Know your BFEE: John McCain, Dim Knight Errant of the War Party

[Octafish]

He may call himself “Maverick,” but John S. McCain is a dead ringer for W,
as in “Warmonger” by any other name, just another stooge for the War Party.



Their game is as old as history: Old Money’s Best Friend Forever is war.
And this guy runs in the Reich circles, touching on every evil base
in that empire. For instance:

Wall Street CIA Mafia Axis of Trust Funds

McCain guru linked to subprime crisis

By: Lisa Lerer
March 30, 2008 02:54 PM EST

The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.

“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech. “But by the time was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”

Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.

A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.

Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.

During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.

CONTINUED…

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html

Maybe that’s why I get so sick to my stomach whenever I hear McCain say he’s going to root out the crooks in Washington. No he’s not. He’s been hanging out with corrupt traitors and their paymasters for the better part of three decades. Which brings us to the Korean CIA and a bunch of other nice Fellahs’ favorite cash cow:



Moon over Maverick

Senior McCain adviser helped arrange Rev. Moon coronation

05/09/2008 @ 1:50 pm
Filed by Nick Juliano
RawStory.com

A bizarre Capitol Hill ceremony a few years ago in which the eccentric conservative publisher the Rev. Sun Myung Moon declared himself the Second Coming was organized with help from a senior adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign.

Charlie Black, a Washington lobbyist and McCain confidant, lent his name to the coronation ceremony and invited a few friends, according to newly disclosed e-mails.

"What is clear from this email is that top McCain advisor Charlie Black is admitting that he helped plan, and would have attended, an event where a convicted tax fraud would have been crowned King Of America and declared himself the Messiah--all on U.S. Government federal property (on March 23, 2004)," writes author Cliff Schecter, who published the e-mails on his blog Friday.

In the e-mails, which were also obtained by RAW STORY, Black said he became involved because of his relationships with executives at the Washington Times, the conservative, Moon-owned newspaper, and its charitable foundation.

"I think the dinner committee list included a number of us 'secular' conservatives," Black writes in one e-mail to author John Gorenfeld, who has explored Moon's influence in Washington in his book Bad Moon Rising.

SNIP…

On May 7, 2004, at 11:16 AM, CHARLIE BLACK wrote:

I don't know if it is annual, but they have done similar events. I don't know Reverend Moon, but work with the management of the Washington Times and their foundation occasionally on conservative causes. I think the dinner committee list included a number of us "secular" conservatives.



Charlie Black
BKSH & Associates
(202) xxx-xxxx

CONTINUED...

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Senior_McCain_adviser_helped_arrange_to_0509.html

LOL.

Of course, John McCain wants to hang out with a younger crowd, like the Russian Oligarchs. Who doesn't?



At Home with Oligarchs and The Mob

Aide Helped Controversial Russian Meet McCain

Davis, Then a Lobbyist, Has Spurred Debate in Reform-Focused Campaign

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 25, 2008; A01

A top political adviser in Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign helped arrange an introduction in 2006 between McCain and a Russian billionaire whose suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures are so controversial that the U.S. government revoked his visa.

Rick Davis, who is now McCain’s campaign manager, helped set up the encounter between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in Switzerland during an international economic conference. At the time, Davis was working for a lobbying firm and seeking to do business with the billionaire.

There is no evidence that McCain did anything for Deripaska after they met at a social gathering over drinks and dinner. Deripaska was grateful for the introduction, writing a thank-you note to Davis and his partner and offering to assist them in a subsequent business deal, according to a copy of the note obtained by The Washington Post.

With a net worth of more than $13 billion, Deripaska is one of the richest men in Russia and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin. McCain has been one of Putin’s sharpest U.S. critics, calling for Russia to be kicked out of the Group of Eight industrialized nations because of Putin’s anti-democratic activities. The Arizona Republican has also repeatedly complained about the negative impact of Kremlin-linked oligarchs such as Deripaska.

When Deripaska met McCain, Davis was part of Davis Manafort, a lobbying firm that was being paid to provide political advice to pro-Russian and oligarch-funded candidates in Ukraine, according to interviews and news accounts. At the same time, McCain was publicly supporting those candidates’ Western-oriented democratic rivals.

The socializing with Deripaska provides a case study in the challenges faced by McCain, a longtime foe of Washington lobbyists who has a well-known lobbyist as his top political aide. Davis, who has been a political adviser to McCain on and off since 1999, was part of a lobbying firm that worked not only for Ukrainian politicians but also for telecommunications firms, a lottery services provider and freight companies.

Mark Salter, a spokesman for McCain, said that meetings with Deripaska took place during official trips abroad by senators and that McCain did nothing improper. “Any contact between Mr. Deripaska and the senator was social and incidental,” he added.

Salter said the contact between McCain and Deripaska did not constitute a “private meeting”; both men were part of larger gatherings.

Davis declined to comment, saying by e-mail that his activities regarding Deripaska “all relate to my private business and have nothing to do with Senator John McCain.”

CONTINUED…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/24/AR2008012403383.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008012500226

No Thing better than a Friend,
of course with the exception of Old Money.



Baron de Rothschild and Prescott Bush
sharing a bit of information, perhaps.

[opihimoimoi]

1. KnR....Mahalo for the Thread....very informative/revealing

A lot of your post is kept from the public as a matter of course....they will acknowledge ,,,but...little else...

Thanks for sharing...more of us should know this as ammo for the fight with them DIRTY ROTTEN CONSERVATIVEs///Obama proves this when ya use TRUTH...Thats a LOTTA AMMO.....

McMoot is using prevarications/out right LIES and when competing with TRUTH....usually Fatal....hence his present odds....grim and dismal....

:toast:

[Octafish]

2. The Russian Oligarchs of the 1990's

Thank you, Hermano. You shook hands with a man who kept the world at peace when others would have gone nuke-yoo-ler.

So, as a Kennedy Democrat, I've got nothing against rich people --just those who think other people are property or cannon fodder.

Pure Machiavelli: Use money to consolidate power and power to accumulate money.

The Russian Oligarchs of the 1990's

By Thayer Watkins
Silicon Valley
& Tornado Alley
USA

There were some individuals who became so immensely rich in the privatization of the assets of the Soviet system that they became known as the oligarchs. The name implies that they were powerful. They were not the only ones who became rich, but their success put them into a separate class. Some have lost their status as a result of the August 1998 financial crisis but all of the original seven oligarchs are included here. Their names are:

Boris Berezovsky

Mikhail Friedman

Vladimir Gusinsky

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Vladimir Potanin

Alexander Smolensky

Vladimir Vinogradov

Sources:

Paul Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia, Harcourt, Inc., New York, 2000.
Chrystia Freeland, Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism, Crown Business, New York, 2000.
Marshall I. Goldman, Lost Opportunity: What Has Made Economic Reform in Russia So Difficult, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1996.
David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia, Perseus Book Group, New York, 2002.



Boris Berezovsky

Boris Berezovsky came to the business world of Russia by an odd route. He was a software engineer. He was born and raised in Moscow and received a high quality education in electronics and computer science at an institution that was involved in the Soviet space program. Berezovsky went on to graduate school at Moscow State University where he earned the equivalent of an American Ph.D. in the 1970's and finally a Russian Ph.D. which is more advanced than an American Ph.D. in 1983 at the age of 37. He worked for twenty five years at the Soviet Academy of Science in the field of decision-making and in the field of computer automation of industry.

He decided to enter the business world. At the Academy of Science he had worked with the Avtovaz, an enterprise the Soviet government had set up to produce automobiles for the mass Soviet market. The Soviet government contracted for the Italian automaker Fiat to build a large scale auto plant 700 miles east of Moscow. The city in which the plant was located was named Togliatti after the head of the Italian Communist Party. The plant was not a technical triumph. It was vastly overstaffed and the quality of the product was low. The labor productivity was approximately one thirtieth of labor productivity in the American and Japanese automobile industries.

Berezovsky proposed to Avtovaz that he provide help to the enterprise for automation and computer control of operations. The structure of the arrangement was that Berezovsky would set up a company in Switzerland that would create a joint venture with Avtovaz. This would gain the benefit of the Soviet government program set up to encourage foriegn investment in the Soviet economy. One special feature of a joint venture is the foreign partner could take some profits of the enterprize out of the country.

Once the legal structure for the foreign partner in Italy, Logovaz, was set up Berezovsky became involved in operating a car dealership to sell the Ladas produced by Avtovaz. Car dealerships extremely profitable and were a favorite target of organized gangs demanding protection money. Berezovsky arranged his own protection from the Chechens and tried to keep out the other gangs demanding a shakedown.

The Russian gangs were not easily discouraged. Gang warfare raged. Berezovsky left the country. When he returned he was the target of more than one assassination attempt. The most serious one involved a car bomb. Berezovsky was riding in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes with his bodyguard. As his vehicle passed a parked car a bomb in that car was detonated. The chauffeur's head was blown off, the bodyguard was severely injured and Berezovsky was seriously burned. There was other assaults on Logovaz' operations, but when the leader of the Russian gangs was killed by a car bomb the assaults stopped.

The car dealerships were extremely profitable, in part, because of a process Berezovsky called the privatization of the profit of a state enterprise. Avtovaz produced Ladas at an average cost of about $4700 but sold them to autodealers at $3500 per car. The dealers then sold the cars for $7000 each. The underpricing of the cars by Avtovaz came as a result of the control of its management. Thus Berezovsky moved the potential profit of the state enterprise out of the enterprise and into the private enterprise of the dealerships. Since such a money-losing enterprise would not have much market value it would be cheap to buy ownership. This is the scenario proposed by Berezovsky.

In 1996 Berezovsky told Paul Klebnikov, the author of Godfather of the Kremlin,

Privatization in Russia goes through three stages. The first stage is the privatization of profits. The second is the privatization of property. The third is the privatization of debt.

He left out the essential zeroeth step: gaining control of management. It is this step which allows the privatization of the profits of an enterprise where, as in the case of Avtovaz, the profits can be transferred out of the enterprise by the under pricing of the product. The profits could just as well be transferred out of the enterprise by overpaying for supplies.

Berezovsky did go on to acquire ownership of Avtovaz, but there were bigger prizes available to occupy his attention such as the airline Aeroflot. In Soviet days when people were asked what was the world's largest airline they would be to find that it was not one of the well known lines but instead Aeroflot, the single airline which served the Soviet markets.

CONTINUED...

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/oligarchs.htm

Thanks to international banking, they've managed to take over the global financial system.



And we keep paying them and some of us even thank them for the privilege.

The only thing we got to fight back with is Free -- the Truth.

And it is our best weapon, my Friend.

[opihimoimoi]

3. Truth and How to Effectively Disseminate in American Society 2000's

Obama seems to have gotten the Handle on Truth and How to use against political adversaries... In addition...he has class....

[Swamp Rat]

4. k&r

[Octafish]

6. Key 'Yachtgate' witness has signed a statement about George Osborne

People. People who use people. Are the richest people in the world.

Key 'Yachtgate' witness has signed a statement about George Osborne

James Goodwin, the key witness in the Yachtgate affair, has written a signed statement for his lawyers about the conversations he heard on the Russian oligarch's yacht about donations to the Tory party.

By Andrew Pierce and James Quinn
Last Updated: 7:16AM BST 23 Oct 2008

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Mr Goodwin, a New York financier with links to former US president Bill Clinton, is willing to provide the statement to any official investigation at Westminster into George Osborne's meetings with Oleg Deripaska.

A friend of Mr Goodwin, who has so far declined to make any comment about what he witnessed on the yacht and at two separate meetings with Mr Osborne in the home of Nat Rothschild in Corfu, said: "I understand the statement is already written about everything he saw and heard. If there is an investigation I think you can expect he will co-operate by providing it to the relevant authorities."

Mr Goodwin first met Mr Rothschild through Atticus Capital, his hedge fund, in the late 1990's. Mr Rothschild had moved to New York after he joined the merchant bank Lazards.

By 1999, Mr Goodwin was working alongside Atticus, becoming a director of US restaurant chain Champps, as did Mr Rothschild. Mr Goodwin first met Mr Deripaska through Mr Rothschild.

Mr Goodwin made such a strong impression on the Russian oligarch that the New Yorker was nominated as a proxy director to the board of Norlisk Nickel, a Soviet mining company in which Deripaska's RusAl aluminium company owns a minority stake. He is regularly invited on to his £80 million yacht, the Queen K

SNIP...

During this time he briefly touched the highest echelons of American society, working as a special adviser to Thomas McLarty, President Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff, in 1993. By 1998, he formed his own consultancy, Half Moon.

CONTINUED...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/georgeosborne/3242457/Key-Yachtgate-witness-has-signed-a-statement-about-George-Osborne.html

D'ese guys are really sumpin', eh Compay?

[Initech]

5. But... but... he's a Maverick™!

[Octafish]

8. British Oligarch Scandal Hits McCain

Real Mav'vricky to hang out with gangsters, don'cha know?

British Oligarch Scandal Hits McCain

posted by Ari Berman
TheNation.com
on 10/24/2008 @ 12:18pm

Take Action Comments (24) Subscribe Now Text SizeAAARussian oligarch Oleg Deripaska is at the center of a major political scandal in Britain, accused of courting and cavorting with major figures from both the Labor and Tory parties.

The aluminum magnate Deripaska, who is very close to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and uses London as a major business outpost, has become a toxic figure on the other side of the pond.

The Times of London reported on October 12 that British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson--a top official in the Labor Party--had visited Deripaska aboard his megayacht off the Greek island of Corfu. Deripaska's right-hand man in London, Nathaniel Rothschild, then wrote a letter to the Times this week detailing how the Tory's chief economic advisor, George Osborne, and top fundraiser, Andrew Feldman, were also aboard Deripaska's yacht and tried to "solicit a donation" from the Russian oligarch.

Wrote Rothschild:

Since Mr. Deripaska is not a British citizen, it was subsequently suggested by Mr. Feldman during a conversation at which Mr. Deripaska was not present, that the donation was "channeled" through one of Mr. Deripaska's British companies. In a subsequent phone call in mid-September about one month later, Mr. Feldman again raised the issue of the donation with me. Mr. Deripaska decided that he did not wish to make any donation.

These revelations have prompted a major investigation into pay-to-play corruption on both sides of the aisle in Britain, with both the British and American press extensively covering the story.

The Deripaska scandal is especially newsworthy in light of the oligarch's connections to another powerful politician--John McCain. Mark Ames and I reported at length about this topic in a Nation article earlier this month, "McCain's Kremlin Ties."

We wrote:

Because of numerous accusations of involvement in death threats, extortion, racketeering and money laundering, Deripaska had been barred from entering America since 1998. The visa ban was costing Deripaska billions: for years he and fellow RusAl shareholders had sought to cash in their wealth by launching an IPO in London, which could have netted up to $10 billion for RusAl's owners. However, finding institutional buyers would be difficult if not impossible as long as RusAl's primary owner was barred from entering the United States.

Despite rampant Russophobia among Republicans, Deripaska turned to powerful GOP figures to solve his problem--especially to Republicans connected with McCain. In 2003 Deripaska hired former presidential candidate Bob Dole, who had nearly picked McCain as his running mate, and Dole's lobbying partner Bruce Jackson (also a McCain aide) to lobby the State Department to overturn the visa ban. Over the next few years Dole's firm, Alston & Bird, was paid more than $500,000 to push for Deripaska's visa.

Deripaska also reached out to a Washington-based intelligence firm, Diligence, chaired by GOP foreign policy hand Richard Burt, McCain's top foreign policy adviser in 2000 and an adviser in '08 (Burt left Diligence in 2007 to join Henry Kissinger's consulting firm). Deripaska's business partner in London, Nathaniel Rothschild, an heir to the English Rothschild fortune, bought a stake in Diligence, according to the New York Times and confirmed by a Rothschild spokesman. The firm offered Deripaska many useful services: corporate intelligence gathering, visa lobbying through considerable GOP connections and, crucially, help in obtaining a $150 million World Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for a Deripaska subsidiary, the Komi Aluminum Project. Getting the loan was useful in providing a layer of comfort to Western investors skittish about RusAl. So Diligence, now partly owned by Rothschild, provided a "due diligence" report to the World Bank, which the Bank then used to approve its loan to Deripaska.

Not surprisingly, the lobbying worked: in December 2005 Deripaska was issued a multientry US visa, according to the State Department.

However, Deripaska's trip did not end well. Under the visa's terms, he was forced to endure lengthy FBI questioning. The interview went badly--according to people who know him, Deripaska had little patience for prying bureaucrats. When he left the country, the visa ban was reinstated. Once again Deripaska turned to powerful Republicans--this time, to McCain and campaign manager Davis, who arranged the January 2006 Davos introduction. The McCain campaign later claimed that "any contact between Mr. Deripaska and the senator was social and incidental," but afterward Deripaska thanked Davis for arranging "such an intimate setting." The Washington Post reported that Davis was "seeking to do business with the billionaire." Indeed, Deripaska's subsequent thank-you letter mentioned his possible investment in a metals company Davis represented through a hedge-fund client.

Deripaska subsequently met McCain in Montenegro in August 2006, where Deripaska had earlier obtained control of the country's aluminum plant--its major economic asset--at Putin's request. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was already in the country, helping to secure Montenegro's independence from Serbia in a referendum campaign, which became a key geostrategic victory for the Kremlin and Deripaska. Two former senior US diplomats who served in the Balkans told us that Davis' lobbying firm received several million dollars to help run Montenegro's independence referendum campaign. The terms of the agreement were never disclosed to the public, but top Montenegrin officials told the US diplomats that Davis's work was underwritten by powerful Russian business interests connected to the Kremlin and operating in Montenegro.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/375662

Trademarked. LMAO!

[SpiralHawk]

7. Moonies for McSame !

Wow, I know the Bush Family has been in bed with Rev. "I Am the Second Coming of Christ" Moon. But did not know McCain was tight with the Moonies also?

What do evangelical Christian republicons feel about this Moon connection? Do they all BELIEVE Moon is the Second Coming?

If so, then we can all kick back and relax, right? We are all SAVED. Right? Just bow down and worship Rev. Moon, right?

[Octafish]

10. The Moonies and McCain’s Main Man

Hi, SpiralHawk! I don't think the "religious right" or "very religious right" or many know about the connection.

David Neiwert from Firedoglake goes where ABCNNBCBSFauxNoiseNutwork fails to tread -- the Truth:

The Moonies and McCain’s Main Man

By: David Neiwert Wednesday March 26, 2008 1:30 pm 0

Speaking of Charlie Black ...

I guess we all know now that the media get all worked up about some presidential candidates who have dealings with religious figures deemed "anti-American" and "hateful" -- but not all of them. If it's a black pastor at a church attended by a Democrat, well, they're on that like stink on shit. If, on the other hand, it's a Republican candidate who embraces apocalyptic nutcases and gay-bashing extremists, well, the very scent seems to make them faint.

The same principle is at work regarding the media's allergy to reporting on the way Republicans and the Moonies have their hands so deeply into each others' pockets that they're making their coins jingle. Of course, as John Gorenfeld explores in detail in his new book, Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom, this has been going on a long time. There was a brief exception back in 2004 -- when Moon held his coronation as the "King of America" in the Senate Dirksen Building.

So we can only assume that they'll likely ignore the revelations in Gorenfeld's book that none other than uber-lobbyist Charlie Black -- not just McCain's "chief political adviser" but a right-hand man for the Bush clan as well -- played a role in making that coronation happen.

CONTINUED w/LINKS:

http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/26/the-moonies-and-mccains-main-man/

It just goes deeper and deeper. At the bottom, I imagine, lies a fellah with horns and hooves and it's hot and not Halloween.

[SpiralHawk]

16. "Moonies and republicons have their hands deep in each other's pockets."

Americans need more than a Wide Stance to grasp the foulness of that reality....

[deaniac21]

9. McCain and the Bush family have been very close for decades.

They are like brothers.

[Octafish]

11. McCain Pinochet Private Visit Revealed

They are like brothers, deaniac21. Blood brothers.



Family, you might say.

They even share the same fiends... er, friends.

McCain Pinochet Private Visit Revealed

John Dinges
Posted October 24, 2008 | 12:54 AM (EST)

John McCain, who has harshly criticized the idea of sitting down with dictators without pre-conditions, appears to have done just that. In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile's military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians and jailing tens of thousands of others.

The private meeting between McCain and dictator Pinochet has gone previously un-reported anywhere.

According to a declassified U.S. Embassy cable secured by The Huffington Post, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet "as friendly and at times warm, but noted that Pinochet does seem obsessed with the threat of communism." McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.

At the time of the meeting, in the late afternoon of December 30, the U.S. Justice Department was seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of terrorism in Washington DC, the 1976 assassination of former ambassador to the U.S. and former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. The car bombing on Sheridan Circle in the U.S. capital was widely described at the time as the most egregious act of international terrorism perpetrated on U.S. soil by a foreign power.

At the time of McCain's meeting with Pinochet, Chile's democratic opposition was desperately seeking support from democratic leaders around the world in an attempt to pressure Pinochet to allow a return to democracy and force a peaceful end to the dictatorship, already in its 12th year. Other U.S. congressional leaders who visited Chile made public statements against the dictatorship and in support of a return to democracy, at times becoming the target of violent pro-Pinochet demonstrations.

Senator Edward Kennedy arrived only 12 days after McCain in a highly public show of support for democracy. Demonstrators pelted his entourage with eggs and blocked the road from the airport, so that the Senator had to be transported by helicopter to the city, where he met with Catholic church and human rights leaders and large groups of opposition activists.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-dinges/mccain-meets-a-bloody-dic_b_137422.html

Poppy was the Fellah who kept the lid on the DINA assassination of Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Moffit.


Beat the BFEE: Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

[deaniac21]

17. That whole deal in 2000 was just for show. They didn't fool many.

[leftchick]

12. He is like a W clone!

An older one yes, but still a clone. Underachiever? check! Spoiled Rotten child of privilege? check! Unrepentant warmonger? Check!, etc. etc.


Tim Dickinson points out the McCain Myths very well here......http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2008/10/03/five-myths-about-john-mccain/


Thank you Octafish! :)


K&R!

[Octafish]

13. McCain Palin Bridge to Hell

Bush and McCain arelikethisinturdinessandservicetotheBFEE.



Those who don't know the direct ties should consider the interesting points Larry Chin makes...

McCain-Palin: bridge to hell

By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Sep 16, 2008, 00:30

As the slime of the John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign engulfs the world like a tidal wave of sewage, the calculating political manipulators behind the Republican ticket, and their end game, have received scant attention. If recent polls are to be believed, the election (if it is not already stolen) may already be over.

The Turd Blossom’s son

The McCain-Palin dirty tricks campaign is the work of Republican operative Steve Schmidt.

Schmidt is a protégé of Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove. He has elevated several of the most toxic individuals on earth to positions of global power. He is also a counselor to Dick Cheney. It was Schmidt who successfully spearheaded the lobbying efforts behind the confirmations of Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. And it was Schmidt’s manipulation of image, celebrity and popular disgust that installed actor and bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger as the do-nothing governor of California.

The Rove filth playbook -- media manipulations, intimidation, lurid character attack techniques, corruption, falsification and lying, cynical appeals to the most foul aspects of the American psyche -- is something that Schmidt has clearly mastered, and it is being enthusiastically applied to McCain-Palin as part of a long-term extremist agenda.

As described in Paul Alexander’s Machiavelli’s Shadow: “The Rove scorched earth approach to political campaigns is a reflection of a willingness to perform whatever ruthless, unethical acts necessary to transform America into a fascist regime.

“Once he reached the White House, as part of his effort to achieve a permanent Republican majority, he would put into place a plan that included a corruption of the state and federal governing systems that bordered on the diabolical, a scheme that went so far to create a sort of government within a government to carry out its actions. But in order to achieve what he wanted he had to win elections, and to win elections, in true Machiavellian style, he would do or say whatever he had to, no matter who got damaged in the process, no matter how badly.”

Alexander quotes longtime Texas Republican strategist Mark Sanders: “ immediately started putting together a plan for what was essentially the Third Reich of the Republican majority in this country. That was absolutely his plan, a Republican majority domination not just of the US House, the US Senate and the presidency, but also state legislatures across the country. This was not just a pie-in-the-sky dream that Karl had. He wanted to see the Republican Party rule for the next 30 to 40 years.”

Rove’s choreography of George W. Bush’s political career proved that it was possible to elevate a mentally ill and willfully stupid criminal to world power, and, along the way, harness the ignorance of the American masses with a completely manufactured image, appeals to fear, appeals to right-wing evangelical fanatics (via cultural and moral “wedge issues”), and other rude distractions from reality, and from the issues.

To the Rove formula, Schmidt adds insidious new elements that tap even further into the lowest aspects of the modern American mass psyche: the “politics of personality.” The stuff of Hollywood tabloids and gossip rags, and lowbrow reality television programs.

CONTINUED...

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3750.shtml

Thank you for the excellent videos and article from Tim Dickinson.

Most important: Great to read you, Leftchick! Hope all is well with You and Yours!

[leftchick]

15. my pleasure!`

:)


here is more on the scum associated with rove. It never ends does it?




http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23482821/the_return_of_rove

"Karl started talking in this emotional tone about how wonderful Cindy McCain was to adopt Bridget — eight years after he just took a machine gun to the guy," Slater says in an awed voice. "He's incredible."

He sure is. Ever since the nomination of Sarah Palin, Washington has been abuzz with rumors that Rove has been invited to help plot campaign strategy for McCain. His rise from the ashes is the scariest story of an already scary campaign season. Presidents come and go; they sit in a place where the law can still touch them, and they're subject to the vote once every four years. But Karl Rove is a revolutionary, a man who can't be stopped by anything except death and maybe — maybe — prison. Rove is trying to finish the work of Nixon and Bush: to achieve the supremacy of a peculiarly American form of Leninism, one that involves the drowning of the electoral process in idiot witch hunts and dirty tricks, the handing over of all policy to anyone with a dollar more than the next guy, and the total aggrandizement of incumbent power at the expense of an entire system of checks and balances. With Rove back in the mix, there's now a hell of a lot more at stake this November than there was when a batty, battle-scarred old poll-chaser like John McCain was the darkest figure on the ticket. Not to sound too alarmist, but Election Day now becomes a referendum on democracy itself.

The actual evidence of Rove's newfound influence on the McCain campaign is — like so much of the history surrounding this uniquely maddening personage — scant at best, part vapor and part legend, a thing mostly deduced and inferred from various factoids and ripples in the informational pool.

We know, for instance, that Steven Schmidt, who was tapped to be head of rapid response during Bush's 2004 campaign, is now a senior strategist in the McCain camp. Schmidt assumed a more central role in McCain's run in June, shortly after the stammering, much-mocked "green screen" speech McCain gave near New Orleans on the night Obama claimed victory in the Democratic primaries. This promotion would put to the test a theory that Rove has trained so many subordinates in his tactics that his revolution could go on forever even without him.

"If Karl were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, it wouldn't matter," says Slater. "There are hundreds of young Roves out there in the political bloodstream, ready to take over."

[malaise]

14. I bookmarked this early this morning

Great post - as usual. :hi:

[Octafish]

20. Nathaniel Rothschild: the solid financier reverted to type?

BFEE Types -- The War Party -- think of themselves as "aristocratic." The reality is they are warmongering scumbuckets, but they're not part of the reality based community. They're into thinking that they're appointed by Divine Right to be humanity's lords and masters. That's not just un-American, that's nuts.

A bit more on the Old Money - New Oligarch axis and why we should all give a damn:

Nathaniel Rothschild: the solid financier reverted to type?

Francis Elliott, David Robertson
The TimesOctober 23, 2008

EXCERPT...

Possibly the most valuable investment Mr Rothschild has made, however, is in his relationship with Oleg Deripaska. They are believed to have met in the US and then at subsequent parties hosted by their mutual friend, Roman Abramovich.

Mr Rothschild and Mr Deripaska hit it off and the financier became part of the Russian’s small group of close friends. This has led to Mr Rothschild becoming intimately involved in Mr Deripaska’s business empire, a relationship that has been very low-profile in keeping with the Russian’s style, so Mr Rothschild’s decision to wade noisily into politics is surprising.

SNIP...

Mr Rothschild’s decision to expose his former friend’s dealings with the Russian businessman has stunned those used to the clan’s discretion. He justifies his disclosures on the ground that Mr Osborne breached his trust and abused his hospitality.

The two have known each other since they were pupils at the Colet Court prep school in London. Both were sons of aristocrats – but although the young Gideon Osborne, as he was then known, was from a well-heeled background, it did not compare with the stratospheric wealth of his contemporary.

CONTINUED...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4996488.ece

Thank you, malaise! I truly appreciate you understanding what this is about. I also very much appreciate you giving a damn.

[earth mom]

18. Kickety Kick-sorry too late to rec!

:kick:

[Octafish]

22. The Rothschilds and their 200 years of political influence

It may not seem like it, but I have nothing against the rich, apart from the class as a whole's effort to avoid paying taxes and using their wealth for the common good. Some call it socialism. Whatever. It's better than the current method, which is robbing the middle class to enrich the wealthy. That's called Thatcherism in the U.K. and Reaganomics in the U.S.A. It should be called slavery.

The Rothschilds and their 200 years of political influence

By Andy McSmith
The Independent (UK)
October 23, 2008

Nat Rothschild, the financier at the centre of allegations that threaten to engulf the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, is no stranger to laws which forbid politicians from accepting donations from abroad.

Political donations from overseas are also illegal in the US, where John McCain’s campaign team is under investigation for allegedly accepting a benefit in kind from two mega-rich British citizens, namely Nat Rothschild and his father, Jacob, the Fourth Baron Rothschild.

In April, Mr McCain passed through London and spoke at a fund-raising dinner for expatriate Americans, where seats at the cheapest tables cost £500 a head. What caught the eye of Judicial Watch, a Washington-based foundation dedicated to combating corruption, was that the event was held “by kind permission of Lord Rothschild and Hon Nathaniel Rothschild” at the family home in Spencer House, St James’s, the only privately owned 17th-century palace in central London.

The US Federal Election Committee is still investigating the allegation that Mr McCain’s campaign team broke electoral law by accepting a benefit in kind from the Rothschilds. “We haven’t heard from the FEC yet, and don’t expect to until after the campaign,” Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch said.

The Rothschild family and politics have been intertwined for generations, ever since Nathan Rothschild, who founded the English branch of the family business, financed Britain’s war against Napoleon two centuries ago. Nathan was the son of Mayer Rothschild, who founded the family business in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt during the 18th century.

Serena Rothschild, Nat Rothschild’s mother, was one of the largest individual donors to the Conservative Party last year. She gave £190,000. She has also helped fund Mr Osborne’s office.

When another member of the clan, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, married the New York businesswoman Lynn Forester, they spent the night of their wedding dinner in the White House as guests of Bill Clinton. Lady Rothschild was a fund-raiser for the Democrats, but defected to the McCain camp after her friend Hillary Clinton was beaten to the nomination by Barack Obama.

CONTINUED...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-rothschilds-and-their-200-years-of-political-influence-969772.html

Hi, TheGoldenRule! Don't you worry about being late to the part-ee. I do this to pass along information that's not really talked about in Corporate McPravda.

Most importantly: You are always welcome -- no matter the hour.

[earth mom]

23. Thanks Octafish & here's another kick!

:hi:

:kick:


Btw, you are kinder than I am. I despise the rich and their endless and destructive greed.

[Octafish]

32. McCain Celebrates Onstage with Nixon 'Jew Counter' Fred Malek

Without government as referee, power -- like wealth -- can get concentrated. Case in point, Nixon's man, Fred.

McCain Celebrates Onstage with Nixon "Jew Counter" Fred Malek

Jason Linkins
The Huffington PostOctober 31, 2008

My friends, my friends." That's, of course, John McCain's mantra. But who are Senator McCain's friends? Well, George "Macaca" Allen, late of the failed Fred Thompson campaign, is one of them. Allen played the part of introducing McCain's introducer at CPAC last week. Oh, and the introducer? That was Senator Tom Coburn, former alleged sterilizer and heroic battler of the lesbians who threatened solo trips to girls' restrooms throughout the schools of Southeast Oklahoma.

But another one of McCain's friends worth watching joined the GOP frontrunner on the stage last night as he celebrated his win in the Potomac primaries. We speak of Fred Malek, McCain's national finance co-chair, whose dark past in dirty Republican politics reaches back over thirty-five years. That's when Malek, the personnel chief for the Nixon administration, became known as the President's private "Jew counter."

It's one of the more gothic stories about Nixon related in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's The Final Days. As they tell it, late in 1971...Nixon summoned the White House personnel chief, Fred Malek, to his office to discuss a "Jewish cabal" in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The "cabal," Nixon said, was tilting economic figures to make his Administration look bad. How many Jews were there in the bureau? he wanted to know. Malek reported back on the number, and told the President that the bureau's methods of weighing statistics were normal procedure that had been in use for years.
Malek's history of aiding and abetting the worst of Nixon's identity politicking isn't the only thing that should give those who believe McCain's government-reformer schtick:

As a Nixon aide, he set up a project that sought to influence government decisions to assist Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign. In 2006, Washington Post columnist Colbert King described this program as "a scheme designed, organized and implemented...to politicize the federal government in support of Nixon's reelection." Citing a memo Malek wrote about the project, King noted:


"The Malek memo also claimed another accomplishment: The steward of a dockworkers union local in Philadelphia, an active Nixon backer, had been accused of being responsible for illegal actions of the union's president. The Pennsylvania Committee to Reelect the President asked that the Labor Department rule in the steward's favor. It did, Malek claimed, adding that 'this action had a very strong impact on the local ethnic union members.'

Malek's responsiveness program was extensively investigated by the Senate Watergate committee. The panel found that the program was aimed at influencing decisions concerning government 'grants, contracts, loans, subsidies, procurement and construction projects,' decisions regarding 'legal and regulatory actions,' and even personnel decisions that affected protected 'career positions' -- all to advance Nixon's reelection.

But long before Malek went to work for CREEP, he was merely creepy. As ThinkProgress reminded back in April of last year, when Malek was but a wee lad, he was arrested for "killing, skinning, and barbecuing a dog." So, what does it say that McCain's friend is no friend to man's best friend? Maybe all those supporters of Mitt Romney, who merely strapped his dog to the top of his station wagon, had a point after all.

SOURCE:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/mccain-celebrates-on-stag_n_86485.html?view=print

Know what you mean about the poor, poor well-off. I hate NAZIs as much as anyone.

[OnyxCollie]

19. Best to wear gloves when overturning rocks, Octafish.

You never know what creepy-crawlies lie underneath.

Do you know if the connection between the Russians and McCain involved Abramoff? Maybe DeLay?

Thanks for the post. Bookmarking.

[Octafish]

25. Top McCain Fundraiser, War Profiteer Sued Over Iraq Fuel Deal

Know what you mean about the gloves, blackops. Thanks to your reply, rather than the typical hazmat outfit, I discovered a new suit, created by Phillip Toledano:

Top McCain Fundraiser, War Profiteer Sued Over Iraq Fuel Deal

By Logan Murphy Wednesday May 28, 2008 5:00pm

MSNBC:

A little-noticed civil lawsuit in Florida is shining a light on an unusual but hugely profitable Pentagon contract to ship millions of gallons of aviation fuel to U.S. bases in Iraq through the kingdom of Jordan.

The deal involves a cast of influential characters, including the king of Jordan’s brother-in-law, who is suing Harry Sargeant III, a top Florida-based fundraiser for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid.

Al-Saleh alleges in the lawsuit that after he arranged the deal, he was cut out in a scheme meant to defraud him. He claims that he and Sargeant and the third partner, Mustafa Abu-Naba'a, a Jordanian businessman, had invested in IOTC Jordan in 2004. But, he says, Sargeant and Abu-Naba'a committed fraud by forming another company called IOTC USA in Florida without informing him and by channeling the Pentagon contracts through that firm. Al-Saleh is suing Sargeant, Abu Naba’a and the company for $13 million as his share of the profit from the 2005 contract, plus an unspecified amount of profit from the 2007 contract. Read on...

No wonder Senator McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, one of his top fundraisers is making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from it -- and you can rest assured, Sargent isn't the only war profiteer who keeps McCain neatly tucked in his back pocket.

SOURCE w LINKS:

http://crooksandliars.com/2008/05/29/top-mccain-fundraiser-war-profiteer-sued-over-iraq-fuel-deal

It's been too long a wonderful world for warmongers. May it soon change, my Friend...

[AzDar]

21. Lots of good stuff as usual, Octafish.

:thumbsup:

[Karenina]

24. That simply must go bttt!

:kick:

[Octafish]

27. Why McCain’s Time With Council Of World Freedom Matters

Birds of a feather...

Why McCain’s Time With Council Of World Freedom Matters

October 6, 2008 11:58 PM
The Huffington Post

Since Sunday, Democrats have been buzzing about the re-revelation that during the 1980s, Sen. John McCain served on the board of a far-right conservative organization that had supplied arms and funds to paramilitary organizations in Latin America.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala lit the fire when, during an appearance on Meet the Press, he warned that this relatively obscure detail from McCain's past could draw him into a guilt-by-association game he was bound to regret.

"John McCain sat on the board of...the U.S. Council for World Freedom," said Begala, "The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League - the parent organization - which ADL said 'has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.'"

But McCain's involvement in the U.S. Council for World Freedom, which extended from 1981 through, possibly, 1986 is significant -- not merely because it ties him to unsavory characters but because it firmly associates him with a foreign policy that was, at the time and still, controversial.

"I didn't know that (McCain had) served on the board," said Shannon O'Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It is a little bit surprising to me. But all of those organizations did come from the Republican side mostly. Often the people were tied to the military and they saw the world in black and white terms... My impression is (McCain) still sees the world in back and white."

The USCWF was founded in Phoenix, Arizona in November 1981 as an offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League. The group was, from the onset, saddled with the disreputable reputation of its parent group. The WACL had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads. Roger Pearson, the chairman of the WACL, was expelled from the group in 1980 under allegations that he was a member of a neo-Nazi organization.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/why-mccains-time-with-cou_n_132470.html

Hi, Karenina! Great to read you, my Friend!

[Karenina]

31. McCain's ties to Rashid Khalidi, the New York born, American professor

at an Ivy League U... (one of OBAMA'S cohorts in stealth turrism)???

Here's the turrist's profile. OBAMA HAD DINNER WITH HIM WHEN HE WAS 25 or something or other...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_Khalidi

[Octafish]

26. John McCain, The U.S. Council for World Freedom, the World Anti-Communist League, and Sun Myung Moon

El Mozote Memorial, El Salvador

People who'll do just about anything to end communism:

John McCain, The U.S. Council for World Freedom, the World Anti-Communist League, and Sun Myung Moon

Posted by Scoobie Davis
Sunday, October 5, 2008

This morning on Meet the Press, when the topic of the discussion was the attempts by the McCain campaign and the right's media to link Barack Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Democratic strategist Paul Begala noted that McCain has his own problem with consorting with extremists considering his membership of the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Begala noted that the Anti=Defamation League has documented how the WACL (now known as the World League for Freedom and Democracy) “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.”

That's putting it lightly. I did some research on the WACL for my Sun Myung Moon blog when I heard that Moon had been a major financial supporter of the League in the 1970's and 1980's. The definitive book on the League is Scott and Jon Lee Anderson's Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (I used information culled from the book for my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult"). What the book documents is shocking. The League has served as a resource for neo-Nazis (former chairman of the WACL was expelled when it was discovered that he been in various neo-Nazi organizations). The League did what it could to prop up undemocratic regimes and aided Salvadorian terrorist death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson whose nickname "Blowtorch Bob" was coined because of his favorite instrument of torture (quick aside: D'Aubuisson had also received support from figures beloved by "values voters": Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell).

The big difference between Obama and McCain: Obama did some educational reform projects with William Ayers decades after his Weather Underground activities. McCain was affiliated with the WACL at the time in which it was a nest of neo-Nazis and was openly supporting terrorist like D'Aubuisson. How come I didn't know about McCain's affiliation with the group until today?

Posted by Scoobie Davis at 1:03 PM

SOURCE: http://realsunmyungmoon.blogspot.com/2008/10/john-mccain-us-council-for-world.html

...excepting, of course, giving up their power.

Thank you for the kind words, AzDar.

OT: My sisters are in the D.A.R. Any relation?

[lonestarnot]

28. Thanks Octafish!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAAgzAL7QBw Blowtorch Bob where is he today?

[Octafish]

29. Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Herbert Walker Bush

Thank you for the viddy, lonestarnot! Wow! Small world. And by spreading the Truth, Scoobie Davis & Co. are making it a better one. Here's more from another brave truth teller:

Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Hooking George Bush

By Robert Parry

Last fall, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's latest foray into the high-priced world of media and politics was in trouble. South American journalists were writing scathingly about Moon's plan to open a regional newspaper that the 77-year-old founder of the Korean-based Unification Church hoped would give him the same influence in Latin America that the ultra-conservative Washington Times had in the United States.

As opening day ticked closer for Moon's Tiempos del Mundo, leading South American newspapers were busy recounting unsavory chapters of Moon's history, including his links with South Korea's feared intelligence service and with violent anti-communist organizations that some commentaries said bordered on neo-fascist.

Indeed, in the early 1980s, amid widespread human rights abuses, Moon had used friendships with the military dictators in Argentina and Uruguay to invest in those two countries. Moon was such a pal of the Argentine generals that he garnered an honorary award for siding with Argentina's junta in the Falklands War. (UPI, Nov. 16, 1984)

More recently, Moon has been buying large tracts of agricultural lands in Paraguay. La Nacion reported that Moon had discussed these business ventures with Paraguay's ex-dictator Alfredo Stroessner. (Nov. 19, 1996)

Moon's disciples fumed about the critical stories and accused the Argentine news media of trying to sabotage the newspaper's inaugural gala in Buenos Aires on Nov. 23. "The local press was trying to undermine the event," complained the church's internal newsletter, Unification News. (December 1996)

Given the controversy, Argentina's elected president, Carlos Menem, did decide to reject Moon's invitation. But Moon had a trump card to play in his bid for South American respectability: the endorsement of an ex-president of the United States, George Bush. Agreeing to speak at the newspaper's launch, Bush flew aboard a private plane, arriving in Buenos Aires on Nov. 22. Bush stayed at Menem's official residence, the Olivos. But Bush failed to change the Argentine president's mind.

Still, Moon's followers gushed that Bush had saved the day, as he stepped before about 900 Moon guests at the Sheraton Hotel. "Mr. Bush's presence as keynote speaker gave the event invaluable prestige," wrote the Unification News. "Father and Mother sat with several of the True Children just a few feet from the podium."

Bush lavished praise on Moon and his journalistic enterprises. "I want to salute Reverend Moon, who is the founder of The Washington Times and also of Tiempos del Mundo," Bush declared. "A lot of my friends in South America don't know about The Washington Times, but it is an independent voice. The editors of The Washington Times tell me that never once has the man with the vision interfered with the running of the paper, a paper that in my view brings sanity to Washington, D.C. I am convinced that Tiempos del Mundo is going to do the same thing" in Latin America.

Bush then held up the colorful new newspaper and complimented several articles, including one flattering piece about Barbara Bush. Bush's speech was so effusive that it surprised even Moon's followers.

"Once again, heaven turned a disappointment into a victory," the Unification News exulted. "Everyone was delighted to hear his compliments. We knew he would give an appropriate and 'nice' speech, but praise in Father's presence was more than we expected. ... It was vindication. We could just hear a sigh of relief from Heaven."

Bush's endorsement of The Washington Times' editorial independence also was not truthful. Almost since it opened in 1982, a string of senior editors and correspondents have resigned, citing the manipulation of the news by Moon and his subordinates. The first editor, James Whelan, resigned in 1984, confessing that he had "blood on his hands" for helping the church achieve greater legitimacy.


Money Talks

But Bush's boosterism was just what Moon needed in South America. "The day after," the Unification News observed, "the press did a 180-degree about-turn once they realized that the event had the support of a U.S. president." With Bush's help, Moon had gained another beachhead for his worldwide business-religious-political-media empire.

After the event, Menem told reporters from La Nacion that Bush had claimed privately to be only a mercenary who did not really know Moon. "Bush told me he came and charged money to do it," Menem said. (Nov. 26, 1996). But Bush was not telling Menem the whole story. By last fall, Bush and Moon had been working in political tandem for at least a decade and a half. The ex-president also had been moonlighting as a front man for Moon for more than a year.

In September 1995, Bush and his wife, Barbara, gave six speeches in Asia for the Women's Federation for World Peace, a group led by Moon's wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. In one speech on Sept. 14 to 50,000 Moon supporters in Tokyo, Bush insisted that "what really counts is faith, family and friends." Mrs. Moon followed the ex-president to the podium and announced that "it has to be Reverend Moon to save the United States, which is in decline because of the destruction of the family and moral decay." (Washington Post, Sept. 15, 1995)

In summer 1996, Bush was lending his prestige to Moon again. Bush addressed the Moon-connected Family Federation for World Peace in Washington, an event that gained notoriety when comedian Bill Cosby tried to back out of his contract after learning of Moon's connection. Bush had no such qualms. (WP, July 30, 1996)

Throughout these public appearances, Bush's office has refused to divulge how much Moon-affiliated organizations have paid the ex-president. But estimates of Bush's fee for the Buenos Aires appearance alone ran between $100,000 and $500,000. Sources close to the Unification Church have put the total Bush-Moon package in the millions, with one source telling The Consortium that Bush stood to make as much as $10 million.

Bush also may have other Argentine business deals in the works with Moon. On Nov. 16, 1996, La Nacion quoted businessmen as saying that Bush and Moon were keeping an eye on plans to privatize the hydroelectric complex of Yacyreta, a joint $12 billion Paraguayan-Argentine project to dam the Parana River.


Foreign Influence

Still, the Bush-Moon alliance is not strictly about money -- and it did not start in Bush's post-presidency. It dates back at least to the start of the Reagan-Bush era -- when Moon was a VIP guest at the first Reagan-Bush inauguration -- and it could extend into the next century as the ex-president works to shore up conservative support for his eldest son, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who is expected to run for the White House in 2000.

Sources close to Bush say the ex-president has worked hard to pull well-to-do conservatives and their money behind his son's candidacy. Without doubt, Moon is one of the deepest pockets in right-wing circles, having financed important conservative activists from both the Religious Right, such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and Inside-the-Beltway right-wing professionals.

A silent testimony to Moon's clout is the fact that his vast spending of billions of dollars in secretive Asian money to influence U.S. politics -- spanning nearly a quarter century -- has gone virtually unmentioned amid the current controversy over Asian donations to U.S. politicians.

With unintended irony, Moon's Washington Times repeatedly has featured stories about secret Asian money going to Democrats. "More than a million dollars of this foreign money is believed to have been contributed to the Democrats, putting the election up for auction," charged Times' editor Wesley Pruden in a typical column. (Oct. 18, 1996)

The blind spot on Moon is especially curious since there have been U.S. government allegations dating back to the 1970s that Moon's organization fronted for the South Korean CIA and funnelled money to Washington for right-wing Japanese industrialists. For the past 15 years, The Washington Times has been the most obvious conduit for this foreign money. The newspaper and its sister publications -- Insight and The World & I -- have cost Moon an estimated $1 billion in losses. Yet, Moon has never accounted for the sources of his money.

Moon's jingle of deep-pocket cash also has caused conservatives to turn a deaf ear toward Moon's recent anti-American diatribes. With growing virulence, Moon has denounced the United States and its democratic principles, often referring to America as "Satanic." But these statements have gone virtually unreported, even though the texts of his sermons are carried on the Internet and their timing has coincided with Bush's warm endorsements of Moon.

"America has become the kingdom of individualism, and its people are individualists," Moon preached in Tarrytown, N.Y., on March 5, 1995. "You must realize that America has become the kingdom of Satan."

In similar remarks to followers on Aug. 4, 1996, Moon vowed that the church's eventual dominance over the United States would be followed by the liquidation of American individualism. "Americans who continue to maintain their privacy and extreme individualism are foolish people," Moon declared. "The world will reject Americans who continue to be so foolish. Once you have this great power of love, which is big enough to swallow entire America, there may be some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested."

During the same sermon, Moon decried assertive American women. "American women have the tendency to consider that women are in the subject position," he said. "However, woman's shape is like that of a receptacle. The concave shape is a receiving shape. Whereas, the convex shape symbolizes giving. ... Since man contains the seed of life, he should plant it in the deepest place.

"Does woman contain the seed of life? <"No."> Absolutely not. Then if you desire to receive the seed of life, you have to become an absolute object. In order to qualify as an absolute object, you need to demonstrate absolute faith, love and obedience to your subject. Absolute obedience means that you have to negate yourself 100 percent."


Evil Hamburgers

These pronouncements contrast with Moon's lavish praise of the United States disseminated for public consumption during his early forays to Washington. On Sept. 18, 1976, at a flag-draped rally at the Washington Monument, Moon declared that "the United States of America, transcending race and nationality, is already a model of the unified world." He called America "the chosen nation of God" and added that "I not only respect America, but truly love this nation."

Yet, even as Moon has soured on America, his recruiters continue to use that flag-draped scene of the Washington Monument to lure new followers. The patriotic image struck powerfully with John Stacey when the college freshman watched a video of that speech while undergoing Unification Church recruitment in 1992.

"American flags were everywhere," recalled Stacey, a thin young man from central New Jersey. "The first video they showed me was Reverend Moon praising America and praising Christianity." In 1992, Stacey considered himself a patriotic American and a faithful Christian. He soon joined the Unification Church.

Stacey became a Pacific Northwest leader in Moon's Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP). "They liked to hang me up because I'm young and I'm American," Stacey told me. "It's a good image for the church. They try to create the all-American look, where I think they're usurping American values, that they're anti-American."

At a 1995 leadership conference at a church compound in Anchorage, Alaska, Stacey met face-to-face with Moon who was sitting on a throne-like chair while a group of American followers, many middle-aged converts from the 1970s, sat at his feet like children.

"Reverend Moon looked at me straight in the eye and said, 'America is Satanic. America is so Satanic that even hamburgers should be considered evil, because they come from America'," recalled Stacey. "Hamburgers! My father was a butcher, so that bothered me. ... I started feeling that I was betraying my country."

Moon's criticism of Jesus also unsettled Stacey. "In the church, it's very anti-Jesus," Stacey said. "Jesus failed miserably. He died a lonely death. Reverend Moon is the hero that comes and saves pathetic Jesus. Reverend Moon is better than God. ... That's why I left the Moonies. Because it started to feel like idolatry. He's promoting idolatry."


One-World Theocracy

Despite growing disaffection among many longtime followers and other problems, Moon's empire still prospers financially, backed by vast sources of mysterious wealth. "It's a multi-billion-dollar international conglomerate," noted Steve Hassan, a former church leader who has written a book about religious cults, entitled Combatting Cult Mind Control. At his Internet site, Hassan has a 31-page list of organizations connected to the Unification Church, many secretively.

"Here's a man (Moon) who says he wants to take over the world, where all religions will be abolished except Unificationism, all languages will be abolished except Korean, all governments will be abolished except his one-world theocracy," Hassan said in an interview. "Yet he's wined and dined very powerful people and convinced them that he's benign."

Hassan argued that perhaps the greatest danger of the Unification Church is that it will outlive Moon, since the organization has grown so immense and powerful that other leaders will step forward to lead it. "There are groups out there that want to use this organization," Hassan said.

A couple of years ago, Moon shifted his personal base of operation to a luxurious estate in Uruguay. The church has been investing tens of millions of dollars in that nation since the early 1980s when Moon was close to the military government. In a sermon on Jan. 2, 1996, Moon was unusually blunt about how he expected the church's wealth to buy influence among the powerful in South America, just as it did in Washington.

"Father has been practicing the philosophy of fishing here," Moon said, through an interpreter who spoke of Moon in the third person. "He (Moon) gave the bait to Uruguay and then the bigger fish of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay kept their mouths open, waiting for a bigger bait silently. The bigger the fish, the bigger the mouth. Therefore, Father is able to hook them more easily."

As part of his business strategy, Moon explained that he would dot the continent with small airstrips and construct bases for submarines which could evade Coast Guard patrols. His airfield project would allow tourists to visit "hidden, untouched, small places" throughout South America, he said.

"Therefore, they need small airplanes and small landing strips in the remote countryside. ... In the near future, we will have many small airports throughout the world." Moon wanted the submarines because "there are so many restrictions due to national boundaries worldwide. If you have a submarine, you don't have to be bound in that way."

Moon also recognized the importance of media in protecting his curious operations, which sound like an invitation to drug traffickers. He boasted to his followers that with his vast array of political and media assets, he will dominate the new Information Age. "That is why Father has been combining and organizing scholars from all over the world, and also newspaper organizations -- in order to make propaganda," Moon said. Central to that success in South America is Tiempos del Mundo.


Iran-Contra Cover-up

Moon pursued a similar strategy in the United States. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan hailed The Washington Times as his favorite newspaper and Moon's editors rewarded the Reagan-Bush administration with unwavering loyalty.

In the mid-1980s, for instance, when journalists and Congress began prying into Oliver North's secret support for the Nicaraguan contras and their ties to drug trafficking, Moon's paper led the counter-attack. "Story on (contra) drug smuggling denounced as political ploy" was the subtitle of a front-page Washington Times article criticizing a piece that Brian Barger and I had written for The Associated Press about a Miami-based federal probe into gun- and drug-running by the contras. (April 11, 1986)

When Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., uncovered more evidence of contra drug trafficking in 1986, The Washington Times denounced him. The newspaper first published articles suggesting that Kerry was on a wasteful political witch hunt. "Kerry's anti-contra efforts extensive, expensive, in vain," announced one Times article. (Aug. 13, 1986)

But when Kerry exposed more and more contra wrongdoing, The Washington Times changed tactics. In 1987, it began intimidating Kerry's staff with front-page accusations that they were obstructing justice. "Kerry staffers damaged FBI probe," declared one Times article. It opened with the assertion that "congressional investigators for Sen. John Kerry severely damaged a federal drug investigation last summer by interfering with a witness while pursuing allegations of drug smuggling by the Nicaraguan resistance (the contras), federal law enforcement officials said." (Jan. 21, 1987)

As the Iran-contra scandal continued to spread and threatened Bush's public insistence that he was "out of the loop," Moon's paper turned its fire on special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. Over and over, the paper attacked Walsh for allegedly wasting money with first-class air fare and room-service meals.

When former CIA clandestine services chief Clair George was on trial for false statements, The Washington Times published a front-page story with the two-column headline, "GOP Questions Walsh Spending." That morning, George's CIA supporters held the headline up so the jury could see the anti-Walsh allegations. Throughout the Iran-contra scandal, the paper played a crucial role in protecting the cover-up. (For details, see Walsh's new book, Firewall.)

Time and again, Moon's Washington Times went to bat for Bush. When Bush lagged behind Michael Dukakis in the early days of the 1988 presidential race, the Times falsely implied that Dukakis had undergone psychiatric care. The story drew national attention and raised early doubts about Dukakis's fitness for the White House.

In 1992, the newspaper promoted Bush's re-election by running stories about Bill Clinton's collegiate trip to Moscow. Those stories suggested that the Rhodes scholar was a spy for the KGB. Four years later, with the Republicans hoping to oust Clinton, The Washington Times reversed field with a contradictory banner story: "Was Bill Clinton a junior spy for the CIA?" (June 24, 1996)

In 2000, Moon's newspaper could give similar boosts to the expected presidential candidacy of Gov. George W. Bush. After all, his father has shown that he knows how to reward his allies no matter how unsavory.

For Moon's part, the self-proclaimed Korean messiah has succeeded in hooking many big fish in Washington -- "the bigger the fish, the bigger the mouth" -- but none bigger than former President George Bush. ~

(c) Copyright 1997


CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html

Concave. Convex. Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles. Ha! Show me the money!

Thanks for giving a damn, my Friend! Things are getting most interesting, lonestarnot!

Reminder to Moderators: Mr. Parry allows DU to use the entire article, provided appropriate credit is included. Thanks, my Friends!

[lonestarnot]

30. Of course I have this bookmarked! Will check later tonight!

Fine work as always! :thumbsup: :applause: