Pillars of American 'Democracy': Introduction

By Moti Nissani

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." -- Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."- Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States

"Do you suppose we consider it a free election when the voters of New York State have a choice only between a Harriman and a Rockefeller?"-Nikita Khruschev

"Reality is a web, not a collection of parallel lines. Those who fail to see the interconnections run the risk of one-dimensional vision. Thus, broad reviews hold a greater promise of bringing us closer to complex truths than the many important but one-sided studies upon which they are based."-Lives in the Balance, 1991

The Paradox of American "Democracy"

Reporting on a recent Gallup poll, David Swanson (2015) writes:

"There is a sizable minority in the United States that has never believed any of its recent wars were crimes or blunders, never questioned trillion dollar military spending, and never desired a world without war in it. Trying to explain that . . . can be like trying to explain why Americans don't want healthcare. . . . Further study is needed to find the roots of the relative degrees of militarism revealed."

On the face of it, such a militaristic viewpoint is nothing short of amazing. Here is Dmitry Orlov:

"Were there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? No, and the vial of white powder which Colin Powell menacingly held up at the UN was fake. The Iraqi mobile biological weapons factories did not exist. Was Al Qaeda active in Iraq prior to the US invasion? No, we know that it wasn't. These lies are now known to be factual-uncontested, commonplace knowledge. Next: do we make the arbitrary leap of judgment and declare that that's all the lies we will have ever been told, or do we admit the possibility that this is only the tip of an iceberg of lies, that lying is a modus operandi for the operatives behind them?" (see also this link)

And this was neither a skirmish nor a war, but genocide and ecocide, pure and simple.  It led, among other things, to 2.7 million Iraqi deaths (over 8% of the Iraqi population), millions of people losing their homes, permanent poisoning of vast tracts of land, loss of ancient cultural artifacts, break-up of the country, and seemingly endless sectarian and ethnic bloodshed!

And yet, most Americans-if they think about such matters at all-choose to ignore the lies they have been told or to view them as an exception. What are the roots of this?

Moreover, the highly militaristic 44% of Americans, and the majority of their somewhat less warlike compatriots, seem oblivious to the small but real and growing risk of their own nuclear incineration. One of the Rothschilds, for example, who surely knows whereof he speaks, is on record saying that the 2015 geopolitical situation is the "most dangerous since WWII." How can you explain the proclivity of most Americans to nonchalantly accept pointless threats to their own existence?

In more general terms, the political system in the USA is clearly a far cry from genuine democracy.  In fact, the American political landscape is strewn with countless paradoxes.  For instance, why don't Americans forcefully respond to frequent assertions of government-appointed high-ranking 9/11 commissioners to the effect that "there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened." Why are Americans unaware or do not care that they could live longer and more prosperously had their country embraced a French-style health care system? Why do they consent to policies that set their country and the world on a collision course with nature--even though nature bats last? Seeing that they could be healthier and wealthier with fuel conservation, why don't they demand cars that give them 100 miles to the gallon (instead of just 24)? Why don't they realize that their country is a kleptocracy?

Why is America's CEO-worker pay gap the widest in the developed world?  Why don't Americans grasp that the private Federal Reserve is designed to steal the fruits of their labor? Why are they oblivious to vast and growing income inequalities and to their own ever-growing impoverishment? Why do they acquiesce to and parrot government outrageous lies about unemployment, inflation, war spending, and gold holdings? Why don't they perceive that a choice between a Clinton and a Bush is no choice at all?

Why don't they comprehend that American elections are a sham? Why do they permit sunshine bribery of virtually all their politicians and judges? Why don't they see that the American Constitution is gradually being abandoned and that their country is turning into a police state? Why aren't they scandalized by countless episodes of police brutality?

Why do they blithely condone the imprisonment, exile, torture, and murder of their champions (e.g., Daniel Shays, Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Bradley Manning, Gary Webb, Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Julian Assange)? Why are they indifferent to the fact that their country, which calls itself "the land of the free," has more prisoners per capita than any other country in the world?

Why don't they realize, for that matter, that a prison doesn't have to be a Gulag? Why don't they care that the USA has always promoted dictatorships abroad? How could they stand aside and look while "their" government conducted wholesale assassination campaigns against popular leaders of such faraway countries as Chile or the Congo?

The USA is clearly ruled by a financial crime syndicate (henceforth, following Lincoln, simply "the bankers").  The bankers are slowly and deliberately undermining the little there ever was of American democracy, fair play, and social justice.  They turned the USA into a rogue rampaging bull elephant, thereby visiting mayhem, needless suffering, and death on billions.  The bankers seem bent on strengthening America's banking-military-intelligence complex and gradually dismantling America's other sources of power and prosperity: its natural environment, Constitution, freedoms, moral fiber, nuclear family, social cohesiveness, justice, industrial base, infrastructure, education, credit-worthiness, currency, or gold reserves.

What is going on here? 

Resolving the Paradox of American "Democracy"

Sun Tzu said "If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt." In this he was mistaken, for geopolitical conflicts involve a great deal more than understanding yourself and your foes. Rather, the following aphorism provides a closer approximation of reality: "If you know not your enemy and know not yourself, your defeat will not stand in doubt."  Anyway, Sun was certainly right about the importance of taking a bird's eye view of the world: To prevail, at times we must move behind daily occurrences and analyze their recurrent features, underlying causes, and probable consequences.

It is in this spirit that I offer the bankers' victims-whose ranks include the majority of Russians, Americans, and every other people on earth-this forthcoming series.  This holistic view of American history and politics will seek to answer these questions:  In a country where the people are allowed to vote, how did American oligarchs manage to keep themselves in power for so long? Better still: Given the fact that, over the last 35 years, every single political decision in America served the bankers' interests and harmed the interests of the American people, how did the bankers manage to steadily increase their power and wealth at the expense of the vast majority? 

In particular, this series is intended to help Russians let go of any misconceptions they might have about the west and to help Americans understand their own plight.

In the coming years, it will be the policies of the Russian Federation that could perhaps undermine the bankers' dream of enslaving humanity.  Russia can readily accomplish this, provided it overcomes its proclivity to idolize the West.  From Russian Francophiles who looked forward to the conquest of their country by Napoleon, to Solzhenitsyn's well-meant but naive Warning to the West, to the needless and cataclysmic dissolution of the Soviet Union, to Russia's catastrophic occupation by the Chicago Boys and its inexplicable subservience to that bunch of Rockefeller thugs masquerading as intellectuals, all the way to the self-inflicted deep wounds of the Maidan and the babble of Nemtsov, Kasparov, and Navalny-an influential segment of the Russian intelligentsia has always self-effacingly romanticized the West.  They have done so, moreover, at a great cost to Russia and humanity as a whole.  If this series of articles makes a small contribution towards dispelling this naiveté, it will have accomplished its purpose.

This series is likewise written for Americans and others, who have yet to discover the enemy within.   

This series incorporates new and old writings of mine.  In turn, my writings owe everything to Fazil Iskander's (The Goatibex Constellation, 1971) "best people:" Activists and writers whose faith in rationality and goodness propels them to selflessly "struggle against the twin follies of cruelty and stupidity." 

Moti Nissani