Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Friday, December 7, 2007, 5 pm PST
This Week's Show
“ I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism.”
from War is a Racket by Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler
“All of them are racketeers, but the corporate kinds are nastier.”
William B. Reynolds, Investigator
Guido sold the best pizza in Brooklyn. He had learned how from his Mama, a woman who understood why fresh matters in the Old Country. Guido's Pizza was therefore the busiest pizza parlor in Brooklyn, with customers standing in line for a seat. But Guido was ambitious; he wanted to expand into the now vacant shop next door so he could serve not only pizza but his Mama's special Marinara Sauce on their home-made pastas along with those knife thin slices of her special sausage and the roasted Mozzarella cheese dish that they reserved for special holidays.
Then, Guido imagined, he would open up franchises. Guido fancied the business model of McDonald's, Guido had hopes of becoming an International businessman with several shops in Manhattan. He sometimes gazed across the water to New York City, promising himself and his Mama, now deceased, that it would be so. He would even build a shop in their village back in Italy.
His Mama would be proud.
So Guido went down to the see the Capo, Mr. Clametto for a loan. Mr. Clametto sometimes came by to have a pizza, Clametto was always dressed well, in an expensive suit and bright tie.
Mr. Clametto slapped him on the back and shook his hand.
“What! You need money, God forbid you should have to ask when you make the best pizza I had in my life, even home in Sicily. Vinny will set you up. Say no more.”
Vinny had counted out 50,000.00 clams in hundreds on the way out, backed by the full faith and enforcement of Mr. Clametto's organization, Costa Nostra. Guido had never seen so much money in his life.
Today, Guido's Pizza has a different kind of clientèle and Guido understands that there was a hook in the cash.
Too much cash always has a hook, embedded deep enough so you do not see it. There would be no chain of shops serving wonderful food for Guido, only barriers to dreams.
Some racketeers come in flashy ties. Others wear quieter apparel but the hook is always ready and waiting.
Today Americans are finding the hook in the mortgage they took out on their home. Some of the mortgages written in the last seven years promised – and gave the borrower – 125% of the value of the house. Borrowers could hardly believe that it could be so easy to realize their dreams. Vacations, desperately needed medical treatments for those they loved, making their home into the vision they had hungered to have when they were still young enough to enjoy it. There were lots of reasons for borrowing. But those loans were made when the dollar was solid and real estate seen as an investment that could be expected to be better than gold. Those dreams are also dying. You see, your government has found a way to convert your home into a form of currency and you into a serf.
Vinny and Mr. Clametto wanted their money. So do those better dressed racketeers.
Sometimes when Mr. Clametto wanted to distract attention from what was really happening he would focus attention elsewhere. That is what has been going on with banks and mortgages today. According to the FBI, “ Mortgage fraud is a significant and growing concern in the United States. Mortgage fraud schemes are perpetrated by individuals acting alone or in collusion with borrowers, loan originators, or real estate professionals. All mortgage fraud schemes contain a material misstatement, misrepresentation or omission relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase, or insure a loan. Given the significant role of mortgages in our economy, mortgage fraud has been recognized as a significant criminal problem by the FBI and has been treated accordingly.”
Individuals, like Mr. Guido, get a few thousand dollars more than necessary, still on the hook for the whole amount, and the bank writes a 'mortgage' using money that suddenly comes into existence like the Genie in the Bottle, having existed no place else but on a line entered into an account.
Notice that the FBI will not be investigating the banks. The chatter about 'mortgage fraud by individuals or your local broker,' is laid out by such as the FBI to distract you from the larger con, which is now reaching fruition.
We have a word for that, we call it collusion to commit fraud, massive fraud on a scale that threatens the International monetary system. This is racketeering that would have numbed the mind of Mr. Clametto with awe and envy. He might even buy a more subdued tie.
The conspirators, in this case, are those in charge of our government and their friends in banking. Proof of this lies in the fact they are now suspending foreclosure on homes. This fraud runs from your neighborhood to the White House in a trail of broken hearts and dreams of ordinary Americans. If that were not bad enough, we have also been victimized by political doublespeak where phrases like 'home ownership' are better understood as slavery.
There is an answer.
The first step on that path is to let the truth sink in. Then we, the people, need to come together and take action. The predatory nastiness of recent years has its roots in the same ugliness cited by Brigadier General Smedley Butler in his book, “War is a Racket,” published in 1935.
War is one kind of racket; real estate, the stock market, and nearly every part of your life, has sprouted with other rackets run by the same kinds of people. These con games, rackets all, are run by people very much like Mr. Clametto, though more conservatively dressed, who graduated from schools like Yale and live pampered lives. They expect wealth; they expect that they will never be held accountable for their own actions.
Smedley Butler was the most decorated general in America and had been the recipient of two Medals of Honor. Lowell Thomas, famous himself, said of Butler in the introduction written for the Reader's Digest version of, “War is a Racket,” “Even his opponents concede that in his stand on public questions, General Butler has been motivated by the same fiery integrity and loyal patriotism which has distinguished his service in countless Marine campaigns.”
Butler was personally responsible for stopping the attempted military take over of America's government in 1934. Among those who plotted that take-over was Senator Prescott Bush, the grandfather of George W. Bush. Clearly, W. is obsessed with finishing the job his grandfather started.
Then, as today, the media was owned by the corporations. The investigation in Congress, arising from the disclosure by General Butler, was quashed. General Butler died in 1940.
The job of wresting our lives back from the clutching grasp of the CorporaState remains to be accomplished. The book, “War is a Racket,” is not easy to find today but is one you should find and read. When you understand change will happen.
Hear more about what you can do and what you need to know on our radio show, Off the Grids from our guest, William Reynolds, who has spent a life time investigating those in power and finding the flaws in their plans. This show will air on BBSRadio.com, Friday, December 7th at 5pm Pacific Time, hosted by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster.
Get off all the grids. This is not the vision our founders had for America. What we see today is a fascist state biggest than anyone could have imagined possible.
There are solutions, and those solutions take us back to the foundational values that forged the vision that is America. Because America is not our government and not land or even the people. It is a destination on the horizon that beckons us to find connection with each other through myriad acts of good will.
There are solutions to each of these problems because while they were busy picking our pockets the world was changing. The promise of connection is being fulfilled; transparency in all things is a precondition to the connections now becoming obvious. America will not only survive, it will become the model that will remake the world.
Get started.
Off the Grids
Most of us are scared. We know that the economy is out of control, the dollar is on a downward spiral that will take with it our pensions and hopes for prosperity and security. America is facing real problems – but there are solutions and those solutions can take us to a place that is much better than you imagine.
The problems above all originate in Grid Points that we have been forced onto through strategies carefully orchestrated by corporations, such as petroleum companies and power companies working with and through government. In effect, we have paid to forge our own shackles and then lock them in place. Do not think for a moment that those who are profiting did not understand where the policies we were sold over the last many years would take us.
It was power companies and government that decided that your electric company was a quasi-governmental agency without liability for anything they do. That is why when the electric company causes fires, burns out motors, or leaves you without power, it is not liable. But they are quick to turn off your power. Today most Americans live only months, or days from disaster. That must change and those changes hinge on understanding how we got here and how to move forward into a better world. It can happen and it will.
You can get off the grids and back to real security and a freedom that is true and not illusion. Endless indulgence was always an illusion. No matter what those in power said the free ride had to end, and it has.
America was seduced into believing that consumption and emotional disconnection is freedom. It isn't and it never was. Real freedom starts with responsibility and community, helping others and standing tall in the knowledge that your honor is intact because you have done right by others and yourself. That is something people like George Bush can never feel because their sense of power comes from deceit and generations of violence visited on all of us. George Bush would be funny if he weren't so dangerous. This year consider buying a Christmas card that sends a message that makes you laugh and speaks real real peace. Doing so supports our work. Also, please think about sponsoring our work or becoming an advertiser.
On Off the Grids, the radio program every week hosted by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, the Spiritual Politician, we talk about the grids that bind us for the profit of corporations and how to step off to freedom.
Join us to begin the journey to freedom and community as we find out how others across the country are solving the problems. Live Locally and in Community with others.
About being a Spiritual Politician
Bringing government into alignment with the Lessons of Jesus:
The focus of our show is how to bring government into alignment with truth of our spiritual nature. So America started with the idea we are all, inherently free. We are free to choose, free to live, to breath, and to live our lives as we see fit. Government does not own us; government is just a contractor, providing service.
That framework is in alignment with the spiritual truth that each of us connects to God directly, needing no agency as an intermediary. To be free is to be free in the spirit and so in the flesh that temporarily holds the spirit.
When Thomas Jefferson said we were all possessed of inherent rights, existing before government he was extending a spiritual truth into a civic form. It is that Mission Statement from the Declaration of Independence we need to keep in mind.
Because we are free and reject, as did Christ, the use of deceit, manipulation or violence we need to be conscious about our relationships with others and find ways to grow into the sense of connection and community that makes us One in Him.
This is especially true for Christians but it is true for everyone else as well.
Nearly every major spiritual viewpoint enunciates the idea that we are connected to each other and should be good to each other. Christians just have an even more exacting mission. Christians are to love every one, treating them as they would Jesus.
Jesus was very clear about how we were to treat others. He did not say that it was alright to be abusive, deceitful, and violent if we used government as our tool and agent. There was no exception, He wanted all of our hearts, minds and souls. Christ did not lay out any plan of government, but left it to the conscience of the individual, the same way He connects to each of us.
So our job here at the Spiritual Politician is to look at Government as a human tool we use every day. We need to consider if government is working in a way that speaks that common understanding about our connections to each other and, if it is not, we need to change it.
Americans have had many successes over the last 231 years since our founding and, learning from both mistakes and successes we can consider that question. So here at the Spiritual Politician we look at the truth behind of rhetoric.
Given what is going on today in Government what we may decide to do it reboot the whole system.
To provide the examples of what has gone right and what has gone very wrong we here at the Spiritual Politician have put together several different kinds of segments you will hear on our show from time to time.
Founder and president of the Arthur C. Pillsbury Foundation
Books by Melinda: Links to Melinda's sites:
How the NeoCons Stole Freedom
Shards of Verse Melinda's Poetry
Greed: The NeoConning of America
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