by Frank W. Dux
“In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will.” — President Theodore Roosevelt
The lessons of history teach us that absolute power corrupts, absolutely. For centuries, the “power elite” have hovered over the political landscape like dark clouds. Their political, economic, and social resources are so vast they overshadow and obscure the brilliance of fair trade, free markets, and free societies. They rule and make policy through proxy, and profit richly by armed conflicts. President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration understood this harsh reality, and to combat it, they fought hard and enacted anti-monopoly conglomerate busting regulations, like the Sherman Antitrust Act.
WHO ARE THE POWER ELITE?
Today, The Trilateral Commission, Council of Foreign Relations and Bilderbergers Society help make up the power elite. The power elite own the information gateways, internet mammoths like Google, oversee market maker hedge funds that can manipulate stock prices and currency. They own vast industrial and media conglomerates. Some are, for example, on the board of HSBC, others are on the board of BP. Some are lobbyists, others are being lobbied. They all have significant money and influence. However, some of our American institutions interfere with their pursuit of greater influence and acquisition of more property.
The First Amendment is one such roadblock. The concept of a free press and its direct relationship to a free people had been a foundational underpinning of American democracy since the nation’s founding. For two centuries that foundational premise held true. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson warns “The only security of all is in a free press. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure,” and that “our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.” The Constitution’s Framers agreed with Jefferson and included the edict that “Congress shall make no law respecting abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” in the 1st Amendment.
The power elite violated the First Amendment in 2003, when they lobbied for and successfully deregulated the Federal Communications that handed over complete control of all media to a few un-American corporations, under their control. The 2003 FCC ruling, narrowly passed by a 3-2 vote, repealed a longstanding rule that prohibited a company from owning both a newspaper, and a TV or radio station in the same market, subject to some exceptions that would not run afoul of and smell of a monopoly. Indeed, since 2012, approximately 90% of our media are controlled by 6 media giants, including Comcast (which owns NBCUniversal), Disney (which owns ABC, ESPN and others), Newscorp. (which owns Fox, WSJ, and NY Post), Viacom, (which owns MTV, BET, CMT) and CBS (which itself owns Smithsonian, Showtime and others). These giant companies control the information given to American public. Currently, the AT&T deal to purchase Time Warner hangs in limbo, and it appears Trump’s DOJ and AT&T are in the advanced stages of negotiations.
(This handy chart, featured in Business Insider, was created in 2011; since then, GE no longer has an interest in NBC, as it is now owned by Comcast. NewsCorp has also split into two companies, both largely owned by the Murdoch family.)
Corporate interests, and conformity have prevailed. The Journalistic world and image of Edward R. Murrow is as result unceremoniously murdered. What remains is the rotting corpse of a free press and free people. The means of government oversight by the media is now a thing of the past. Examples abound, but see South Carolina Senator, Trey Gowdy’s 600-page Congressional Report on Benghazi. It was criticized by a press that never bothered to discuss its content (and quite possibly never read it). The monopoly owned Main Stream Media refused to follow lead and ask the hard, important questions, presumably, they assumed the answers did not fit their bias and narrative, the new trend in US News.
Partisan bias rules supreme in corporate media, intent on manipulating and managing perceptions versus inform us. The 2016 Presidential Election, and the Main Stream Media biased treatment of Trump is a matter of fact. More recently, even Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy released a study of media coverage of Trump’s first 100 days, showing the news coverage of President Trump was 80/20 negative to positive; CNN and NBC were 93 percent negative in tone on President Trump.
(CNN, practicing objective journalism, focusing on issues of national importance.)
(A Harvard Kennedy School study, showing great negativity of tone towards President Trump, with CNN leading the pack at 93 percent.)
Problematically for the power elite, the Trump administration is disrupting their agenda, and they are visibly pushing back through their properties: the corporate, Main Stream Media. In an unprecedented manner they have been vocal, disrespectful and purposeful in trying to delegitimize the Trump presidency, through their Fake News, baseless witch-hunts, inflammatory commentary, sarcasm, and selective fact finding. This is all aimed at undermining the President’s effectiveness on the national and world stage.
This power grab by the power elite visibly weakens the United States’ efficacy and standing in the eyes of the world. The remaining minority of the unincorporated free press warn us that America is under siege from within, with the Trump Presidency being the spoiler of the power elite’s best laid plans. What plans you may ask?
THE POWER ELITE DABBLE IN TERRORISM, OBAMA CIA THE BROKER
The latest shadow economy venture of the power elite is Syria. As a member of the Trilateral Commission and by virtue of the office he held, President Obama is a member of the power elite. As President, Obama weakened the military by draining its brain trust and played both sides against the middle by diverting aid to terror groups; the Obama Administration arguably dragged out the expenditures associated with the military conflicts in Syria and the adjacent regions of Afghanistan and Iraq. These conflicts bring in hundreds of trillions of dollars to the power elite.
Obama served the Power Elite well. One such organization to study the Obama effect is the Middle East Institute (MEI). MEI is the oldest Washington-based institution dedicated solely to the study and analysis of the Middle East. It was founded in 1946 by reputed scholar, George Camp Keiser, and former U.S. Secretary of State, Christian Herter. Since then, it has meticulously safeguarded its reputation as an unbiased, nonpartisan source of information and analysis on this critical region of the world.
The MEI’s most recent reports confirm the disastrous results of the Obama Administration; “Under the direction of the Obama administration the CIA now covertly arms and finances ‘Syrian rebels,’ under the pretense of overthrowing Syria’s President Asad.” Mind one, this failed program exists in addition to another Obama tenure failed program: a $500 million Pentagon program that was supposedly training and equipping 15,000 Syrian rebels over the course of three years. The Pentagon program was canceled in 2015, having produced only a few dozen fighters, says Mr. Charles Lister, one of MEI’s leading experts on Syria. Splitting hairs over Lister’s claim of “a few dozen military graduates” from the Pentagon program are foreign national black ops sources. They claim 5 is the true number of the Pentagon’s military trained graduates. The program was a resounding failure.
President Obama did not dispute the Pentagon programs failure when raised in his televised interview with the CBS News show 60 Minutes. Logically, this roughly equates to a $100 million expenditure to prepare a single rebel soldier. Either way, that’s a lot of money laid out for nothing. Or was it? One is inclined to ask “do these failed programs have another one of those defense industry million dollar hammers or toilets sneaked into their expense budgets?” And who was really to blame? “In many ways, I would put the blame on the Obama administration,” Mr. Lister said of the Central Intelligence Agency’s failed Black ops program. The Obama administration never really wanted or planned for success, according to Mr. Lister.
The MEI reports also confirm that the Obama administration never gave it the necessary intelligence resources or time to determine the dynamics of the battlefield to produce an effective program. Lister represents further that the CIA programs run under the Obama administration were “drip-feeding opposition groups just enough to survive, but never enough to become dominant actors.”
President Trump announced during an interview with the Wall Street Journal that the CIA-supplied weapons ended up in the hands of “Al Qaeda” which is spun by the corporate media as “presumably a reference to the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, which often fought alongside the alleged Syrian CIA backed rebels.”
Did the Taliban and Al Qaeda experience a resurgence that coincides with the implementation of the Obama administration’s Pentagon and CIA Syrian rebel programs? This follow up question goes ignored by corporate media. Backchannel answers ‘Oh Yeah! They did!”
Was the Obama administration committed to NOT WINNING but prolonging the fight, and thus its costly expenditures?
The corporate media omits mention of Marcus Frishman who was “stiffed” by the Obama administration for not making good on their State Department Rewards Program, after he delivered. It is Frishman who is responsible for the non-violent capture of the infamous Al Qaeda terrorist, Marwin. This accomplished terrorist was sent to the Philippines to train recruits and organize them into terror cells. Marwin’s capture made headlines but not in the U.S., where it mattered. In fact, after proving he could deliver, Frishman states he had more high value targets/ terrorists in the cue ready to be turned over to the Obama administration’s DOJ for prosecution.
Contrary to what one would expect of the Obama administration’s State Department under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, proved to be in actuality indifferent. Apparently, paying lip service to what should have been a very successful anti-terror program. Seemingly, to discourage Frishman and others. It was public knowledge in the Philippines that Frishman pledged a large portion of the reward to go to the 44 families of slain officers that were killed in action trying to apprehend Marwin, prior to Frishman. The officers were acting on behalf of and under the direction of the CIA and U.S. State Department. In light of the lip service was Marwin tipped off by US State Department to ensure his escape and continued activities? The non-violent capture of Marwin held the CIA and State Department up to ridicule when Frishman testified before the Philippines Congressional Hearings on the matter. Some could argue that is why he wasn’t paid his reward. The Trump administration is revisiting the matter.
“In theater” SpecOps foreign nationals that are not subject to the Article 18 U.S.C. national secrets laws (but for obvious reasons cannot be identified) state the CIA and Pentagon Syrian Rebel programs were “planned failures.” The CIA’s goal is political / black economy motivated, in nature. The disbursement of limited military aid to terrorists prolonged the infighting amongst the terror groups by not allowing any single group to be a dominate player. This is a classic CIA signature.
The historic end game and strategic goal of the Afghani people has always been to fight a war of attrition. For centuries they pick off and patiently out last their enemies as time works for and not against the Afghans. It is over the course of time that costly military actions drain the economies, human resources, and the political resolve of the people. They ousted the British Empire and the Soviets this way. Both were superpowers. Their long drawn out campaigns resulted in the near economic collapse of their nations. Is this the fate of the United States of America? We are beginning to see the red flags with failing infrastructures and no funds available to correct the problem.
THE DELIBERATE MAKING OF REFUGEES FOR PROFIT AND POWER
(Various publications have lampooned and called attention to the various conflicts of interests of the power elite, as pictured above, from Counter Information.)
Public acknowledgement of the failed Obama-Admin-CIA run program seemingly only occurred when President Trump tweeted that he was ending “massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad.” The Washington Post first reported on Trump’s decision, downplaying it as not “important news,” but a reckless whimsical decision, a folly of Trump, being an arrogant, self-absorbed windbag. Importantly, the termination of the CIA’s Syrian Rebels program was made at the urging of Trump’s strategic policy advisors, who are at odds with the power elite. This decision to shut down the program (where the cost is thought equal to or greater than the Pentagon’s cost), means a loss of lucrative income for the program’s vendors and subsidiary holding companies of the power elite who Trump’s advisors are familiar and have bumped heads with in the past over their alleged price gouging.
The power elite use their media to further their agenda. For example, they skirt how Trump’s immigration bans from the Middle-east impact them, financially, reducing the lucrative income being derived from government-paid-for refugee resettlement programs. These programs that cost US taxpayers an estimated $80,000 per refugee or higher that flows to and through subsidiary holdings of the power elite, enriching them. With tens if not hundreds of thousands of refugees already resettled at this cost to tax payers throughout Europe and the United States, the cost is staggering. Opposition to the ban has really more to with the power elite having the freedom to herd together and export as many refugees as fast as they can like cattle being sent to market at $80,000 a head.
The Power Elite are not idealists, either. They can work with Trump when their interests are aligned, such as in utilizing weapons. The MSM heaped praise upon President Trump when he bombed Syria, authorizing a missile strike in response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his citizens. The use of missiles is seemingly inconsistent with left-leaning outlets’ ideologies.
INSIDIOUS EFFECTS OF THE POWER ELITE
Also newsworthy but scarcely mentioned are the political ramifications and manipulation of refugee settlement. How these refugees are being strategically relocated not randomly by which to assimilate cohesively into the community, but in specific groupings to alter the voter political party demographics of the areas where they are placed.
All of the behind-the-scenes manipulations begs the question: is it the Syrian people or external interference that is responsible for the civil war’s outbreak, or expansion, that has produced 13.5 million Syrian refugees to date?
The power elite’s industrial war complex historically plays both sides against the middle and benefits from national leaders being removed from office that do not serve their interests. The assassination of President Kennedy removed him as the roadblock to escalating the War in Vietnam, that earned the power elite trillions of dollars; the deposing of the Shah of Iran that paved the way for the Iran and Iraq war, that earns the power elite trillions of dollars; the refusal to accept the surrender of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to the Ambassador of Spain resulted in invasion and the ongoing military occupation of Iraq that earned and continues to give the power elite trillions of dollars; the deposing of the Taliban and occupation of Afghanistan earns the power elite trillions of dollars; and likewise, can we anticipate this will happen again. Additionally, today the power elite control the means of information, the media, and effectively what the ordinary, uncritical masses think and believe. President Trump is doing battle with the power elite.
