive Order 11110

AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended - (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): "(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

JOHN F. KENNEDY
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 4, 1963

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Once again, Executive Order 11110 is still valid. According to Title 3, United States Code, Section 301 dated January 26, 1998:

Executive Order (EO) 10289 dated Sept. 17, 1951, 16 F.R. 9499, was as amended by:
EO 10583, dated December 18, 1954, 19 F.R. 8725;
EO 10882 dated July 18, 1960, 25 F.R. 6869;
EO 11110 dated June 4, 1963, 28 F.R. 5605;
EO 11825 dated December 31, 1974, 40 F.R. 1003;
EO 12608 dated September 9, 1987, 52 F.R. 34617 The 1974 and 1987 amendments, added after Kennedy's 1963 amendment, did not change or alter any part of Kennedy's EO 11110. A search of Clinton's 1998 and 1999 EO's and Presidential Directives has also shown no reference to any alterations, suspensions, or changes to EO 11110.

The Federal Reserve Bank, a.k.a Federal Reserve System, is a Private Corporation. Black's Law Dictionary defines the "Federal Reserve System" as: "Network of twelve central banks to which most national banks belong and to which state chartered banks may belong. Membership rules require investment of stock and minimum reserves." Privately-owned banks own the stock of the FED. This was explained in more detail in the case of Lewis v. United States, Federal Reporter, 2nd Series, Vol. 680, Pages 1239, 1241 (1982), where the court said: "Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. The stock-holding commercial banks elect two thirds of each Bank's nine member board of directors."

The Federal Reserve Banks are locally controlled by their member banks. Once again, according to Black's Law Dictionary, we find that these privately owned banks actually issue money:

"Federal Reserve Act Law which created Federal Reserve banks which act as agents in maintaining money reserves, issuing money in the form of bank notes, lending money to banks, and supervising banks. Administered by Federal Reserve Board (q.v.)".

The privately owned Federal Reserve (FED) banks actually issue (create) the "money" we use. In 1964, the House Committee on Banking and Currency, Subcommittee on Domestic Finance, at the second session of the 88th Congress, put out a study entitled Money Facts which contains a good description of what the FED is: "The Federal Reserve is a total money-making machine. It can issue money or checks. And it never has a problem of making its checks good because it can obtain the $5 and $10 bills necessary to cover its check simply by asking the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving to print them."

Any one person or any closely knit group who has a lot of money has a lot of power. Now imagine a group of people who have the power to create money. Imagine the power these people would have. This is exactly what the privately owned FED is!

No man did more to expose the power of the FED than Louis T. McFadden, who was the Chairman of the House Banking Committee back in the 1930s. In describing the FED, he remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on June 10, 1932:

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the Government of the United States and he people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the maladministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."

Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions, departments, or agencies. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully placed upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions.

The FED basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the FED banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve Act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the FED over the economy is universally admitted. Some people, especially in the banking and academic communities, even support it. On the other hand, there are those, such as President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, that have spoken out against it. His efforts were spoken about in Jim Marrs' 1990 book Crossfire:"

Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominant Federal Reserve banks."

In a comment made to a Columbia University class on Nov. 12, 1963, ten days before his assassination, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy allegedly said:

"The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizen of this plight."

In this matter, John Fitzgerald Kennedy appears to be the subject of his own book... a true Profile of Courage.

There is no one on the "Right" or the "Left" that truly understands money or how central banks work. All they know is the "fiat money" litany, and lace their speech with words like "honest and dishonest money", without one wit of understanding of money, of fiat, what is honest and dishonest. This is a consequence of a barrage of propaganda by half informed "patriotic" demagogues, who have never even attempted to expend the effort to obtain an education. (I was once one, and part of the crowd).

The Right is laden with myths, misunderstanding and half assed propaganda regurgitated by demagogues as if it was truth. The function of the Federal Reserve is simple, to manage the interest rates that they provide a positive return to investors (a return over and above "inflation"). The phenomenon we call inflation (rising prices) is falsely attributed to an increase in the money supply.

The monetary system of America and indeed the "free world" (the members of the B.I.S.) is more properly called Debt Money. All money in existence is a function of debt (and not just government debt either, but all debt, public and private including credit cards, mortgages, time payments). The Federal Reserve actually explains how it works in their publication "Modern Money Mechanics", what they don't explain though is that as the debts are paid off and paid down the money created out of debt goes out of existence.

The reason prices constantly rise (and will continue to rise forever) is because the debt that creates the money, does not create the money to pay the interest. Thus the thing called "inflation" is in reality, the accumulated interest on the debt. Inflation literally means too much money chasing too few goods. The astute, and those with a memory and history, will remember even the worst inflations of our past in which the stores were overstocked with goods, but there wasn't enough money to buy those goods, and prices continued to rise. The stocks will dwindle, as companies go bankrupt, can't meet payrolls, fire employees and delivers of resources and goods diminish as a consequence of these bankruptcies and layoff's. I seriously doubt if the Right Wing can grasp the concept of money, of "inflation", of debt money, of how money is created and who creates it (we do, we the consumer who goes into debt in partnership with government and corporations at all levels who also borrow money.)

Money is a medium of exchange. For anything (except barter) to act as a medium of exchange requires the intervention of government. A FIAT or decree, thus all money (including gold and silver) is Fiat Money. It is that simple. The Federal Reserve does not manage the money supply, it manages interest rates and it's charter is to maintain a positive yield relative to prices, for "investors". This is the charter of the Bank for International Settlements which is the controlling organ of Central Banks. As interest rates are increased by the Fed, the demand for debt is diminished. This results in a decrease in the money supply, however it does not result in a decrease in "inflation", because the aggregate debt can not be decreased, bankruptcies only raise the floor on aggregate prices. A decrease in the money supply, means less money to spend, and less money to pay workers, which results in layoffs and bankruptcies as businesses close their doors, and supplies of resources dry up. It also results in an overstock of goods, as the goods on the shelf cannot be sold for less than purchased, unless the business goes bankrupt. Given the realities of the debt based monetary system, the only prudent policy of government is to pay off the National Debt, this will hold in check (not eliminate) rising prices. In our debt based monetary system, prices will of necessity always continue to rise (as the debt that creates the money, does not also create the money to repay the interest on the debt).

Simple illustration: A country of 5 people and a central bank or banker. First issue of debt money in the form of a $100 loan at 10% interest to all five people. Total money in existence = $500.-- Due at year end to the Banker - $550.-- oe $110 each person. Someone is going to go bankrupt, and their assets will be confiscated by the bank. It isn't obvious, nor do people truly understand but eventually the pressure will be felt, and they will be forced to sell more of their product at higher prices, or to cut costs and sell smaller and lower quality products at the same or higher price than before, otherwise they won't be able to make their debt schedule. In our government the Secretary of the Treasury has no role as regards the money supply nor fiscal policy. The money supply is managed by the Fed, via interest rates, and we create the money in response to interest rates and how that affects our propensity for debt. Again no debt = no money. Lower interest rates, increase debt, increase money supply and vice versa. Fiscal policy is determined by Congress in the budget it approves and the laws it passes (such as the proposed, and financially devastating "income tax" cut). The President either confirms the actions of Congress or he veto's the budget and Congressional Laws. The President of course puts forth his own Budget proposal (which Congress then hammers on and ups the ante in pork barrel politics).

All the Secretary of the Treasury does and can do is to act as the Sheriff of Nottingham, that is collect taxes (IRS, BATF, etc) and of course use the tax laws as a means of enforcing state terrorism (e.g. the BATF). The Secretary of the Treasury also manages the Printing Press, the presses which print Treasury Notes and Government Securities. However ALL treasury notes are sold to the Federal Reserve at the cost of paper and ink (a nominal cost) and the Fed then puts them into circulation upon the demand of depositors for paper money. Paper money is the small change of currency, as most money is in the form of binary digits, transmitted over twisted pairs of copper lines - that's the real money in existence. In fact anyone who writes a check actually prints more money than the Treasury. Government Securities, are sold at discount to a cartel called The Primary Dealers in Government Securities. This "cartel" then auctions off the Government Securities with first call going to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (which then resells them through the open market window to other branches, called Federal Reserve Districts), and they sell the remaining block to 'OVERSEAS' investors, such as investment and merchant banks, foundations and trusts located mainly in England, France, Germany and Switzerland as well as other Central Banks. The American Investor (Private or corporate, such as Mutual Funds) has to bid on government securities through their local Federal REserve Bank. The mechanics are not difficult to grasp, but first one must give up their misconceptions and ideological propaganda.

Louis Even, one of the proponents of Social Credit, understood money and tried to educate the public via a little story, but alas the Money Powers resorted to lies, propaganda and their control of the media, to mislead and defame him and C.H. Douglas (the ad hominem attack, which always seems to work) and thus discredit Social Credit. Right Wingers will knee jerk, because it sounds "socialistic", libertarians will knee jerk because it requires government to control and print the money.

Government already prints the money, problem is that it is not the government that actually creates the money, it is the consumer through debt (consumer includes all governments, local as well as Federal). The money supply is managed by the Federal Reserve (that is their sole and only function) by managing interest rates.

What Right and Left as well as Libertarians should be asking is "Why should a government have to borrow it's own money?" If the dunce American could educated him or herself, they might come to realize that we don't have "fiat" money (as they think they understand fiat money), and would perhaps see that the solution to the financial problem, and our social problems as well (not to mention the problems of international thuggery and manipulation) lies in eliminating the Federal REserve and eliminating any idea of specie (or gold and silver as money) and have the government print it's own debt free money, use that money to fund it's operations and even provide a financial dividend to its citizens.

Libertarians can't get that, they have been misled by another puppet of the money powers, Murray Rothbard. Yes government is a pain in the ass, and a self aggrandizing, bureaucratic mish mash of ego driven assholes. However government is a necessary evil, for without government we would not have commerce, roads, national defense, air traffic control and the poor and disenfranchised would have long ago stormed the Winter Palace, overthrown the government and set up their own Bolshevik or NAZI dictatorship. If you think about it, you might realize that the reason we have a corrupt government, and the best government money can buy (at least a major contributing factor) is the Debt Money System.

The only viable and workable alternative that I have ever encountered is a REAL Fiat Money System, aka Social Credit, the system used by the State of Israel, borrowed from the Gottfried Feder system.

In 1982, when I was still a Right Wing extremist, and pursing an MBA I set out on a research project on the Federal Reserve. I went so far as to acquire documents from the Bank for International Settlements (all they would give up is their Annual Reports, which are telling indeed if you don't mind reading dry and almost incomprehensible dialogue and data). I acquired tons of stuff from the IMF and the World Bank, as well as some documents from the Bank of Israel. The Federal Reserve makes available, mostly free of charge, more documents, booklets, pamphlets than you can imagine or read. I also dug up the only book (scholarly) on the Soviet Banking System, and acquired a book "Soviet Marketing". It's been said that there are only a handful of people in the world that truly understand money. I think I am amongst that handful and I can discuss it in non emotional, non propagandistic terms.

I understand Central Banks, the Fed and the B.I.S. and I have been vainly trying to educate the Right for as long as there have been forums and public access to the internet, but it is as fruitless an enterprise as it is trying to convince a Christian or a Jew that Yahweh is a myth created from Ugaritic gods by the tribal leaders of a band of wandering desert merchants.

I have 3,000 hours of total research in the project and have written a manuscript with bibliography and footnotes, some receive it well, and some (especially those who have been brainwashed by "conservative economic theorists" go livid and accuse me of being a conspiracy freak).

For it takes a government decree (Fiat) to declare something (including gold) as money. Gold is a fraudulent standard for one thing there isn't enough gold in the world to act as money, and it would require a government FIAT (decree) to make it money and to set a standard.

Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Murray Rothbard all have the following in common. l. They were "gold bugs". 2. They advocated the labor theory of value. 3. They advocated free INTERNATIONAL trade. The Soviet Union was on a 100% gold standard, defined as .217 grams fine gold, and thus jealously guarded their ruble. Every ruble that left the country could be redeemed for gold. A decrease in the gold stock of the Soviet Union resulted in a decrease in the money supply. The perpetual shortage of money was hidden behind a command economy, and the "hostilities" of the Cold War. The leaders of the Soviet Union justified the shortage of consumer goods, by using the cold war. Just as Castro justifies the impoverishment of Cuba by pointing to the trade embargo. (Incidentally it is in Castro's interest to maintain the trade embargo, it is his excuse for the shortages in Cuba).

When the Right Wing talks of "Fiat Money", they also talk of "printing press money". The monetary facts are these, there is no such thing as "printing press" money amongst the Developed Countries, or the members of the Bank for International Settlements. So called "printing press money" is the domain of third world countries, however these countries are not members of the Bank for International Settlements. The Bank for International Settlements is the Controlling agency of the first worlds Central Banks, the Committee of Ten (U.S., Germany, France, Japan, Netherlands, etc).

The charter of the B.I.S. is to ensure a positive return for investors (according to their annual reports), however they don't define "investors" or what the "investors" invest in, but it can be gleaned that the investments are in government and multinational corporation securities.

It was from the pages of the 1983 -1984 Annual Report (a slick looking book with gold covers) that the demise of the Soviet Union was mandated (as a failed economic experiment). And it was from the pages of the annual report that I first learned that it had been mandated that the American population would have to adjust downward it's standard of living, six months later Paul Volcker stepped forth in public and made that pronouncement. Paul Volcker and the other heads of Central Banks (the Committee of Ten) report to the B.I.S., monthly working Sun - Tues (they don't work on the Sabbath or Saturday), the occupy virtually identical little offices, put together reports and give briefings, they receive instructions then return home to implement them, best they can given the political environment.

Fiat Money, meaning Printing Press Money or money created by government printing presses and put directly into circulation to pay its bills. (Our money is not Fiat money, using the "printing press" definition). I know, after my research, of only four examples of real Fiat (or Printing Press money).

l. The Continental of the American Revolution. The pamphlet put out by Pelatiah Webster, called Not Worth a Continental, was misinformation and obfuscatory, and I suspect that he was a hired hack of the money powers. The Continental of the American Revolution was counterfeited into obscurity by the Bank of England. In fact Washington's troops captured a British baggage train outside of Trenton and found $1 million in counterfeited continentals.

2. The French Assignat. As much as I admire Andrew Dixon White, especially for his scholarship debunking religion, he was none the less a hired hack who misrepresented the reasons why the French Assignat of the French Revolution was devalued. White wrote a book, still hawked by the Foundation for Economic Education as the definitive text on why "fiat money won't work" called "Fiat Money Inflation in France". But what he ignores, and very obviously, is that again the Bank of England saw the threat of fiat money and counterfeited it into inflation. Anyone who wishes a real education in money should try and obtain the books written by Alexander Del Mar, the first director of the U.S. Mint and an expert on money and gold. His books "A History of Money" and a History of Monetary Crimes are invaluable, easy to read and fun, he explains a lot of stuff in there and especially "Gold Inflation".

3. The Lincoln Greenback. A specie that was not backed by gold (apparently it cost Lincoln his life in the end, as he refused to redeem the U.S. Bonds issued to the financial interests in London for gold). Lincoln fought a war, won it and delivered the union unencumbered with debt. A major New York paper, owned by a Rothschild agent name of August Belmont, first backed Seymour Johnson in the Election after Lincoln's death. However Johnson would not promise to redeem Government bonds in Gold, Belmont then threw his weight behind a drunken sot name of U.S. Grant, and Grants first official act on attaining the Presidency was to redeem the bonds in gold (but only for the investors in the City of London, the financial district, which has since the time of Charles II been the true Sovereign of Crown of England). The City or the Financial District of London, is in itself the seat of sovereign power, and when the Queen goes calling, she has to make an appointment, shows up at the gate in street clothes and is met by the Lord High Mayor, adorned in robes and peripheral of sovereignity. (Two guesses as to who controls the City, the same family that bought up all of the English national debt after the Napoleonic Wars).

4. The Gottfried Feder system (Germany 1939 - 1945, Israel 1948 to present). When Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, Hjalmar Schacht (a Mason and Internationalist) then head of the Deutschebank (the German Central Bank) said "The NAZI's cannot rule but WE can through them". In January 1939 he tried to collapse the German economy by withholding credits, on Jan 14, 1939 Hitler fired him, that set up tremors in America and England and by April 1939 (with assurances from Roosevelt) England, France and Poland entered into a mutual defense pact, which of course resulted in the Declaration of War by England and France against Germany after the invasion of Poland on Sep l, 1939. (The duplicity was obvious, since they didn't declare war when the Soviets invaded Poland two weeks later). The Feder system of "Fiat" money was so successful, that the new Israeli Government adopted it in 1948. Since that time the Bank of Israel (unlike the Federal Reserve) has been a partner of the Knesset. Fiat money in Israel has resulted in inflation, but besides being constantly bailed out by infusions of U.S. money (debts that are always forgiven), there is a reason for its failure. Israel is too small a country, with too few natural resources and scant industrial capacity, to sustain the demands placed on it. The Federal system would work quite well in the U.S. and indeed in the European Economic Community as well as Russia.

A closing word on Central Banks. The Federal Reserve is not "privately owned", although it is a Federally chartered private corporation, just like the American Red Cross. It's owners are member banks, and to belong to the Fed a bank must buy share equivalent to 6% of their capitalization. (I have a list of the 1984 "owners" of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, provided upon request by the Federal Reserve Bank of NY).

The Bank of England was supposedly Nationalized in 1947, however it was only a maneuver, as the stock of the shareholders (which were private individuals, trusts, foundations, corporations) was replaced with Fiduciary bonds, a unique instrument that is held in perpetuity, is transferable and pays an annual 12% interest to the holders. The Holders of these bonds also sit on the Board of Governors. The private stock or shareholders had a liability and could lose their arse if the Bank went belly up, however since they now hold Fiduciary Bonds the risk has been eliminated and the liability passed on to the citizens of England.

The Bank of France and the three principal trade and credit banks were "nationalized" in 1945, yet these banks still pay dividends to shareholders and in 1980 the Nationalized French Banks offered 500,000 new shares to investors . -To further confuse the concept of nationalization the"Socialist" government of Francois Mitterand "nationalized" 36 banks and the major industries of France, yet stockholders still own shares and dividends are still paid. The question here is whether nationalization is just a euphemism for privatization or incorporation of a country. England was privatized in 1068 A.D. and all assets and lands were dutifully recorded in the Domesday book, since that time no land has been held in allodium and ultimate ownership was held by the Crown. It can only be conjectured but the evidence indicates, that England went bankrupt in 1945 and ownership and sovereignity was transferred from the Crown to The City (as the financial district of London is called). Charles II was a gambler, a drunkard and a womanizer who squandered the royal treasury, but it was an affair with a Barbara Villiers that finally did him in. Broke and needing money he borrowed from the East India Company, putting up the crown jewels (the symbols of sovereignity, and literally who ever owned the crown, globe and sceptor was the Sovereign of a country, a historical fact in Charlemagnes time as in our time). Unable to repay the loan, a minor official of the Bank, A William Patterson was given the task of approaching him and extracting a favor - to grant the East India Company a banking Monopoly, the Bank of England. And the Sovereignity of England thus passed from the royals to the Bank of England, which was in possession of the crown, sceptor, globe. Shortly after it's birth, a rumor was started that the bank did not have enough gold to fulfill its obligations, and a run on its gold was started. To staunch the tide, the Bank hired the most famous alchemist of the realm as its first Warden of the Mint, his name Isaac Newton. This public relations move succeeded and started Newtons real career and fame. England (the Bank of England) lurched forward until the Napoleonic Wars, when in a coup and thanks to his connections on the continent (and perhaps a carrier pigeon) Rothschild learned that Wellington had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. He then started to sell off his Government Bonds, this sparked fear in the broker community, and they too started selling off, the prices plummeted and when they hit rock bottom, Rothschild swooped them up, and thus became the primary holder of English debt and the power in the Bank of England. England of course has never paid off the Napoleonic Debt, much less the other debts, especially those of WWI and WWII, and has been bankrupted many times, but it was after WWII, that England was finally privatized (repeating the Conquest and example of William The Bastard in 1066). The real sovereign(s) of England are the holders of the Fiduciary Bonds of the Bank of England.

The Bank for International Settlements was created in 1938, ostensibly to handle the reparations payments of Germany from WWI (it was the Young Act that really created the B.I.S.). It's first President was none other than Paul Warburg, the father of the Federal Reserve Act and its first Chairman. A position he held until 1922 when he was forced to resign because of his financing (along with Schiff, Kuhn, Loeb, et al) of the Bolshevik revolution.

(Strange is it that Paul Warburg's brother Max was head of German Intelligence during WWI, and the person responsible for the movement of Lenin into Russia during the early stage of the revolution. A relationship that seemed not to cause any concern in the U.S., Paul being the Head of the Fed and his brother Max being the head of German Intelligence at a time when the two countries were slaughtering each other on Flanders Fields and in the Bastogne).

Anyhow, according to the Annual Reports for the Bank of International Settlements, 18% of the shares of that organ are Privately Held (trusts, foundations, families) whilst the other shares are held by member Central Banks.

"Dirty Money" Foundation of US Growth and Empire Size and Scope of Money Laundering by US Banks

La Jornada, Mexico, 19th May 2001 Posted at globalresearch.ca 29 August 2001

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There is a consensus among U.S. Congressional Investigators, former bankers and international banking experts that U.S. and European banks launder between $500 billion and $1 trillion of dirty money each year, half of which is laundered by U.S. banks alone. As Senator Carl Levin summarizes the record: "Estimates are that $500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually. It is estimated that half of that money comes to the United States".

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Over a decade then, between $2.5 and $5 trillion criminal proceeds have been laundered by U.S. banks and circulated in the U.S. financial circuits. Senator Levin's statement however, only covers criminal proceeds, according to U.S. laws. It does not include illegal transfers and capital flows from corrupt political leaders, or tax evasion by overseas businesses. A leading U.S. scholar who is an expert on international finance associated with the prestigious Brookings Institute estimates "the flow of corrupt money out of developing (Third World) and transitional (ex-Communist) economies into Western coffers at $20 to $40 billion a year and the flow stemming from mis-priced trade at $80 billion a year or more. My lowest estimate is $100 billion per year by these two means by which we facilitated a trillion dollars in the decade, at least half to the United States. Including the other elements of illegal flight capital would produce much higher figures. The Brookings expert also did not include illegal shifts of real estate and securities titles, wire fraud, etc.

In other words, an incomplete figure of dirty money (laundered criminal and corrupt money) flowing into U.S. coffers during the 1990s amounted to $3-$5.5 trillion. This is not the complete picture but it gives us a basis to estimate the significance of the "dirty money factor" in evaluating the U.S. economy. In the first place, it is clear that the combined laundered and dirty money flows cover part of the U.S. deficit in its balance of merchandise trade which ranges in the hundreds of billions annually. As it stands, the U.S. trade deficit is close to $300 billion. Without the "dirty money" the U.S. economy external accounts would be totally unsustainable, living standards would plummet, the dollar would weaken, the available investment and loan capital would shrink and Washington would not be able to sustain its global empire. And the importance of laundered money is forecast to increase. Former private banker Antonio Geraldi, in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee projects significant growth in U.S. bank laundering. "The forecasters also predict the amounts laundered in the trillions of dollars and growing disproportionately to legitimate funds." The $500 billion of criminal and dirty money flowing into and through the major U.S. banks far exceeds the net revenues of all the IT companies in the U.S., not to speak of their profits. These yearly inflows surpass all the net transfers by the major U.S. oil producers, military industries and airplane manufacturers. The biggest U.S. banks, particularly Citibank, derive a high percentage of their banking profits from serving these criminal and dirty money accounts. The big U.S. banks and key institutions sustain U.S. global power via their money laundering and managing of illegally obtained overseas funds.

U.S. Banks and The Dirty Money Empire Washington and the mass media have portrayed the U.S. as being in the forefront of the struggle against narco trafficking, drug laundering and political corruption: the image is of clean white hands fighting dirty money. The truth is exactly the opposite. U.S. banks have developed a highly elaborate set of policies for transferring illicit funds to the U.S., investing those funds in legitimate businesses or U.S. government bonds and legitimating them. The U.S. Congress has held numerous hearings, provided detailed exposés of the illicit practices of the banks, passed several laws and called for stiffer enforcement by any number of public regulators and private bankers. Yet the biggest banks continue their practices, the sum of dirty money grows exponentially, because both the State and the banks have neither the will nor the interest to put an end to the practices that provide high profits and buttress an otherwise fragile empire.

First thing to note about the money laundering business, whether criminal or corrupt, is that it is carried out by the most important banks in the USA. Secondly, the practices of bank officials involved in money laundering have the backing and encouragement of the highest levels of the banking institutions - these are not isolated cases by loose cannons. This is clear in the case of Citibank's laundering of Raul Salinas (brother of Mexico's ex-President) $200 million account. When Salinas was arrested and his large scale theft of government funds was exposed, his private bank manager at Citibank, Amy Elliott told her colleagues that "this goes in the very, very top of the corporation, this was known...on the very top. We are little pawns in this whole thing" (p.35).

Citibank, the biggest money launderer, is the biggest bank in the U.S., with 180,000 employees world-wide operating in 100 countries, with $700 billion in known assets and over $100 billion in client assets in private bank (secret accounts) operating private banking offices in 30 countries, which is the largest global presence of any U.S. private bank. It is important to clarify what is meant by "private bank."

Private Banking is a sector of a bank which caters to extremely wealthy clients ($1 million deposits and up). The big banks charge customers a fee for managing their assets and for providing the specialized services of the private banks. Private Bank services go beyond the routine banking services and include investment guidance, estate planning, tax assistance, off-shore accounts, and complicated schemes designed to secure the confidentiality of financial transactions. The attractiveness of the "Private Banks" (PB) for money laundering is that they sell secrecy to the dirty money clients. There are two methods that big Banks use to launder money: via private banks and via correspondent banking. PB routinely use code names for accounts, concentration accounts (concentration accounts co-mingles bank funds with client funds which cut off paper trails for billions of dollars of wire transfers) that disguise the movement of client funds, and offshore private investment corporations (PIC) located in countries with strict secrecy laws (Cayman Island, Bahamas, etc.)

For example, in the case of Raul Salinas, PB personnel at Citibank helped Salinas transfer $90 to $100 million out of Mexico in a manner that effectively disguised the funds' sources and destination thus breaking the funds' paper trail. In routine fashion, Citibank set up a dummy offshore corporation, provided Salinas with a secret code name, provided an alias for a third party intermediary who deposited the money in a Citibank account in Mexico and transferred the money in a concentration account to New York where it was then moved to Switzerland and London. The PICs are designed by the big banks for the purpose of holding and hiding a person's assets. The nominal officers, trustees and shareholder of these shell corporations are themselves shell corporations controlled by the PB. The PIC then becomes the holder of the various bank and investment accounts and the ownership of the private bank clients is buried in the records of so-called jurisdiction such as the Cayman Islands. Private bankers of the big banks like Citibank keep pre-packaged PICs on the shelf awaiting activation when a private bank client wants one. The system works like Russian Matryoshka dolls, shells within shells within shells, which in the end can be impenetrable to a legal process.

The complicity of the state in big bank money laundering is evident when one reviews the historic record. Big bank money laundering has been investigated, audited, criticized and subject to legislation; the banks have written procedures to comply. Yet banks like Citibank and the other big ten banks ignore the procedures and laws and the government ignores the non-compliance. Over the last 20 years, big bank laundering of criminal funds and looted funds has increased geometrically, dwarfing in size and rates of profit the activities in the formal economy. Estimates by experts place the rate of return in the PB market between 20-25% annually. Congressional investigations revealed that Citibank provided "services" for 4 political swindlers moving $380 million: Raul Salinas - $80-$100 million, Asif Ali Zardari (husband of former Prime Minister of Pakistan) in excess of $40 million, El Hadj Omar Bongo (dictator of Gabon since 1967) in excess of $130 million, the Abacha sons of General Abacha ex-dictator of Nigeria - in excess of $110 million. In all cases Citibank violated all of its own procedures and government guidelines: there was no client profile (review of client background), determination of the source of the funds, nor of any violations of country laws from which the money accrued. On the contrary, the bank facilitated the outflow in its prepackaged format: shell corporations were established, code names were provided, funds were moved through concentration accounts, the funds were invested in legitimate businesses or in U.S. bonds, etc. In none of these cases - or thousands of others - was due diligence practiced by the banks (under due diligence a private bank is obligated by law to take steps to ensure that it does not facilitate money laundering). In none of these cases were the top banking officials brought to court and tried. Even after arrest of their clients, Citibank continued to provide services, including the movement of funds to secret accounts and the provision of loans.

Correspondent Banks: The Second Track The second and related route which the big banks use to launder hundreds of billions of dirty money is through "correspondent banking" (CB). CB is the provision of banking services by one bank to another bank. It is a highly profitable and significant sector of big banking. It enables overseas banks to conduct business and provide services for their customers - including drug dealers and others engaged in criminal activity - in jurisdictions like the U.S. where the banks have no physical presence. A bank that is licensed in a foreign country and has no office in the United States for its customers attracts and retains wealthy criminal clients interested in laundering money in the U.S. Instead of exposing itself to U.S. controls and incurring the high costs of locating in the U.S., the bank will open a correspondent account with an existing U.S. bank. By establishing such a relationship, the foreign bank (called a respondent) and through it, its criminal customers, receive many or all of the services offered by the U.S. big banks called the correspondent.

Today, all the big U.S. banks have established multiple correspondent relationships throughout the world so they may engage in international financial transactions for themselves and their clients in places where they do have a physical presence. Many of the largest U.S. and European banks located in the financial centers of the world serve as correspondents for thousands of other banks. Most of the offshore banks laundering billions for criminal clients have accounts in the U.S. All the big banks specializing in international fund transfer are called money center banks, some of the biggest process up to $1 trillion in wire transfers a day. For the billionaire criminals an important feature of correspondent relationships is that they provide access to international transfer systems - that facilitate the rapid transfer of funds across international boundaries and within countries. The most recent estimates (1998) are that 60 offshore jurisdictions around the world licensed about 4,000 offshore banks which control approximately $5 trillion in assets.

One of the major sources of impoverishment and crises in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia and the other countries of the ex-U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, is the pillage of the economy and the hundreds of billions of dollars which are transferred out of the country via the corresponding banking system and the Private Banking system linked to the biggest banks in the U.S. and Europe. Russia alone has seen over $200 billion illegally transferred in the course of the 1990s. The massive shift of capital from these countries to the U.S. and European banks has generated mass impoverishment and economic instability and crises. This in turn has created increased vulnerability to pressure from the IMF and World Bank to liberalize their banking and financial systems leading to further flight and deregulation which spawns greater corruption and overseas transfers via private banks as the Senate reports demonstrate.

The increasing polarization of the world is embedded in this organized system of criminal and corrupt financial transactions. While speculation and foreign debt payments play a role in undermining living standards in the crisis regions, the multi-trillion dollar money laundering and bank servicing of corrupt officials is a much more significant factor, sustaining Western prosperity, U.S. empire building and financial stability. The scale, scope and time frame of transfers and money laundering, the centrality of the biggest banking enterprises and the complicity of the governments, strongly suggests that the dynamics of growth and stagnation, empire and re-colonization are intimately related to a new form of capitalism built around pillage, criminality, corruption and complicity.

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James Petras is a Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. He is the author of 57 books. His latest, Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the New Millenium

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World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : US Politics

US Senate passes bankruptcy "reform"

By Barry Grey
17 March 2001

In a lopsided vote, Senate Democrats joined with Republicans on Thursday to
pass a bill that will change the bankruptcy code, making it more difficult
for financially overwhelmed consumers to erase debts owed to credit card
companies, auto firms and other lenders.

The so-called bankruptcy "reform" is a transparent and ruthless piece of
class legislation. It is the culmination of a five-year campaign by the
credit card and banking industries to revamp the bankruptcy laws in their
favor, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of middle- and low-income
families that become swamped with debt, usually as a result of a medical
emergency, job loss or divorce.

The same firms that mail out billions of unsolicited credit card applications
- 3 billion last year alone - and hustle college students and people with
poor credit ratings to sign up for credit cards, and then charge exorbitant
interest and late payment fees, stand to gain as much as $1 billion a year
when the new measure is signed into law by President George W. Bush.

Under existing law, consumers who find themselves submerged in debt have the
option, as a last ditch measure, to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of
the bankruptcy code. The provisions are harsh. Chapter 7 filers must sell off
virtually all of their assets, excluding their home, but they are absolved of
unsecured debts, such as those owed to credit card companies and auto
financing firms.

Personal bankruptcy filings have soared over the past decade - one expression
of the highly unequal distribution of the benefits of the business boom of
the 1990s. They rose to nearly 1.3 million in 2000, up from 700,000 ten years
earlier. As compared to 1980, personal bankruptcies have risen by 300 percent.

A recent study reported that 40 percent of personal bankruptcy filings were
triggered by unexpected and massive medical bills.

Now, as the economy plunges toward recession and major layoffs are announced
on a daily basis, the big financial institutions are about to obtain
additional legal weapons to squeeze money from hundreds of thousands of new
families that find themselves in financial distress.

The Senate bill was passed only two weeks after a similar bill cleared the
House of Representatives. Although the Senate is split 50 to 50 between
Republicans and Democrats, and the Republican margin in the House is razor
thin, the bankruptcy measure passed both bodies handily. The vote in the
Senate was 83 to 15, while the House version passed by a three-to-one margin.

The two versions of the measure - the House bill contains certain loopholes
for the wealthy that are lacking in the Senate bill - will now go to a
House-Senate conference committee, and a final bill well be sent to the White
House for Bush's signature. The Republican president has pushed for the
measure and promised to sign whatever bill emerges from Congress.

Both versions of the bill would make it much more difficult for individuals
to file under Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code, forcing them instead to file
under Chapter 13, which requires that they pay back at least part of all
their debts over five years. Consumers generally would not be eligible for
Chapter 7 if they earn more than their state's median income and can repay at
least 25 percent of their unsecured debt. According to one report, on
average, a family of four making $52,000 a year would no longer be able to
"wipe the slate clean" by filing under Chapter 7.
Experts estimate that the new hurdle would affect up to 10 percent of those
who currently qualify for Chapter 7.

The House and Senate bills also contain provisions giving faltering companies
less time to settle their debts and reorganize. This will force more small
companies to go out of business. Last year alone 9,000 firms with an
estimated 2 million workers filed for protection from creditors under the
bankruptcy code.

In the debate on the bill, the Senate voted down a series of amendments
proposed by Democrats to somewhat soften its impact and place restrictions on
the marketing of credit cards to minors and other predatory business
practices. With some Democrats joining the Republicans in each vote, the
Senate rejected a proposal to append "truth in advertising" requirements to
the bill, turned down special consideration for people seeking bankruptcy
protection because of disastrous medical bills, spurned a requirement that
credit card firms provide consumers more information about the costs of
borrowing, and - in a vote demonstrating that "free enterprise" trumps
"family values" - defeated proposed protections for minors, such as a $2,500
credit limit on credit cards and a requirement that some minors get a
parent's co-signature on a credit card application.

The Senate vote on the bankruptcy bill is the latest in a series of measures
that stamp the new administration as an unabashed tool of big business. Over
the past two weeks the House has passed the basic outlines of Bush's $1.6
trillion tax bonanza for the wealthy, both congressional bodies have voted to
overturn safety regulations aimed at protecting workers from repetitive
motion injuries, and Bush has intervened to block airline workers from
striking against the nation's largest carriers. All of these measures have
been passed either with the support of the Democrats, or over merely token
opposition.

Corporate lobbyists are gloating over their initial victories under Bush.
Despite the generally pro-business policies of the Clinton administration,
the Democratic president resisted some of the more sweeping demands for the
rolling back of regulations restricting business operations. Shortly before
he left office, Clinton vetoed a bankruptcy bill similar to the one now
moving through Congress.

The wind has "shifted to our backs," said Dirk Van Dongen, president of the
National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. Kevin Hassett, resident
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank allied
to the Bush administration, exulted over the prospect of further inroads into
environmental and land use regulations and new limitations on corporate
liability, predicting a "red tape bonfire in the next couple of years." He
declared, "There's definitely a big sea change."

Spokesmen for consumer groups have denounced the bankruptcy measure, both for
its content and the manner in which it was promoted and drafted. "I've never
seen a bill that was so one-sided," said former senator Howard Metzenbaum,
head of the Consumer Federation of America. Travis Plunkett of the Consumer
Federation of America said, "Creditors have written large parts of the bill,
paid for questionable research to support their claims, hired some of the
best lobbyists and liberally stuffed the campaign coffers of key members of
both parties."

"This is the best bill money can buy," said Frank Torres, a lobbyist for
Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Report magazine.

This last comment is no exaggeration. Rarely has the role of corporate money
in buying congressmen and their votes been so nakedly on display as in the
promotion of this measure. In the last election cycle the financial services
industry spent $9 million in campaign contributions to candidates for federal
office and both political parties. Commercial banks spent $29 million. While
the financial moguls spread their largesse among Democrats as well as
Republicans, more than two-thirds of their contributions went to the latter.

One of the biggest beneficiaries and most ardent proponents of the bankruptcy
measure is MBNA Corporation, the nation's largest issuer of credit cards. The
Delaware-based company and its employees gave a total of $3.5 million during
the 2000 election. MBNA topped the list of corporate donors to Bush last
year, contributing $240,675 to his campaign and $100,000 to his inauguration,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics. MBNA President Charles
Cawley was among the Republican "pioneers" who contributed at least $100,000
to Bush's bid for the White House.

Last fall, congressional Republican leaders closeted themselves with
representatives of the American Financial Services Association and the
Coalition for Responsible Bankruptcy, which together represent dozens of
corporations, banks and trade groups, to produce the final draft of the
bankruptcy bill. One of those closely involved in drawing up the measure was
a high profile lobbyist for MBNA.

Collusion between major credit card companies and politicians is, however,
not limited to the Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle was
among the majority of Senate Democrats who voted for the bankruptcy measure.
His state of South Dakota is home to a Citigroup Inc. credit card operation
in Sioux Falls. Daschle has received $45,000 in political contributions from
Citigroup in the last six years, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics.

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by Sherman H. Skolnick 3/7/01 skolnick@ameritech.net http://www.skolnicksreport.com Several goldmines, suffering from disastrously low gold prices, are considering accusing the Federal Reserve and others, including known international criminals such as Marc Rich, of a diabolical scheme to prop up six huge failing hedge funds by way of attempting to head off a worldwide financial meltdown. Described by some as high-cost producers, the mines are reportedly considering publicizing their plight, to rescue themselves from the artificial situation created by what they contend is the pricing of gold below the cost of production of even the world's most efficient mines. If public awareness does not defeat the anti-gold plot, the mines only recourse is to have British interests take over at lead mine prices, just short of bankruptcy. Among those reportedly complaining are Homestake Mines, South Dakota and California, as well as several deep-in-the-earth South African mines. Some Third World mines are accusing the Anti-Gold cabal of racist policies, designed to impoverish countries populated by people of color. Some in the Johannesburg government are expected to spearhead the finger-pointing. The plot to force down the price of the yellow metal, the mines say, revolves around a little-known term called the "gold carry" trade. A low price of gold enables some Wall Street marauders to make huge profits by being able to use such prices as a vehicle to get loans for as little as one per cent. The mines contend that some in their own industry, to the detriment of their own stockholders, are going along with the anti-gold tricks. Among those accused is American Barrick, principal players of which include George Herbert Walker Bush and sons George W., Neil, and Jeb. Some have accused Barrick of being a proprietary operation of the American CIA and the National Security Agency, using untraceable gold as funding for the overthrow of governments and the assassination of leaders, U.S. and overseas. Alleged "President" George W. Bush, heckled by critics as an "imposter" and usurper, shortly after grabbing power, has cancelled the Carter Administration's Presidential edict banning the U.S. from engaging in political assassinations to carry out some national or international policy. Implicit in the political murder go-ahead is funding of the same with secret gold. The Federal Reserve, together with Wall Street investment thugs Goldman Sachs & Co. and J.P. Morgan, joined by the "metal men" of international pirate Marc Rich and his rogues, are reportedly accused of being part of the Anti-Gold Cartel devoted to attempting to bail out six monstrous hedge funds, the eminent collapse of which threatens the viability of the New York Stock Exchange as well as the possible existence of NASDAQ. In plain terms, the stricken mines are accusing the Fed and their cut-throats of propping up hedge funds whose would-be wizards completely guessed wrong in their gambling on complex markets known generally as derivatives. Without the gold hocus-pocus, the failure of the hedge funds may cause the eventual closing for a time of Big Board [Or is it Big Bird?] trading as well as other markets, according to mining sources. They contend that exchange clearing houses may also as a result fail. To head off the expected financial debacle, escalating the recession into a headlong wreckage, they contend, the Federal Reserve has joined even with known criminals in Switzerland and the Russian mafiya. With the downfall of the Soviet government, aided by his complicity in the attack on the Russian currency, the Ruble, about 1990, Marc Rich arranged with former top officials of the Soviet Secret Police to steal a large portion of the Soviet gold treasury. At the time, the Soviets were one of the world's largest gold producers. New purported users of the precious metal horde as a bartering device have been the Dutch banking octopus, Algemene Bank Nederland, now called ABN-AMRO. Quantities of the purloined gold have been parked at or near a Swiss airport for rapid transit to any point on the planet, as needed. The U.S. flagship of ABN, La Salle National Bank of Chicago, used the plundered gold as collateral to quietly buy up shaky banks in 15 major U.S. cities. One of only two U.S. banks refusing to disclose their true ownership to a Congressional Committee, La Salle has long been the place for corrupt public officials, primarily judges, to have numbered and secret accounts to whisk their bribery assets offshore. Head of the paper money rapists and the center of anti-gold banditry has been the Bank of England. Historically experienced criminals, the bank covered up the role of the huge British/French/U.S./Israeli espionage and political murder money laundry, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI. As we have earlier pointed out, the Bank of England, at the time of the purported collapse of BCCI in 1991, for 30 days mysteriously had, as an open record, the BCCI bribery list, proving BCCI had bought or blackmailed one-fourth of all the members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. Only a populist newspaper, SPOTLIGHT, headquartered in the District of Columbia, ran my exclusive story of the bribery and blackmail of Congress. Although as part of my story I supplied the list of names, the weekly outspoken newspaper ran my story verbatim minus the list, as a precaution. Contrary to mass media slanted reporting, BCCI did NOT disappear but re-emerged as a joint operation with the First National Bank of Cicero, located in the mafia enclave adjoining Chicago; the bank having been under the domination of Bishop Paul Marcinkkus,long head of the CIA/Mafia-linked Vatican Bank. [Visit our website for related stories, such as the Giannini Family and the bank in Cicero.] To connive with major gold bullion looters like Goldman Sachs, the Bank of England set about to force down the price of gold by periodic supposed auctions of the bank's gold. Actually, most of the time the British bank underworld offered gold it did NOT physically have or want to sell. Called by some the BUNK of England, they were secretly offering at "auction", portions of the stolen Soviet gold treasury, leased or "loaned" by Dutch receivers of stolen goods,to the British fakers for appearing to flood the market with gold. Interesting sidenote: currency speculators know it is a "death warrant" to mess over the Dutch currency, the Guilder. Operating an NSA/CIA clandestine gold bullion bank in the Caribbean for many years was Hillary Rodham Clinton's confederate Vincent W. Foster, Jr. Foster became knowledgeable about how George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton wanted to stop FBI Director William Sessions from seizing Marc Rich in 1993 near the Swiss-French border, to return the international swindler for U.S.criminal prosecution. [See our prior website story about Marc Rich fingered by a letter.] As a consequence, Marc Rich came up with 5 million dollars, siphoned off of the gold poaching, to pay for a private murder team to snuff out Foster shortly after the failed attempt by the Foster team to grab Marc Rich. The wipe-out was falsely promoted as a "suicide" by intelligence agency "assets" in the monopoly press. [Background details on the murder of Foster, see our website story "Greenspan Aids and Bribes Bush", Part Four.] Much later, hundreds of pages, many heavily redacted, under a Freedom of Information demand, were released about Foster by the National Security Agency, relating, for example, to his espionage work against banks worldwide. As covered up by highly corrupt top officials of the American Gestapo, the FBI and the IRS, Marc Rich and his pillagers have joined in crime with fellow currency and commodity hijackers on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In March, 2001, alleged "President"Bush came to Chicago to give a speech to the Merc. Some considered his presence as delivering them a message. That as the fountain of criminal money that they are, he expects them to help finance and carry out some of the schemes of his family. The FBI and the IRS top officials are well aware of the widespread federal regulation violations by many members of the Merc as well as the Chicago Board of Trade. Brokers are reportedly not keeping clients' funds in segregated accounts, as required by law. In case of a financial debacle, the brokers AND THEIR CLIENTS will be in the same sinking boat. Run by the Jewish aristocracy, not the common people of that ethnic-religious group, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is an exclusive place for high-stakes gambling. They switched their allegiance from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. Like Bush, Clinton when president likewise came to the Merc to give them a message to kick in funds for his schemes. On the same day George W. was in Chicago, he also visited the Chicago Board of Trade which was not interested in his messages. The Board of Trade is run by the Irish Catholic aristocracy, not the common people, and they understand the Bush Family are agents of the British Monarchy, that perpetrated the Irish Holocaust of the middle 19th Century, falsely described by the pro-British American media as merely a "Potato Famine". Members of the Board of Trade, always tight with the Vatican and the Rothschilds, blocked Bush's attempts at a shake-down. Clinton came to the Merc to get big money and his marching orders. Like him, Clinton crony George W. Bush does the same. Nevertheless, honchos of both the Merc and the Board of Trade do understand they cannot openly oppose the orchestrated events of the Federal Reserve and the paper money crowd. After all, the Fed has demanded co-operation from a series of criminal residents as "President" in the White House. Both exchanges know the widespread failure to keep clients' accounts segregated could set off a wave of federal criminal prosecutions by the Injustice Department, perhaps even closing both exchanges. Some of the supposedly "segregated accounts" have been unlawfully commingled with clandestine funds of the Russian mafiya with the connivance of Marc Rich and his mob; and interwoven with the funds of the Red Chinese Secret Police, with the reported complicity of not only Marc Rich but his accomplice, Rahm Emanuel, former Clinton White House Senior Advisor, and more currently, Managing Director of Wasserstein Perella & Co., reputed Asian money laundry front. Rahm is the reputed Deputy Chief of Israeli Intelligence, The Mossad, for North America. Currency and commodity brokers handling the dirty anti-Gold transactions are warned if there is about to be public exposure of dealings not done with what is known in the industry as "due diligence", that is, knowing actually who the broker is dealing with. Apparently "for a piece of the action", corrupt top FBI and IRS officials, Chicago and New York, quietly alert favored brokers to "problems" that might subject the brokers to federal criminal prosecution. Why do the mass media honchos mostly remain silent? Because some reporters of Establishment magazines, radio and television programs, are busy during the day, on the phone to their brokers, London, Singapore, Frankfort, trading on inside information for themselves and their relatives. The Chicago Board of Trade resisted the Bush White House shake-down. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange caved in to the extortion. Some gold mines are getting clipped. Their goods, and instruments for or against their goods, are secretly transacted on the Chicago markets. Maybe THEY should buy the White House. Cynics cackle, a man named Rich is helping make gold mines Poor. All to benefit the paper money pimps and to rescue hedge fund swindlers. Stay tuned. Since 1958, Mr. Skolnick has been a court-reformer and since 1963, Founder/Chairman, Citizen's Committee To Clean Up The Courts. Since 1991, a regular panelist and since 1995, Moderator/Producer of a one-hour weekly public access Cable TV Program, "Broadsides", cablecast within Chicago to over 400,000 viewers each Monday evening, 9 p.m., Channel 21 Cable TV. For a heavy packet of our printed stories, send $5.00 [U.S. Funds] plus a stamped, self-addressed BUSINESS size envelope [#10 envelope, 4-1/8 x 9-1/2] WITH THREE STAMPS ON IT, to Citizen's Committee To Clean Up The Courts, Sherman H. Skolnick, Chairman, 9800 So. Oglesby Ave., Chicago IL 60617-4870. Office, 8 a.m. to midnight, most 7 days: (773) 375-5741. PLEASE do not bombard this listed phone with "JUST ROUTINE" calls. For updates of our work on a regular phone call, not an expensive call, recorded phone message: (773) 731-1100. WEBSITE: http://www.skolnicksreport.com [NOTE "s" after name in website]. E-MAIL: skolnick@ameritech.net

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54044-2001Aug23.html

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 24, 2001; Page B01

The Bush administration will reimburse the District for up to $16 million of
the projected $29 million cost of providing security for next month's
meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington,
officials announced yesterday.

The deal fell short of the city's requests for aid in preparing for as many
as 100,000 protesters.

Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Margret Nedelkoff Kellems said the balance
left to the District to pay was "not an ideal outcome, certainly," and she
said the city intended to press the two international development agencies
to shoulder some expenses in the city where they are headquartered.
Otherwise, she said, the District would use its emergency reserves.

"The federal government recognizes that, in this instance, the costs for
managing this event should not rest solely on the taxpayers of the District
of Columbia," Sean O'Keefe, deputy director of the U.S. Office of Management
and Budget, said in a letter to Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).

"We're pleased we were able to come to terms," Kellems said at a news
conference with D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey.

IMF spokesman William Murray said the fund has not received an aid request
from the U.S. government and that payment would be unprecedented. "The fund
and the bank take the traditional view that host countries are responsible
for providing a secure working environment," he said.

The agreement capped financial preparations for the Sept. 29-30 meetings of
the two groups. The dates heightened anxieties in the perennially strapped
District, because they fall at the end of the city government's fiscal year.

Authorities said they expect mostly peaceful protests. But violence has
erupted at recent world economic summits in Seattle, Quebec and Genoa,
Italy. Last month's Group of Eight meeting, at which protesters rioted and
one was shot dead by police, reportedly cost the Italian government $100
million.

Protesters, though, have decried the efforts and questioned the motives of
officials.

Some organizers accused D.C. police of inflating the numbers of expected
demonstrators to justify the $29 million plan.

"It's inappropriate for police forces to be used as private security for
unpopular global financial institutions," said Matthew Smucker, 23, an
organizer with Mobilization for Global Justice, which he said plans legal,
nonviolent protests that would not warrant extra security.

Ramsey said: "If we have large numbers of people show up but they basically
remain peaceful . . . then we'll be okay. . . . If they engage in
large-scale, violent behavior, then we're going to have a problem with or
without this money being in place, because of the numbers that we're talking
about."

Of the federal funds, up to $11 million will go to transport, house, feed
and pay more than 3,000 law enforcement officers from other jurisdictions
who will be brought in to virtually double the District's police force for
four days.

The government also committed to purchase up to $4.9 million worth of riot
gear, medical supplies and operating equipment, including protective suits
and helmets for about 2,000 police, rescue and emergency workers. The
equipment will remain federal property.

The District agreed to pay $6.7 million in expected overtime costs for
District police and other local government workers, $4.4 million to speed up
installation of new police communication and video equipment and $1.5
million for various other expenses.

The $29 million does not include a $2 million, nine-foot-high concrete and
metal fence planned to cordon off swaths of downtown to create a security
zone around IMF and World Bank headquarters, meeting sites and the White
House. That expense has been taken over by the Secret Service, D.C.
officials said.

"We're confidant we can do everything we need to do to ensure security,"
Kellems said. "The city can afford what the city is putting up."

The Bush administration agreed to repay the District for expenses by Dec.
31, in time for the city to include the sum in its annual financial
statements.

------------------------------------------

Police Await 100,000 Protesters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27308-2001Aug17.html

By Arthur Santana and Manny Fernandez

District officials and protest organizers are disputing crowd estimates and
permits for demonstrations six weeks before the fall meetings of the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Officials used a news briefing yesterday to predict that 100,000 protesters
would descend on the city the last weekend in September to protest policies
of the world bodies and that the activists would threaten peace in the city.

A letter from Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to President Bush warned of
demonstrations "of an intensity, scope, and magnitude that we have never
seen in this city."

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, noting that protests might not stay
peaceful, said, "The odds of us escaping without any property damage of any
kind is probably fairly low."

Protesters, meanwhile, said the predictions were an attempt by officials to
deny them permits for demonstrations. They have repeatedly chided D.C.
police for forecasting disturbances, saying the police and their tactics
are what turn protests violent.

Some organizers questioned the chief's estimate of protesters, although
Ramsey said he got it from the protesters themselves. It would be more than
five times the number that protested meetings of the World Bank and IMF in
the District in 2000 and double the previous estimate for next month.

"We've never used the figure 100,000," said Brian Becker, co-director of
the International Action Center, one of the main organizing groups. "That's
the figure Chief Ramsey has been using in the media at the same time as
he's trying to paint a picture that civil war will soon descend on
Washington, D.C."

The 100,000 figure would match the high police estimate of the most recent
protests, in Genoa, Italy, where one protester was shot dead by Italian police.

The Genoa protests, at a meeting of the Group of Eight industrial nations'
financial leaders, was the latest in a series of escalating conflicts since
the anti-globalization movement gained new momentum in Seattle in 1999.

The protest against the World Bank and IMF in April 2000 brought more than
20,000 demonstrators to Washington. There were clashes in Prague,
Gothenburg, Sweden, and Quebec City before Genoa.

In Quebec City, police erected a high fence, and D.C. Executive Assistant
Chief Terrance W. Gainer has said such a measure is under discussion for a
large swath of the city. Police also plan to recruit more than 3,000
officers from other East Coast cities to help with security.

The buildup of security plans, including the possibility of fencing, has
angered protesters, who say that it is a needless expenditure, that
protesters in the city have not proved violent and that officials may be
trying to keep them from demonstrating.

Groups from a wide spectrum of causes are expected in Washington the last
week of September, including immigrant rights organizations,
anti-capitalists and the AFL-CIO. Protesters want to draw attention to
policies of the World Bank and IMF and want those bodies to cancel the debt
of the poorest countries, stop funding environmentally destructive projects
and open their meetings.

The mayor's letter was released at a news conference from which protest
organizers were barred. Tony Bullock, a spokesman for the mayor, said
release of the Aug. 6 letter was "merely as a courtesy" to journalists and
not a maneuver to have the mayor's urgent call for a commitment of federal
funds publicized. "We're not that smart," Bullock said.

Ramsey said he based his crowd estimate on what protesters have told
police. "That's what they are saying," Ramsey said. "You read the Web
sites, and they are claiming that they can get that many people out."

Nadine Bloch, an organizer with the Mobilization for Global Justice, said
that she did not want to play "the numbers game" with city officials and
that crowd estimates are not "where we want to put our focus."

Organizers and their supporters said that they consider permits to be
granted and that they had been told that.

Toni Carroll, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, said groups have
filed 12 applications; under federal regulations, they are assumed to be
granted if not denied within 24 hours.

However, the Department of the Interior's superintendent for each park can
revoke permits under some conditions, Carroll said, adding that it was
unclear if and when the permit office would act.

Protesters plan to take the access issue to court. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard,
a lawyer with Partnership for Civil Justice, said plans to challenge the
constitutionality of "exclusion zones" will go forward in federal court.

Keeping protesters out of eyesight and earshot of their targets violates
free speech rights protected by the Constitution, Verheyden-Hilliard said.

She added that a police effort to "cordon off areas of the nation's capital
and impose no-speech zones is unconstitutional."

D.C. police said this week that one concession they hoped to make to
protest groups would be to allow them to demonstrate at Edward R. Murrow
Park, which is across the street from the World Bank headquarters, or at
the Ellipse. But Maj. Tom Pellinger, who is heading up preparation efforts
for U.S. Park Police, said officials are still discussing where to allow
protesters to gather and are unable to make a decision until authorities
firm up their plans.

Pellinger said he was also concerned about protests at Lafayette Square
because of its proximity to the White House. He said Park Police officials
were especially worried about the possible use of molotov cocktails in
light of their use at other international anti-globalization protests.

The use of molotov cocktails -- bottles filled with flammable liquid,
wrapped in a saturated rag, ignited and hurled -- is a federal offense, he
said, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. "It's very serious. If anyone
is thinking about doing that, and they are caught, serious charges will be
applied," he said.

------------------------------------------

IMF Protesters File Suit Over 'Exclusion Zones'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35773-2001Aug20.html

By Manny Fernandez

Lawyers for corporate globalization protesters filed a lawsuit this morning
in federal court seeking to stop D.C. police and federal authorities from
cordoning off large sections of downtown Washington for the September
demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund,
saying such measures infringe on organizers' First Amendment rights.

The suit is a response to recent statements by District police officials
that a security plan now under discussion includes fencing-off swaths of
the city in anticipation of the large number of protesters expected to
flood Washington for the fall meetings of the two international financial
institutions. Authorities are discussing plans to set up nine-foot-high
fencing around a two-mile section of downtown Washington.

Protest organizers and their lawyers held a press conference this morning
announcing the lawsuit, which seeks an injunction to bar the police from
setting up what organizers have called "exclusion zones." Such areas will
prohibit free speech activities from taking place on the sidewalks, streets
and public parks within the security area, protesters say.

Lawyers for the Partnership for Civil Justice, a District-based public
interest law firm, filed the suit on behalf of the International Action
Center, the Latin American Solidarity Conference and three other activist
groups and individuals. It names D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, the
District, the director of the National Park Service and the federal
government as defendants.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer with the Partnership for Civil Justice,
said that the exclusion zones run counter to the established rights of
members of social justice movements to march freely for what they believe
in. "It's the way to speak to each other, to speak to the world," she said.
"When the government begins to create these artificial areas . . . to deny
full access to our public land, it infringes on people's First Amendment
rights."

Protesters of all stripes; environmentalists, human rights activists,
anti-capitalists, labor groups; are coming to Washington the last week of
September to draw attention to corporate-led globalization. Demonstrators
demand that the World Bank and IMF drop the debt of Third World countries
and stop funding projects that they say harm the environment and benefit
the rich at the expense of the poor.

Last week, Ramsey said the city is preparing for as many as 100,000 protesters.

------------------------------------------

D.C. to Ask World Bank And IMF to Share Costs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38281-2001Aug20.html?referer=email

By Spencer S. Hsu and Manny Fernandez

The Bush administration will not pay the full $30 million the District
expects to spend on security for World Bank and International Monetary Fund
meetings in Washington next month, federal and city officials said yesterday.

Negotiations continue, and federal and District officials said the federal
government would pay more than 50 percent of the $30 million. Faced with a
shortfall, the city plans to ask the two international development bodies
to cover the difference between what the federal government will pay and
what the city will spend -- something the two groups said yesterday they do
not do.

Meanwhile, protesters who are the focus of the security measures for the
Sept. 29-30 meetings filed suit in federal court, alleging that police
plans to fence off large swaths of the capital pose an unconstitutional
violation of free speech.

The developments came as security officials braced for an economic meeting
whose security precautions will require unprecedented measures in the District.

As part of its request to the federal government, the District government
sought $11 million to bring in more than 3,000 law enforcement officers
from other cities and jurisdictions -- effectively doubling the city's
police force. Also requested were $6.5 million for District government
overtime and personnel costs, and several million dollars more for
equipment such as riot gear and police buses. Other expenses include the
fencing and other preparations by District agencies.

City officials remained confident yesterday that they would obtain most of
what they requested.

"The federal government is working with us to absorb a significant portion
. . . of the cost of the event," said Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, D.C.
deputy mayor for public safety and justice. "I'm very optimistic that we
will work out our funding arrangement with the federal government in the
very near future."

Said Chris Ullman, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, "We
are working cooperatively with the District of Columbia government now to
both fully assess their needs and determine the extent to which we can
assist them financially."

A spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) also called on the IMF and
World Bank to make a contribution to host government expenses -- which
would be an unprecedented step for the two global aid groups.

"There is a growing sense among District officials that there ought to be
some financial contribution from the actual World Bank and IMF
organizations," spokesman Tony Bullock said. "The precedent may not be
established . . . regarding World Bank events around the world, but the
precedent in Washington is, if your event is costing us a lot of money,
often people pay in part to help us meet our expenses."

An IMF spokesman said he knew of no such request in the past from a host
government. The meetings are expected to draw 12 heads of state, 250
dignitaries and thousands of delegates.

"We've always taken the position that it's the responsibility of the host
government to provide a secure working environment," IMF spokesman Bill
Murray said.

The Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec this spring cost the Canadian
government about $70 million, and the Group of Eight meetings in Genoa,
Italy, in July cost more than $100 million, Williams has said.

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said last week that police expect up to
100,000 demonstrators next month -- a figure disputed by protest
organizers. During World Bank and IMF meetings in Washington in April 2000
that drew more than 20,000 demonstrators, police made more than 1,000 arrests.

Because of precautions announced already, attorneys and organizers for
several protest groups asked the U.S District Court to stop authorities
from surrounding key sections of the capital with nine-foot-high hurricane
fences and concrete barriers.

Such "exclusion zones" violate protesters' right to gather on sidewalks,
streets and public parks, they said. The suit names Ramsey, the District,
the director of the National Park Service and the federal government as
defendants and complains that police have held back issuing demonstration
permits.

Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer said: "We have denied
no permits. The permits are still in the queue. The length of the meetings
have changed, and that's something we've had to reconsider.

"We understand the protesters have a right to express their First Amendment
rights, and we are working with them. We have met with them, and we want to
maximize their opportunity to express themselves while at the same time
maintaining order in the city."

But plans for the fences drew fire from protesters' attorneys.

"When the government begins to create these artificial areas . . . to deny
full access to our public land, it infringes on people's First Amendment
rights," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for the District-based
Partnership for Civil Justice.

------------------------------------------

Anti-Corporate Protests in Bush's Backyard

<http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11273>

Don Hazen, AlterNet
August 1, 2001

Since last August's sweaty battles with the LAPD at the Democratic
convention, anti-corporate protesters here in the United States have been
relatively quiet, despite huge actions in Quebec, Prague, Gotenburg and
most recently Genoa. But this quiet will end dramatically in late September
when tens of thousands of activists will descend on Washington, D.C. to
confront representatives of the IMF and World Bank who are holding a summit
there.
Since the last protest in D.C.the half-successful attempt to shut down a
World Bank meeting last April, much has changed in the "globalization from
below" movement. The organizing for this upcoming "Global Justice Week,"
which begins on September 24, is more mature, diverse, clear about goals
and media savvy. Also, the labor movement, which came out strongly for the
Seattle WTO protest but didn't participate much in subsequent actions, has
made a firm commitment to come heavy to D.C. (now that we have an
anti-union president, labor is free to flex its political muscle without
fear of jeopardizing its relationship to the White House). And highly
visible demonstrations around the globe have created a renewed and powerful
wave of momentum; as Robert Collier writes in the San Francisco Chronicle,
the "G-8 summit [last month in Genoa] was yet more proof that the
anti-globalization movement has become the biggest left-of-center force for
social protest in decades."
Combine all this with the simmering anger about the 2000 election, Fox News
recently reported that 58 percent of the public is still mad about how Bush
was elected, and organizers are confident that big crowds will head to D.C.
If so, they will be building on a series of notable victories. As Sarah
Ferguson of the Village Voice points out, "Demonstrators have managed to
shift the terms of discussion for economic liberalization. In the U.S.
Congress, there's far more consensus, particularly among Democrats, that
new trade agreements must have stricter labor and environmental standards
than were included in NAFTA." Adds Collier, "the anti-gloabalization
movement's influence is apparent on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are
fighting an uphill battle to renew fast track authority, which would enable
Bush to negotiate international trade pacts and force Congress to vote on
them without amendments."
In addition, the credibility of the World Bank and IMF is on the brink.
Pressured by environmentalists, the Bank recently announced it would
consider no longer funding oil, gas and mining projects.
Nevertheless, it is a very dangerous and precarious moment for the global
justice movement. There seem to be two powerful, competing forces that may
be doomed to clash. On the one hand, the movement has made concrete
progress toward a consensus about how to push governments and undemocratic
global institutions toward reform. The overall protest message seems to
resound with a large majority of the population: a recent survey by the
University of Maryland says many Americans think U.S. trade policy favors
multinational corporations over U.S. workers, while 74 percent agree that
the U.S. has a moral obligation to ensure that foreign laborers don't have
to work in harsh and unsafe conditions.
However, any political progress is tempered by the overwhelming displays of
police force in virtually every demonstration and the simultaneous violent
escalation of certain protesters. The police reaction was most extreme in
Genoa, and resulted in the first "prime time" globalization martyr, Carlo
Giuliani, the son of an Italian labor organizer, who was shot in the head
by a 24-year-old rookie carbinieri. Conservative Italian President Carlo
Chambi had brought in 20,000 police, which in large part contributed to 400
injured and an estimated $45 million in property damage.
Starting in Seattle, polices have established a consistent pattern of
preemptive strikes against protesters. Undercover agents and provocateurs
have been widely deployed, along with increased firepower and violence by
police. Add to this the growing presence of the media-fetishized Black
Bloc, radicals who explicitly endorse property destruction, and the
resulting mix is explosive. Such violent confrontations threaten to
undermine the nonviolent protestors' efforts to get their message out to an
increasingly receptive audience.
Intense planning and organizing is underway to mitigate that threat, and to
plan the events of the week. Recently, more than 70 groups met to plan
their cooperative strategy. "The goal," said Simon Greer of Jobs With
Justice, one of the organizers of the confab, "was to bring together many
sectors of the global justice movement to see the potential to collaborate.
At the same time, we wanted to secure commitments for the upcoming 'fast
track' battle in Congress, and for Global Justice Week. We sought to
identify common ground and develop strategies for how to build a broader
and deeper global justice movement."
This time around protest organizers are much more consciously reaching out
to groups in the U.S. who are affected by "structural adjustments", i.e.,
the deregulation and privatization agenda. This includes groups fighting
sweatshops, particularly UNITE, the union that represents apparel workers,
which plans to carry out some direct actions against clothing retailers who
produce goods in sweatshop-like conditions. Also, the backlash against the
privatization of health care, welfare, education and many other social
services is bringing in more groups of people of color.
So far, the week-long series of public demonstrations and event is shaping
up to be varied and focused at the same time. The protesters' central
demands, according to John Cavanagh of the Institute for Policy Studies,
are opening up the World Bank and IMF meetings; ending structural
adjustment programs at home and overseas; ending World Bank funding of
fossil fuel projects; and expanding debt cancellation. Other issues will
also be aired, like the availability of AIDS drugs in Third World nations,
(Act Up Philadelphia, considered one of the most creative protest groups,
will push that issue). There will also be a Latin American Solidarity
march, focusing on Plan Columbia and the continued bombing of Vieques. With
the planning process in full swing, a full array of events should emerge soon.
But the best laid plans can be undermined. The question of what to do with
different philosophies and styles of protest, and the potential of violence
to pull down the whole effort --- continues to bedevil organizers. On the
one hand, virtually every visible, credible leader is wringing their hands,
trying to figure out how to keep it all from unraveling, and insisting on
the need for nonviolent protest and cooperation. Yet, tolerance for other
tactics and the practice of small "d" democracy, especially in light of
huge anger engendered by massive police violence, may drag the protests
down to their lowest common denominator.
Susan George, author of nine books and one of the most visible global
justice activists, articulates these tactical concerns very clearly:
The fact remains that this movement for a different kind of globalization
is in danger. Either we'll be capable of exposing what the police are
actually up to and manage to contain and prevent the violent methods of the
few, or we risk shattering the greatest political hope in the last several
decades. If we can't guarantee peaceful, creative demonstrations, workers
and official trade unions won't join us; our base will slip away, and the
present unity, both trans-sectoral and trans-generational, will crumble.
Simon Greer, of Jobs With Justice, is more upbeat: "We are working every
day to build relationships and effective bridges so we can carry out
non-violent, powerful demonstrations. We're working overtime to make this
happen."
This preoccupation with violence is not unfounded. In preliminary meetings
with D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and Police Chief Charles Ramsey, there was
little indication that the District will be hospitable to protesters and
their right to free speech. In fact, one participant used the term "saber
rattling" to characterize the early discussions. The D.C. police have
reportedly recruiting more than 3,500 additional cops from other
jurisdictions in preparation for Global Justice Week.
Meanwhile, a federal investigation recently concluded that there was a
"pattern of excessive force in the D.C. police department in the 1990s,"
according to the Washington Post. A survey found that 15 percent of the
time force was used in D.C., it was excessive, in comparison to two percent
in most well-managed police squads. A Justice Department monitor has been
put in place for the next five years to provide oversight for the D.C.
department.
The excessive violence data is no surprise to Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, an
attorney in the public-interest law firm Partnership for Civil Justice,
which filed suits on behalf of demonstrators from the A16 protests. "Police
are attempting to demonize protestors," she said, after attending the
preliminary discussions with D.C.'s top brass. "They have a lack of
understanding of constitutional rights. It's not appropriate for the state
to oppress people because they don't like their ideology. Washington is the
national center of our government and they should be welcoming people to
express their opinions."
"I repeatedly asked for assurances that there would be no repeats of the
bloody battles of last year, when there were mass arrests for peaceful
activities, when arrestees were kept on buses for as long as 18 hours with
no bathroom facilities, when there were illegal raids on the convergence
center," added Verheyden-Hilliard. "But the [D.C. police] were unable to
give assurances. In fact, they have allocated a massive $5 million for
equipment just to battle protestors."
The big question is, what will the D.C. police do if the protests escalate
beyond nonviolence? As Ferguson notes, the new buzz among activists is
about "diversity of tactics"delineating zones of protest for different
levels of confrontation with police. This anything-goes approach fits with
the ideal of maintaining an openly democratic, nonhierarchical movement.
But in practice, such an open-ended strategy can easily allow for more
aggressive tendencies to hold sway. During A16 a compromise was struck with
the Black Bloc, which for the most part stayed within the consensus
guidelines for nonviolent protest. As a result, the A16 protests did not
get bogged down in the property destruction that has punctuated the last
five or six demonstrations in other international cities. Can organizers
strike a similar balance again? Should they?
"For me, diversity of tactics is a pseudonym for not having thought through
what we really believe," counters activist Terra Lawson-Remer, a founder of
Student Alliance to Reform Corporations (STARC) who has been involved in a
number of the demonstrations. "But nobody wants to take a stand that will
be divisive. How movement leadership respond to the more extreme of the
tactics will be definitive."
John Sellers, the Ruckus Society's direct-action strategist (who gained
worldwide fame when the city of Philadelphia put a million dollar bail on
his head for carrying a cell phone during the Republican convention) told
Sarah Ferguson of the Voice, "The militant fringe of the movement that's
willing to engage in public acts of vandalism or scrap in the streets has
done an amazing PR job. It's one of the most dynamic in growth because it's
so emotionally charged. But for us, Washington is about building bridges
from the globalization to the social justice and union movements,
communicating a critique of how globalization functions in inner cities and
poor communities. We're looking to make things compelling, dynamic and
nonviolent."
Is Sellers' vision possible? That depends a lot on the Black Bloc. While
it's not easy to gauge exactly what the Black Bloc thinks, a recent article
submitted to AlterNet by "Mary Black," who represented herself as a Black
Bloc activist (the authenticity of her communique has not been questioned),
states:
We believe that destroying the property of oppressive and exploitative
corporations like The Gap is an acceptable and useful protest tactic. We
believe that we have the right to defend ourselves when we are in physical
danger from tear gas, batons, armored personnel carriers and other law
enforcement technology. We reject the idea that police should be allowed to
control our actions at all.
As a protest tactic, the usefulness of property destruction is limited but
important. It brings the media to the scene and it sends a message that
seemingly impervious corporations are not impervious. People at the
protest, and those at home watching on TV, can see that a little brick, in
the hands of a motivated individual, can break down a symbolic wall. A
broken window at Nike Town is not threatening to peoples' safety, but I
hope it sends a message that I don't just want Nike to improve their
actions, I want them to shut down and I'm not afraid to say it.
Part of these tactical divisions may break on generational lines.
Blackstar, an 18-year-old anarchist from Denver, told the Voice, "People
between 16 and 22 years old are pissed off as hell because in 15 to 20
years, the planet is going to be a fucking wasteland. So we don't want to
be passive anymore. Those are old tactics for older times."
Like Blackstar, many Black Bloc members come from a generation that has
never seen nonviolent protest achieve real change. "Fear is a very
important thing," says Rockstar, a 22-year-old anarchist from New York.
"It's all we have in terms of power leverage. We don't have money to buy
our politicians. If you don't have money, that's all you have."
Contrast these young Stars with pacifists who take their model from Gandhi
and Martin Luther King. The peaceful idealism of the '60s generation is
vulnerable on the street, where protesting has become what Ferguson
describes as "a kind of extreme sport, requiring ever more elaborate
uniforms of protective gear, training in tear-gas survival and scaling
walls, cell-phone-wielding communication teams, and an army of street
medics to treat the wounded."
Yet another problem is the extent to which security forces will go to
infiltrate protests and egg them on to violence, especially in the Black
Bloc. One recent, somewhat hilarious example came at a modest biotech
protest march in San Diego. There were only about 1,000 marchers, but
according to Sellers, there were hundreds of cops in the march, many
pretending to be in the Black Bloc.
"It was so obvious," said Sellers. "These beefy, football-player types with
their brand new Nike boots, most Black bloc types are pierced, tattooed,
skinny, vegan kids. We eventually just outed them by walking alongside them
with signs that had arrows that read, 'Cops.' These were the same guys
hogging the TV cameras and shouting off the pigs." No doubt the very
experienced Washington cops and the feds will not be so obvious.
So a lot is at stake. As George Monbiot writes in the Guardian of London,
many agree that "the world would be a better place without the companies
which are lobbying against action on climate change, building Bush's
missile defense system, producing fragmentation grenades, demanding control
over health and education services, privatizing water in third world cities
then selling it back to their people at inflated prices, ripping up virgin
forests, designing plants with sterile seeds ..."
... and on and on. Can these juggernauts be stopped? The momentum is there,
and the increasing poll numbers seem to indicate a more supportive public.
But rather than asking what it can achieve, maybe the question should be,
can the huge potential of this movement be derailed by violence and
infiltration? Is there room for the Black Bloc?
Stay tuned, or head to Washington D.C. in late September to find out for
yourself.

------------------------------------------

IMF and World Bank seek to pre-empt protests

http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,539865,00.html

by Mark Tran
Monday August 20, 2001

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have accepted a
public debate at their annual meetings next month with leading
anti-globalisation activists, provided they renounce violence.

The offer from the IMF and the Bank came in an open letter to four
non-governmental organisations (NGO) that have provided the
intellectual lead in opposing their policies: Global Exchange, Jobs
with Justice, 50 Years is Enough and Essential Action.

IMF and Bank officials have taken part in discussions with NGOs at
annual meetings before, but not in a formal debate as suggested by
the four groups.

The US-based groups said in a letter: "We should like to invite
officials from the institutions to a series of public debates in
neutral settings (mass media, town halls) moderated by unbiased
journalists."

In accepting the challenge, the IMF and the Bank are clearly seeking
to lower the temperature after a series of violent protests that have
marred various international meetings, culminating in the carnage at
the G8 meeting in Genoa last month.

When he took over as president of the World Bank in 1995, James
Wolfensohn launched a charm offensive with NGOs, making a point of
invited their leaders to discuss development matters, including debt
relief.

But ever since the riots at the World Trade Organisation conference
in Seattle in 1999, courteous discourse has been overshadowed by
scenes of balaclava-clad demonstrators battling with police.

Even as 50 Years is Enough invited the Bank and IMF to a public
debate, it was calling on activists from around the world to descend
on Washington during the annual meetings to "protest and expose the
illegitimacy of the institutions and officials who continue to claim
the right to determine the course of the world economy". It was
hardly the kind of language designed to cool hot heads.

In agreeing to a public debate, the Bank and IMF said that informed
public discourse on the global economy is clearly needed, adding:
"But this will only be possible if the parties involved focus on the
issues and facts, renounce violence, treat different points of view
with respect."

The ball is now in the court of the four groups that proposed a
public debate. But even if they accept the terms to reject violence,
it is unlikely that the more die-hard protesters will shun the
tactics that blighted the Genoa summit, leading to the death of an
Italian demonstrator.

This year's annual meetings beginning September 28 have already been
cut to half their usual length and will be confined to a "secure"
zone in the centre of Washington.

------------------------------------------

After Genoa

<http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/08/20/opinion/TWOMON20.htm>

As protests spread, more care needed from all sides.

Monday, August 20, 2001
Editorial

Coming to America for a return engagement: The road show known as the
antiglobalization movement.
It's an unwieldy title, one that doesn't begin to explain the myriad causes
- some urgent, some odd - that regularly bring tens of thousands of
protesters onto the streets of major cities around the world. Frankly,
calling it a movement may imply more organizational structure than is
really there.
Nevertheless, the call is out: Come to Washington next month for the annual
conference of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
It's a plea not only from activists but the D.C. police, who want help from
other major East Coast departments, including Philadelphia's. (It's wise to
listen to the City of Brotherly Love when it comes to nonviolent but
effective bicycle patrols and by-the-book civil disobedience arrests. But
if preemptive raids and million-dollar bails come up, just nod politely and
walk away.)
Washington has good reason to worry. With the notable exception of
Philadelphia during last summer's Republican convention, the hosts of these
gatherings of dignitaries and demonstrators have sustained millions of
dollars in property damage. And far worse.
Two months ago in Sweden, during protests at a summit of the European
Union, more than 70 people were injured, including three protesters who
were shot and a police officer who suffered serious head injuries. In
Genoa, more than 200 were hurt at July's Group of Eight summit. Protester
Carlo Giuliani was shot dead.
Some - including Italy's police chief - blame excessive force for all this.
Some blame the movement - or parts of it. Some the media. Some the G-8, the
IMF, the GOP.
Eighty years ago, when the movement for Indian independence didn't live up
to the nonviolent expectations of its chief strategist, he shut it down. He
did penance. He fasted. He blamed himself.
There is no more Gandhi, though. For this time and this movement, no leader
has yet arisen who has the moral authority, vision and humility - the
ability to see the human dignity in those you oppose - that is needed to
slow this runaway train. There's a body count now, yet it appears to be
business as usual.
World leaders will meet. Activists will gather. Police will mobilize. Media
will report. The right of protest will be employed to cause confrontation
and bring attention to an issue. In Washington, then the next city, and the
next. Is Carlo Guiliani just the first fatality of these protests? Or will
he be the last? New Jersey's Susanna Thomas, a Genoa activist recently
released from prison in Italy, said she plans to do "what I have always
done, which is talk to people and try to understand why they do what they do."
That's good advice - for those in the streets and in the boardrooms.

------------------------------------------

DC Police Prepare for IMF Protests

Friday, 17-Aug-2001
by DAVID HO

WASHINGTON (AP) -- District of Columbia police are bracing for tense days
of protests and possible property damage in the nation's capital next month
as demonstrators converge for the next meeting of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund.
Police Chief Charles Ramsey said Friday a force of about 6,000 police from
Washington and surrounding areas is preparing to face as many as 100,000
protesters during the weekend of Sept. 29-30.
"We're really going to be pushed to the limit," Ramsey said at a news
conference. "The odds of us escaping without any property damage of any
kind is probably fairly low."
He added: "Whatever takes place, we are going to keep control of these
streets and Washington, D.C., is not going to burn."
Clashes between police and protesters during two years of similar meetings
around the world have heightened security concerns.
Confrontations outside the Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Italy, last
month resulted in an estimated $45 million in property damage and hundreds
of arrests.
Police shot and killed an Italian protester and more than 200 people were
injured during the most violent incidents since the anti-globalization
movement surfaced in Seattle in 1999.
In April 2000, Washington police arrested about 1,300 people during
demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank. Protesters say the policies
of those organizations help the rich get richer and keep the poor working
in horrible conditions to produce goods for the wealthy.
Demonstrators blame police for past confrontations and have said they will
sue the city because of plans to restrict areas of the capital to all but
delegates of the meeting.
"It's an attempt to deprive the people of this city and this country of the
right to protest and we will not accept it," said Richard Becker, an
organizer with the International Action Center, who was among a handful of
demonstrators gathered outside the news conference. "They say they want to
keep the peace, but they are taking steps to create violence."
Becker said police plans are similar to those used in Italy and that "there
should not be a Genoa-style police state set up in Washington."
Ramsey confirmed reports that authorities are considering sealing off the
area surrounding the White House, the IMF and World Bank with
nine-foot-high fencing. He said many streets will be closed and traffic
will be a major problem.
Some Washington police will be equipped with fireproof suits and fire
extinguishers, moves prompted by Molotov cocktail firebombs used during
protests in Quebec in April, Ramsey said.
District of Columbia officials are negotiating with the Bush administration
to get about $30 million in federal funds for the extra security.
"If the resources cannot be identified in very short order, the agencies
will not be able to protect our city and ensure the integrity of the
meetings," Mayor Anthony Williams wrote President Bush in an August 6
letter released Friday at the news conference.
Williams predicted the protests "will be of an intensity, scope and
magnitude that we have never seen in this city."
The global financial organizations have scaled back their annual autumn
meeting to the weekend of Sept. 29-30 because of the security concerns.
Originally, they had planned to meet a few days before that weekend until
Oct. 3.
"On security issues, the host government has the call," said Thomas Dawson,
IMF director of external relations. "Meetings attract additional attention.
That is a fact of life."
Ramsey said his main worry is the prospect of a small number of
demonstrators determined to cause trouble.
"We hope that the vast majority of protesters, who are peaceful protesters,
work very aggressively to keep that element under control because if they
don't it could very well spiral out of control," he said.

------------------------------------------

Washington police expecting mass anti-IMF-World Bank protests

Friday, 17-Aug-2001
by Carlos Hamann

WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (AFP) - Some 50,000 protesters are expected to converge
on the US capital for the joint IMF-World Bank meeting in September, city
police chief Charles Ramsey said Friday, insisting that order will be
maintained "whatever takes place."
Handling security for the event will cost the city around 30 million
dollars, Ramsey said, including money to hire some 3,000 police officers
for temporary duty from other regions.
The number of protesters is expected to be four times more than came to a
similar event in Washington in April 2000, Ramsey said.
"The odds of us escaping without property damage is fairly low," said
Ramsey, speaking with top city officials at an event at which they urged
federal authorities to increase aid to the city.
Officials announced on August 11 that the biannual International Monetary
Fund and World Bank meeting will be scaled back from one week to two days,
a move influenced by widespread protests at similar summits around the world.
To bolster his argument Ramsey referred to violence at the Summit of the
Americas in Quebec City in April, where a group of protesters hurled
Molotov cocktails at police.
Some 1,700 of the city's 3,500 police officers will be put on IMF-World
Bank duty, and the rest will continue their normal work, said Deputy Mayor
for Public Safety Margaret Kellems.
City emergency management director Peter La Porte said that Washington
authorities have also requested at least 300 National Guard soldiers,
mainly military police, for traffic control.
Ramsey gave few details on the anti-riot plan -- "they haven't been
finalized yet," he said -- and added that security for visiting dignitaries
was up to the US Secret Service.
Other federal police forces -- National Park police and Capitol Hill
police, for example -- will also be on duty in force, Ramsey said.
"Our job is to let both (the protest and the meeting) take place
simultaneously and keep the city safe and secure," Ramsey said.
"Whatever takes place we will maintain control in the streets of Washington
DC -- this city will not burn," said Ramsey.
A handful of protesters were at the event to "respond to police attempts to
demonize us," said Sarah Sloan from the International Action Fund.
Earlier in the week anti-IMF-World Bank event organizers said they plan to
surround the White House with protesters.

------------------------------------------

*****THE DC MASQUERADE*****

   http://www.masqueradeproject.org

The clouds of toxic gas over Quebec City and Genoa show
one thing we can all expect during the September 29-30
demonstrations against the World Bank and IMF in
Washington, DC: lots of tear gas and pepper spray where
people gather on the streets to express their vision of
a just and sustainable world.

We at the Masquerade Project want to make sure that our
sisters and brothers have the protection they need --
and we also think it's time for an aesthetic
intervention on the front lines of the movement for
global justice. So we're organizing the DC Masquerade:
raising money to buy and fabulously decorate hundreds
of gas masks for free distribution at the IMF/World
Bank protests in Washington.

Black may be timelessly chic. But we long for more
color, more élan. We believe our movements should
reflect the world we want to create. And for us,
that's a world with loads of color, sparkle, variety,
and individual creativity.

Tear gas contains highly toxic chemicals and solvents
whose short- and long-term health effects are poorly
understood. We STRONGLY recommend that everyone who is
taking part in the DC protests protect themselves with
a gas mask.

But wearing a gas mask doesn't have to mean adopting a
grim paramilitary uniform: Leave that to the police who
will be defending the institutions of the global elite.

We're using bright paints, rhinestones, sequins,
glitter, and trim to transform the masks we'll be
giving away into splendid and sassy creations.

We need your help. We've found a super-cheap source of
masks -- so every $5 you donate will protect one
person's eyes, lungs, and skin from the damaging
effects of chemical weapons.

1. DONATE TO THE MASQUERADE PROJECT! It's very simple:
   The more money we get, the more masks we will buy
   and give away on the streets. Each $5 purchases one
   mask -- give generously! You can donate by credit
   card at http://www.masqueradeproject.org or send a
   check made out to The Masquerade Project to
   P.O. Box 648, NY, NY 10009.

2. DO IT YOURSELF Decorate your own masks and join us
   in Washington, D.C., Sept. 29-30. See
   http://www.abolishthebank.org and
   http://www.globalizethis.org for details on the
   protests. Check out our website at
   http://www.masqueradeproject.org for information on
   where to buy a gas mask and what materials work best
   for decorating (plus photos of some of our favorite
   creations).

3. EDUCATE yourself and your community about the health
   risks of tear-gas and pepper spray exposure, and how
   to protect yourself. We've compiled links to the
   best available sources of information on these
   chemical weapons, their health effects, and
   recommended methods for treating exposure at our
   http://www.masqueradeproject.org site.

In previous demonstrations, a large and vibrant
festival has emerged in the safe zones, behind the
front lines. But the front line is wherever there's a
fuming gas canister. And increasingly, the creeping,
stinging gas seems to be everywhere. We can't let it
stop our celebration -- or our resistance.

Let's bring the carnival against capitalism to the
front lines of protest.

   The Masquerade Project
   http://www.masqueradeproject.org

------------------------------------------

Big Fence Planned To Curb Protests

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22987-2001Aug16.html

Area Around IMF to Get 9-Foot-High Protection

By Arthur Santana
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 17, 2001; Page B01

D.C. police plan to use nine-foot-high fencing to cordon off most of the
area around the White House, the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund to restrict protesters on the final weekend of September.

Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer yesterday outlined what
he described as one of the main strategies authorities have devised for
containing demonstrations during IMF and World Bank meetings. He said
another strategy was to ask protesters to monitor their own ranks.

His comments came on the eve of a briefing by city officials to outline
preparations for the fall meetings of the two world financial bodies and for
the nearly 50,000 protesters authorities anticipate. Other city officials
said they were unaware of plans for a buffer zone. Meetings such as today's
are intended to brief the public on the progress of preparations, officials
said.

Protest organizers and their supporters reacted angrily to the fencing plan.
"We believe [police] should not be turning Washington, D.C., into a police
state," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for protesters. "If we pride
ourselves on having a democracy and having democratic freedoms, we should
not carve out sections of the city."

Protesters want to draw attention to problems of globalization, which they
see as benefiting rich nations at the expense of poor nations.

Gainer said police and other city officials have met with White House
officials twice this week to discuss plans and funding to underwrite them.
Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said a decision on funding has not
been made. "We are committed to ensuring the safety of those who live and
work here, as well as the visitors to Washington," Buchan said.

Gainer said the plan, although not complete, was to enclose a section of the
city with higher fencing than ever used before in the capital. The steel
hurricane fencing, set in Jersey barriers, would cost about $1.8 million of
the $30 million that officials have requested from the White House.

Gainer said police hoped to allow protesters in Edward R. Murrow Park,
across from the World Bank, and on the Ellipse, but that was uncertain.
Murrow Park, favored by World Bank protesters as a gathering place, could
hold about 7,000 people -- those who arrive first, he said.

The fencing could encompass an area of Northwest Washington roughly between
H Street on the north, 15th Street on the east, Constitution Avenue on the
south and 21st or 22nd Street on the west. Gainer said the enclosed area
would be about the same as for the IMF-World Bank protests in April 2000,
but the fencing would be much higher and only police and people attending
the meetings could pass.

He said waist-high bicycle fencing likely would be set up around the
immediate area of the IMF and World Bank buildings as an additional
precaution.

Protesters decried police plans as a waste of taxpayer money and a ploy to
paint protesters as violent hooligans. "It's unfortunate that the police are
trying to escalate antagonism," said Fred Azcarate, executive director of
Jobs with Justice, a national workers' rights group. "Any outside observer
would think the police are preparing for war."

At previous protests of world economic bodies, police have employed various
tactics. High fencing was first used against anti-globalization protesters
in April in Quebec; police erected 10-foot fences that protesters dubbed the
Wall of Shame. Although it was breached, Quebec police said, the fencing did
its job.

Protests in Genoa, Italy, last month were marred by violence and by the
shooting of one protester by a police officer. Officials have since said
that some other incidents there involved police brutality.

Gainer said that police realize that only a small faction of protesters
might resort of violence or vandalism.

"We would hope that the larger group . . . would . . . suppress that type of
activity," Gainer said. He said that idea was presented to protest
organizers and that they said they couldn't be responsible for everyone.

Verheyden-Hilliard said, "We have not seen protesters being violent at
demonstrations in Washington, D.C."

The final act of Argentina's former president, Fernando de la Rua, was to flee Buenos Aires in a helicopter on December 20, two years into his four-year term.

The streets below, as in cities throughout the country, were filled with hundreds of thousands of protesting citizens, clouds of tear gas and rubber bullets, and the bodies of those shot dead by the police.

With the vice president and the entire cabinet having fled as well, one of the first acts of interim president Adolfo Rodriguez Saa was to suspend payments on Argentina's $132 billion foreign debt.

It was this debt and the decade-long austerity program imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that destroyed Argentina's economy. Since taking office, de la Rua's government had ruthlessly privatized essential services, slashed the salaries and pensions of government workers and raised taxes, finally driving fully 30% of the population below the poverty line. It wasn't enough to satisfy the IMF.

What finally brought the nation's middle class into the streets to join the popular rebellion already underway among the underclass was the imposition of a $250 a week limit on bank withdrawals. This limit was ordered after $2 billion was pulled from the banks in a single day on November 30 by people fearful of losing their life's savings. Most have now given up all hope of ever seeing their money again.

Defending the limit on access of people to their own money, even in the face of obvious mishandling, de la Rua's finance minister said simply, "No banking system in the world can pay out in cash all its deposits." At least not and have some left over for the bankers.

Latin America's third largest economy (after Brazil and Mexico) began its quick slide into oblivion in 1991 when its Peso was pegged to the US dollar. Dollarization, while fiercely defended by neoliberal strategists, priced Argentina's exports out of competitiveness with its neighbors. And priced money out of reach of the country's poor.

The country's unbelievable foreign debt, largely incurred by past US-backed military dictators, is borne on the backs of the ordinary people. It was expanded further to fill the bank accounts of the previous president, Carlos Menem, and his cronies in the early 1990s. The bulk of the money (what wasn't simply looted from the treasury) was used to subsidize the privatization of public industries and services at fire sale rates to a favored few.

Rodriquez Saa, in announcing the suspension of payments, called the IMF-sponsored debt "the murkiest business that has existed in the history of this country." It was contracted behind closed doors, enriching the oligarchy and leaving the citizenry to foot the bill. In the parlance of the IMF (and its largest shareholder, the USA) this is known as responsible behavior.

In an effort to inject some semblance of cash into the economy and allow people to buy things like bread, the new president has announced the creation of a new currency, the argentino. This currency will join the peso and the dollar in January as the third form of legal tender circulating in Argentina. The new currency will be free floating, raising the almost certain prospect of currency devaluation, wiping out people's savings while vastly increasing their personal debts, with massive inflation to follow. Lacking foreign reserves, the government has announced it will back this new money by mortgaging all government property including the capitol building, the presidential residence, and its embassies and consulates.

The old government didn't fall easily. In the face of universal outrage and days of street protests, somebody ordered the police to respond with live ammunition. The two dozen shooting deaths initially reported as being by shopkeepers defending their property from looters are now known to have been caused by police-issue bullets. And rather than firing against looters it appears the guns were turned upon peacefully demonstrating protesters. No one will admit to giving the order in which unarmed people were shot in the back by policemen in clear view of witnesses.

One ugly episode saw police mounted on horses charging an assembly of The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who continue to seek answers to the fate of their loved ones, the disappeared of Argentina's military dictatorship of 1976-83.

The specter of a new dictatorship to once again "rescue" Argentina looms on the horizon. While ordinary Argentinians see their net worth evaporate, and the possibility of new rounds of privation and oppression, the bankers and financiers who, through the IMF, are responsible for their misery, once again evade any accountability for their actions. And Argentina is only the first of what is sure to be a string of defaults in the next few years as the Ponzi scheme known as the IMF runs out of new shills to bilk.

The World Bank's former Chief Economist's accusations are eye- popping - including how the IMF and US Treasury fixed the Russian elections

"It has condemned people to death," the former apparatchik told me. This was like a scene out of Le Carre. The brilliant old agent comes in from the cold, crosses to our side, and in hours of debriefing, empties his memory of horrors committed in the name of a political ideology he now realizes has gone rotten.

And here before me was a far bigger catch than some used Cold War spy. Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist of the World Bank. To a great extent, the new world economic order was his theory come to life.

I "debriefed" Stigltiz over several days, at Cambridge University, in a London hotel and finally in Washington in April 2001 during the big confab of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But instead of chairing the meetings of ministers and central bankers, Stiglitz was kept exiled safely behind the blue police cordons, the same as the nuns carrying a large wooden cross, the Bolivian union leaders, the parents of AIDS victims and the other 'anti- globalization' protesters. The ultimate insider was now on the outside.

In 1999 the World Bank fired Stiglitz. He was not allowed quiet retirement; US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, I'm told, demanded a public excommunication for Stiglitz' having expressed his first mild dissent from globalization World Bank style.

Here in Washington we completed the last of several hours of exclusive interviews for The Observer and BBC TV's Newsnight about the real, often hidden, workings of the IMF, World Bank, and the bank's 51% owner, the US Treasury.

And here, from sources unnamable (not Stiglitz), we obtained a cache of documents marked, "confidential," "restricted," and "not otherwise (to be) disclosed without World Bank authorization."

Stiglitz helped translate one from bureaucratise, a "Country Assistance Strategy." There's an Assistance Strategy for every poorer nation, designed, says the World Bank, after careful in-country investigation. But according to insider Stiglitz, the Bank's staff 'investigation' consists of close inspection of a nation's 5- star hotels. It concludes with the Bank staff meeting some begging, busted finance minister who is handed a 'restructuring agreement' pre- drafted for his 'voluntary' signature (I have a selection of these).

Each nation's economy is individually analyzed, then, says Stiglitz, the Bank hands every minister the same exact four-step program.

Step One is Privatization - which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, 'Briberization.' Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders - using the World Bank's demands to silence local critics - happily flogged their electricity and water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.

And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of the biggest 'briberization' of all, the 1995 Russian sell- off. "The US Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin re- elected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltzin" via kick-backs for his campaign.

Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as Chairman of the President's council of economic advisors.

Most ill-making for Stiglitz is that the US-backed oligarchs stripped Russia's industrial assets, with the effect that the corruption scheme cut national output nearly in half causing depression and starvation.

After briberization, Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is 'Capital Market Liberalization.' In theory, capital market deregulation allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the "Hot Money" cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation's own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% and 80%.

"The result was predictable," said Stiglitz of the Hot Money tidal waves in Asia and Latin America. Higher interest rates demolished property values, savaged industrial production and drained national treasuries.

At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: Market- Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and cooking gas. This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, 'The IMF riot.'

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, "down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up," as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples - the Bolivian riots over water prices last year and this February, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the World Bank. You'd almost get the impression that the riot is written into the plan.

And it is. What Stiglitz did not know is that, while in the States, BBC and The Observer obtained several documents from inside the World Bank, stamped over with those pesky warnings, "confidential," "restricted," "not to be disclosed." Let's get back to one: the "Interim Country Assistance Strategy" for Ecuador, in it the Bank several times states - with cold accuracy - that they expected their plans to spark, "social unrest," to use their bureaucratic term for a nation in flames.

That's not surprising. The secret report notes that the plan to make the US dollar Ecuador's currency has pushed 51% of the population below the poverty line. The World Bank "Assistance" plan simply calls for facing down civil strife and suffering with, "political resolve" - and still higher prices.

The IMF riots (and by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and teargas) cause new panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. This economic arson has it's bright side - for foreign corporations, who can then pick off remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire sale prices.

Stiglitz notes that the IMF and World Bank are not heartless adherents to market economics. At the same time the IMF stopped Indonesia 'subsidizing' food purchases, "when the banks need a bail- out, intervention (in the market) is welcome." The IMF scrounged up tens of billions of dollars to save Indonesia's financiers and, by extension, the US and European banks from which they had borrowed.

A pattern emerges. There are lots of losers in this system but one clear winner: the Western banks and US Treasury, making the big bucks off this crazy new international capital churn. Stiglitz told me about his unhappy meeting, early in his World Bank tenure, with Ethopia's new president in the nation's first democratic election. The World Bank and IMF had ordered Ethiopia to divert aid money to its reserve account at the US Treasury, which pays a pitiful 4% return, while the nation borrowed US dollars at 12% to feed its population. The new president begged Stiglitz to let him use the aid money to rebuild the nation. But no, the loot went straight off to the US Treasury's vault in Washington.

Now we arrive at Step Four of what the IMF and World Bank call their "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organization and World Bank, Stiglitz the insider likens free trade WTO-style to the Opium Wars. "That too was about opening markets," he said. As in the 19th century, Europeans and Americans today are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin American and Africa, while barricading our own markets against Third World agriculture.

In the Opium Wars, the West used military blockades to force open markets for their unbalanced trade. Today, the World Bank can order a financial blockade just as effective - and sometimes just as deadly.

Stiglitz is particularly emotional over the WTO's intellectual property rights treaty (it goes by the acronym TRIPS, more on that in the next chapters). It is here, says the economist, that the new global order has "condemned people to death" by imposing impossible tariffs and tributes to pay to pharmaceutical companies for branded medicines. "They don't care," said the professor of the corporations and bank loans he worked with, "if people live or die."

By the way, don't be confused by the mix in this discussion of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. They are interchangeable masks of a single governance system. They have locked themselves together by what are unpleasantly called, "triggers." Taking a World Bank loan for a school 'triggers' a requirement to accept every 'conditionality' - they average 111 per nation - laid down by both the World Bank and IMF. In fact, said Stiglitz the IMF requires nations to accept trade policies more punitive than the official WTO rules.

Stiglitz greatest concern is that World Bank plans, devised in secrecy and driven by an absolutist ideology, are never open for discourse or dissent. Despite the West's push for elections throughout the developing world, the so-called Poverty Reduction Programs "undermine democracy."

And they don't work. Black Africa's productivity under the guiding hand of IMF structural "assistance" has gone to hell in a handbag. Did any nation avoid this fate? Yes, said Stiglitz, identifying Botswana. Their trick? "They told the IMF to go packing."

So then I turned on Stiglitz. OK, Mr Smart-Guy Professor, how would you help developing nations? Stiglitz proposed radical land reform, an attack at the heart of "landlordism," on the usurious rents charged by the propertied oligarchies worldwide, typically 50% of a tenant's crops. So I had to ask the professor: as you were top economist at the World Bank, why didn't the Bank follow your advice?

"If you challenge [land ownership], that would be a change in the power of the elites. That's not high on their agenda." Apparently not.

Ultimately, what drove him to put his job on the line was the failure of the banks and US Treasury to change course when confronted with the crises - failures and suffering perpetrated by their four-step monetarist mambo. Every time their free market solutions failed, the IMF simply demanded more free market policies.

"It's a little like the Middle Ages," the insider told me, "When the patient died they would say, 'well, he stopped the bloodletting too soon, he still had a little blood in him.'"

I took away from my talks with the professor that the solution to world poverty and crisis is simple: remove the bloodsuckers. ___

A version of this was first published as "The IMF's Four Steps to Damnation" in The Observer (London) in April and another version in The Big Issue - that's the magazine that the homeless flog on platforms in the London Underground. Big Issue offered equal space to the IMF, whose "deputy chief media officer" wrote:

"... I find it impossible to respond given the depth and breadth of hearsay and misinformation in [Palast's] report."

Of course it was difficult for the Deputy Chief to respond. The information (and documents) came from the unhappy lot inside his agency and the World Bank.

What was so important about this editorial of the London Times in 1865 that we must seriously consider today? August 9, 2002

In 1865, during the time Lincoln was attempting (and thereafter succeeded) in creating a debt-free currency for the People; this editorial was printed in the London Times.

"If this mischievous financial policy [of creating a debt-free currency], which has its origin in the American Republic, shall become permanent, then that government will furnish its own money without cost! It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe!"

Read that again!! The money powers know what would happen if we took control of our money system out of the hands of the bankers. We would "... become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world." The legal system serves the money system. If we want to reform our legal system, then we must first reform the money system. We would take control of our civilization and oust the bankers who have through there sleigh of hand machinations transferred all the wealth of our nation to themselves. Lawyers, Judges, Politicians all follow the Pied Piper of the Babylonian money system. The borrower is servant to the lender.

It's not that difficult to understand, if we apply ourselves to the task. The following was written by Lois Even of the Pilgrims of Saint Michael. We can hack away at the branches of evil until we drop dead of exhaustion. But, nothing will change until we uproot the corrupt tree that is bearing all of the corrupt fruit that we are contending with. If we cut off a corrupt branch, the corrupt tree will grow another. And then we would be right back where we started.

Found at www.crtf.org (Civil Rights Task Force) Written by London Times, 1865, Posted from crtf.org on 8/9/2002

Banking Cartel is the Cause of Humanity’s Woes. By World-Class Author Henry Makow, Ph.D.

Banking Cartel is the Cause of Humanity’s Woes A review of Eustace Mullins' “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve” By Henry Makow, Ph.D.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” ---Thomas Jefferson

In November 1949, Eustace Mullins, 25, was a researcher in Washington DC when friends invited him to visit the famous American poet Ezra Pound, who was confined at St. Elizabeth’s Mental Hospital and listed as a “political prisoner.”

A leading figure in Modern English literature, Pound was the editor and critic who introduced the world to James Joyce, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot. During the Second World War, he was charged with treason for broadcasts on Rome Radio that questioned the motives behind America’s involvement.

Pound commissioned Mullins to examine the influence of the banking establishment on U.S. policy. Mullins spent every morning for two years in the Library of Congress and met with Pound every afternoon. The resulting manuscript, “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve” proved too hot for any American publisher to handle. Nineteen rejected it. One said, “you’ll never get this published in New York.” When it finally appeared in Germany in 1955, the U.S. Military Government confiscated all 10,000 copies and burned them.

Thanks to the American Patriot Friends Network, this book (http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm) is freely available on line. (I recommend you save it on your desktop, as I did.) Why is it so (excuse the pun) inflammatory?

Essentially it paints a picture of the world, and the role of the United States, which is radically different from the one we are given in school or in the media.

“Notwithstanding the war of independence against England,” writes Mullins, “we remained an economic and financial colony of Great Britain.” Between 1865 and 1913, he says London bankers led by the Rothschilds used agents such as J.P. Morgan and J.D. Rockefeller to gain control of American industry and organize it into cartels.

Where did these bankers get the money? For over 200 years, European bankers have been able to draw on the credit of their host countries to print it!

In the Seventeenth Century, the moneylenders and the aristocracy made a pact. If the king would make paper currency a liability of the state, the moneylenders would print as much as he liked! Thus the Banks of England, France and the Reichsbank came into being but they were all private corporations and remain so today.

According to this nefarious pact, the moneylenders got to charge interest on assets they created out of thin air. The aristocracy all took shares in the central banks plus they got to finance a burgeoning government and to wage costly wars.

The bankers have a vested interest in the state (i.e. the people) incurring as much debt as possible. They are behind the Marxist, socialist and liberal movements which call for big government and social spending. They are behind the catastrophic wars of the last century. The Warburgs financed the Bolshevik Revolution. The Bank of England financed the rise of Hitler. Prescott Bush (W’s grandfather) was head of Brown Brothers Harriman, which financed the construction of the Nazi war machine.

Naturally if you can create money out of thin air, your first instinct is to buy tangible assets with it. There is a powerful impulse to use debt to control nations and take over their real assets. This is the essence of the so-called Third World Debt crisis. Dedicated to owning all wealth and enslaving humanity, an irresistible vampire has been unleashed upon the world

Much of Mullins book is devoted to the subterfuge by which the United States was drawn into its lethal embrace. In 1913, the Owen-Glass Bill gave mostly foreign-controlled banks (posing as “the Federal Reserve”) the right to create currency based on the credit of the United States government and to charge it interest for doing it!

To accomplish this, the bankers had to rig the election of 1913 in order to get Woodrow Wilson elected. Then their stooges in Congress passed the legislation on December 22 after their opponents had gone home for Christmas.

“This act establishes the most gigantic trust [cartel] on earth,” Congressman Charles Lindbergh said at the time. “When the President signs this bill; the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed.”

Mullins explains that the legislation passed just in time for the American people to finance World War One. After maintaining standing armies for 50 years, European powers no longer could afford the luxury of another war. But the U.S. was relatively debt free and made the whole thing possible.

What would WWI have been without Germany? Apparently Germany was not self-sufficient in food and would have had to sit out this war. In the nick of time, the bankers organized something called “The Belgium Relief Committee” which channeled billions of dollars worth of U.S. meat and potatoes not to Belgium but to Germany. When Edith Cavell, an American working in a Belgium hospital pointed this out, British intelligence had the Germans arrest and execute her.

Mullins makes a convincing case that every U.S. President since Wilson has been a lackey of the bankers. J.F. Kennedy was assassinated because he started to print his own U.S. government-backed currency. This is also the transgression that led to the murders of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield.

Last year alone, the American people paid $360 billion in interest to the bankers. To maintain this massive fraud, the bankers enforce an iron grip on the political and cultural organs of the nation. According to Mullins, “The New York Times” is owned by the Kuhn Loeb while “The Washington Post” is owned by Lazard Freres. In Europe the Rothschilds own Reuters as well as the French and German news services.

I presume US publishers, TV networks and movie producers are similarly beholden. Rockefellers, Carnegies and the Fords endow the nations’ libraries and universities. Journalists and professors dutifully parrot fantasies about democracy and freedom. Mind control laboratories run by the CIA and the British army (TheTavistock Institute) dream up ways to manipulate and undermine the population. The psychological sterilization of the human female (“feminism”) is an example.

The “War on Terror” is part of the banking cabal’s plan to consolidate its grip on humanity in a friendly (or not so friendly) fascist “New World Order.” They want to secure their political, economic and social grip on the obstreperous Muslim world, as well as build up a security apparatus in case the docile populations of the West become restive.

Well, at least the cosmic battle between Good and Evil is out in the open at last!

Henry Makow, is the inventor of the board game Scruples, and the author of A Long Way to go for a Date. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1982 and lives in Winnipeg. He welcomes your feedback and ideas at henrym@mts.net.