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WHEN THE FRINGE BECOMES
THE CENTER
V
<
MARTHA CRAWFORD
BY D. ARMSTRONG
"We'll go to economic summits and we'll do negotiations
But the business, as usual, is public relations
They won't fix it in their boardrooms or out at their resorts
It makes for bad financial statements and quarterly reports
It doesn't matter at their summer home, or out there on
their yacht
They never thought to give a damn with all the crap they
got."
-TH E GREEN RAPPER
Might we reckon with some desperate truths, should
we dare lay radical philosophies of left and right upon each other
and speculate on the unspoilt ground which they share? The
recent Senate hearings on the militia movement in the United
States provided a rare glimpse into that peculiarly American
entity. Their testimony revealed a passionate distrust in all
branches of our government, international banking conglomer
ates and the CIA. In spite of all unlikelihood, amid a campaign of
media vtfiitewash and ridicule, could it be that these men actual
ly had something important to say?
Generally speaking, progressive minds responded to
their fiery testimony with the same kind of knee-jerk reaction
they attribute to the ultra-conservatives. But let's not be so
hasty. Beneath all the military paraphernalia and jargon, aside
from the frightening Christian-hate group rap, what exactly was it
these men were throwing in the face of Senator Specter?
"I submit to you sir, that the Central Intelligence Agency
has been in the business of killing Americans and killing people
in the United States and around the world since 1946 (sic).
I submit to you sir, that the Central Intelligence Agency is
probably the grandest conspirator in all of this government, and
I submit to you sir, that perhaps the puppeteer strings of the
Central Intelligence Agency reach even into the Senators, per
haps, before us and, perhaps also, in the Senate of the United
States." This said, Norman Olson of the Michigan Militia dutifully
offered "six pounds" of documents to detail his allegations.
unbelt
teries
With equal heat, Montana Militia representatives offered
a list of reasons why they had lost trust in the United States
Government. 'The high office of the Presidency has become a
position of dictatorial oppression through the abusive use of
executive orders and directives. Billions of our tax dollars are
forcibly sent out to pay off the banking elite...the government
refuses to hold hearings on government sanctioned abuses, and
whitewashing those that are held." Our government, they go on
to say, v\rorks in "secret shadow means," operating with "black
covert funding" and is presently militarizing the police depart
ments in anticipation of martial necessity
This is not new news to American progressives.They
have been issuing the very same declarations for years. It
should be, however, considerably revelatory to those in the
middle where opinion holds sway. These men in uniform have
accurately targeted the wdespread "business as usual" money
politics that harnesses our society. What screams out of this is
the fearful truth. It may not be that the right and left agree on
much, but the one note they both strike loud and clear is that our
constitutional rights are in deep jeopardy and that democracy
wobbles with corruption here in America. Think about it. Does it
really matter who tells us that the waterhole is poisoned, as long
as everyone understands not to drink from it?
There is a popular conspiracy theory that circulates
through the radical right. Bristling in the words of these militia
leaders were the filaments of this paranoid vision they label the
New World Order. ("What's that, Mr. Bush?") Government has
conjoined with big business. NAFTA and GATT are just the
beginnings of a new global economic management system, and
to these highly patriotic "Americans" the first step toward the
breaking down of national borders, the dissolution of individual
currencies, and a surrendering to the banking elite. The global
village may be a utopian vision for the left, but the ideal has
nothing to do with the manipulative practices of multinational
banking conglomerates. Foreseen by these rightwng constitu
tionalists is a socialist world run by bankers and policed by a
covert and mercenary intelligence agency. (Just because you're
paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you!)
In light of this, the indebtedness banking strategy des
cribed in the article entitled 'The World Bank and The Immiser-
ation of the Third World" by Harry Johnson in the June/July‘95
NCTE should inspire a wave of sharp nausea in thinking minds.
The same banking mechanics that chain Third World nations to
these so-called austerity programs are also presently at work in
the United States. The Reserve Bank has us bridled with a debt
that we can not catch up with. And in response to its sharp bit,
budget reductions have been cut deepest right where we are
already severely deficit - education, health, and care for the
elderly. Just as the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund harness indebted Third World countries, though surely not
to the same extreme, the Reserve Bank controls our economy
simply by dialing in the prime interest rate to keep eight million
Americans unemployed and to give the farmers added incentive
to bum the top soil a little deeper every now and then.
That's why the national debt has become the central
target of American politics for the last ten years. The greatest
nation in the world submits to the yoke of international fiscal
wll. And sad to say, we are only relatively better off than those
Third World nations regarding the management of our natural
resources. In an age of increasing ecological despair, in both the
United States and the Third World, the agricultural methods of
the austerity banking regime continue to aim at quick return and
ignore long-term damage to Mother Earth. Driven by the loom
ing presence of national debt, present stripmining techniques,
extensive farmland irrigation, high intensity chemical fertilizing,
and conscienceless extraction of living resources amount to
global suicide.
Even worse is the way the bridle of deficit finance
promotes, albeit indirectly, the necessity of blackmarket drugs.
(Ah, yes, it's getting clearer now, Senator Kerry!) In the face of
national poverty, Third World leaders consent to illegal drug
cultivation and trafficking in order to survive the political crush
of this legitimized blackmail And the bankers simply turn their
heads, because certainly regardless of origin, the profits invari- ,
ably come back to them
It is ironic to recall how 25 years ago the drug culture
joined in with the wave of new politics. Now the drug culture has
lost all political sophistication and has additionally become the
fueling source for the New Imperialism. Drugs sold on the street
in the United States contribute to the bankrolling of covert indus
trial strongarm tactics abroad. Hail to the war on drugs!
If this is beginning to sound like conspiracy theory,
the truth is simpler than that. There need be no conspiracy
when money is the element of our global breath! Greed is the
natural common denominator. No, there is no conspiracy.
Money makes money. This is a known fact. All that goes on
is simple solid investment philosophy espoused and carried
out among consenting adults. Can you believe it: One day
the accumulation of interest will exceed the natural resource
value of the planet! What then? Mars here we come? Or how
about a return to the practice of slavery?
As this paranoid vision expands, one must shudder
at the ease in which the Omnibus Counter-Terrorism Act sped
through the Senate (and may do the same in the House). In
some perversion of sense, our dear liberal President Clinton has
proposed a bill that King Richard himself could not have posed
in more dangerously vague language. It reads like an open
ticket to jail or a fine to anyone who opposes the party line. WHIT
the changing of the guard be careful of your affiliates today for ’
they may be grounds to suspend your freedom tomorrow. That 1
the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City should
occur just as this bill went to vote suggests more than this w ite r
feels comfortable disseminating in any way but between these 1
lines.
The point is that something is clearly wrong. Those in
the middle should open up their eyes and ears and try to deter
mine what this ruckus on the left and on the right is all about.
Use your common sense. Cull out the radical in these philoso
phies, look for what is true despite the bias, and know - even
were it all conspirational disinformation - there must be some
seed of truth at the bottom of it. If there's this much smoke, you
know there's a fire blazing somewhere.
Dan Armstrong is a writer and lives in Astoria. His article
is "pretty much inspired," he wites, by Harry Johnson's article
('The World Bank & the Immiseration of the Third World, June/
July 95, NCTE) and the recent Senate Hearings of the Militia in
America. "It may be that I'm stumbling through my political
correctness , but I'm also the kind of guy who's been known to '
(expletive deleted) in public. I don't know. You be the judge."
«
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