Imperium Americanum: History Repeating

Here we are deep in the last third of Gibbon.

Almost 45 years ago, Ceasar died in Dallas, the long knives replaced by a hail of bullets, with the devolution of honor being such that the conspirators hid behind contract killers bought from the mafia rather than looking their prince in the eye as they betrayed him and murdered their republic.

Wars and foreign intrigues followed, as the conspirators, now the rulers of empire, fed at the trough of money and power. In Rome, uneasy parents, witness to the unspeakable, soon enough gave way to sons and daughters who reveled in wealth and decadence.

The rich were never richer, the poor never more despised. The outward forms and structures were maintained, from familiarity and convenience, but all Romans knew that democracy had been supplanted by dictatorship, that Rome had sacrificed its soul to grasp at the delirious prize of world domination.

The pathetic spectacle of the current Senate's inability to pass a non-binding resolution censuring the conduct of the Iraq war should have been played out in togas.

The craven politics, posturing and rank hypocrisy of the past weeks' maneuverings have reached new lows even for Congress--a profoundly saddening and shameless display that reveals an institution that is impotent, dysfunctional and frankly irrelevant. The stink of rotten decadence hangs over the farce: Congress is defunct as a viable, let alone co-equal, branch of government.

Enter Nero, playing air guitar.

Chilling Prescience: Jim Garrison Speaks, 1967

Here I cede the floor to a remarkable man, whose words should not be lost.

Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison was District Attorney for New Orleans, and placed local businessman Clay Bertrand on trial for conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is the focus of Oliver Stone's film, JFK. From a Playboy interview in 1967:

PLAYBOY: Many of the professional critics of the Warren Commission appear to be prompted by political motives: Those on the left are anxious to prove Kennedy was murdered by a internal conspiracy within the establishment; and those on the right are eager to prove the assassination was an act of "the international Communist conspiracy." Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum--right, left or center?

JIM GARRISON: That's a question I've asked myself frequently, especially since this investigation started and I found myself in an incongruous and disillusioning battle with agencies of my own Government. I can't just sit down and add up my political beliefs like a mathematical sum, but I think, in balance, I'd turn up somewhere around the middle. Over the years, I guess I've developed a somewhat conservative attitude--in the traditional libertarian sense of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism of the paramilitary right--particularly in regard to the importance of the individual as opposed to the State and the individual's own responsibilities to humanity . . .

I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I've always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I'm concerned about all of this because it isn't a German phenomenon; it's a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change, there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow men.

What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly eroding into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the State. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and the Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution.

In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work.

About the photo: Paramilitary police attacking lawful demonstrators protesting against the Free Trade Area of the Americas pact (FTAA) in November of 2003 in Miami.

But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here the internal process is more subtle, but the end results are the same. I've learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the internal dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the State and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act.

I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism." I'm afraid, based on my own long experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.

9/11 Clearinghouse

First, a word on the photo: note the now-infamous demolition squibs shooting out of the WTC, caused by major detonations of the central columns in roughly 20-story increments, as above secondary charges pulverize the tower, bringing it down at free-fall speed.

September 11th was an inside job, the third US coup d'etat after the Kennedy assassination and the first George W. Bush administration, and if possible it was even more destabilizing and insidious than JFK's murder.

Like many, after the initial shock of events, I hadn't given 9/11 much serious thought until I read of the results of a recent Zogby poll showing nearly half of Americans and well over 60% of New Yorkers believe the US government is somehow involved in the conspiracy. Those are shocking numbers.

So I began to Google and indeed the evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. The government's cover-up relies upon media collusion and mass apathy, but 9/11 must not be allowed to stand, as it is the base of the present regime's "legitimacy," the staggering treason that underpins their fascist agenda.

Fletcher Prouty--CIA liaison and man of conscience--penned words concerning the JFK assassination that find new relevance today: "Almost everyone who has taken the time to do any reading and thinking about that crime knows this is a game for the biggest stake of all--absolute control of the government of the United States of America; and, with control of this government, control of the world. And yet the real crime underlying all of this has not even been identified, stated, and charged. The real criminals still walk the streets, run their corporations, control their banks, and pull strings throughout their political and financial machines."

Following are links to the best online websites and video presentations concerning the events of September 11, 2001.

Overview
The Complete 911 Timeline: Compilation of all journalistic media accounts of 9/11; a massive undertaking.

Loose Change, 2nd Edition: A 90-minute documentary that concisely marshals the basic facts about what really happened on 9/11. Clear and straightforward, highly recommended.

The American Scholars Symposium, Los Angeles, 8 July 2006. Organized by Alex Jones, a panel discussion about 9/11 and the false-flag terrorism it embodies.

The WTC Towers
South Tower Collapse. A short (-2 min.) slow-motion video of the beginning of the South Tower's collapse, showing jetting plumes and flashes as cutter charges are set off in the impact area. Also, note that the 20 uppermost floors--a massive structure in and of itself--initially intact and toppling at an angle, simply explodes in mid-air. What more proof does one need?

911 Mysteries: A 90-minute documentary examining the collapse of the three WTC towers. Clear, straightforward presentation, though the narrator has a banal delivery. Nonetheless highly recommended for its content.

9/11: Scientific and Ethical Questions, by Prof. Steven Jones. Jones, a physicist at BYU, is the leading scientific proponent of controlled demolition. Compelling for anyone who is not afraid to think.

Interview with Prof. Steven Jones. A straightforward digest of the physical evidence of controlled demolition of the WTC towers. Prof. Jones is in many ways the epitome of the mild-mannered professor--cautious, logical, and relying upon sound evidence for his deductions--and thus his concluding statements in this video are absolutely chilling.

WTC 7 Collapse
Alex Jones on the collapse of WTC Building 7. The collapse of WTC 7 on the afternoon of 9/11 is the most outrageous element of the 9/11 conspiracy. Here Jones has every right to express his indignation.

WTC7.net, a website documenting the controlled demolition of WTC Building 7, command and control center for the 9/11 attacks.

The Plotters
Facing 9/11 Truth, a lecture by Webster G. Tarpley, Seattle, April 2006. An expert on false-flag terrorism, Tarpley lays out the whys and the hows of rogue government involvement in 9/11. A brilliant exposition; should not be missed.

TerrorStorm by Alex Jones. Jones is a courageous, in-your-face provocateur to power and researcher into secret societies and conspiracies, and here explains 9/11 as a government-sponsored terrorist event: the foundational event in the Global War on Terror--by Western governments against their own populations.

Hijacking Catastrophe, A half-hour video explaining the geopolitical benefits--among them, permanent US bases in Iraq and Afganistan and dominance of the Caucusus Basin--that the self-inflicted wound of 9/11 permitted. Ask yourself, "Who benefits most?," and you will find the perpetrator.

A Conspiracy Nut? Well, Listen to our Presidents

Throughout our history as a nation, our Presidents, from Washington to Kennedy, have felt compelled to speak to the public of the dangers of secret societies and conspiracies. Perhaps we should listen to them.

George Washington openly discusses the existence and influence of secret societies in the founding of the US government in correspondence with the Reverend G.W. Snyder from Mount Vernon in 1798. Washington (himself a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason) rejects the proposition that Illuminati and Freemasons actually controlled the government, but is forthright in acknowledging the infiltration and influence of their adherents in the political parties.

"I have heard much of the nefarious, and dangerous plan, and doctrines of the Illuminati....It was not my intention to doubt that the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I.

The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Freemasons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or the pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation). That individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States [i.e., the political parties] may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned."

This blog's title is taken from Woodrow Wilson's comments on the workings of international conspirators, and the citation appears in full on the masthead. More on this subject in later posts.

Of course the most famous of these warnings is Eisenhower's Farewell Speech to the Nation, and his description of the growing power and influence of the military-industrial complex. This speech is well worth viewing in its entirety for several reasons. First, it is shockingly literate and so reminds us of the the profoundly debased level of our current political discourse. Secondly, it neatly delineates and defines the shadowy nexus of military and corporate interests that had already rivaled and was poised to supplant the actual Constitutional government of the United States.

Also, it is crucial to note that Eisenhower does not define the threat that "commands our whole attention and absorbs our very beings" as Communism, but as "a hostile ideology, global in scope, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method." As essentially an honest man, Eisenhower knew full well that Communism was the creation of these hostile ideologues, their useful tool, and he could not in good conscience mislead the American public about the true nature of our enemies.

No less sobering is John F. Kennedy's remarkable and chilling speech before the National Press Club a few months before his assassination. In it, he appeals to the assembled press corps to "help in the enormous task of informing and alerting the American people" to the "ruthless conspiracy" facing the nation.

He states that we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, upon guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumour is printed, no secret is revealed.

Again, one cannot help but be reminded of the high level and seriousness of Presidential discourse, and again remark upon JFK's deliberate avoidance of attributing this conspiracy to the Soviets or Communism. Again, Communism was a useful tool, the creation of other, higher powers.

Finally, it is important to note that Kennedy's is the last such Presidential warning; with his assassination the shadow government took control of Constitutional government, and all subsequent Presidents have been handmaidens to, and servants of, the real, unseen powers that control the United States. This long Presidential silence is deafening.