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David Stockman: Woodrow Wilson's War & Why The Entire 20th Century Was A Mistake
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
The Epochal Consequences Of Woodrow Wilson’s War
Remarks by David Stockman
Committee for the Republic
Washington DC January 20, 2015
My humble thesis tonight is that the entire 20th Century was a giant mistake.
And that you can put the blame for this monumental error squarely on Thomas Woodrow Wilson——-a megalomaniacal madman who was the very worst President in American history……..well, except for the last two.
His unforgiveable error was to put the United States into the Great War for utterly no good reason of national interest. The European war posed not an iota of threat to the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE, or Worcester MA or Sacramento CA. In that respect, Wilson’s putative defense of “freedom of the seas” and the rights of neutrals was an empty shibboleth; his call to make the world safe for democracy, a preposterous pipe dream.
Actually, his thinly veiled reason for plunging the US into the cauldron of the Great War was to obtain a seat at the peace conference table——so that he could remake the world in response to god’s calling.
But this was a world about which he was blatantly ignorant; a task for which he was temperamentally unsuited; and an utter chimera based on 14 points that were so abstractly devoid of substance as to constitute mental play dough.
Or, as his alter-ego and sycophant, Colonel House, put it: Intervention positioned Wilson to play “The noblest part that has ever come to the son of man”. America thus plunged into Europe’s carnage, and forevermore shed its century-long Republican tradition of anti-militarism and non-intervention in the quarrels of the Old World.
Needless to say, there was absolutely nothing noble that came of Wilson’s intervention. It led to a peace of vengeful victors, triumphant nationalists and avaricious imperialists—-when the war would have otherwise ended in a bedraggled peace of mutually exhausted bankrupts and discredited war parties on both sides.
By so altering the course of history, Wilson’s war bankrupted Europe and midwifed 20th century totalitarianism in Russia and Germany.
These developments, in turn, eventually led to the Great Depression, the Welfare State and Keynesian economics, World War II, the holocaust, the Cold War, the permanent Warfare State and its military-industrial complex.
They also spawned Nixon’s 1971 destruction of sound money, Reagan’s failure to tame Big Government and Greenspan’s destructive cult of monetary central planning.
So, too, flowed the Bush’s wars of intervention and occupation, their fatal blow to the failed states in the lands of Islam foolishly created by the imperialist map-makers at Versailles and the resulting endless waves of blowback and terrorism now afflicting the world.
And not the least of the ills begotten in Wilson’s war is the modern rogue regime of central bank money printing, and the Bernanke-Yellen plague of bubble economics which never stops showering the 1% with the monumental windfalls from central bank enabled speculation.
Consider the building blocks of that lamentable edifice.
First, had the war ended in 1917 by a mutual withdrawal from the utterly stalemated trenches of the Western Front, as it was destined to, there would have been no disastrous summer offensive by the Kerensky government, or subsequent massive mutiny in Petrograd that enabled Lenin’s flukish seizure of power in November. That is, the 20th century would not have been saddled with a Stalinist nightmare or with a Soviet state that poisoned the peace of nations for 75 years, while the nuclear sword of Damocles hung over the planet.
Likewise, there would have been no abomination known as the Versailles peace treaty; no “stab in the back” legends owing to the Weimar government’s forced signing of the “war guilt” clause; no continuance of England’s brutal post-armistice blockade that delivered Germany’s women and children into starvation and death and left a demobilized 3-million man army destitute, bitter and on a permanent political rampage of vengeance.
So too, there would have been no acquiescence in the dismemberment of Germany and the spreading of its parts and pieces to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Austria and Italy—–with the consequent revanchist agitation that nourished the Nazi’s with patriotic public support in the rump of the fatherland.
Nor would there have materialized the French occupation of the Ruhr and the war reparations crisis that led to the destruction of the German middle class in the 1923 hyperinflation; and, finally, the history books would have never recorded the Hitlerian ascent to power and all the evils that flowed thereupon.
In short, on the approximate 100th anniversary of Sarajevo, the world has been turned upside down.
The war of victors made possible by Woodrow Wilson destroyed the liberal international economic order—that is, honest money, relatively free trade, rising international capital flows and rapidly growing global economic integration—-which had blossomed during the 40-year span between 1870 and 1914.
That golden age had brought rising living standards, stable prices, massive capital investment, prolific technological progress and pacific relations among the major nations——a condition that was never equaled, either before or since.
Now, owing to Wilson’s fetid patrimony, we have the opposite: A world of the Warfare State, the Welfare State, Central Bank omnipotence and a crushing burden of private and public debts. That is, a thoroughgoing statist regime that is fundamentally inimical to capitalist prosperity, free market governance of economic life and the flourishing of private liberty and constitutional safeguards against the encroachments of the state.
So Wilson has a lot to answer for—-and my allotted 30 minutes can hardly accommodate the full extent of the indictment. But let me try to summarize his own “war guilt” in eight major propositions——a couple of which my give rise to a disagreement or two.
Proposition #1: Starting with the generic context——the Great War was about nothing worth dying for and engaged no recognizable principle of human betterment. There were many blackish hats, but no white ones.
Instead, it was an avoidable calamity issuing from a cacophony of political incompetence, cowardice, avarice and tomfoolery.
Blame the bombastic and impetuous Kaiser Wilhelm for setting the stage with his foolish dismissal of Bismarck in 1890, failure to renew the Russian reinsurance treaty shortly thereafter and his quixotic build-up of the German Navy after the turn of the century.
Blame the French for lashing themselves to a war declaration that could be triggered by the intrigues of a decadent court in St. Petersburg where the Czar still claimed divine rights and the Czarina ruled behind the scenes on the hideous advice of Rasputin.
Likewise, censure Russia’s foreign minister Sazonov for his delusions of greater Slavic grandeur that had encouraged Serbia’s provocations after Sarajevo; and castigate the doddering emperor Franz Joseph for hanging onto power into his 67th year on the throne and thereby leaving his crumbling empire vulnerable to the suicidal impulses of General Conrad’s war party.
So too, indict the duplicitous German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, for allowing the Austrians to believe that the Kaiser endorsed their declaration of war on Serbia; and pillory Winston Churchill and London’s war party for failing to recognize that the Schlieffen Plan’s invasion through Belgium was no threat to England, but a unavoidable German defense against a two-front war.
But after all that—- most especially don’t talk about the defense of democracy, the vindication of liberalism or the thwarting of Prussian autocracy and militarism.
The British War party led by the likes of Churchill and Kitchener was all about the glory of empire, not the vindication of democracy; France’ principal war aim was the revanchist drive to recover Alsace-Lorrain—–mainly a German speaking territory for 600 years until it was conquered by Louis XIV.
In any event, German autocracy was already on its last leg as betokened by the arrival of universal social insurance and the election of a socialist-liberal majority in the Reichstag on the eve of the war; and the Austro-Hungarian, Balkan and Ottoman goulash of nationalities, respectively, would have erupted in interminable regional conflicts, regardless of who won the Great War.
In short, nothing of principle or higher morality was at stake in the outcome.
Proposition # 2: The war posed no national security threat whatsoever to the US. Presumably, of course, the danger was not the Entente powers—but Germany and its allies.
But how so? After the Schlieffen Plan offensive failed on September 11, 1914, the German Army became incarcerated in a bloody, bankrupting, two-front land war that ensured its inexorable demise. Likewise, after the battle of Jutland in May 1916, the great German surface fleet was bottled up in its homeports—-an inert flotilla of steel that posed no threat to the American coast 4,000 miles away.
As for the rest of the central powers, the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires already had an appointment with the dustbin of history. Need we even bother with the fourth member—-that is, Bulgaria?
Proposition #3: Wilson’s pretexts for war on Germany—–submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram—-are not half what they are cracked-up to be by Warfare State historians.
As to the so-called freedom of the seas and neutral shipping rights, the story is blatantly simple. In November 1914, England declared the North Sea to be a “war zone”; threatened neutral shipping with deadly sea mines; declared that anything which could conceivably be of use to the German army—directly or indirectly—-to be contraband that would be seized or destroyed; and announced that the resulting blockade of German ports was designed to starve it into submission.
A few months later, Germany announced its submarine warfare policy designed to the stem the flow of food, raw materials and armaments to England in retaliation. It was the desperate antidote of a land power to England’s crushing sea-borne blockade.
Accordingly, there existed a state of total warfare in the northern European waters—-and the traditional “rights” of neutrals were irrelevant and disregarded by both sides. In arming merchantmen and stowing munitions on passenger liners, England was hypocritical and utterly cavalier about the resulting mortal danger to innocent civilians—–as exemplified by the 4.3 million rifle cartridges and hundreds of tons of other munitions carried in the hull of the Lusitania.
Likewise, German resort to so-called “unrestricted submarine warfare” in February 1917 was brutal and stupid, but came in response to massive domestic political pressure during what was known as the “turnip winter” in Germany. By then, the country was starving from the English blockade—literally.
Before he resigned on principle in June 1915, Secretary William Jennings Bryan got it right. Had he been less diplomatic he would have said never should American boys be crucified on the cross of Cunard liner state room so that a few thousand wealthy plutocrat could exercise a putative “right” to wallow in luxury while knowingly cruising into in harm’s way.
As to the Zimmerman telegram, it was never delivered to Mexico, but was sent from Berlin as an internal diplomatic communique to the German ambassador in Washington, who had labored mightily to keep his country out of war with the US, and was intercepted by British intelligence, which sat on it for more than a month waiting for an opportune moment to incite America into war hysteria.
In fact, this so-called bombshell was actually just an internal foreign ministry rumination about a possible plan to approach the Mexican president regarding an alliance in the event that the US first went to war with Germany.
Why is this surprising or a casus belli? Did not the entente bribe Italy into the war with promises of large chunks of Austria? Did not the hapless Rumanians finally join the entente when they were promised Transylvania? Did not the Greeks bargain endlessly over the Turkish territories they were to be awarded for joining the allies? Did not Lawrence of Arabia bribe the Sherif of Mecca with the promise of vast Arabian lands to be extracted from the Turks?
Why, then, would the German’s—-if at war with the USA—- not promise the return of Texas?
Proposition #4: Europe had expected a short war, and actually got one when the Schlieffen plan offensive bogged down 30 miles outside of Paris on the Marne River in mid-September 1914. Within three months, the Western Front had formed and coagulated into blood and mud——a ghastly 400 mile corridor of senseless carnage, unspeakable slaughter and incessant military stupidity that stretched from the Flanders coast across Belgium and northern France to the Swiss frontier.
The next four years witnessed an undulating line of trenches, barbed wire entanglements, tunnels, artillery emplacements and shell-pocked scorched earth that rarely moved more than a few miles in either direction, and which ultimately claimed more than 4 million casualties on the Allied side and 3.5 million on the German side.
If there was any doubt that Wilson’s catastrophic intervention converted a war of attrition, stalemate and eventual mutual exhaustion into Pyrrhic victory for the allies, it was memorialized in four developments during 1916.
In the first, the Germans wagered everything on a massive offensive designed to overrun the fortresses of Verdun——the historic defensive battlements on France’s northeast border that had stood since Roman times, and which had been massively reinforced after the France’s humiliating defeat in Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
But notwithstanding the mobilization of 100 divisions, the greatest artillery bombardment campaign every recorded until then, and repeated infantry offensives from February through November that resulted in upwards of 400,000 German casualties, the Verdun offensive failed.
The second event was its mirror image—-the massive British and French offensive known as the battle of the Somme, which commenced with equally destructive artillery barrages on July 1, 1916 and then for three month sent waves of infantry into the maws of German machine guns and artillery. It too ended in colossal failure, but only after more than 600,000 English and French casualties including a quarter million dead.
In between these bloodbaths, the stalemate was reinforced by the naval showdown at Jutland that cost the British far more sunken ships and drowned sailors than the Germans, but also caused the Germans to retire their surface fleet to port and never again challenge the Royal Navy in open water combat.
Finally, by year-end 1916 the German generals who had destroyed the Russian armies in the East with only a tiny one-ninth fraction of the German army—Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff —were given command of the Western Front. Presently, they radically changed Germany’s war strategy by recognizing that the growing allied superiority in manpower, owing to the British homeland draft of 1916 and mobilization of forces from throughout the empire, made a German offensive breakthrough will nigh impossible.
The result was the Hindenburg Line—a military marvel based on a checkerboard array of hardened pillbox machine gunners and maneuver forces rather than mass infantry on the front lines, and an intricate labyrinth of highly engineered tunnels, deep earth shelters, rail connections, heavy artillery and flexible reserves in the rear. It was also augmented by the transfer of Germany’s eastern armies to the western front—-giving it 200 divisions and 4 million men on the Hindenburg Line.
This precluded any hope of Entente victory. By 1917 there were not enough able-bodied draft age men left in France and England to overcome the Hindenburg Line, which, in turn, was designed to bleed white the entente armies led by butchers like Generals Haig and Joffre until their governments sued for peace.
Thus, with the Russian army’s disintegration in the east and the stalemate frozen indefinitely in the west by early 1917, it was only a matter of months before mutinies among the French lines, demoralization in London, mass starvation and privation in Germany and bankruptcy all around would have led to a peace of exhaustion and a European-wide political revolt against the war makers.
Wilson’s intervention thus did not remake the world. But it did radically re-channel the contours of 20th century history. And, as they say, not in a good way.
Proposition #5: Wilson’s epochal error not only produced the abomination of Versailles and all its progeny, but also the transformation of the Federal Reserve from a passive “banker’s bank” to an interventionist central bank knee-deep in Wall Street, government finance and macroeconomic management.
This, too, was a crucial historical hinge point because Carter Glass’ 1913 act forbid the new Reserve banks to even own government bonds; empowered them only to passively discount for cash good commercial credits and receivables brought to the rediscount window by member banks; and contemplated no open market interventions in debt markets or any remit with respect to GDP growth, jobs, inflation, housing or all the rest of modern day monetary central planning targets.
In fact, Carter Glass’ “banker’s bank” didn’t care whether the growth rate was positive 4%, negative 4% or anything in-between; its modest job was to channel liquidity into the banking system in response to the ebb and flow of commerce and production.
Jobs, growth and prosperity were to remain the unplanned outcome of millions of producers, consumers, investors, savers, entrepreneurs and speculators operating on the free market, not the business of the state.
But Wilson’s war took the national debt from about $1 billion or $11 per capita—–a level which had been maintained since the Battle of Gettysburg—-to $27 billion, including upwards of $10 billion re-loaned to the allies to enable them to continue the war. There is not a chance that this massive eruption of Federal borrowing could have been financed out of domestic savings in the private market.
So the Fed charter was changed owing to the exigencies of war to permit it to own government debt and to discount private loans collateralized by Treasury paper.
In due course, the famous and massive Liberty Bond drives became a glorified Ponzi scheme. Patriotic Americans borrowed money from their banks and pledged their war bonds; the banks borrowed money from the Fed, and re-pledged their customer’s collateral. The Reserve banks, in turn, created the billions they loaned to the commercial banks out of thin air, thereby pegging interest rates low for the duration of the war.
When Wilson was done saving the world, America had an interventionist central bank schooled in the art of interest rate pegging and rampant expansion of fiat credit not anchored in the real bills of commerce and trade; and its incipient Warfare and Welfare states had an agency of public debt monetization that could permit massive government spending without the inconvenience of high taxes on the people or the crowding out of business investment by high interest rates on the private market for savings.
Proposition # 6: By prolonging the war and massively increasing the level of debt and money printing on all sides, Wilson’s folly prevented a proper post-war resumption of the classical gold standard at the pre-war parities.
This failure of resumption, in turn, paved the way for the breakdown of monetary order and world trade in 1931—–a break which turned a standard post-war economic cleansing into the Great Depression, and a decade of protectionism, beggar-thy-neighbor currency manipulation and ultimately rearmament and statist dirigisme.
In essence, the English and French governments had raised billions from their citizens on the solemn promise that it would be repaid at the pre-war parities; that the war bonds were money good in gold.
But the combatant governments had printed too much fiat currency and inflation during the war, and through domestic regimentation, heavy taxation and unfathomable combat destruction of economic life in northern France had drastically impaired their private economies.
Accordingly, under Churchill’s foolish leadership England re-pegged to gold at the old parity in 1925, but had no political will or capacity to reduce bloated war-time wages, costs and prices in a commensurate manner, or to live with the austerity and shrunken living standards that honest liquidation of its war debts required.
At the same time, France ended up betraying its war time lenders, and re-pegged the Franc two years later at a drastically depreciated level. This resulted in a spurt of beggar-thy-neighbor prosperity and the accumulation of pound sterling claims that would eventually blow-up the London money market and the sterling based “gold exchange standard” that the Bank of England and British Treasury had peddled as a poor man’s way back on gold.
Yet under this “gold lite” contraption, France, Holland, Sweden and other surplus countries accumulated huge amounts of sterling liabilities in lieu of settling their accounts in bullion—–that is, they loaned billions to the British. They did this on the promise and the confidence that the pound sterling would remain at $4.87 per dollar come hell or high water—-just as it had for 200 years of peacetime before.
But British politicians betrayed their promises and their central bank creditors September 1931 by suspending redemption and floating the pound——-shattering the parity and causing the decade-long struggle for resumption of an honest gold standard to fail. Depressionary contraction of world trade, capital flows and capitalist enterprise inherently followed.
Proposition # 7: By turning America overnight into the granary, arsenal and banker of the Entente, the US economy was distorted, bloated and deformed into a giant, but unstable and unsustainable global exporter and creditor.
During the war years, for example, US exports increased by 4X and GDP soared from $40 billion to $90 billion. Incomes and land prices soared in the farm belt, and steel, chemical, machinery, munitions and ship construction boomed like never before—–in substantial part because Uncle Sam essentially provided vendor finance to the bankrupt allies in desperate need of both military and civilian goods.
Under classic rules, there should have been a nasty correction after the war—-as the world got back to honest money and sound finance. But it didn’t happen because the newly unleashed Fed fueled an incredible boom on Wall Street and a massive junk bond market in foreign loans.
In today economic scale, the latter amounted to upwards of $2 trillion and, in effect, kept the war boom in exports and capital spending going right up until 1929. Accordingly, the great collapse of 1929-1932 was not a mysterious failure of capitalism; it was the delayed liquidation of Wilson’s war boom.
After the crash, exports and capital spending plunged by 80% when the foreign junk bond binge ended in the face of massive defaults abroad; and that, in turn, led to a traumatic liquidation of industrial inventories and a collapse of credit fueled purchases of consumer durables like refrigerators and autos. The latter, for example, dropped from 5 million to 1.5 million units per year after 1929.
Proposition # 8: In short, the Great Depression was a unique historical event owing to the vast financial deformations of the Great War——deformations which were drastically exaggerated by its prolongation from Wilson’s intervention and the massive credit expansion unleashed by the Fed and Bank of England during and after the war.
Stated differently, the trauma of the 1930s was not the result of the inherent flaws or purported cyclical instabilities of free market capitalism; it was, instead, the delayed legacy of the financial carnage of the Great War and the failed 1920s efforts to restore the liberal order of sound money, open trade and unimpeded money and capital flows.
But this trauma was thoroughly misunderstood, and therefore did give rise to the curse of Keynesian economics and did unleash the politicians to meddle in virtually every aspect of economic life, culminating in the statist and crony capitalist dystopia that has emerged in this century.
Needless to say, that is Thomas Woodrow Wilson’s worst sin of all.
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Unpossible! According to Common Core, he was a "visionary and magician."
History is written by the victors.
In the first two paragraphs of the article, I saw two nouns, that stood out.
"mistake", "madman"
What I win?!
The banking racketeers would have had their wars, revolutions and coups regardless..
The USA was overthrown in 1913.
"The USA was overthrown in 1913."
Indeed it was.
Which president was worst depends on what you're measuring.
It's hard, but Wilson is sure in the running.
Wilson got caught in a honey trap which was paid off in return for a future favor. That favor came due in 1913 with the hatching of the Fed. Wilson basically sold us all to cover up an affair. Which became common knowledge within a few years anyway.
"So the Fed charter was changed owing to the exigencies of war to permit it to own government debt and to discount private loans collateralized by Treasury paper."
quelle surprise.
embraces,
gedward griffin
He got his mug on the $100,000 bill, so I guess he's got that got that going for him.
This shit is just regurgitation of what that ass hat Glen Beck said about those evil Progressives and Wilson some years ago
So what are we supposed to do about it anyway? Dig up Wilson and burn him at the stake?
And as if Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao were such great guys!
Stupid shit..
Seems to me the consensus around here is simply that Wilson was just a blackmailed asshat. No different than shrub or zero.
It's Wilson's 'handlers' who were [and still are] evil.
From that perspective, the dance that Wilson was forced to do, paved the way for Hitler & Stalin [who undoubtedly were hanpicked for their roles as well].
What makes me laugh is the West generally looks with favor upon Churchill [who, upon examination, was merely another piece of the puzzle]. The 'silent' agreement was that Hitler wouldn't invade England. Churchill's role was simply to keep the war going long enough to find a reason to get the Americans involved [&, thus, in debt, again]. There were many parallel objectives which took place during and after all of this. One such instance was resurrecting the basic architecture of the Treaty of Versaille [which, in this case, became the United Nations, whose FIRST order of business was to fulfill the objectives of The Balfour Agreement].
So the only thing that bothers me about any of these articles is that they always focus on the puppets [& avoid completely talking about the puppetteers ~ which, by now, we all know WHY that is the case because for more than a century, the media & government propaganda systems have been completely infiltrated & captured].
FFS ~ It's like talking about 9/11 and wasting all your words on OBL & Mohammed Atta.
Supposedly Germany put Lenin on a train and sent him to Petrgrad to get the Bolshevik revolution going, but Lenin was in Switzerland so there must have been some bankers involved with the whole affair.
Cuo bono?
It's pretty clear [to anyone who is willing to put the effort into it], how the modern day kosher sausage came into being. I mean, it's seriously easy to find out!. Alas, people don't seem really interested in watching sausage making. They're rather just wolf down any warmed over shit that you shove in front of them on a plate [with a side of freedumb fries & a deli pickle].
He was a big problem, but I don't think he ordered the killing of the Austrian minister, which is what set off the war, oil rights caused the dissagreement and the end result was , well you know.
The puppets & figureheads are like smaller fibers on marine grade rope. The rope is going to accomplish its purpose one way or another. The puppets & figureheads are simply convenient to point fingers at when the event is complete.
A World War had to happen & somebody had to lose. The German people lost the war. The NAZI's won.
Was laughing with a German friend few weeks ago over the fact that they still to this day pay a special tax on champagne in Germany instituted by Kieser Whilem to pay for his battleship build up.
& to think 'champagne' only comes from France so they're probably paying the tax on sparkling wine.
Dont be that person. If it's wine and it fizzes and doesnt come with a screw off cap ... then it's Champagne...
"Wilson was just a blackmailed asshat."
..or hired assasin, or gullible patsy, take your pick.
It doesn't matter now that the vast majority of the country and world are locked in financier/government servitude.
Duo
New York Bankers, including Jacob Schiff and J P Morgan initially financed Trotsky and Lenin. The Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent Communist threat are their handiwork
http://www.wildboar.net/multilingual/easterneuropean/russian/literature/articles/whofinanced/whofinancedleninandtrotsky.html
If the "entire 20th Century was a mistake", is this author implying that the 19th Century was the correct path?
Lets go back to the robber baron era and live in Company towns and shop at the Company store with our paltry wages.
I laugh at these blohards that describe how wonderful the Industrial Revolution was. The irony is that these suit and tie guys wouldn't be caught dead working on the shop floor or mining with hand tools, or raising food at their family farm. These blohards enjoy a lifestyle that couldn't exist without modern technology, let alone post their drivel on a blog on the world wide web which didn't even exist when I was a kid.
I'm sick of these nostalgia goggles, especially romanticizing a time period that happened before virtually all humans living today were even born including supercenturians.
I think you missed the underlaying drift.
grass roots efforts were being made to curtail the robber baron abuses with out need of central banking or the entitlement nanny state.
it was the hijacking and co opting of those movements by the elites trojan horse of marxism that is in the process of destroying republican democracy and individual freedom.
there was always a problem of undue influence of wealthy elites on democracy. marxism, whether under the guise of commie, fascist, or socialist goes from influence to out right control. if the government gains control of everything, and the elites control that government, then you just created a tyrannical oligarchy. I blame the progressives who refuse to see the difference between their erudite theory and real world outcomes, or worse, some don't even care that they don't work as long as they benefit from the system.
Too bad your sensible reply was undermined by the long shortline presentation required by the past format multiple replies. +1.
he didnt say that at all
And I'm sick of blohard proggies feigning sophistication when they're only demonstrating that they're the real fools by looking to apply 2015 Monday morning quarterbacking to circumstances that existed more than 150 years ago. "Robber" barons as opposed to what? Serfs and kings? I dig the dismay about the Dickensian 19th century, but I'll take the barons and see your King George or his current equivalent in the WH. Since we're so much more "advanced" and "post modern" now than back then, I suppose we're entitled to FEEL that our moral superiority is the only one relevant, but if Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, et al. ever looked back just a century of their time they literally had concrete evidence to justify theirs.
"If it's wine and it fizzes and doesnt come with a screw off cap ... then it's Champagne..."
It's Andre' ~ The BEER of Champagnes!
I can remember a few years ago when I used to actually get tax refunds I got a little bonus because some Spanish War excise tax on phone service was extended too long.
Oil rights ? OMFG; you're a complete idiot. Wilson was complicit in taking us into our first war for profit; you fool. He's a criminal.
Not minister, the Archduke.
That's is the guy who's death touched off the shit. The ol' lady got offed as well.
Just so you'll know going forward.
"Seems to me the consensus around here is simply that Wilson was just a blackmailed asshat. No different than shrub or zero."
Not so fast----no history rewrites here dude. Wilson, shrub, zero are all evil progressive criminals.
FOAD progressive scum.
Grimaldus
I never understood why Hess was locked up for life when bona fide butchers were let out after just a few years or not prosecuted at all, until I read up on it a few years ago
I guess it just wouldn't do for the history books or the good war meme to know that the whole thing could have been called off, at least for the west.
as for puppets verses string pullers, I'm all ears, cause unless you've a few billion to buy in, or have ESP, its all just belly button gazing and schrodingers cat.
Yes. I had to chuckle when I read your post. I sympathize with you. The more I found out about what really went on the more amazed, and appalled, i became. No, it wouldn't look too good in the school book re-writes. You have to admit, it's entertaining.
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it
@Headbanger,
Digging up Wilson and burying him in a prison yard would be appropriate. Not that this would do us any good now, but at least he would be exposed for what he was.
Why the talk of beating the man instead of undoing the damage that man did?
We can all hate them forever. But until the misdeeds are corrected nothing changes.
I'll have healthy doses of both thank you very much. But Proggies need to be reminded firmly and frequently of the historical facts: they created this system, they own it, it has failed, and it is their ideas (primarily one, that of the Free Lunch) that has led us to this juncture. "They broke it, they own it", or some such thing that they like to snicker.
I'ld pay a dollar to piss on his body
No. It's not stupid shit; it's history, and what you're supposed to do is learn it. The thesis that the whole twentieth century is a mistake; that started with WW1 has been my own for many years, but apparently there are some other people who came to the same rather jarring conclusion.
@Romney Wordsworth,
His ugly mug should be posthumoustly plastered on every post office perp wall for fraud, misappropriation, bribery, misrepresentation, etc. There are more than enough good, solid Amerians who tried to hold off the prirates and died fighting. It is they whose images who should be on the $100k bill. And there are more than enough of them who defended us and died, so a new portrait every year could be done.
Sen. Louis Thomas McFadden should be the first to replace Woodrow Wilson. McFadden understood money, the Constitution, world affairs, and more. Of course they off'd him. Wilson was unfit in every way to run a grocery store let alone America.
at the beginning of his first term, I was thinking that zero might have been a nice candidate to replace Wilson on the $100k bill.
Now I'm thinking that they're saving the honor for the $1 quadrillion dollar coin.
Mr Griffin,
Le Tigre est seulement de papier et le papier bruelerent.
Merci bien pour votre livre.
Mr Griffin,
Le Tigre est seulement de papier et le papier bruelerent.
Merci bien pour votre livre.
And lest we forget, the income tax that was supposed to be a temporary fix to finance the war we didni't need to fight. My guess is that it is all related (federal reserve act, income tax, entrance into WW1 and removal of the gold standard after roaring 20's was induced by the bankers).
The IRS and the Fed were evil twins hatched together. The IRS goons rip us off and feed the loot to the Fed which is a slush fund for NWO wars, the MIC, bank scams, etc. And they're audit proof so they can do anything they want.
Never forget that taxes are imposed NOT to raise money (why bother if you can print whatever amount you need from thin air), but to sell BONDS.
The CASH STREAM from tax slaves is what is important... bond buyers sign up when they see beaucoup tax slaves forking over the bucks for future bond coupon payments.
One cal call that which happened under Wilson many things but 'mistake' isn't one of them. The problem is more insideous than that and had been in the works since at least early 1800's if not sooner, City of London wanted its' holdings back and had the patience, after all - the policies are passed along from generaltion to generation.
It might make one feel better by getting pissed off at a conveniennt (but wrong) target but it doesnt help much. What's one to do, piss on Wilson's grave?
The payoff to extricate Wilson from that honey trap (engineered when he was president of my alma mater) was handled by one Mr Untermyer, whose price was the right to pick the first Jewish member of the US Supreme Court, who happened to be Zionist Louis Brandeis, who happened to help draft and time the release of the Balfour Declaration, and who happened to write the bogus "justification" for US entry into the war. See why I fault Stockman for what he leaves out?
In my opinion, Madison was the worse. He nearly lost the US by declaring war on Britian with no army. Britain burned WDC to the ground. Its only by luck that the country didn't revert to british rule.
The second most worse was likely Lincoln. More than 600K Americans died in that war. Lincoln also suspend habeas corpus and imprision journalist that were critical of the war. That said its hard to find a good president. Unfortunately most of the were bad or terrible. I can't think of a single good president in the 20th century. The best think about the presidency is that its limited to eight years or less, but the bad thing about, eight years is too long!
2016 is shaping up to be even worse. Candidates seems to be completing for a races to out "worst" the rest.
The nation and democracy would likely be best served if the office of the presidency was removed from gov't and the duties of the presidency are divided into several different roles. One for Finance, One foriegn affairs, and one for Domestic affairs, or something like that. Having one person in control of it all just makes it too easy for f*ckups. Having one top leader is a throw back to monarchism and dictatorships. It also makes it easy for a democracy to be converted into a dictatorship.
Coolidge was pretty solid. Eisenhower was alright.
I once heard that they way things were set up originally, whomever won the election was President and the runner up was VP. Only later were there tickets for one party to corner both spots.
John Adams was the second president, and his VP was Thomas Jefferson, if I recall correctly. They were of opposing political parties, Adams was a Federalist and Jefferson a Democrat-Republican. I heard that the Sedition Act of 1798 was supposed to apply to the presidency but not the vice presidency.
Lincoln the Terrible was definitely the worst. I'd put Wilson 2nd, and FDR 3rd.
The Presidents remembered as "bad," eg. Nixon, Coolidge, and Harding, were actually not too bad at all.
Nixon was actually one of the best 20th century presidents - depending on how you measure it. Pity he didn't beat Kennedy back in '60. But all we hear about him is rehashes of Watergate and complaints about his '71 closure of the gold foreign exchange window (he didn't have a choice), while FDR gets little to no criticism for withholding critical intelligence on Japanese naval movements from Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor, and eliminating domestic gold convertibility, then debasing the dollar 30%.
Nixon put on wage and price controls, that is enough to make himn the worst. But, he did end the draft 3 days before I was due!
Nixon was the worst kind of charlatan. A megolomaniac with delusions of grandeur.
Wrong about Madison; right about Lincoln.
Check up on Teddy Roosevelt. Check real careful. he's in the running too; and almost completely unknown; be sure you find out about his war of genocide in the Phillipines. He was a real sick puppy. Freud would have had a field day with him.
Be carefull Sunday morning.
You guys and gals are going to be scraping for fiat to fill your trades
Fill your Trades?
You sound like a con man.
Sir, you presume a great deal on slight acquaintance.
David Stockman:
“century-long Republican tradition of anti-militarism and non-intervention”
Who is Stockman kidding?
How slavery and the Mexican-American War fits in that nonsense that Stockman just wrote?
Then, Stockman goes on:
Wilson’s war bankrupted Europe and midwifed 20th century totalitarianism in Russia and Germany.
These developments, in turn, eventually led to the Great Depression, the Welfare State and Keynesian economics, World War II, the holocaust, the Cold War, the permanent Warfare State and its military-industrial complex.
They also spawned Nixon’s 1971 destruction of sound money, Reagan’s failure to tame Big Government and Greenspan’s destructive cult of monetary central planning….. liberal order of sound money, open trade and unimpeded money and capital flows.
Ouch! Too bad you didn’t included Milton Friedman in your wishy-wash explanation.
Dear Mr. Stockman,
I am really questioning your motives.
Even as an aficionado of economics, American history, and how we got here, I am having lots of trouble with your convoluted message.
Examples from your post: Central Banks, Keynesian, and Capital Flows
a) So, where is Milton Friedman ‘public goods’ and ‘Free market’ ideas that I find more promulgated as a matter of dogma than Keynes.
b) Then, how do you intend to stop private ‘debt-money’ creation? Being that backed by gold or not.
c) Capital flows –trading money for money or selling your resources on money that someone else prints? Are you serious?
All while keeping the illusion that capitalism ‘perpetual growth’ is sustainable?
It’s the flow of 'Debt-Money' and living in a 'Finite Planet', Stupid!
Reagan’s failure to tame Big Government ???
Read my post below. Reagan had little to do with anything.
Or the Spanish-American war, what the Republic did under McKinley, and the multiple times the US invaded its neighboring countries in the Caribbean and Latin/Central America prior to WW1 and Wilson's presidency. Doesn't even include any of the Indian treaties. Stockman is full of cr@p when it comes to the statement you mentioned above.
+1 MeBizzaro
I laugh at these critics of the progessive era, because the century that proceeded them was far worse.
The Spanish American War, the countless Indian Removal policies and genocides, indentured servitude, slavery of blacks, child labor, a civil war which killed 600,000 and maimed countless others, the crime of 1873, I could go on and on.
excellent points, especially Friedman and the Chicago School as proto chrony capitalism as it turned out.
In 1865 these United States ceased to exist.
Carter Glass’ “banker’s bank” in 1913
Envisioned a commercial liquidity role for the FED?
Like the Patriot act envisioned a safe and free America?
I'm curious about the change in the FED. Was the law
rewritten, or just flouted, like today?
Without the Fed, progressives couldn't afford the MIC or the welfare/police state.
The IRS and the Fed were the two evil twins hatched at the same time. The IRS goons rip us off and feed the loot to the Fed which is only a slush fund for the MIC.
Progressives gave us both.
Wilson was a progressive. Or so he thought. Actually he was a blackmailable pushover.
Truth is Progressives are all pushovers, even today. We wouldn't know it because they've never been challenged.
Had Wilson not lived, we might all be romping in the meadows chasing butterflies only stopping to eat tea cakes.
Oh the world that might have been!
The one that was taken away!
Surely the explanation for big events must lie in big motives, like world domination and the Intergalactic Federation. Surely the mistakes could not have occurred because of bumbling fools, cowards, and fragile egos?
If only we could return to the world of 1870-1914! In America: Two decade-long financial crises and depressions with 25% unemployment! (1873, 1893). What a time!
Apparently ZHers do not want to romp in the meadow chasing butterflies and eat tea cakes.
"Two decade-long financial crises and depressions with 25% unemployment! (1873, 1893). What a time!"
THE COINAGE ACT [1873] ~ Same shit, different century. & to think that happened before THE FED.
Which goes to show you. Regardless of whether or not there's an official structure, body, or edifice whose business it is to rob you blind, there are always conclaves of lizards who will find a way to get the job done anyway.
Urban Roman
romp in the meadow chasing butterflies and eat tea cakes.
C’mon! Write in clear English, please. It seems that you have something interesting to say.
Caviar Emptor
Exactly!
That’s why is critical that these political, economical, and religious nonsense written here get debated. Leaving them unchallenged is like leaving a weed alone and not expecting it to take over your yard.
why are you here?
your rhetoric is always partial and disagreeable. its clear you are out to change minds - but you lack understanding of the minds you attempt to engage.
tiresome...
And I suppose the pols had nothing to do with starting either. In any event, indeed, what a time it was! Despite the politically inspired monetary mischief, annualized real growth over both periods still managed to exceed 4% with either falling prices (1873 - 1883, real growth @ 4.74%) or level prices (1893 - 1903, real growth @ 4.34%), so I for one would question the definition of a "decade long"? depression. As always, prog hindsight is 20-20. But then they make alot of claims. Looks more like "what ought" (dogma) rather than "what was" (fact) to me.
fleur de lis
The IRS and the Fed were the two evil twins.....
Fleur,
These can be easily fixed by fixing this, first: Eliminating Private Money and Interest.
"Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation's laws. ... Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile." -- Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister 1935-1948.
Wilson was a stooge. Col. House and those behind the Fed were pulling the strings so that no matter who got elected they'd get what they wanted (A privaely controlled Central Bank). Wilson was actually a clever way to get what they wanted - a Democrat whose victory was insured with a third party run by Teddy Roosevelt. Taft was seen as a Republican tool - but not trusted by those pulling the strings. Getting the 'progressive' Wilson elected was a brilliant move in that nobody would suspect him of doing the bidding of the Banking Trust.
Col. House was the insider insuring that Wilson did as desired. In addition to getting the Fed established he (and others in the Banking Trust) pushed for US involvement in WWI - which was going badly for Britain, France and Russia. If Germany HAD won - or even fought to a draw - US and European banking interests wold have lost a fortune in the loans they'd made to Britain and France.
But it really didn't matter WHO was President.
The same path would have been followed. Too many powerful interests had plotted that outcome for too long for things to go othersise.
Right, it wasn't his fault. The Fed didn't exist before him, you fool. Stop excusing evil, that's a trait of modern fools that are about to be cooked in their fire of lies.
The Fed was in the planning long before Wilson and odds are it was going to be pushed through withing the next 10 years no matter WHO was President. The Panic of 1907 was a set up to provide the justification. Aldrich and others were working on a Central Bank plan for some time.
It still doesn't excuse him from going along with it.
So right. Moreover, if he ever felt remorse for his "mistake", he could have used his considerable influence to either reverse the effects of wrongdoing, like a good prog always claims to, or at the very least broadcast the names of the sinister in the background. Neither occurred. And let's not forget, the man was well enough to preside over Versailles SIX YEARS later. He was either in on it, or didn't care. How bout them apples, or as some prefer, kool-aid? A prog extraordinaire that in the end, didn't care: prog blasphemy! Ultimately, that's what we're left with: active involvement or indifference. Certainly not set-up.
Harbanger
Right, it wasn't his fault. The Fed didn't exist before him, you fool. Stop excusing evil, that's a trait of modern fools…….
Harbanger,
Your drunk the propaganda Kool-Aid. Sorry, you are the one sounding foolish.
cynicalskeptic,
A set up! You are right.
Just as Bush and Obama are the puppets of history. And so are the bankrrs. Tolstoy had it right in his War and Peace epilogue.
There's no such entity as a puppet of history. History is a subject of study. Bush and Obama, and others, have been and are, puppets of the Oligarchy. "Do the very wealthy get together in rooms and make plans"---Yes, they do.
Good background on House in the podcast below and the novel he wrote in 1911 and published in 1912 titled Philip Dru: Administrator being a blueprint for the establishment of the Fed, the IRS and all the other agencies that were purposely established to destroy the American Republic and render the country into a vassal of the British Commonwealth and the Rothschild banking system.
https://www.tragedyandhope.com/philip-dru-administrator-review-with-rich...
Richard Grove of TragedyandHope.com and PeaceRevolution.org joins us on this month’s edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order to discuss “Philip Dru: Administrator” by Edward Mandell House. We examine the man behind the work and how the novel presages House’s time as the power behind the throne of the Wilson presidency.
https://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/flnwo23-lq.mp3
Again, leaves out the "tribal" angle. The Tribe was furious with Taft for not ending most favored nation status to Tsarist Russian (to whom the Republicans owed a certain debt, owing to the dispatch of the Russian fleet early in the War Between the States in order to discourage meddling on behalf of the Confederacy by Britain and France--don't forget about Maximilien, everyone). Despite my sumpathies with the South in their failed attempt at Secession, facts are facts. At any rate, the Tribe wanted to get even with Taft for his insufficient attention to their priorities. And so the PTB prevailed upon egomaniac Roosevelt to run against his own party and protege, in full knowledge that this would result in Wilson's election. Wilson was indeed, as many have already deposed, way out of his depth.
now walk it back to the rothschild sac of the british treasury at the end of the battle of waterloo. it would have been good to have the us split and the south back in the commonwealth fold to finance the great plan of a return to palestine. albert pike was in the mix here, lincoln had an impossible choice.
and
this was after lincoln had been given the choice of financing the war with loans at interest rates of between 24 and 36 percent, by - guess who. greenbacks to keep the union sealed his fate.
"The USA was overthrown in 1913."
My thoughts exactly Manthong. The Oval Office and the rest of .gov now serve the banksters and the corporatocracy of which the Military Industrial Complex is central. "We must fight the Hun!" or "We must defeat the Japs!" or "We must stop the Communists!" or "We must defeat the terrorists!" followed by "Russia" and anyone else they can dream up who will never be a threat to the U.S. but nonetheless "must be defeated".
"We have always been at war with Eurasia!" more true with every passing year.
Some old dead white guy once said...paraphrasing...the first act of government is self perpetuation.
Until everyone wraps their head around that and what that simple statement means, things will never be different. It means if you must have government, all you can ever hope to do is contain it and resign yourself to continually trying to beat it back into its box for as long as you live. It also means your existence is not the chief concern of it, as its very first act was to keep itself "alive", not you.
upvote-beat it back in the box, and it gives me twisted pleasures :~)
only "hope" is for a third or forth party that gets traction to rise up and challenge the status quo. that happens but once in a thousand years, maybe ten thousand.
the odds are insurmountable as i see .01 percent contolling 99.99 percent.
given those odds it is safe to say "navigate the system" and find your daily dose of enjoyment.
i come to understand, hope is for fools. why waste emotional energy on this?
outcome predetermined.
a roulette table outcome- just watch the money moves carefully. oil seems to be the flow to follow. then bonds and ultimately the force to enforce this flow. and then to stay clear of these forces controlling the flow...
the swan is the sudden unexpected interuption of these flow/forces...
This is known:
Woodrow Wilson died with [from] 3rd-Stage syphilis.
It was an open secret among many. Today there are, at most, only a few left with any close knowledge of this history.
WW's physicians requested assistance from the U S citizen that worked with Dr. Paul Ehrlich, the discoverer of the first cure for syphilis, Salvarsan. The US citizen returned from Switzerland with the rights to use it in America.
WW's doctors wanted to inject directly in his brain, but were informed by that US person that such act by itself would certainly be fatal in WW's late-stage condition.
Ehrlich's Salvarsan was an arsenic compound that was not fatal and did work under better conditions than WW's, and Ehrlich got a Nobel Prize for it.
This data, well over 50 years old for me, may explain WW's erratic [to be kind] mental and physical condition during his presidency and after, at the formation of The League Of Nations.
Perhaps David Stockman can elaborate further.
Note: 33rd-stage syphillis involves the brain and includes progressive insanity.
I suppose, then, it just a matter of degree.
I guess that was a disgnosis that Edgar Cayce missed then.
all these pathetic old puppets, brains & bodies rotted from all their fuckin around with human history, distracted and owned by those who pulled their strings.
how anyone can continue to "uphold respect" for these men who sold out generations of people round the world is beyond me.
Very good; you are knowledgeable. Stalin, also. Every once in a while there's ray of light on zero hedge to help beat back the tidal flow of madly certain ignorance and half informed pre-judgement. for anonn; I'll be watching for your posts.
I tend to disagree....it was started in December 1860 (when the south was not allowed to succeed from the union). This was just one of the major milestones in its final throws.
Many, many times I have reflected on the alternate history that would ensue were the Southern States allowed their clear rights to withdraw from their confederation; and on the amazing nature of Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the modern Republican Party and his tax and spend crony-captialism program. The actual facts of the Trans-Continental Railroad, for instance are very interesting. A huge slug of crony capitalism that Obama can only admire in fascination; it makes Solandra or whatever it was called, look like a dime he found on the sidewalk. My conclusion was that breaking up t he Union would have prevented a huge amount of human suffering; not including the Civil War victims; but rather the victims of the Continent Sized Empire.
Nothing has Changed.
Through history, the basic "multi cell organism constructure, " hasn't" changed.
Tyler, you silly little " good guy" . I love's my Tylers.
I hate Victor. I've always hated Victor.
"History is written by the victors."
History books can be re-written, but the truth of what happened cannot be changed. But it can sure as hell be revisited again.
all "truth" is in the eye of the beholder, notions filtered through minds and declared real or not real.
Truth is Relative.
until the mind arrives at the point where duality is resolved to One, then the myriads of "truths" will continue to play out. THAT is TRUTH.
everything else is beliefs.
Pres. Wilson is a Progressive Hero who gave us the Fed.
Wilson started us on a path of the New World order and bank-ism.
Instead of a government by the people it's a government by the few.
More correctly; the Oligarchy started it's serious operations with Wilson as it's first 20th. century puppet.
I used to read Stockman for the joy of literary prose and because he'd sneak a new word into his text, that I'd have to look up.
I now just scan it and flip to a random page in the dictionary, to get the same effect.
Well, he made me realize I didn't know as much about the economy of the 1800s as I should.
This Stockman prick moved the needle on the douchbaggery meter when stating his thesis, "20th century was a waste," was humble. Then shortly therefore he spells God with a lowercase g...damn dirty heathens; will they never learn?
The people who so desperately want war should be the first in line to get on the plane. Perhaps if they had any skin in the game they would think differently about it.
"The people who so desperately want war should be the first in line to get on the plane."
Don't worry. They will be the first to be hit by those very fast and powerful "wingless planes" that deliver nuclear ordinance.
Our potential military equals in Russia and China know perfectly well who is responsible, where they live and that conflict can only be won if those who sought war for their globalist gains are gone.
Jefferson is about to get his famous wish concerning the "blood of tyrants" especially those tyrants hidden in the shadows, pulling the strings.
Bring back dueling
I like it.
I can think of a negro in Washington DC I would like to slap around with my falconry gauntlet.
Draft exclusively from the Ivy League, end all wars.
here's a short clip showing the potential of your draftees. . . if only, yes. . .
Python's Upperclass Twits
And it I would not have been born there would have been someone else fucking my wife...
Hubris. It's what drives all notable events in history. So glorious in their outset, so obviously the proximate cause of eventual downfall in retrospect.
Well done, sir; well done. (for NoDebt) the page change chopped off the reference.
The 20th century was not a mistake. It was a well laid trap for every civilized human being to turn him into a non-thinking slave that required no chains except debt.
Thank you. I clicked in here to post something similar after finding this over at Lew Rockwell's site first, but I don't think even I could have been so succinct as you.
Stockman does give good historical/political background though,that I don't remember being taught in school. Subsequent reading had filled in a lot of the gaps, but this was a nice, compact package.
If you like reading articles like this, check out Ralph raico at on lewrockwell, there are a lot of articles like this one, I've read a couple of his books too. Good stuff.
therefore, being debt free is the goal. ha,...
good luck!
bye
Well said.
Debt is not the problem, MONEY is.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-ba...
Nobody cares.......
Caring is not required. Remembering and learning from should be (but usually isn't).
The past doesn't equal the future
oh? no "white hats"? how about the real henry cabot lodge. A bitter opponent of Wilson, Lodge's position was manifestly strengthened with the election of a Republican majority in the November 1918 mid-term elections. With this election victory Lodge became Senate Majority Leader. Lodge used his powerful position to oppose Wilson's plan for U.S. participation in the League of Nations. Proposing a series of amendments to Wilson's bill ratifying U.S. entry into the League, Lodge succeeded in watering down U.S. involvement while simultaneously encouraging popular opposition to Wilson, as a consequence Congress never ratified U.S. entry into the League." Again, like pbs and others, instead of a verdun slaughter pit purposely made to kill all sent, to the "great" war, the story now is that there was hundreds of miles of verdun like conditions.
Your rendition of history is eloquent.
I'm looking for participation?
You fucking clowns aren't going to get me play .
Your key witness is compromised.
I'm in Australia. ASK me why?
It's the kangaroos right? I understand, they're such adorable creatures.
Fred, Are you looking for a job?
Seriously/
How many kangaroos are ya payin'?
why, Yen Cross?
Ah youi. I'm sure there's some nice blog in Europe that would love to hear all your defenses of the idiotic Euro. Couldn't you move your "output", so to speak, there instead ?
I don't care why. Could you possibly find some blog in Australia to post these strange and un-productive notes on ?
What about the creation of the fed and the income tax in 1913? Stockman has kind of a blind spot. Does corporate personhood and the stacking of scotus miss his radar, too? How about the creation of the military industrial complex? Or the rampant fascism enabled by these? Keynesianism, huh?
Boom! I couldn't believe he started with WWI and left that out. Learning curve, or deliberate omission? Stockman's getting there - maybe - but he isn't quite there yet to say the least. I bet he has some friends still in the bankster MIC club. Wilson's worst sin wasn't WWI, as damning as that was, but the establishment of the Fed, which is responsible for more deaths than WWI was.
Wasn't Stockman one of these "Deficits Don't Matter" guys, back in the '80s? Wikipedia says yes Virginia, he was:
David Stockman Former Director of the Office of Management and BudgetDavid Alan Stockman is a former businessman and U.S. politician who served as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan and as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan.
I guess that explains the blind spot. Stockman approaches the truth but still falls short.
Whatever we do, in this coming disaster, we must not allow bankers to dodge, shift, or in any way escape their full share of blame. Same for past politicians who now try to hide behind current ones. (Including you, both Bushes and both Clintons. A government with either of those names anywhere in it, will continue to be a corrupt and criminal government.) We are in the "taking names" stage of this collapse, and we will need to make sure that they achieve some fame since mobs of panicked or angry peasantry aren't exactly known for keeping careful records. Without the correct names and faces being known, it would be easy for a small team of bank or political psychopaths to misdirect. Today some of them are still pretty easy to identify.
He says at the beginning of the article that he doesn't have time to fit everything he would like to in it. I doubt stockman is unaware of any of that. This was a speech, and he wasn't limited on his time.
The entire speech is a piece of shit and built on factual lies.
His blaming Wilson putting America into the war causing the midwifery of Russian totalinarianism is utter rubbish. The revolution occurred in March 1917 and the US entered the war in April 1917 so the totalinarianism had already been born.
There are far worse presidents in US history than Wilson (lincoln being a prize statist example).
So, since the entire article is full of shit and based on lies, why don't you correct some of them? Let's hear how it was a move that made the world a better, safer place. Or how it was any of the US's business in the first place.
(Won't argue with you about Lincoln. What Wilson did could not have happened without the Lincoln presidency)
The war would have reached a similar conclusion with or without the US token troops (allied troops numbers for the war were 42 million and the US provided less than 10% of which half were never actually involved over there). Advances in British technology (the tank being a prime example) and an evolving change in tactics from static trench warfare would have led to German defeat by early 1919. The US wasn't even involved in defeating the German Spring Offensive of 1918 and once that failed the German army had no hope of winning the war.
The authors claims that the French would have mutinied or the supposidly demoralised British would have sued for peace are unsupported positions with little evidence to back them.
If America wanted a better post war situation they should have done what Patton should have done (WW2) and taken out the Reds after Germany capitulated.
No Reds would have meant not only no Stalin but no rise of Hitler etc. I'm sure there would have been new problems (and dictators) but imagine a world without a need for WW2.
Taking out the Reds as an adventure would have been similar to subduing the Afgans.
The British Empire, and Napoleon, Austria, all had real disasters in adventuring in that neck of the woods,no matter what political system was in current power.
And as the Reds had presented a second front to the Unified German army at the time, they were considered allies and presented much the same corundum as they posed at the conclusion of WW2.
The proximate cause of the German Capitulation was the British Blocade; which caused mass mal-nutrition and complete loss of inventory of some critical matereials. But you have done well in your studies.
Excellent. We've got some real readers on here today. By which I mean students of history. Can't imagine what idiots downvoted you; but there are always plenty available.
Stockman will not dare speak the entire truth. A Nail Gun is in his future, along with Paul Craig Roberts, when either of them talk.
First it was former CIA Director, formenr Vice President of the USA, and former President of the USA, Gerorge HW Bush who declared that deficits don't matter.
Bush was behind the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Bush utilized his CIA contacts for the hit and they used John Hinckley's son as the assassain. John Hinckley was a Bush Family Friend...if they can even have true friends.
Bush was also an integral part of the Kennedy Assassination some 18 years previous to that. It was nothing new to him and he knew that he could seize power just like Lyndon Baines Johnson seized the power from John Kennedy.
Really. Think about this for a second...Why do you think that he chose a dunce like Dan Quayle as his running mate? Why did Clinton choose Al Gore? Why did McCain choose Sarah Palin? Why did Obama choose Joe Biden?
Anyway back to my thesis...
A Bullet to the chest generally convinces a man that his life may be in danger if he does not do as he is told. Reagan conceded power over to Bush. The Presidency was Reagan's finest act as he was just acting as the President while Bush was calling the plays.
After taking the real power away from Reagan, after the attempt, it was Bush who got rid of David Stockman and Paul Craig Roberts.
And as for poor John Hinckley Jr...He is just a poor, MK Ultra'd soul.
These people will even sacrifice their own sons to achieve their nefarious goals. They are absolutely ruthless in this regard. That makes them extremely dangerous.
But until David Stockman, or Paul Craig Roberts, exposes this truth they have diminished credibility as their publications ring somewhat hollow to most who do not understand this part of the story. (It seems like there is a bit more to the story...a bit missing...and they wonder what that is.)
Now I know it. You may know it as well... But most never quite make it down the Rabbit Hole this far. Proving it will be much more demanding with all of the disinformation out there.
Even David Rockefeller attempted to take out President Gerald Ford so that he could install his brother, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, as President. He used the CIA asset Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme (one of Charlie Manson's girls and Laurel Canyon recruits).
JUST TWO WEEKS LATER an FBI informant, Sara Jane Moore, who was working for William Randolph Hearst, attempted to kill Gerald Ford again.
If the CIA cannot handle the job then you hire the FBI to do the deed.
All in all it is just a Standard Operational Procedure for those psychopaths in power in the US Government.. This is not so surprising.
They are just Crime Boss ordered hits on other rival Crime Bosses.
Just coincidences I guess, right?
How deep down the Rabbit Hole would you like to go?
" How deep down the Rabbit Hole would you like to go? "
To the very bottom.
-All the way to Hell if that is where truth resides.