One cannot separate economics, political science, and history. Politics is the control of the economy. History, when accurately and fully recorded, is that story. In most textbooks and classrooms, not only are these three fields of study separated, but they are further compartmentalized into separate subfields, obscuring the close interconnections between them.
–J.W. Smith, The World’s Wasted Wealth 2, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), p. 22.
People of the same trade seldom meet together… but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices.–Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
President John Adams said it well in 1771: “It is not only . . . [the juror’s] right, but his duty . . . to findthe verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, andconscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”
First US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, writing in Georgia v.Brailsford, 1794, concluded: “The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact incontroversy.”
President Thomas Jefferson in 1789 told Thomas Paine: “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
To a blind mind eyes are useless. Arab proverb
All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed; then it is violently opposed; and finally it is accepted as self-evident.
–Schopenhauer
I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of old ones. — John Cage
As William Pitt put it in 1770, “There is something behind the throne greater than the King”.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. Aesop.
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
Audre Lorde
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed”
… Ayn Rand
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable” … H.L.Mencken
The cultural historian, Jaques Barzun, defined specialism as:… a piece of etiquette which decrees that no specialist shall bother with the concerns of another, lest he be thought intruding and be shown up as ignorant. Specialism is born of what the philosopher Arthur Balfour called ‘the pernicious doctrine that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all.’ Rampant specialism, an arbitrary and purely social evil, is not recognized for the crabbed guild spirit that it is, and few are bold enough to say that carving out a small domain and exhausting its soil affords as much chance for protected irresponsibility as for scientific thoroughness.
– Science: the glorious entertainment.
As Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology points out, “the assumption behind [scientific] consensus is that science is a source of authority. Rather, it is a particularly effective approach to inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science; consensus is foreign.To expect agreement on all or many aspects of a multifaceted issue would be unreasonable.”
“A banker is a man who loans you umbrellas when the sun is shining and demands it back the moment it looks like rain.”
Mark Twain
The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent and labour power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its’ citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen.
There is none that disperses its’ control more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media & none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.”:
– Howard Zinn, from ‘A People’s History of the United States,’ first published 1981
“The seven deadly sins are wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle.” – Ghandi
It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite impractical, and goes against human nature.This is perfectly true. It is impractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development.
—Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
“What is not already obvious here?” — A Plebeian
“Agree with me if I seem to you to speak the truth; or, if not, withstand me might and main that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my desire, and like the bee leave my sting in you before I die. And now let us proceed.” — Socrates
“Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect,” advised Mark Twain.
Lily Tomlin: “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.”
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
“For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”
– Niccolo Machiavelli
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control of governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
– President James Madison
“The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy.”
– President Abraham Lincoln
“Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.”
– Paul Warburg, drafter of the Federal Reserve Act
“I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create money. The amount of money in existence varies only with the action of the banks in increasing and decreasing deposits and bank purchases. Every loan, overdraft, or bank purchase creates a deposit and every repayment of a loan, overdraft or bank sale destroys a deposit. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.”
– Reginald McKenna,
past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England
“Banking was conceived in inequity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the costs of your own salary, let them continue to create deposits.”
– Sir Josiah Stamp – Bank of England
“A great Industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world – no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.”
– President Woodrow Wilson
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.”
(President regretted signing into law the Federal Reserve Act)
–President Woodrow Wilson
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.”
– Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of Banking & Currency Committee
In 1932:
“The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks government at will …”
In 1933:
“Roosevelt has brought with him from Wall Street James P. Warburg, son of Paul M. Warburg, Organizer and first Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve System…”
In 1950:
“This same Warburg had the audacity and arrogance to proclaim before the U.S. Senate: ‘We shall have World Government whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by Conquest or Consent’.”
“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money-lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.”
– Senator Barry Goldwater
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
– Henry Ford
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