Saturday, May 30, 2009

Please sir, I want some more


Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, published in the late 1830s, has been adapted for the screen and TV several times, the above comes from the 1960s musical 'Oliver'. It tells the story of a young boy living in poverty in industrial Britain. The eponymous hero was born into a workhouse, a provision of the 1834 Poor Law (Amendment) Act. The 1830s was supposedly a time of progressive reform by the British Whig government, but that is as misleading as viewing today's liberal reforms in the same light.

1832 saw the 'Great' Reform Act which promised to extend voting rights and clean up the electoral system. In truth the franchise was extended to over 600,000 (from a population of around 14 million) and they cleaned out the 'rotten boroughs' of the old system. The rotten boroughs were truly incredible: at the time England and Wales were divided in counties and boroughs, both of which returned (elected) members to parliament. However, there was tremendous inconsistency in the number eligible to vote in each constituency - Yorkshire (a county) had more than 20,000 voters, Westminster (a borough) more than 12,000 but they elected two members to the House of Commons just as did Dunwich (population 232, voting population of around 30) and Gatton (population 146, voting population 7). As such, the local baron would tend to in effect elect himself to one of the two seats available, and sell the other to another rich bastard. Just as it is only fair to say it was a step forward for democracy to eliminate these rotten boroughs it is only fair to point out it was ridiculous that it took until the 1830s to do this.

The reality of 'Great' Reform Act was that it did little to amend the functioning of Parliament. This was shown by the persistence over the following decade and a half of a movement known as Chartism, which originated in the London Working Men's Association. They came up with six points of reform, most of which were eventually adopted in later legislation:

THE SIX POINTS OF THE CHARTER
1. A vote for every man twenty one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for crime.
2. The ballot —To protect the elector in the exercise of his vote.
3. No property qualification for members of Parliament—thus enabling the constituencies to return the man of their choice, be he rich or poor.
4. Payment of members, thus enabling an honest tradesman, working man, or other person, to serve a constituency, when taken from his business to attend to the interests of the country.
5. Equal constituencies securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors,--instead of allowing small constituencies to swamp the votes of larger ones.
6. Annual Parliaments, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since though a constituency might be bought once in seven years (even with the ballot), no purse could buy a constituency (under a system of universal suffrage) in each ensuing twelvemonth; and since members, when elected for a year only, would not be able to defy and betray their constituents as now. - Chartists.net

Interestingly, not even the Chartists advocated female suffrage and it took almost a century after the 'Great' Reform Act for women to be granted the right to vote, just as it took decades to legislate for the tenuous masquerade of democracy we enjoy in Britain today.

1833 saw the passing of a long overdue piece of legislation - the Slavery Abolition Act. While the trade in slaves had technically been abolished by the 1807 Act, slavery itself was allowed to continue perfectly legally. This 'anomaly' was cleared up by the 1833 Act, but only freed slaves under the age of six. Older slaves were redesignated 'apprentices' and had to work a given term to gain their freedom. Compensation to around 40,000 slave owners ran to £20 million, a hell of a lot of money in those days, when the total government budget for the year was only £51 million. Public debt was over £780 million, the country effectively bankrupted by the Rothschild influence on the Bank of England.

This presented a significant economic problem for the British government, and therefore the British Empire. To keep costs down, they exempted from the Abolition Act all territories under control of the East India company, a true prototype for the corporatocracy. Much like Halliburton in today's Iraq, the East India Company was an elite conglomerate of commercial interests who monopolised monopolised the bounty offered by what we now just call India. Locals were colonised, authorities bribed and coerced, tax revenues siphened out of the country, private armies hired to quell those who dared oppose corporate rule: it really hasn't changed that much in two centuries.

However, at the same time as allowing slavery to continue in India, the UK government divested the East India Company of its commercial operations when they renewed its charter in 1833. The governmental operations (military provision and so on) continued, retaining colonial control but trade with India was now open to any merchant with the capacity to get ships halfway round the world. This allowed for a greater regulation of Home Charges, whereby the Indians paid for the colonial authority which allowed the continuation of slavery. By centralising the authority responsible for governing India it became easier to levy these charges. As commercial exploitation increased, so did the power of the colonial government.

While this did enable an increase in trade which no doubt contributed to the sustained economic growth of industrial Britain this didn't solve the government's economic problems. In 1834 they passed the Poor Law (Amendment) Act, which reduced expenditure on the domestic poor. Under prior schemes such as the Speenhamland system, labourers suffering from spiking food prices would have their wages topped up based on current bread prices. According to the Royal Commission this undermined the wages of slightly wealthier workers who didn't qualify for relief, and encouraged employers to pay low wages. Similarly, Malthusians on the Commission argued that such relief only encouraged poor families to have more children, thus exarcerbating the problem.

So the Act established a National Commission who oversaw the running of workhouses, essentially labour camps for the poor. Families were separated, often as soon as they entered the workhouse. The workhouses themselves were designed on the principle of 'less eligibility', where conditions for those inside were worse than that of the lowest paid labourer on the outside. This aimed to discourage any but the most desperate of people from entering the workhouse. One notable man who spent some of his youth in such an institution was Charles Chaplin and Oliver Twist was in part written as a rejection and protest against the Poor Law system.

One somewhat-overlooked aspect to both the recommendations of the Royal Commission set up to study the operation of the Poor Laws, and the 1834 Act itself, is the principle of segregating 'different types of paupers'. The old would be separated from the young, able bodied men separated from able bodied women, the infirm and disabled somewhere else. Indeed, while the Poor Law Commission had no authority to build new workhouses it did have far-reaching powers to strictly control conditions within existing ones. What people ate and wore, as well as moral standards (unmarried mothers were treated particularly badly) were all be dictated by the Commission. While the British are credited with creating concentration camps in South Africa at the end of the 19th century the philosophy that brought them about was clearly popular some 70 years prior when dealing with the domestic poor.

Aside from Malthus and utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham, who has propagated such ideas? According to conspiratorial histories of Freemasonry, very similar ideas are to be found among the Illuminati, a Bavarian cult founded by Adam Weishaupt, an agent of Amschel Mayer Rothschild, which took control of the international freemasonic movement in the late 18th century. Detailed in the highly controversial book Pawns in the Game by William Guy Carr is an alleged meeting in Frankfurt in 1773 attended by AM Rothschild and a dozen other wealthy and powerful men. Rothschild apparently outlined a 25 point plan by which they could take over the world.

14. He next explained the necessity of having their ‘Agentur’ always come out into the open, and appear on the scene, when conditions had reached their lowest ebb, and the masses had been subjugated by means of want and terror. He pointed out that when it was time to restore order they should do it in such a way that the victims would believe they had been the prey of criminals and irresponsibles. He said “By executing the criminals and lunatics after they have carried out our preconceived ‘reign of terror’, we can make ourselves appear as the saviours of the oppressed, and the champions of the workers.” The speaker then added “We are interested in just the opposite ... in the diminution, the killing out of the Goyim."

15. He next explained how industrial depressions and financial panics could be brought about and used to serve their purpose saying “Enforced unemployment and hunger, imposed on the masses because of the power we have to create shortages of food, will create the right of Capital to rule more surely than it was given to the real aristocracy, and by the legal authority of Kings.” He claimed that by having their agentur control the ‘Mob’, the ‘Mob’ could then be used to wipe out all who dared to stand in their way. - Pawns in the Game

Regardless of whether Amschel Rothschild every actually called this meeting and said these things, it is an apt explanation of how such ideas can be part of a framework of control. Despite much vaunted progress for democracy and the poor, it appears the same philosophy is applied to the poor of numerous countries in the world.

Appropriately, this overarching policy comes with a crisis attached, the food crisis. In some respects, it is very real, far more so than terrorism or single motherhood or global warming. An average of 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger related diseases and the UN reported in December 2008 that around a billion people now suffer from starvation. These numbers had been heading in the right direction (slowly) until the 'global financial crisis'. As this peopleandplanet article notes, this isn't about the amount of food available - while population doubled over the last half century, food production tripled and life expectancy increased significantly. It is a political and economic decision to let these people starve.

The World Bank, run by a member of the Bilderberg Group, is doing its best to appear to be the 'saviour of the oppressed'.

"In London, Washington, and Paris people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food," Zoellick said...

..."If leaders are serious about creating new global responsibilities or governance, let them start by modernising multilateralism to empower the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank Group to monitor national policies," Zoellick said. "Bringing sunlight to national decision-making would contribute to transparency, accountability, and consistency across national policies." - Financial Express

So what have the UN and World Bank done to alleviate the food crisis? So far, absolutely nothing to prevent or regulate the speculation driving the spikes in prices. Derivatives traders can make fortunes betting on the price of wheat or sugar and in doing so can drive prices up to the point that tens of millions more people can no longer afford to eat enough. The UN launched a National Basic Food Prices Data and Analysis tool. A self-styled 'early warning system' it aims to make information on food prices and markets more accessible, which will only encourage speculation.

The World Bank have seen this as business as usual, making $2 billion available to countries trying to battle the crisis. The countries in question:

GFRP is disbursing funds to Afghanistan ($8 million), Bangladesh ($130 million), Benin ($9 million), Burundi ($10 million), Central African Republic ($7 million), Djibouti ($5 million), Ethiopia ($275 million), Guinea ($10 million), Guinea-Bissau ($5 million), Haiti ($10 million), Honduras ($10 million), Kenya ($50 million, $5 million), Kyrgyz ($10 million), Laos ($3 million), Liberia ($10 million), Madagascar ($10 million, $12 million), Mali ($5 million), Moldova ($7 million), Mozambique ($20 million), Nicaragua ($7 million), Nepal ($36 million), Niger ($7 million), Philippines ($200 million), Rwanda ($10 million), Sierra Leone ($7 million), Somalia ($7 million), Southern Sudan ($5 million), Tajikistan ($9 million), Togo ($7 million), Yemen ($10 million), and West Bank and Gaza ($5 million). - World Bank

Though there are other countries borrowing money from this scheme, this list should show you that these are places which despite an awful history with debt have no choice, other than watching their people starve and having to explain why they didn't take the money. However, by creating this money as debt we perpetuate the inflation which means these countries can never even catch up with the prices of today, let alone get ahead of the prices tomorrow. We also keep these countries beholden to a system which has no intention of letting them develop economic independence, as Zoellick's comments make clear. By making debt and aid a policy we ensure continued control over the colonies and a monopoly on their resources, just as the East India Company did in centuries past.

Then there's genetically modified crops, a subject where much of the controversy surrounds a giant company, Monsanto, apparently owned by the Rockefellers. It's former Chairman and CEO Robert Shapiro attended the 1999 Bilderberg meeting. In the months prior to the club meeting in November, Monsanto and the Rockefeller Foundation staged a PR exercise to deflect attention away from a potentially devastating technology - so called 'terminator' seeds. In June 1999, Dr Gordon Conway, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, gave a speech to the Monsanto directors urging them not to take up terminator technology. By October, Shapiro had publically announced that Monsanto would not 'commercialise' the seeds.

However, this didn't stop Monsanto from making third world farmers sign contracts promising not to save seeds from their GM crops, effectively ensuring the same economic effect - that farmers have to buy new seeds every year. This sort of policy has the backing of the US Congress, who in 2007 endorsed a deal by the USDA where they are using public money to subsidise the agricultural insurance of farmers who plant GM crops.

The brutal impact of these policies is already being seen, and India is again one of the battlegrounds. In autumn 2008 it was widely reported that up to 200,000 farmers in India had committed suicide due to crop failure. The GM companies like Monsanto had moved in and convinced the farmers that if they bought the seeds they'd see harvests like never before, prompting the farmers to take out large loans to purchase the technology. When the crops failed the farmers were not only left with little or nothing to sell, but huge unrepayable debts. The farmers weren't even told that the GM seeds required twice as much water. Perhaps the most brutal aspect of this is that even the UN said in October that organic farming is probably the best option for farmers in developing countries.

It seems that scarcity (both real and artificial) has been generated so that the masses, the food producers in the developing world, are forced into accepting economic and technological systems of control. If they haven't planned this then it's gone remarkably well, shoring up an elite system where 2% of the population own half of the world's wealth. Howevever, they haven't stopped there. In Svalbard, a desolate rock in the Arctic Ocean, there is a 'doomsday seed vault' supposedly set up to preserve as many seed varieties as possible against threats to biodiversity. Behind blast-proof steel reinforced concrete walls sit genebanks containing millions of seed varieties. Essentially unmanned, it is nothing other than a private military installation.

Who has largely funded this project? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, known depopulation enthusiasts, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto, and European biotech giant Syngenta whose Chairman (who used to work for Barclays) attended the recent Bilderberg meeting.

Now is it simply philosophical sloppiness? What leads the Gates and Rockefeller foundations to at one and the same time to back proliferation of patented and soon-to-be Terminator patented seeds across Africa, a process which, as it has in every other place on earth, destroys the plant seed varieties as monoculture industrialized agribusiness is introduced? At the same time they invest tens of millions of dollars to preserve every seed variety known in a bomb-proof doomsday vault near the remote Arctic Circle ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future’ to restate their official release? - globalresearch

The potential for a group of companies and foundations who both monopolise existing seed stocks and possess the technology to render any crop sterile are enormous. If they so chose they could wipe out pretty much the entire harvest of the world and make every food producer in the world pay to access the seed stocks in Svalbard. As globalist and depopulationist Henry Kissinger once said:

"If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population." - Kissinger

To finish off, this documentary 'Controlling our Food' details the history and policies of Monsanto. For those with doubts that these companies and foundations could be capable of such horrific plans this uncompromising depiction will probably dispell such feelings as they tell the story of Monsanto product Roundup, a cancer-causing, non-selective herbicide that can kill just about any plantlife imaginaginable, and the technology produced by Monsanto which makes their plants resistant to its effects.