News & Analysis
Elite Control of OWS Protests Increasingly Obvious?
When it comes to prosecuting the lead players involved in the fraudulent financial activities that have led to the destruction of our economy, the Obama Administration, loaded with Wall Street campaign contributions and led by major financial firm operatives such as Tim Geithner and Bill Daley, has delivered empty rhetoric and minimal action. In the absence of leadership on this critical issue, it may come down to a new proposed OccupyWallStreet Department of Justice Working Group to restore the rule of law. The proposed group will feature members such as Bill Black, a man who has a strong track record of successfully prosecuting and jailing bankers during the S&L crisis. In this video, David DeGraw joins Bill Black on the Dylan Ratigan Show to discuss the "epidemic of fraud" and the people who need to be held personally responsible for the destruction of our economic system. – AmpedStatus
Dominant Social Theme: We need to use the might of the US, its terrific RICO laws and the dedicated servants of intelligence agencies to bring justice to the American people.
Free-Market Analysis: It's getting surreal out there. David DeGraw, the self-titled founder of the Occupy Wall Street movement has now announced his intention to bring on board William Black, an American lawyer, academic, author and a former bank regulator, to serve as Occupy Wall Street's litigation arm. Black has seemingly agreed.
Are we correct to wonder about this "arrangement?" It's beginning to seem like some sort of a sub-dominant OWS theme, that Wall Street tycoons should be "brought to justice." Yet when it comes to America, this assumption involves the endorsement of the judicial system as it is, a strange stance for a movement like OWS to take. We've written about the US system here: No Justice in the West.
EDITOR'S ALERT: Brietbart's Big Government website is reporting on an email data dump exchanged by "leaders" of the Occupy Wall Street movement that "make[s] it clear that MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan has been directly involved with [a group of journalists apparently including Matt Taibbi and David DeGraw]." According to Dan Riehl, this aid "included helping them to draft statements and offering revisions to a statement David DeGraw might later discuss on NBC News with Brian Williams." Taibbi himself has poured cold-water on the emails, saying, "There is nothing terribly interesting in any of these exchanges. Most all of the things written were things all of us ended up saying publicly in our various media forums."
In fact, the real agenda of those behind Occupy Wall Street evidently and obviously continues to emerge, even as we read articles about libertarian and free-market involvement in the movement – involvement that for increasingly obvious reasons does not influence those at the top.
These self-appointed "leaders" (who do not exist, they say) such as DeGraw and Assange seem to have outsized clout in a movement that is supposed to be grass-roots and consultative. The non-leadership of OWS seems intent on focusing the movement directly on Wall Street and its captains of greed, despite dissenting voices and libertarian involvement.
Zero Hedge carried an article yesterday warning about the scapegoating of Wall Street as a "catalyst for class warfare." The article cited a new poll commissioned by The Hill concluding that, "in the minds of likely voters, Washington, not Wall Street, is primarily to blame for the financial crisis and the subsequent recession."
The movement appears to have struck a chord with progressive voters, but it does not seem to represent the feelings of the wider public. The Hill poll found that only one in three likely voters blames Wall Street for the country's financial troubles, whereas more than half — 56 percent — blame Washington.
This does not seem to bother DeGraw who merrily soldiers forward as the scourge of Wall Street. Talk of guillotines, of the French Revolution and class warfare (that inevitably ends in the bloodshed of the middle class that DeGraw is supposedly avenging) seem not to bother him.
The man, for all his erudition, energy and apparent genius, seems oblivious to history. He is determined, he says, to help America "restore the rule of law." He takes for granted the "lawfulness" of the American system of justice and its judicial methodologies. Perhaps he shouldn't.
We note that Julian Assange the other day in his now-famous speech on the steps of St. Paul's in London explained (somehow he is another self-identified spokesperson of this "movement") that the protests were about "building" the rule of law rather than tearing it down.
Strange that DeGraw and Assange should seemingly be reading from the same playbook, but perhaps it is just coincidence. On the other hand, as we have mentioned many times now, this entire, vast movement can also be seen as an exercise in controlled history with people playing their assigned roles within the organizational ambit of Money Power.
Are the Anglosphere central banking families (along with their associates and enablers) behind of all this? (Yes, they do exist.) They have both the means and motives. The 2008 crash and Greater Recession was an inevitable outcome of central banking's overprinting of money and resultant boom-and-bust.
The mechanism of over-printing gives rise to increased centralization of power and wealth, which is what the elites seek. Once the money supply has been significantly hyped and the link between bailed-out business and price discovery fully severed – as it has been – the next stage of directed history begins.
In this stage, the powers-that-be help orchestrate popular uprisings against those power "private" entities and their captains that are seen as playing a major role in the misery. (One wonders how the top people feel, seeing popular resentment being orchestrated against them by their own elite bosses! Happens over and over throughout history, apparently.)
This is the stage, perhaps, we are at now. DeGraw and others continue to ignore the root of the problem – central banking and its ownership – while creating a groundswell of indignation against Wall Street and greedy "banksters."
Of course, this has been tried before, most recently in the 1930s in similar circumstances. Then, the SEC, the NASD and various "self-regulatory agencies" were created and Joseph P. Kennedy was brought in to run the SEC. "It takes a crook to catch a crook," Franklin Delano Roosevelt supposedly said.
Of course, the SEC hasn't caught many crooks, not real ones anyway. it's entirely vacuous organization - as are all regulatory shops - that substitutes makework and random viciousness for specific utility. What the SEC has done via regulatory capture is enhance the centralization of the largest Wall Street firms while raising the barriers to entry. The little guy gets squeezed; Goldman Sachs is empowered. Some solution.
And here we go again. Is DeGraw aware of history's lessons? If you don't change the system the problems will reoccur. Sure, punish people if it makes you feel good. Hang 'em high. Behead them. But first do SOMETHING SERIOUS. Confront the real issue, which is money creation and the euphorias it causes.
But no ... First we blame Wall Street! The securities business is one that is primarily transactional and intermediary. The abuses on Wall Street stem mostly from perfervid money hyping that sends tidal waves of currency crashing down on Wall Street, leading to all sorts of nonsensical financial innovations such as derivatives and computerized trading.
Somehow this reality is being misplaced. The Occupy Wall Street crowd under various kinds of misguided tutelage want to get the money out of Washington. Much more importantly, they should be campaigning to get the money out of Wall Street! But we won't hold our collective breath. Events seemingly have already gone too far. Bloodlust has set in. Recriminatory fever is sweeping the chattering classes and the media.
During the interview (see explanatory excerpt above) on the Dylan Ratigan program, DeGraw and Black casually referred to an entire gamut of questionable judicial actions. RICO, the FBI and other elements of the American justice system were mentioned approvingly within the context of prosecuting Wall Street crooks in order to seek justice for the American people.
RICO is a broad-based statute that was initially supposed to apply to drug smugglers but now in the hands of zealous prosecutors has turned into a weapon wielded generally against the American public. It is a most questionable statute. Gibson Guitar Corp., for example, recently came under attack for using rare woods from overseas. Under RICO, almost everyone in the company could go to jail, based on questionable associations discerned by the RICO racketeering statute.
In fact, it is a Draconian law, but apparently, that's not the focus of Occupy Wall Street and its leaders who intend to use all the perverse and increasingly totalitarian weapons of American "justice" to prosecute Wall Street evildoers.
Increasingly it seems the non-leader leaders of Occupy Wall Street are not interested in lightening the dead hand of Leviathan but in using its awesome powers to engender their own brand of faux-populism. They seem to ignore America's manifold wars, the unresolved questions swirling around 9/11, the outright eradication of civil liberties in the West and the increasing push toward one-world government. None of this matters compared to Wall Street greed ...
It seems like some sort of script in our view. First, DeGraw helps set up Occupy Wall Street and focus its protests and now he is organizing a plan to bring Wall Street execs to justice, using the good offices of Attorney Black.
And who exactly is Black? According to Wikipedia, "William Kurt Black is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator. Black's expertise is in white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of 'control fraud,' in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a 'weapon' to commit fraud."
And what is "control fraud"? Again, from Wikipedia, "Control fraud occurs when a trusted person in a high position of responsibility in a company, corporation or state uses their powers to subvert the organization and to engage in extensive fraud for personal gain."
We can see from this definition how ambitious Black is. This is an even broader criminal definition than RICO. To Black, apparently, anyone in private enterprise is likely an enemy and any free-market facility is a "weapon."
There is no consciousness here that the Invisible Hand might work better than the judicial system if free markets were actually to be encouraged. The libertarian wing of Occupy Wall Street is evidently and obviously to be marginalized. The engagement of Black seems to signify with some finality the direction of this movement. The traditional tools of American "jurisprudence" are to be employed to create "justice" for the "American people."
In our view, American law has been entirely subverted by authoritarian trends that go back a century or more. The US is said to have something like four million people incarcerated at any given time and these federal prosecutors – wielding sentences of 20 years or more for even minor infractions – can put virtually anyone in jail if they wish to.
Here's an excerpt from a September 26th New York Times article on the subject entitled "Sentencing Shift Gives New Leverage to Prosecutors":
Growing prosecutorial power is a significant reason that the percentage of felony cases that go to trial has dropped sharply in many places. Plea bargains have been common for more than a century, but lately they have begun to put the trial system out of business in some courtrooms. By one count, fewer than one in 40 felony cases now make it to trial, according to data from nine states that have published such records since the 1970s, when the ratio was about one in 12.
The decline has been even steeper in federal district courts. Cases like Florida v. Shane Guthrie help explain why. After Mr. Guthrie, 24, was arrested here last year, accused of beating his girlfriend and threatening her with a knife, the prosecutor offered him a deal for two years in prison plus probation. Mr. Guthrie rejected that, and a later offer of five years, because he believed that he was not guilty, his lawyer said.
But the prosecutor's response was severe: he filed a more serious charge that would mean life imprisonment if Mr. Guthrie is convicted later this year. Because of a state law that increased punishments for people who had recently been in prison, like Mr. Guthrie, the sentence would be mandatory. So, what he could have resolved for a two-year term could keep him locked up for 50 years or more.
One might expect a discussion of these issues by the Occupy Wall Street crowd. If not an in-depth discussion, at least an acknowledgement of the ludicrousness of America's "war on drugs" or, even more importantly, the trend toward using inmates as slave labor, given that prisons are rapidly being "privatized" because of their cost.
But this is not on the minds of those at the top/non-top of Occupy Wall Street. They apparently intend to use this corrupt and vicious system for all its worth.
We wrote recently that libertarians should "get out now" and form their own movement using Occupy Wall Street as a springboard. Is this the best option? Certainly, there seems nothing "reformist" about the way Occupy Wall Street is trending.
Conclusion: We continue to try to search out the "positives" in this unrolling and increasingly powerful movement. We suppose we should be grateful to see what may be "directed history" playing out before our disbelieving eyes, simply from the standpoint of educational enlightenment. Really, we're not.
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Posted by amanfromMars on 10/20/11 11:49 PM
Quite so, trustlawyer, well said. And by resisting the prosecution of the Banksters, does one also become an accomplice and crooked gang member ... . and an a international terrorist and enemy of the people expecting freedom and security from indebted slavery merchants operating within the state ... .. a mole, and also a weasel, hiding in full sight of systems and analysts. And invariably will such individuals be bought, and therefore also easily sold out, whenever of no further future use to a DODgy system? ... ... . Does one then suffer the fate of the Dr Fox? :-)
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Posted by trustlawyer on 10/20/11 10:01 PM
You do no service to the conservative cause to resist the attempts of any organization that wants to prosecute the Bankster thieves who helped to create our finacial problems. This is an idea with strong support by the rank and file of both parties. I agree that the government bears its share of responsibility for the problems, but I don't think we can prosecute the likes of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and apparently their constituents will not throw them out. By resisting the prosecution of the Banksters you lose the moral high ground.
Reply from The Daily Bell
By resisting the prosecution of the Banksters you lose the moral high ground.
Yes, let's erect a guillotine. And after that let's have a French Revolution that will "eat the middle class." But under no circumstances shake the system itself, the great central banking families, the BIS and their government enablers. Hack the branches, never mind the root and speak of the noble morality of it all.
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Posted by rossbcan on 10/20/11 06:45 AM
"The organizational flaw of having no defined goal actually becoming a strength."
It forms a power vacuum, the players are contesting for "hearts and minds" and, the internet informs, allowing those so inclined to perceive (and act) according to TRUTH:
Click to view link
I, for one see the incredible excitement and risk / opportunity in these chaotic times, pregnant with the possibility of, once again and for all of mankind to throw off the yoke of servitude by means other than "please, sir, can I have some more", empowering slavers by incorrectly assuming it is "their choice".
It is also disillusioning that OWS seems to be mainly animated by ill formed goals of thwarted "entitlements", which, no matter what happens, must be denied by the reality of economic collapse because, unproductivity has integrated over time to costs that have been decreed (by corrupt men, with gavels) to indenture the productive, their descendants and property for centuries without end.
It has for all of history been an inherent conflict between the productive (those who produce more than they consume) and the unproductive (barbarians, those who consume more than they produce). Civilizations have risen and fell, for all of history depending on which "philosophy" is "in control":
Click to view link
Matters are coming to a head. Get some popcorn (and guns to protect it) and, watch history unfold in this very real "reality show".
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Posted by TimurTheLame on 10/20/11 04:56 AM
@ rossbcan
I agree as anyone organizing something as simple as a backyard barbeque would realize that there has to be some leadership. The ruse of no leadership can be played in the highest levels with the highest stakes such as the 900,000 'volunteers' from China that all of a sudden spontaneously decide to arm themselves and charge across the Yalu River in the Korean War.
In a historical first, to my knowledge, the aforementioned gross fiction was mutually accepted for different reasons.
Having said that, my original point was that despite levels of chicanery being involved, I detect that some things are moving out of control and the OWS movement may have become more fluid (and genuine) than anticipated.
The organizational flaw of having no defined goal actually becoming a strength. Once in a very blue moon something good comes out of an evil design.
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Posted by amanfromMars on 10/20/11 01:53 AM
Methinks whenever you lose the support of Las Vegas, does an elitist money system have a real live " Houston, we have a problem" problem, and one which only a great media tale for a great series of films and blockbuster movies will solve*... .. Click to view link
Is Holywood, CA, up for that and capable of providing the fab and enlightened scripts for action, or is that to be a colossus of a titanic Hollywood, NI, field operation with special clearances needed to access closed stage areas and MkUltraSensitive Project Workshops? **
Win win if you care to dare and are fully prepared to share. And this is something which is always worth remembering to never forget ... ... Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance with Sub-Prime Protocols.
* I am happy to concede that "only" may be far too bold and limiting and aggressive a contention, and would offer as another alternative that it would be one very simple and easily arranged and digitally engineered option in the control of powerful binary forces, which may be also hosting TS/SCI CyberIntelAIgent Security Services in Cloud Modules/SMART Hubs, although that is entirely another matter way beyond the present scope of what is proposed above, and subject to proprietary protection of its Intellectual Property rights, although that is not to say that allusions to such services will not be occasionally made for reasons of context , and even expanded upon should it be thought necessary and AI required. Que sera, sera.
** Actually, there is no valid reason why, and this is especially so in any AI Operation in a SMART Mission, it should not/could not be a Joint Media Venture.
Now…. who do we know who is into raising significant funds and flash cash and into making film blockbusters?
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Posted by Jones on 10/20/11 12:24 AM
How true... Click to view link
"ye wrestle not against flesh and blood... "
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Posted by Hoss on 10/19/11 10:47 PM
Ever since Roman times, they blamed it all on Greedy Merchants.
It still plays well to the crowd.
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Posted by spekulatn on 10/19/11 10:05 PM
Prof. Mead has entered the fray,
"Maybe I'm just stupid and old, but whatever the movement you are in and whether it comes from the left or the right, I truly don't see the point of getting arrested at a protest rally these days. The civil rights marchers engaged in civil disobedience had a clear strategy and when they got arrested or were beaten up by the police, it had an impact on public opinion. Not fringe public opinion or upper middle class left wing college student public opinion, but middle middle and lower middle class people who had never thought much about the ugliness of segregation but now suddenly saw it in action - and it made them feel sick to their stomachs. The courage and quiet dignity of the civil rights protestors, and the hatred and brutality they brought out in their opponents, brought a moral reformation to the United States."
Click to view link
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Posted by DarbyJie on 10/19/11 07:27 PM
Excellent analysis!
But I would say, it is _mostly_ Congress, and they are getting away unscathed in this national Blame Game. The people's vision seems to be too blurred and myopic to see that THEY are the traitors--THEY who have sold this country out-for "thirty pieces of silver."
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Posted by kaydellc on 10/19/11 06:37 PM
The Occupy Wall Street are nothing but shills for the puppetmaster--George Soros-- all financed him and the Unions. The protesters have no adgenda nor coherent program. Let the media take of the dark colored glasses that they may see more clearly. They are demonstrating in the wrong place and should be demonstrating in Washington, DC Why?
I agree there are serious social and economic problems because of the poor economic conditions in the USA. But these social conditions are not the result of capitalism, or the Wall Street but is the result of corrupted political parties-Democrats and Republicans. These are the parties that have brought us to our current situation.
Why the political parties? The Political parties have the authority and have used their authority and position to cause the problems! The parties have done the following: giving away the people's money to their cronies and corporations who in turn gift them for their re-election; voting against or stonewalling legislations to stop illegal immigration; passing legislation,banking regulations, and enviormental regualtions to prevent job growth in the USA; borrowing and spending from future generation's money to bail out companies, unions, and the earmarks to 'bring home the bacon'; voting themselves and staff exorbitant raises and exempting themselves from the Social Security retirement and the Health Care Plan for themselves; no accountability for neither their performance or crooked and deceitful acts; and no balanced budget for the spending of the people's money and accountability thereof.
Those protesting should be protesting against Congress and the President. These are the parties that have driven manufacturing jobs to other companies or downsizing because of the taxes, policies, regulations, illegal immigration, one-side free trade agreements and all other unholy alliances. The jobs are gone or diminished so we have a huge problem that can not be fixed overnight by more spending or by the current Congress and President and his socialist friends. God have mercy on the citizens of American!
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Posted by rossbcan on 10/19/11 06:00 PM
food for thought...
perhaps OWS is a manifestation of civil war between State Dept. and the executive?
just one example of elites turning on each other as they must when resources dry up (economy collapsed by their predations, no life support possible).
Everybody "smashing and grabbing" as much as they can before the big crunch? We saw this in USSR implosion.
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Posted by rossbcan on 10/19/11 05:15 PM
"for us the living, that we must speak, and speak the truth, as much of it as we can see and know."
I suspect a bit of Ayn Rand's intellectual pedigtee lies here.
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Posted by rossbcan on 10/19/11 05:06 PM
DB: "To Black, apparently, anyone in private enterprise is likely an enemy and any free-market facility is a "weapon."
By actions, "they" believe: "Freedom to be a criminal EQUALS to be a criminal" Freedom is "their" enemy.
This, in turn, is a consequence of the "mankind is evil", original sin meme, a legacy of the dark ages, come to thrust us back to ignorance. I'll give this to slavers, they are patient, persistent and very good at passing manipulation knowledge intergenerationally.
Hopefully, collective actions according to truth will smite them:
Survival EQUALS ability to adapt to environment EQUALS ability to choose correctly EQUALS freedom:
Click to view link
Freedom has been the battle cry of mankind for all of known history. Hopefully, "we won't get fooled again" by the OWS squeaky wheel, demanding we accommodate their demands.
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Posted by rossbcan on 10/19/11 04:48 PM
The OWS illusion of 'leaderless' (but really, highly manipulated behind the scenes) appears to be a certain to fail (given all the slueths watching), attempt to pawn off whatever OWS ultimately demands as having some sort of democratic consensus legitimacy.
It was once "democratic consensus" that the world was flat and, if you left home to go exploring, all sorts of demons would get you, and, if they didn't, you would fall off the edge.
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Posted by rossbcan on 10/19/11 04:43 PM
DB: "But no ... First we blame Wall Street!"
It boggles the mind (and therefore is an invisible fact) that huge players such as Wall Street, Justice, Congress and the Executive are mere pawns of darker, more sinister, evil and unimaginably powerful forces, pulling their strings and, sacrificing them when expedient. What other possible explanation can their be?
Having eliminated the impossible, what is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Sherlock Holmes, paraphrased (too lazy to look it up).
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Posted by concernedforfreedoms on 10/19/11 03:22 PM
Thank for your post and mentioning AYM and CANVAS.
These entities are definitely behind OWS. CANVAS is affiliated with "Otpor!", and when you look that group up, you find their logo is nearly identical to the OWS logo: a raised clenched fist. Their MOS is identical. A YouTube video narrated by Martin Sheen describes how Otpor! brought down Milosevic. Click to view link
I found the complete training system CANVAS uses is here: Click to view link
A theory. Globally, the stated purpose behind the (non-)violent protests/coups is ALWAYS: Oust the dictator and bring in democracy. Then it would seem to me the same unstated purpose exists in the U.S.. Obama et al must know this. Certainly Hillary knows this since she is directly involved with the groups.
For what purpose would the U.S. be staging a nationwide coup on itself? Perhaps, the purpose, as stated elsewhere recently, is for the mob to get so out of control that a state of emergency is declared, martial law is invoked. Our puppet leader(s), whose increasingly blatant carefree blunders and treasonous acts are becoming more and more evident everyday, would simply shut down the current government and usher in whatever the OWS leaders have in store for us. Obama et al do publicly support their cause and must therefore their plans and doctrine: global governance. The PE are getting impatient.
If this is true, has the train already left the station? Can we stop it? How?
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Posted by EdwardUlyssesCate on 10/19/11 02:56 PM
"In our view, American law has been entirely subverted by authoritarian trends that go back a century or more. The US is said to have something like four million people incarcerated at any given time and these federal prosecutors - wielding sentences of 20 years or more for even minor infractions - can put virtually anyone in jail if they wish to."
Why would they do this?
Law enforcement has become a big profit center for TPTB. Nothing new here. The major holders of these prison corporations are also major holders of just about most large public corporations, including major banks. 3 1/2 yrs ago I wrote this commentary detailing private ownership of prisons. Little has changed except all have become even more powerful.
Click to view link
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Posted by amanfromMars on 10/19/11 02:29 PM
Thanks for that, Steve Campbell. It sits comfortably beside that other colossal lie which leads a dumb nation to its ruin and civil war? ... ... .. http://youtu.be/G43zl4fzDQg
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Posted by Jones on 10/19/11 02:26 PM
Perhaps we have not yet learned how to take our focus off of the symptoms and to identify the real source of the disease?
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Posted by oldman67 on 10/19/11 02:12 PM
The establishment of London stated: if that mischevous financial policy which had its orgin in the North American republic should become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. it will pay off its debt. It will become posperous beyound precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe. Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt on Jan. 08. 1835. there were no more central banks for 87 years. " Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce. James Garfield. " I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangeroug to our liberites than standing armies. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it rightly belongs." Thomas Jefferson History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deciet and violent means possible to maintain their controlling money and its issuance. James Madison. Luckily, for America today,the people of America know more than the founders.
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