Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Export-Import Bank, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, where financial power was leveraged into political power, and then back into even greater financial power. The level of Machiavellian political and financial corruption in these organizations is mind-boggling. I discovered that stock, commodity and currency markets were being rigged, quasi- governmental bodies were laundering taxpayer money through countries and into multi-national corporations and banks that they controlled, and that taxpayer money was being used to initially bribe and eventually extort foreign governments into re-writing their laws so as to allow foreign domination of their economies and eventually their countries. From there it was only one step into the shadow government that stands between business and government, and that most people don’t even know exists. Trying to put all of this information together in a meaningful way was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that had been dropped from an airplane. First you have to find the pieces, and then you have to put them together without the benefit of a picture to go by.

It didn’t take long to realize that in some cases information was being withheld, while in others false information was being promulgated. I turned my attention to the media to find out why the stories I was uncovering on a weekly basis were not making it to the general public. In some cases, sanitized versions of the stories ended up on page 12 of the Washington Post or the New York Times, and were never seen again. In other cases the stories were blacked out, and never appeared in the mainstream media at all.

One of the first statements I encountered on the media’s role in all of this was made by a former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, John Swinton

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” -- Benjamin Franklin

That was then and this is now.

"There is, of course, no reason why the new totalitarians should resemble the old. Government by clubs and firing squads, by artificial famine, mass imprisonment and mass deportation, is not only inhumane (nobody cares much about that nowadays), it is demonstrably inefficient and in an age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the Holy Ghost. A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers. But their methods are still crude and unscientific. -- Aldous Huxley, 1946

A Journey into Semi-enlightenment

If I can control what you see and hear, then I can control how you think, I can control what you believe, I can control how you behave. Give me control of those informational building blocks that make up your reality, and I can lead you as a parent leads a child.

Upon reflection, most people would agree with the above statement. They would not agree however, that it’s being done to them. The idea that their reality has been skewed, that they don’t know how the world really works, or who’s in control is beyond their comprehension. After all, there’s so much “news” available that they don’t have time for it all. They believe that anything of real importance will be brought to their attention. They believe that the team at “60 Minutes” is on the job, eager to bring them the unvarnished truth. They are wrong.

The product delivered to us by the mainstream media very often bears little resemblance to the real world. Even the language used to deliver that product can be misleading.

For example, as we all know, NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO involve free trade, and free trade is good. Of course we know that. The advantages of these programs are spelled out to us in the media on a regular basis. The only problem is -- it’s not true. NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO do not involve free trade; they involve managed trade (Note 1). You’re not supposed to think or use the word “managed” because then you might ask the obvious questions. Managed by whom, for whom? The people who sit around the negotiating tables—do they represent their governments or their people; or do they have corporate masters? Is trade all about economics, or is there a social and/or political agenda? Is trade being managed for the benefit of the people, or the workers, or the multi-national corporations who can make hundreds of millions of dollars based on the addition or deletion of a single paragraph in an agreement? Or is the answer (d), all of the above? Who knows? As long as they use the word “free” we don’t have to think about it. Like “liberty” or “democracy” the word “free” has a powerful positive connotation that tends to shut down our ability to think critically. That’s why it has never dawned on you – FREE trade does not require a treaty.

Let’s look at another example of how language is used to control the way you think. What is a peacekeeper? A peacekeeper is a soldier who wears a blue helmet and/or arm band, works for the United Nations or some other supranational body, defends women and children, maintains the peace, and is an all around good guy. You probably thought something like that automatically, because that’s what you were programmed to think. In fact a peacekeeper is a man with a gun who will beat you or kill you if you don’t do what he tells you to do. What he tells you to do may or may not be good, morale, ethical, or legal. In fact, scores of “Peacekeepers” have been charged with theft, rape, torture, and murder. Hundreds of millions of people around the world feel very strongly that the military operations carried out by peacekeepers have been wrong, unjust, and illegal for a variety of reasons.

Imagine if our soldiers went off to fight soldiers who were called Peacekeepers. Peace is good; therefore peacekeeping is good; therefore peacekeepers are good; therefore whatever the peacekeepers do to keep the peace must be good. So how could anyone fight a peacekeeper and be in the right? Do you see how words can be used to control your thinking?

Am I being critical of the young men and women who carry the guns, fire the missiles or drop the bombs? For the most part, no. I used to be one of them. I understand the training and the system that they are a part of. I was a paratrooper and a Ranger, and was decorated on numerous occasions for conducting state-sanctioned murder. In fact, there was a time when I probably would have killed just about anything and anyone I was told to kill. That was before I began to understand who really gives the orders, why they’re being given, and how I was being manipulated by information that was designed for that purpose.

It was only after I left the military that I began to see beyond the world as it is portrayed by TV’s talking heads. I had been interested in investments and the financial markets for most of my life. When I became a stockbroker I was very fortunate that my office had one group of brokers involved in fundamental analysis, and another that did technical analysis. I joined them both. Although we spent a great deal of time analyzing individual companies and their stocks, I found that I was more interested in the macro economic forces that moved world markets; not just in equities, but in currencies, interest rates, and commodities.

The more I studied, the more I found things that weren’t right; that they didn’t make sense. In some cases I was being asked to believe in a free lunch, or that 2+2 = 3; while in others the story was that the most brilliant financiers on earth were in fact incompetent fools who lost billions of taxpayer dollars because they were trying to “help” the less fortunate. They were just “good guys”, who had made an honest mistake (150 times). I had entered a world where business and political interests collided to create a shifting and illusionary landscape. A macro economic Twilight Zone, where it was difficult to identify the real players, even with a scorecard. In fact, the scorecards themselves were often falsified so as to hide the identity of the real players. And the real agenda was never openly discussed in the mainstream media.

“Economic hit men (EHM) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.”

-- John Perkins (xi)

My investigation led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Export-Import Bank, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, where financial power was leveraged into political power, and then back into even greater financial power. The level of Machiavellian political and financial corruption in these organizations is mind-boggling. I discovered that stock, commodity and currency markets were being rigged, quasi- governmental bodies were laundering taxpayer money through countries and into multi-national corporations and banks that they controlled, and that taxpayer money was being used to initially bribe and eventually extort foreign governments into re-writing their laws so as to allow foreign domination of their economies and eventually their countries. From there it was only one step into the shadow government that stands between business and government, and that most people don’t even know exists. Trying to put all of this information together in a meaningful way was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that had been dropped from an airplane. First you have to find the pieces, and then you have to put them together without the benefit of a picture to go by.

It didn’t take long to realize that in some cases information was being withheld, while in others false information was being promulgated. I turned my attention to the media to find out why the stories I was uncovering on a weekly basis were not making it to the general public. In some cases, sanitized versions of the stories ended up on page 12 of the Washington Post or the New York Times, and were never seen again. In other cases the stories were blacked out, and never appeared in the mainstream media at all.

One of the first statements I encountered on the media’s role in all of this was made by a former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, John Swinton.

wrong.

The product delivered to us by the mainstream media very often bears little resemblance to the real world. Even the language used to deliver that product can be misleading.

For example, as we all know, NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO involve free trade, and free trade is good. Of course we know that. The advantages of these programs are spelled out to us in the media on a regular basis. The only problem is -- it’s not true. NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO do not involve free trade; they involve managed trade (Note 1). You’re not supposed to think or use the word “managed” because then you might ask the obvious questions. Managed by whom, for whom? The people who sit around the negotiating tables—do they represent their governments or their people; or do they have corporate masters? Is trade all about economics, or is there a social and/or political agenda? Is trade being managed for the benefit of the people, or the workers, or the multi-national corporations who can make hundreds of millions of dollars based on the addition or deletion of a single paragraph in an agreement? Or is the answer (d), all of the above? Who knows? As long as they use the word “free” we don’t have to think about it. Like “liberty” or “democracy” the word “free” has a powerful positive connotation that tends to shut down our ability to think critically. That’s why it has never dawned on you – FREE trade does not require a treaty.

Let’s look at another example of how language is used to control the way you think. What is a peacekeeper? A peacekeeper is a soldier who wears a blue helmet and/or arm band, works for the United Nations or some other supranational body, defends women and children, maintains the peace, and is an all around good guy. You probably thought something like that automatically, because that’s what you were programmed to think. In fact a peacekeeper is a man with a gun who will beat you or kill you if you don’t do what he tells you to do. What he tells you to do may or may not be good, morale, ethical, or legal. In fact, scores of “Peacekeepers” have been charged with theft, rape, torture, and murder. Hundreds of millions of people around the world feel very strongly that the military operations carried out by peacekeepers have been wrong, unjust, and illegal for a variety of reasons.

Imagine if our soldiers went off to fight soldiers who were called Peacekeepers. Peace is good; therefore peacekeeping is good; therefore peacekeepers are good; therefore whatever the peacekeepers do to keep the peace must be good. So how could anyone fight a peacekeeper and be in the right? Do you see how words can be used to control your thinking?

Am I being critical of the young men and women who carry the guns, fire the missiles or drop the bombs? For the most part, no. I used to be one of them. I understand the training and the system that they are a part of. I was a paratrooper and a Ranger, and was decorated on numerous occasions for conducting state-sanctioned murder. In fact, there was a time when I probably would have killed just about anything and anyone I was told to kill. That was before I began to understand who really gives the orders, why they’re being given, and how I was being manipulated by information that was designed for that purpose.

It was only after I left the military that I began to see beyond the world as it is portrayed by TV’s talking heads. I had been interested in investments and the financial markets for most of my life. When I became a stockbroker I was very fortunate that my office had one group of brokers involved in fundamental analysis, and another that did technical analysis. I joined them both. Although we spent a great deal of time analyzing individual companies and their stocks, I found that I was more interested in the macro economic forces that moved world markets; not just in equities, but in currencies, interest rates, and commodities.

The more I studied, the more I found things that weren’t right; that they didn’t make sense. In some cases I was being asked to believe in a free lunch, or that 2+2 = 3; while in others the story was that the most brilliant financiers on earth were in fact incompetent fools who lost billions of taxpayer dollars because they were trying to “help” the less fortunate. They were just “good guys”, who had made an honest mistake (150 times). I had entered a world where business and political interests collided to create a shifting and illusionary landscape. A macro economic Twilight Zone, where it was difficult to identify the real players, even with a scorecard. In fact, the scorecards themselves were often falsified so as to hide the identity of the real players. And the real agenda was never openly discussed in the mainstream media.

“Economic hit men (EHM) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.”

-- John Perkins (xi)

My investigation led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Export-Import Bank, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, where financial power was leveraged into political power, and then back into even greater financial power. The level of Machiavellian political and financial corruption in these organizations is mind-boggling. I discovered that stock, commodity and currency markets were being rigged, quasi- governmental bodies were laundering taxpayer money through countries and into multi-national corporations and banks that they controlled, and that taxpayer money was being used to initially bribe and eventually extort foreign governments into re-writing their laws so as to allow foreign domination of their economies and eventually their countries. From there it was only one step into the shadow government that stands between business and government, and that most people don’t even know exists. Trying to put all of this information together in a meaningful way was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that had been dropped from an airplane. First you have to find the pieces, and then you have to put them together without the benefit of a picture to go by.

It didn’t take long to realize that in some cases information was being withheld, while in others false information was being promulgated. I turned my attention to the media to find out why the stories I was uncovering on a weekly basis were not making it to the general public. In some cases, sanitized versions of the stories ended up on page 12 of the Washington Post or the New York Times, and were never seen again. In other cases the stories were blacked out, and never appeared in the mainstream media at all.

One of the first statements I encountered on the media’s role in all of this was made by a former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, John Swinton

ere programmed to think. In fact a peacekeeper is a man with a gun who will beat you or kill you if you don’t do what he tells you to do. What he tells you to do may or may not be good, morale, ethical, or legal. In fact, scores of “Peacekeepers” have been charged with theft, rape, torture, and murder. Hundreds of millions of people around the world feel very strongly that the military operations carried out by peacekeepers have been wrong, unjust, and illegal for a variety of reasons.

Imagine if our soldiers went off to fight soldiers who were called Peacekeepers. Peace is good; therefore peacekeeping is good; therefore peacekeepers are good; therefore whatever the peacekeepers do to keep the peace must be good. So how could anyone fight a peacekeeper and be in the right? Do you see how words can be used to control your thinking?

Am I being critical of the young men and women who carry the guns, fire the missiles or drop the bombs? For the most part, no. I used to be one of them. I understand the training and the system that they are a part of. I was a paratrooper and a Ranger, and was decorated on numerous occasions for conducting state-sanctioned murder. In fact, there was a time when I probably would have killed just about anything and anyone I was told to kill. That was before I began to understand who really gives the orders, why they’re being given, and how I was being manipulated by information that was designed for that purpose.

It was only after I left the military that I began to see beyond the world as it is portrayed by TV’s talking heads. I had been interested in investments and the financial markets for most of my life. When I became a stockbroker I was very fortunate that my office had one group of brokers involved in fundamental analysis, and another that did technical analysis. I joined them both. Although we spent a great deal of time analyzing individual companies and their stocks, I found that I was more interested in the macro economic forces that moved world markets; not just in equities, but in currencies, interest rates, and commodities.

The more I studied, the more I found things that weren’t right; that they didn’t make sense. In some cases I was being asked to believe in a free lunch, or that 2+2 = 3; while in others the story was that the most brilliant financiers on earth were in fact incompetent fools who lost billions of taxpayer dollars because they were trying to “help” the less fortunate. They were just “good guys”, who had made an honest mistake (150 times). I had entered a world where business and political interests collided to create a shifting and illusionary landscape. A macro economic Twilight Zone, where it was difficult to identify the real players, even with a scorecard. In fact, the scorecards themselves were often falsified so as to hide the identity of the real players. And the real agenda was never openly discussed in the mainstream media.

“Economic hit men (EHM) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.”

-- John Perkins (xi)

My investigation led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Export-Import Bank, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, where financial power was leveraged into political power, and then back into even greater financial power. The level of Machiavellian political and financial corruption in these organizations is mind-boggling. I discovered that stock, commodity and currency markets were being rigged, quasi- governmental bodies were laundering taxpayer money through countries and into multi-national corporations and banks that they controlled, and that taxpayer money was being used to initially bribe and eventually extort foreign governments into re-writing their laws so as to allow foreign domination of their economies and eventually their countries. From there it was only one step into the shadow government that stands between business and government, and that most people don’t even know exists. Trying to put all of this information together in a meaningful way was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that had been dropped from an airplane. First you have to find the pieces, and then you have to put them together without the benefit of a picture to go by.

It didn’t take long to realize that in some cases information was being withheld, while in others false information was being promulgated. I turned my attention to the media to find out why the stories I was uncovering on a weekly basis were not making it to the general public. In some cases, sanitized versions of the stories ended up on page 12 of the Washington Post or the New York Times, and were never seen again. In other cases the stories were blacked out, and never appeared in the mainstream media at all.

One of the first statements I encountered on the media’s role in all of this was made by a former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, John Swinton

is. I joined them both. Although we spent a great deal of time analyzing individual companies and their stocks, I found that I was more interested in the macro economic forces that moved world markets; not just in equities, but in currencies, interest rates, and commodities.

The more I studied, the more I found things that weren’t right; that they didn’t make sense. In some cases I was being asked to believe in a free lunch, or that 2+2 = 3; while in others the story was that the most brilliant financiers on earth were in fact incompetent fools who lost billions of taxpayer dollars because they were trying to “help” the less fortunate. They were just “good guys”, who had made an honest mistake (150 times). I had entered a world where business and political interests collided to create a shifting and illusionary landscape. A macro economic Twilight Zone, where it was difficult to identify the real players, even with a scorecard. In fact, the scorecards themselves were often falsified so as to hide the identity of the real players. And the real agenda was never openly discussed in the mainstream media.

“Economic hit men (EHM) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.”

-- John Perkins (xi)

My investigation led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Export-Import Bank, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, where financial power was leveraged into political power, and then back into even greater financial power. The level of Machiavellian political and financial corruption in these organizations is mind-boggling. I discovered that stock, commodity and currency markets were being rigged, quasi- governmental bodies were laundering taxpayer money through countries and into multi-national corporations and banks that they controlled, and that taxpayer money was being used to initially bribe and eventually extort foreign governments into re-writing their laws so as to allow foreign domination of their economies and eventually their countries. From there it was only one step into the shadow government that stands between business and government, and that most people don’t even know exists. Trying to put all of this information together in a meaningful way was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that had been dropped from an airplane. First you have to find the pieces, and then you have to put them together without the benefit of a picture to go by.

It didn’t take long to realize that in some cases information was being withheld, while in others false information was being promulgated. I turned my attention to the media to find out why the stories I was uncovering on a weekly basis were not making it to the general public. In some cases, sanitized versions of the stories ended up on page 12 of the Washington Post or the New York Times, and were never seen again. In other cases the stories were blacked out, and never appeared in the mainstream media at all.

One of the first statements I encountered on the media’s role in all of this was made by a former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, John Swinton

Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Export-Import Bank, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, where financial power was leveraged into political power, and then back into even greater financial power. The level of Machiavellian political and financial corruption in these organizations is mind-boggling. I discovered that stock, commodity and currency markets were being rigged, quasi- governmental bodies were laundering taxpayer money through countries and into multi-national corporations and banks that they controlled, and that taxpayer money was being used to initially bribe and eventually extort foreign governments into re-writing their laws so as to allow foreign domination of their economies and eventually their countries. From there it was only one step into the shadow government that stands between business and government, and that most people don’t even know exists. Trying to put all of this information together in a meaningful way was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that had been dropped from an airplane. First you have to find the pieces, and then you have to put them together without the benefit of a picture to go by.

It didn’t take long to realize that in some cases information was being withheld, while in others false information was being promulgated. I turned my attention to the media to find out why the stories I was uncovering on a weekly basis were not making it to the general public. In some cases, sanitized versions of the stories ended up on page 12 of the Washington Post or the New York Times, and were never seen again. In other cases the stories were blacked out, and never appeared in the mainstream media at all.

One of the first statements I encountered on the media’s role in all of this was made by a former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, John Swinton. Mr. Swinton was one of the most eminent newspapermen of his day. At a New York Press Club dinner he was asked to make a toast to an independent press. This is what he said:

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”

-- Staff, Media Bypass, “Taking Wealth by the Horns”

When I first read that I thought that perhaps Mr. Swinton had been having a bad night. Things couldn’t be as bad as he was leading us to believe. I have since come to realize that the above statement can be taken literally.

“You are part of the most conditioned, programmed culture the world has ever known. Not only are your thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded, but your very awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and inexorably erased. The doors of your perception are carefully and precisely regulated.”

-- Dr. Joseph Mercola, 2007

The Muckrakers

“Media power is political power. There is a dangerous change in the philosophy of the airwaves to permit the growth of corporations and the deregulation of the government to the point of decimating the consumer.” Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly

“The sad truth is that the closer a story gets to corporate power and corporate domination of our society, the less reliable the corporate news media are.” Robert McChesney, Professor in the Institute of Communications Research at University of Illinois and author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy"

If you’re going to investigate the takeover of the American media, the easiest place to start is with the muckrakers. The term “muckraker” was used to describe a group of investigative and political reformist magazines, which gained influence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They became famous in American history by exposing the abuses made possible by monopolies and trusts, and the systematic bribery of government by bankers and industrialists. These magazines included some of the most prestigious in the country, such as Harpers, Scribners, Century, and a dozen others.

The power of the muckraker magazines became so great that they began to influence elections at the local, state, and national level. The American people demanded legislation to protect themselves from the abuses of big business. J.P. Morgan ended up in front of a congressional committee (Cujo Committee) in Washington D.C. Finally, the leaders of the financial elite struck back when a reformist President, Theodore Roosevelt was elected.

“That was too much, and in a series of abrupt acts J.P. Morgan and the Rockefeller interests simply bought controlling interest in the magazines- Harpers, Scribners, Century, and a number of others- installed their own managers, and announced that the public was tired of reading exposes of banks and business. It ended an era of American journalism and national politics.” -- Ben Bagdikian (p. 211)

The words of Congressman Oscar Callaway, taken from the United States Congressional record, February 9, 1917, bring added meaning to the above paragraph.

“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States. These 12 men worked the problem out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers…This policy also included the suppression of everything in opposition to the wishes of the interests served.” -- James Perloff (p.178) and

-- G. Edward Griffen (p. 244)

In 1922 Theodore Roosevelt, a man who was famous for his straight talk, described the situation this way, “These international bankers and Rockefeller – Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and the columns of these papers to club into submission or to drive out of public office officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.”

The problems encountered by the financial elite with the American people’s influence over government (otherwise known as democracy) did not occur overnight. Nor did their solution of taking direct and indirect control of the media so as to shape public opinion. The following paragraphs clearly demonstrate that America’s true leaders and their public servants had identified the problem and the solution by 1905.

During hearings held by the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee in 1912, it was revealed that Congressman Joseph Sibley from Pennsylvania was distributing Rockefeller money to a number of obedient Congressmen. A letter was introduced to the Committee that had been written by Representative Sibley in 1905. The letter had been sent to John D. Archbold, a senior executive at Standard Oil Company who acted as Rockefeller’s bagman. In that letter Congressman Sibley said:

“An efficient literary bureau is needed, not for a day or a crisis but a permanent healthy control of the Associated Press and kindred avenues. It will cost money, but will be the cheapest in the end.”

-- Ferdinand Lundberg (p.249)

“Charles S. Mellen of the New Haven Railroad testified before Congress that his Morgan-owned railroad had more than one-thousand New England newspapers on the payroll, costing about $400,000 annually (In today’s inflated currency that would be over $8 million.)