Hidden Interests

Couple of days ago I did a blog on G. Edward Griffin and his commentary on the movie Zeitgeist Addendum. I've seen Griffin comment in a number of video documentaries so I already knew who he was as an author and from what angle of the political scale he was coming from, generally speaking. His entry on Wikipedia is also quite extensive, which I read but at the same time I didn't follow up on every link in the article. Yesterday I came across a remark on YouTube by someone who praised Griffin but who was also very skeptical of his involvement with the John Birch Society. I went back to the Wikipedia article on Griffin and his membership to J.B.S. is plainly visible and it opens up a whole different can of worms as far as I'm concerned.

The John Birch Society itself is listed as "an American radical right-wing political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom." Griffin's comments on Zeitgeist Addendum can be directly traced back to what this society advocates. Not unusual in itself and neither is the political advocacy of the John Birch Society. Yet the latter fears that the nation will be sold out to the U.N. by a "cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians" which will eventually result in a 'one world socialist government.' This is of course the same rhetoric you hear on the Alex Jones show, the machinations of the New World Order. Accusing others of collectivism is the main offensive tool. But something else came to my attention which I want to focus on more.

The organization itself was founded in 1958 by a group of 12 people which consisted mostly of businessmen as far as I can tell. Businessman Robert Welch headed the society for many years and helped with its creation but another name that stands out even more and who was also involved from the very beginning is Fred Koch. Who is he? Well, he founded Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in the United States. Starting to smell fishy already? Read the Wikipedia article, Koch Industries made a 100 billion dollar revenue in 2009, they also have a list of violations and subsequent fines the size of my arm. They lobby to support the oil industry and donated to groups who oppose the current consensus on climate change. They have also been rumored to sponsor the Tea Party movement. The Koch family are major players and the John Birch Society isn't the only group they have helped to create or support financially.

Many of these groups oppose collectivism, including wealth redistribution, economic interventionism, socialism, communism, and fascism. Yet they also advocate limited government. When you really think about it, who gains the most from such a political approach? Yes of course, it's the (already wealthy) businessmen themselves.

And that's the whole ball of wax. They advocate this approach because in the final analysis they benefit the most from small government and little to no interference in the free market system. These clowns simply want to make more for themselves. They play into sentiments of the public who are against taxation and "big government" because should these political tactics be adopted they are the ones who profit the most. The trick is that they need a large portion of American society to implement their plans and that's why they sponsor those segments of society most likely to support them and their philosophy. To a large degree they have been successful already but the system isn't going to last. Greed will be its own undoing as usual.

G. Edward Griffin, who has been a member and officer of the conservative John Birch Society is also a contributing editor to its magazine, The New American. Complete misnomer if you ask me. The Old American is far more appropriate. Griffin himself fits right into a Western movie and that kind of cultural baggage is what I perceive here. A bunch of cowboys heading into the open range, ready to claim any riches they may encounter and feeling completely entitled to do so. Founding their own towns in the Wild West, securing a railroad connection so that anybody can visit and even live there. But they remain the patrons, the landowners, the bosses. Nobody tells them what to do.

The movie Zeitgeist Addendum opted to do away with the monetary system and let technology itself solve problems. Griffin saw this as a mega dose of the disease itself namely collectivism. But is it that simple? Aren't many of the problems we see today in our world caused by the lack of money? Poverty in the world basically means a lack of funds to acquire the necessities of life. It has nothing to do with collectivism. If you ask me that has more to do with individualism, the uneven distribution of wealth and plain old-fashioned greed.

The disease here isn't collectivism, it's money itself which everyone wants but there never seems to be enough of. The world is addicted to money, like a drug addict everyone needs a shot on a daily basis. We all need the dealer banks to give us our shot and when we don't get it, we start to feel sick. Governments are hooked as well, they need their fix through taxation. Hopeless addicts, like Griffin and his compadres at billionaire sponsored disingenuous "think tanks" like the John Birch Society want more and more for themselves and blame everything but the drug itself. Addicts are often if not always in denial. The movie Zeitgeist Addendum offers a solution to this disease. Go cold turkey...