What Happened to the American Dream:
How the banks destroyed America
People have failed to accurately describe what happened since the repeal of the Glass/Steagall Act. It created Credit Default Swap Bonds. They are a fictional financial concept of selling "insurance" to wealthy investors to pay them $30 for every dollar that the investor "insurance" that the investor buys. It is fictional because they were modeled after municipal bonds which paid off ONLY IF THE CITY WENT INTO BANKRUPTCY. When these bonds we're conceived, the idea of a city going bankrupt was inconceivable. The taking down of the wall between savings and investment banking created the situation where ten million mortgages were used to create "mortgage backed" securities (stocks). What no one want you to know is that ALL these mortgages went to 13% after two years, and everybody, every institution, every mortgage officer, every bank KNEW that they were all (so far, 95%) into foreclosure. Millions lost billions invested in the stocks backed by these fraudulent mortgages. BUT.....Credit Default Swap Bond holders have been paid out over 45 TRILLION DOLLARS!! The only way to understand this is if you ca see what this theft was equal to. It is equal to the destruction of our nation from a foreign invasion that stole all of the money in all of our banks. To add to this destruction, the banks got the Federal Reserve to use 85 billion/month to buy these losses from the banks. Those "purchases" of bad investments has been called a "STIMULUS" to the economy, and every financial reporter in the nation has reported that NONE of that money has reached American businesses. Al Lewis, in the Wall Street Journal wrote that these trillions will be used for large leveraged buy outs over the next 18 months, for a consolidation of corporation control of America. We lost the American Dream to thieves, liars, and corporate pirates. It is time that someone told us the truth--our nation is not owned by Americans anymore. We are a mere moribund relic which will have a 45% poverty rate by 2020.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Here is a copy of recently Letter to the Editor of the in September 2012. After my pst are two VERY imporatnt artcles added to help explain what I have written:
Credit
Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?
Read More: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1723152,00.html#ixzz22yVfGSCc
How
Credit Default Swap Bonds Caused the American Fiscal Disaster, and Why?
Introduction
Here
is an essay which I hope will help you to understand the financial crisis here
in the USA Providence
1) Last week, the government of Italy had to deal with a terrible crisis
created by London Banks through the sale of Credit Default Swap Bonds--the key
to what happened in the US
2) Al Lewis reported two weeks ago that
Fed Chairman Bernanke testified to Congress that the Fed was going to spend 40
Billion dollars a month to buy up all the bad mortgages that banks created and
are still holding. This is
big news. He also reported
on the fact that the Obama administration had decided not to follow up on any
of the illegal back practices of the past decade.
There are two people who do agree with my
analysis of Credit Default Swap Bonds: Mr. Anthony Santa Barbara and President
Obama.
Mr. Santa Barbara confirmed everything in this
essay, and agreed that the CDSB were tested with Enron. So, buyers of these bonds at that time
knew that Enron was going to crash—therefore, they made $30 for every $1 they
invested in CDSBs backed by Enron stock. That is when the flow of trillions of
dollars started to leave our economy and go into he hands of CDSB holders.
President Obama made a specific reference to
these Bonds during his first press conference, and here is what he said:
QUESTION: Thank you,
Mr. President. In your opening remarks, you talked about that if your plan
works the way you want it to work, it's going to increase consumer spending.
But isn't consumer spending, or over-spending, how we got into this mess? And
if people get money back into their pockets, do you not want them saving it or
paying down debt first, before they start spending money into the economy?
MR. OBAMA: Well, first
of all, I don't think it's accurate to say that consumer spending got us into
this mess. What got us into this mess initially were banks taking exorbitant,
wild risks with other people's monies, based on shaky assets. And because of
the enormous leverage, where they had $1 worth of assets and they were betting
$30 on that $1, what we had was a crisis in the financial system.
Finally, to truly
understand my work, you have to Undset and Credit Default Swap Bonds. Here is an article that Janet
Morrissey wrote for Time Magazine in March of 2008. It puts things in perspective, so you
can understand better what I am trying to say.
So, without any more introductions, here is the
essay that I tried to get to you since
January.\
Well,
here is the essay. I hope
you enjoy it.
Sixty Minutes did an article about the
foreclosure crisis which did more to hide the truth than it told. This article does not tell the whole
truth. These foreclosures were part of a three part plan to shift the future of America
Plan Step #1: To move about 50 to 75 trillion
dollars from our economy to the hands of very few. First, please read Time Magazine for March of 2008 article by Janet
Morrissey about Credit Default Swap Bonds. It explains that millions of
sub-prime mortgages were designed to go up to 13% after two years. The stocks backed by these mortgages
would lose ALL their investors their money. The Credit Default Bonds, as Morrissey
writes, were based on the possibility of the stocks backed by the mortgages
would go bad. They were
modeled after municipal bonds which are guaranteed and insured. So, if a city goes bankrupt the Bond
holders would have to be paid and would have to be paid at thirty times what
they invested. This means
that the trillions of dollars paid out by the Bond writers, which almost put
AIG and all the other collaborators out of business. The amount of money shifted out of our
economy represents the largest theft in the history of the world. That money will NEVER come back to America Greece Cocoa crop
in the work for the next ten years.
The impact over the world, all the bad
mortgages backed stocks that the makers knew were going to go bad, cost stock
holders all over the world billions. s failing. For every dollar invested in
CDBS pays the holder 30-40 dollars. That means that a foreclosure of a $100,000
pays the CDNS holder $3,000,000. President Obama mentions this is his first
Press Conference, but no one has reported on it except Morrissey. This process
has not been stopped and its aims have been accomplished
Plan Step #2 To demolish and clear the thousands of
acres of “Red-Lined” neighborhoods (Slums) to create, for banks, the largest
land sell off in the history of the world. Since American investors know that
they make little or nothing investing in American real estate, most of these
acres will be sold to cash rich world citizens who need a safe and secure
country to live and prosper. This
will be their home while their own countries fall into chaos, oppression, and
revolutions. The failed Lee-Schumer bill is the best example
of this plan. The bill
would have given almost unlimited visas to people from foreign countries who
bought houses here for $500,000 or more with cash. The bill failed, but be assured; there
are twenty other bills that you will not hear about that will accomplish the
same purpose. This is at a
time in our history when National Public Broadcasting’s show Need to Know
reported last week that 33% of Americans are now living at or below the poverty
level. Will this plan
change that? No. Is it too late to change it? I think it is.
Plan Step #3
The Third steps in this plan cover the obvious
and less obvious. In fact,
we can really only speculate on what dimensions of our current reality were
part of the initial plan. I
can only speculate on some of these last aspects of the Banking/Wall Street
Financial Plan for America
1) The first result is that acres and
acres of urban slums are now wastelands. The CBS show discussed the demolition
of homes, and the landscaping of the lots with grasslands. These “open spaces” still have a
tiny number of homes still standing, but the homeowners are not paying their
mortgages, and expect to be evicted at some point in the future. This land represents billions of
dollars of potential income for the banks that have ended up owning them. Here are the possibilities that I have
read about:
a) The Congress almost passed a Bill that
would have given almost free visas to foreign buyers who bought homes in the United States
b) Our inner cities are dying, these
acres of land will provide excellent open space for commercial and industrial
construction.
c) Five years ago, NPR reported that 63%
of Americans lived in gated or “sealed” communities with no access to public
streets. These acres of
land will provide developers with “virgin” land to develop “closed cities”
where the concept of open governance will not be tolerated, and corporations
will provide all the structures that the citizens need—from schools to
hospitals to police and lot more.
2) The concentration of wealth gives
hedge fund managers assets to control future commodity markets that shut out
competition and normal market limitations on risk and control. A year ago, it was reported in the
news that hedge funds owned all the futures on cocoa beans for the next ten
years. This means that the
funds will control the coat of chocolate for the next ten years, and most
likely forever, because their funds continue to grow daily. Payments to Credit Default Swap Bond
holders have not stopped. and will not stop. They are not going to be stopped,
and below is an article that describes the Department of Justice reluctance to
do anything about correcting these derivatives or punish Wall Street for
creating them. My guess is
that a massive amount of wealth in these funds “buys” anyone—Democrat,
Republican. President or Senator.
3) The last possible area of the use of
these massive assets has much more sinister goals. Some writers think that the money will
create “private” armies both in the United States United States Iraq
In conclusion, the plans laid by billionaires
in America
Credit
Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?
By Janet Morrissey Time Magazine Monday, Mach. 17, 2008
Read More: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1723152,00.html#ixzz22yVfGSCc
As Bear Stearns
careened toward its eventual fire sale to JPMorgan Chase last weekend, the cost
of protecting its debt, through an instrument called a credit default swap,
began to rise rapidly as investors feared that Bear would not be good for the
money it promised on its bonds. Not familiar with credit default swaps? Well,
we didn't know much about collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) either — until
they began to undermine the economy. Credit default swaps, once an obscure
financial instrument for banks and bondholders, could soon become the eye of
the credit hurricane. Fun, huh?
The CDS market exploded
over the past decade to more than $45 trillion in mid-2007, according to the
International Swaps and Derivatives Association. This is roughly twice the size
of the U.S. stock market (which is valued at about $22 trillion and falling)
and far exceeds the $7.1 trillion mortgage market and $4.4 trillion U.S.
treasuries market, notes Harvey Miller, senior partner at Weil, Gotshal &
Manges. "It could be another — I hate to use the expression — nail in the
coffin," said Miller, when referring to how this troubled CDS market could
impact the country's credit crisis.
Credit default swaps
are insurance-like contracts that promise to cover losses on certain securities
in the event of a default. They typically apply to municipal bonds, corporate
debt and mortgage securities and are sold by banks, hedge funds and others. The
buyer of the credit default insurance pays premiums over a period of time in
return for peace of mind, knowing that losses will be covered if a default
happens. It's supposed to work similarly to someone taking out home insurance
to protect against losses from fire and theft.
Except that it doesn't.
Banks and insurance companies are regulated; the credit swaps market is not. As
a result, contracts can be traded — or swapped — from investor to investor
without anyone overseeing the trades to ensure the buyer has the resources to
cover the losses if the security defaults. The instruments can be bought and
sold from both ends — the insured and the insurer.
All of this makes it
tough for banks to value the insurance contracts and the securities on their
books. And it comes at a time when banks are already reeling from write-downs
on mortgage-related securities. "These are the same institutions that
themselves have either directly or through subsidiaries invested in the
subprime market," said Andrea Pincus, partner at Reed Smith LLP.
"They're suffering losses all over the place," and now they face
potentially more losses from the CDS market.
Indeed, commercial
banks are among the most active in this market, with the top 25 banks holding
more than $13 trillion in credit default swaps — where they acted as either the
insured or insurer — at the end of the third quarter of 2007, according to the
Comptroller of the Currency, a federal banking regulator. JP Morgan Chase,
Citibank, Bank of America and Wachovia were ranked among the top four most
active, it said.
Credit default swaps
were seen as easy money for banks when they were first launched more than a
decade ago. Reason? The economy was booming and corporate defaults were few
back then, making the swaps a low-risk way to collect premiums and earn extra
cash. The swaps focused primarily on municipal bonds and corporate debt in the
1990s, not on structured finance securities. Investors flocked to the swaps in
the belief that big corporations would seldom go bust in such flourishing
economic times.
The CDS market then
expanded into structured finance, such as CDOs, that contained pools of
mortgages. It also exploded into the secondary market, where speculative
investors, hedge funds and others would buy and sell CDS instruments from the
sidelines without having any direct relationship with the underlying
investment. "They're betting on whether the investments will succeed or
fail," said Pincus. "It's like betting on a sports event. The game is
being played and you're not playing in the game, but people all over the
country are betting on the outcome."
But as the economy
soured and the subprime credit crunch began expanding into other credit areas
over the past year, CDS investors became jittery. They wondered if the parties
holding the CDS insurance after multiple trades would have the financial
wherewithal to pay up in the event of mass defaults. "In the past six to
eight months, there's been a deterioration in market liquidity and the ability
to get willing buyers for structured finance securities," causing the values
of the securities to fall, said Glenn Arden, a partner at Jones Day who heads
up the firm's worldwide securitization practice and New
York
The situation is
already taking a toll on insurers, who have been forced to write down the value
of their CDS portfolios. American International Group, the world's largest
insurer, recently reported the biggest loss in the company's history largely
due to an $11 billion writedown on its CDS holdings. Even Swiss Reinsurance
Co., the industry's largest reinsurer, took CDS writedowns in the fourth
quarter and warned of more to come in the first quarter of 2008.
Monoline bond insurance
companies, such as MBIA and Ambac Financial Group Inc., have been hit the
hardest as they scramble to raise capital to cover possible defaults and to
stave off a downgrade from the ratings agencies. It was this group's foray out
of its traditional municipal bonds and into mortgage-backed securities that
caused the turmoil. A rating downgrade of the monoline companies could be devastating
for banks and others who bought insurance protection from them to cover their
corporate bond exposure.
The situation is
exacerbated by the heavy trading volume of the instruments, the secrecy
surrounding the trades, and — most importantly — the lack of regulation in this
insurance contract business. "An original CDS can go through 15 or 20
trades," said Miller. "So when a default occurs, the so-called
insured party or hedged party doesn't know who's responsible for making up the
default and if that end player has the resources to cure the default."
Prakash Shimpi,
managing principal at Towers Perrin, downplays this risk, noting that
contractual law requires both parties to inform and get approval from the other
before selling the CDS policy to someone else. "These transactions don't
take place on a handshake," he said. Still, being unregulated, there is no
standard contract, no standard capital requirements, and no standard way of
valuating securities in these transactions. As a result, Pincus said she
wouldn't be surprised to see a surge in litigation as defaults start happening.
"There's a lot of outcry right now for more regulation and more
transparency," said Pincus.
A meltdown in the CDS
market has potentially even wider ramifications nationwide than the subprime
crisis. If bond insurance disappears or becomes too costly, lenders will become
even more cautious about making loans, and this could impact everyone from
mortgage-seekers to municipalities that need money to fix roads and build
schools. "We're seeing players in all of those spaces being more
circumspect about whose credit they're going to guarantee and what exactly the
credit obligation is," said Ellen Marshall, partner at Manatt, Phelps
& Phillips LLP.
Shimpi admits a
meltdown or even a slowdown in the CDS market would affect the amount and cost
of liquidity in the market. However, he dismisses concerns that municipalities
and others seeking capital could be left in the dust. "Even if the U.S.
Still, most agree the
potential repercussions are far-reaching. "It's the ripple effects, the
domino effects" that are worrisome, said Pincus. "I think it's [going
to be] one of the next shoes to fall" in the credit crisis. Miller said
the subprime debacle, rising unemployment, record-high oil prices, and now CDS
market troubles "have all the makings of the perfect storm.... There are
some economists who say this could be another 1929 — but I don't believe
it," he said. "We have a lot of safeguards built into the system that
did not exist in 1929 and 1930." None of them, though, are directly
targeted at CDS. On Wall Street, innovators are always ahead of regulators. And
that can sometimes have a very steep price.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
·
Marc W. Kohler Tony, it's
easy. The financial crisis was started years ago, when the Federal Reserve was
created. In 1999, the repeal of Glass–Steagall Act - made the wall between
investment and saving banks disappear... We forget the FDR, in order to get
Glass-Stengall passed; the banking industry insisted that thousands of acres of
urban real estate could NEVER have a homeowner mortgage. . The areas were
created by drawing red lines around them with a red pen. This is now called
"red-lining". This made EVERY house within red lined area could be
sold for CASH only. The homes were depreciated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,
and a whole new class of absentee lord lords became one of the most import
social forces in America America
money
made millionaires out of many, many Rhode Islanders. They and their children
now live in East Greenwich, Little Compton, Barrington America Greece
Joe DeLemos it seems to me
they are "occupying" the wrong street. Government forces banks to
lend to people who can’t pay back. They regulate and tax companies out of the
country. Then blame everything on businesses. These people if they had half a
brain should occupy Pennsylvania Wall St
Kenneth Watkinson Complicated
problems will not be solved with simple solutions. End of cold war brought 2
billion people competing (Chinese) 2 tax cuts, 2 wars, equals deficits. Now
greedy lobbyists drug companies. Look at your pay. Doesn’t it suck? I think its
4% of people own 60% wealth in this country. Some do it honestly. Not all. Do
you think its fair for the elec company to own the Gas co? Is that fair? If you cook the lobster slow after a while he
doesn't know he's being cooked.
o
Marc W. Kohler So, here is
part two. First, to suggest that minimum wage laws sent jobs overseas is
silly—no matter what has happened here, slaves will always be cheaper over
seas. We don’t have too many slaves, but without regulation we have a lot fewer
than we would have, and now that the economic basis for the world is
trillionaires who owe no allegiance to any country. So, for Tony and the rest,
I shall continue from my previous post. I have brought you through the
consequences of the caste system started in the USA America
Credit Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?
By JANET MORRISSEY
TIME MAGAZINE Monday, Mar. 17, 2008
Credit Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?
By JANET MORRISSEY
TIME MAGAZINE Monday, Mar. 17, 2008
Sixty Minutes did an article about the
foreclosure crisis which did more to hide the truth than it told. This article does not tell the whole truth.
These foreclosures were part of a three part plan to shift the future of America
Plan
Step #1: To move about 50 to 75
trillion dollars from our economy to the hands of very few. First, please read Time Magazine for
March of 2008 article by Janet Morrissey about Credit Default Swap Bonds. It
explains that millions of sub-prime mortgages were designed to go up to 13%
after two years. The stocks backed by
these mortgages would lose ALL their investors their money. The Credit Default Bonds, as Morrissey
writes, were based on the possibility of the stocks backed by the mortgages
would go bad. They were modeled after
municipal bonds which are guaranteed and insured. So, if a city goes bankrupt the Bond holders
would have to be paid and would have to be paid at thirty times what they
invested. This means that the trillions
of dollars paid out by the Bond writers, which almost put AIG and all the other
collaborators out of business. The
amount of money shifted out of our economy represents the largest theft in the
history of the world. That money will
NEVER come back to America Greece Cocoa crop in the work for the next ten years.
The impact over the world, all the bad
mortgages backed stocks that the makers knew were going to go bad, cost stock
holders all over the world billions. s failing. For every dollar invested in
CDBS pays the holder 30-40 dollars. That means that a foreclosure of a $100,000
pays the CDNS holder $3,000,000. President Obama mentions this is his first
Press Conference, but no one has reported on it except Morrissey. This process
has not been stopped and its aims have been accomplished
Plan
Step #2 To demolish and clear
the thousands of acres of “Red-Lined” neighborhoods (Slums) to create, for banks,
the largest land sell off in the history of the world. Since American investors know that they make
little or nothing investing in American real estate, most of these acres will
be sold to cash rich world citizens who need a safe and secure country to live
and prosper. This will be their home
while their own countries fall into chaos, oppression, and revolutions. The failed Lee-Schumer bill is the
best example of this plan. The bill
would have given almost unlimited visas to people from foreign countries who
bought houses here for $500,000 or more with cash. The bill failed, but be assured; there are
twenty other bills that you will not hear about that will accomplish the same
purpose. This is at a time in our
history when National Public Broadcasting’s show Need to Know reported last
week that 33% of Americans are now living at or below the poverty level. Will this plan change that? No. Is
it too late to change it? I think it is.
Plan
Step #3
The Third steps in this plan cover the obvious
and less obvious. In fact, we can really
only speculate on what dimensions of our current reality were part of the
initial plan. I can only speculate on
some of these last aspects of the Banking/Wall Street Financial Plan for America
1)
The first result is that acres and acres of urban slums are now
wastelands. The CBS show discussed the
demolition of homes, and the landscaping of the lots with grasslands. These “open spaces” still have a tiny number
of homes still standing, but the homeowners are not paying their mortgages, and
expect to be evicted at some point in the future. This land represents billions of dollars of
potential income for the banks that have ended up owning them. Here are the possibilities that I have read
about:
a)
The Congress almost passed a Bill that would have given almost
free visas to foreign buyers who bought homes in the United States
b)
Our inner cities are dying, these acres of land will provide
excellent open space for commercial and industrial construction.
c)
Five years ago, NPR reported that 63% of Americans lived in gated
or “sealed” communities with no access to public streets. These acres of land will provide developers
with “virgin” land to develop “closed cities” where the concept of open
governance will not be tolerated, and corporations will provide all the
structures that the citizens need—from schools to hospitals to police and lot
more.
2)
The concentration of wealth gives hedge fund managers assets to
control future commodity markets that shut out competition and normal market
limitations on risk and control. A year
ago, it was reported in the news that hedge funds owned all the futures on cocoa
beans for the next ten years. This means
that the funds will control the coat of chocolate for the next ten years, and
most likely forever, because their funds continue to grow daily. Payments to Credit Default Swap Bond holders
have not stopped. and will not stop. They are not going to be stopped, and
below is an article that describes the Department of Justice reluctance to do
anything about correcting these derivatives or punish Wall Street for creating
them. My guess is that a massive amount
of wealth in these funds “buys” anyone—Democrat, Republican. President or Senator.
3)
The last possible area of the use of these massive
assets has much more sinister goals. Some
writers think that the money will create “private” armies both in the United States United States Iraq
No one is talking about what "Make my day" means. These are the three words that the character Dirty Harry would use to threaten a person that Eastwood's character "wanted to flinch", so he could shoot them with his "giant gun." Using that for the President of the United States is treason. Clint Eastwood threatened to shoot the President of the United States if the imaginary President Obama flinched or made a threatening move. "Make my day" yelled by the delegates at the Convention was a massive threat to the life of the President.
Also, why isn't anyone talking about the control that the Mormon Church exercises over The Boy Scouts of America. Mormon churches require all boys in their congregations become Scouts. That makes the Church of Latter Day Saints the largest contributor to the budget of the Boy Scouts of America. Therefore, they control the BSA. They decide that the BSA will continue to refuse gay people from membership. Mitt Romney has to be asked if he supports these actions on the part of the Church. He has to explain their actions, and either ask for a change, or admit that his church has brought an end to the BSA as it was once known, and would he support the creation of a new BSA, open to ALL AMERICANS!
If you need to know more, see my blog: liberaltruths.blogspot.com.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
A White Guy’s Primer
OnRacism
in
January 2002
By Marc W. Kohler
marcwkohler@aol.com
liberaltruths@blogspot.com
This Pamphlet is Dedicated to my father,
Who
taught me about stubbornness
Character, and racism
To Randall Ashe.
Who
taught me more than I could learn
About Black, White, and all between,
Brought
me to where I am today.
And to all those who Have come before me
Who have guided me to where I am
With their actions, thoughts, speeches, poems,
Ideas, suffering, determination, and guts.
Thank
You
Contents(Page numbers refer to pamphlet)
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . 4
What Does History Say?. . . . . . . . .6
What Does Science Say?. . . . . . . . .10
What Does God Say?. . . . . . . . . . . . 12
How Did We Become Such a Racist Nation? . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . 12
What can a White Guy Do?. . . . . . . .15
What can You Do
Today?. . . . . . . . .16
Footnotes and Other Books. . . . . . 20
Introduction Over the past year, I have been fighting
racism, incompetence, and fraud in the Providence School Department. Up until now, I have not been active in this
“social/political” world. I was declared
disabled in 2000 due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Clinical Depression,
and a history of being fired from seven jobs because I objected actively to
their immoral and illegal practices.
Some would say that I am just a spoiled wealthy White Guy who has used
the “system” to his advantage. Others
might suggest that my maladies are real, and that
they have
helped me become the person that I am today.
A friend challenged me recently about this struggle saying that it was
“arrogant” for a “White” person to speak for any minority population. She said that it offended her if I said,
“African-Americans will do X…” So, in
most cases in this essay, I am repeating what was said to me by
specific people in specific places at specific times.
If I overstep my bounds, then you will have to accept my flaws, but if I
hit any bull’s-eyes, then the “misses” would have made it worth the effort.
NOTE: In this essay, I
use “Black’, “Black Americans”, and “African-American” interchangeably, but these are odd words. For instance, there is an established
population of African-African Americans who were born and raised in Africa , and have
dark skin. So, if
you bear with me, most of the words that
we all use to deal with the problems of racism are, in fact, out-moded and in
many ways corrupt. The term “Caucasian”
was invented when a sociologist stated that ALL the races of the world were
contained in seven categories before 19001. Science has since proved that his
distinctions were completely inaccurate, unscientific, and racist. Despite this, we continue to use the term
“Caucasian” as if it meant something, when it expresses nothing. For the purposes of this essay, I prefer to
use the term, European-Americans to
describe people with light skin. Of
course, this, too, is a limited term, since “light-skinned” people come from
all over the world, too. So,
granted my own confusion, I hope this adds to yours.
My suspicion is that much of what I am writing here will offend many
people. For that I am sorry. My intention is to plant the seeds to change our racism which has been
with us forever, must to come to an end, has
been supported by our selective history educations, a drag on our nation’s
ability to move ahead, been debunked by science, and obliterated by my personal
experience over these last 54 years. You
see, I am working for reconciliation,
harmony, and the end to Racism in America
The point is that what or who I am
is of little importance. The only
thing important is my message which is that prejudice, racism, and active
racism is over.
As a puppeteer, I have worked in every imaginable
environment—Catholic Schools and Churches, Temples, Synagogues, Jewish
Community Centers, Hispanic Centers, Inner City Recreation Centers, suburban
and inner city schools, and the homes of the rich, not so rich and the
poor. What struck me was that I met no
one who did not have problems with their parents, or their lovers or spouses,
their neighbors, their pasts or their
futures. In fact, everywhere I went
people worried about the same things with sometimes different names (For
example: The Rabbi, Priest, Minister who is “right”, “wrong”, “lazy”,
“careless” or “wonderful”) We are all much more alike than different, more
similar than dissimilar, and more the same then you know. It is our very similarities which make racism
pointless and counterproductive for us as individuals and as a nation. Marc Kohler,
January 2002.
What Does History Say?
If I told you that you know nothing about the history of the world for the
past two hundred years, you would most likely be insulted, but let me ask you
some questions in order to discover the areas that your education has failed
you:
1. How many people did Hitler kill in concentration camps?
a) Six million
b) Six million Jews and one
million others
c) Six million Jews and three
million others
d) Six million Jews and four
million others
The answer is D)2. Yes,
four million “others” were murdered as well.
Why do we not know this? I do not
know. My guess is that there was not one
racial, national, or ethnic category that represents these four million
people. That is, they were Christians,
blacks, socialists, democrats, republicans, nationalists, pacifists, Greeks,
Slavs, Italians, French, Spanish, Germans, Russians, women, men, children,
homosexuals, heterosexuals, educated, uneducated, and…and…and, well you get my
point—four million people. In fact, all
of these distinctions also apply to those six million who were called “Jews”
since this term was often applied to people whom the Gestapo just did not
like. So, if anyone asks, Hitler
exterminated ten million human beings.
2. How many people did the
Japanese kill during their invasion and occupation of Korea , Manchuria, and China
a) 500,000
b) One Million
c) Ten Million
d) Thirty Million
The answer is D)3 again.
“Thirty Million”—no, you did not know that. Why, most likely because to this day
historians have hid this fact, Japanese educators drop it out of history books,
and because there has been lots of reasons why we “good old Americans” have not
wanted to bring up this “problem”.
So, get the picture, millions of people died under Stalin, Moa Tse Tung,
in Cambodia
Was mass murder a new idea in 1930?
Hitler has been quoted as saying that the mass murder of
Armenians gave him his excuse for thinking he could “get away” with it,
too. This is not true. Yes, Hitler may have mentioned the Armenians,
but mass murder was intrinsic to the colonial empires of the late Nineteenth
Century on a scale that you simply will not comprehend.
2.How many people in the world died from 1860 to 1920 as a result of
colonialism, the El Nino droughts, and Europeans hatred of other men,
women, and children who were “different”, “in the way”, or “nor working fast
enough”?
a) 30 million
b) 50 million
c) 75 million
d) 65-120 million
It’s D)4 again! Now,
when were Hitler and Allen Dulles born?
1889 and 1893, respectively.
Therefore, as teenagers, they were aware of these massacres, genocides,
and horrific crimes because the atrocities were reported in the press
throughout the world. It was not only
general knowledge; it was considered “no
big deal”. Why did Theodore Roosevelt
ask what we should do about the “White Man’s Burden”? 5 First and foremost, he knew that
suffering was occurring on a scale never before seen in the world, and he
thought mistakenly that his skin color actually made the difference. The only
difference was that European and American colonial powers had the technology
for lethal force, and used it with abandon, entertainment, and genocidal
success throughout Asia, South America, Africa, North
America , and any where else in the world where they wanted
to—ultimately against their own people!
For every dollar that King Leopold spent in the Congo, he (not his nation
or national treasury since he “owned” the Congo in the same way that you own
your clothes) received back five dollars—a 500% return on investment. Oh, there were costs. The population of the Congo
What if Hitler had only paid “lip service” to his “Final Solution”, and
kept the people he wanted dead alive and well enough to contribute to the
economic and intellectual life of Germany Germany
1. Keep them alive (barely), keep
them housed (minimally), and create the illusion that they are participants in
your society even though they are prevented from owning property.
2. Stigmatize them with images,
which you know a false and misleading, that you "feed" to the public
with every form of communication possible.
3. As the sufferings of this
oppressed group continues, make drugs and alcohol readily available to
alleviate the stress and secure their image as “ne’er-do-wells”. Let prostitution flourish.
4. Figure out a way to contain the
oppressed people in limited geographic areas in order to provide you with the
maximum of control with the least investment of resources.
5. Like Hitler, you will have to use “Lethal Force”, “Extreme Prejudice”,
“Executive Action”, or whatever term you want to use for officially condoned
murder. Mix in riots, lynchings, maiming, starving, and other physical distress
just to keep the pot brewing in your favor.
Kill not only their leaders, but the man on the street as well. Use the young oppressed against the old. Pit workers against students—make sure, no
one finds out what you are doing---then, you will out-do Hitler---no, you won’t
need gas chambers when you have thousands of acres of red-lined neighborhoods
are available to you.
6. Pit Blacks (Who you hate)
against Jews (Who you hate) against homosexuals (Who you hate) against workers
(Who you hate) against Teachers (Who you hate), and then you can change your
name from Adolph Hitler to Allen Dulles.7
What Does Science Say?
Science? Yes, how does science
describe, explain, and define human existence and race?
Again, since this is a pamphlet, so this is going to go by real fast. How are human beings made? Well, the sperm from a male human fertilizes
an egg of a woman human. In fact, we
have become adept at not even requiring bodies for this process. Still, what is the "it" that
happens in this union—well, the DNA from the woman merges with the DNA from the
man to create a “new” independent creature—a fetus. This “fetus”, if circumstances allow, will
“grow” into a human being. Again, what
determines what this fetus will become?
First and primarily, DNA. Alter
the DNA, and you alter the future person.
Remove the DNA, and you have no person.
Certainly pre-natal care, nutrition, and health of the mother will
impact on the health of the child.
Now, please sit down, ‘cause this is the thing science has proven—all
humans are 99.999% exactly the same8. Only one one hundred thousandth of our DNA
determines our sex, skin color, facial structure, hair color, skeletal size,
foot size, etc.etc.etc. I
am suggesting that declaring that humans are "different" would be
like claiming differences in two houses built exactly the same way from 100,000
bricks each, and making the observation that one of the bricks (one and only
one) was different from one other brick in the other house. Even an unreasonable person could see that
what we are as human beings has nothing to do with what we see, but has
everything to do with how we are built..
Let’s look at “seeing” itself for a second. Hinduism teaches that the world is all
“Maya”, not real and only an illusion of God’s expression into our world of the
senses. These Hindus might be
right. Rub your thumb and finger
together; you think that the thumb touches the finger. Such is not the case, though. According to science, what is happening is
that the atoms in the thumb have the same electrical charge as those in your
finger. Therefore, they push away at
each other. You “feel” it only because
the electrical/nerve path from your hand to you brain “tells” you that touch is
occurring. Therefore, when you see an
object, you can see only within the limits of the light being reflected from
the object that you are looking at. So,
what is real is not, it is just an incredible arrangement of atoms and
molecules.
It sounds absurd, but we are nothing more and nothing less than beings
that convert heat and fuel into energy and electrical impulses. All of this occurs at a level that you and I
cannot see, cannot touch, and least of all, cannot judge. Who is to say that the electrical/biological
activity in one human body is better or superior to another human being? The fact is that “better”, “superior”, and
such refers to only what we can see and touch, not anywhere near what we
really, actually, and scientifically are.
Our actual selves are nothing, and they are everything. Anything else is window dressing. Skin, material goods, housing, clothes, restaurants,
sports events, grades, schools, offices, hair fashions, deodorant are all
irrelevant to who and what we are.
Why? Because if we accepted the
truth about ourselves, we would give up this insane civilization, make
apologies to millions of “primitive” people that our ancestors and we (3
million people have been murdered in the Congo
Science is unforgiving on this point: We are not our brothers’ keepers we
ARE our brothers and sisters except for 001 %!
What does God Say?
This one is easy. All religions
that I have studied teach that hatred and rage, if tolerated at all, are worthy
of God, but not of man. Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, BaHai, Mormonism, Catholicism, Zen, Hinduism, Wicca, and
many that I cannot think of teach that peace and harmony are the goals of human
life. Jesus, who was a Gnostic Jew9, said, “You
should love your neighbor”, the exact words from Leviticus (19:18). He said “Love”—not “like”, not “tolerate”,
not “understand”. The commandment is
uncompromising. I would add, “Love
first, and ask questions later”.
The White Aryan “Christian” Identity Movement represents the antithesis of
everything that is holy, and if you sit and do nothing about it, then you are
their ally, and that is why racism grows every day in America
How Did we Become Such a Racist Nation?
Here, the answer is easy—people of color stand out. The darker your skin color, the more you
stand out in America ISLAND , WE ARE ALL
HERE NOW TOGETHER, AND WE WERE BROUGHT HERE BY OUR MUTUAL PAST.
So, let’s learn some more history.
After the Civil War, the lives of freed slaves were extremely
difficult. Sharecropping was less
reliable than plantation life. If former
slaves moved, they encountered racism everywhere they went. Violence against Blacks continued just as it
had BEFORE the Civil War, or as Southerners insist, “The War Between the
States”.
Riots, lynchings, burnings, maimings, and torture, started long before the
War and have stayed with us ever since.
Just look it up. Our amnesia is
no excuse for stupidity. “These (riots)
were also acts of outright repression, usually surrounding slavery and
abolition...During this time, 70% of America’s cities holding 20,000 or more
people experienced major civil disorder.
There were 147 riots in 1835 alone...they covered the gamut of mob
activity. 35 were against abolitionists,
11 in response to imagined slave insurrections, 15 of them were race
riots: 11 against blacks, 3 to help
fugitive slaves, and one by blacks…”12
From 1870-1920, though, many Black communities rose up all across our
country. The middle class black
professional was not an exception. A
parallel universe existed. In Wilmington , North
Carolina American
Way
Then, after the Depression, the banking system was in shambles. One way to rebuild was to prevent individuals
from having too much control of any single banking enterprise. This would mean new banking laws, new banking
corporations, and a new “thriftiness” The core of this “new thriftiness” was
Redlining. Lending institutions all over
the country drew red lines around poor and/or marginal neighborhoods. At the time, these neighborhoods were poor
Irish Americans, poor Italian Americans, poor French Americans, poor Polish
Americans, poor African Americans, poor German Americans, and any other
immigrant populations. Red lining meant
that no private mortgages could be written to ANYONE on properties within these
lines. With the deft
flip of a pen, American banks commercialized thousands and thousands of
acres of land without one zoning board meeting, without one legislative act,
and without the consent or approval of the governed.13
If a private mortgage cannot be written for a property, then it can either
not be sold (vacant properties) or sold for cash (Absentee landlords). Drive around any urban community, and you can
tell exactly where these “RED LINES” were drawn. This system of the direct destruction of our
neighborhoods lasted well in to the 1970s, over forty years. Today, it still occurs, and even though it
has been outlawed, it remains the number one reason why we have segregated poor
ghettoes filled with minority and poor Americans.
What can a White Guy like me do?
To me, this is a funny question. If
the Genome Project is right, then I am 99.999% human and only .001%
“white”. So, we need to truly identify
the problem. You see, minority
individuals have no real or intrinsic problems.
We, the bums on top, create the problems for them. It is sad, but the darker your skin color,
the odds of you being in the bottom echelon of your society anywhere in the
world is high. No, people should not
have to fight for their rights. Rights
are rights, and nothing, not skin color, cranium shape, hair color, or any
other irrelevant aspect of a persons physiology should deprive a
person of their rights. Yes, through the
legal process, individuals can “lose” certain rights. Yes, they can be imprisoned. Still, seriously, I have yet to attend the
court sessions where it was declared that if you were not a “White American”,
you had lost you rights.
Therefore, if I see a person practicing racism, why can’t I stand up and
say, “HEY! THAT’S WRONG.” You see, if the person being victimized is a
person of color, a disabled American, or a person who stutters, it does not
matter. What is wrong is wrong is wrong
is wrong. That’s all there is. Prejudice and racism make our resources as a
nation less than what they would be without them. We are a “smaller” society if we stand by and
do nothing about the wrongs right in front of our eyes. So, yes, we White Guys and Gals can work
seriously for equal rights for all Americans.
In fact, if you become aware of child abuse, you are breaking the law if
you do not do something about it.
When you and I look at an person who is “not-white”, we cannot help but
fall back on all of our trained, conditioned, compulsive, knee-JERK, foolish,
short-sighted, absurd, and unscientific ways.
No matter what the courts decide, or what the police can do, or any
other law enforcement agency can do, it is up to us to change—we are
wrong. We are wrong. We have been wrong for centuries and
centuries. We are wrong when we get up
in the morning, and when we go to bed at night.
We sit back and make all-white television shows the highpoint of our
week.
What CAN You Do
Right Now?
1. Stop hating.
No, I mean it. Stop hating anyone that
you hate. Hate is, in fact, nothing more
than the inability to gain perspective and potency in your relationship with
your world and the people in it. You
hate your sister because she brought dandelions to your wedding twenty-five
years ago, but the real reason has do with your mutual and somewhat confused
relationship with your drunkard mother-beating father. All hatred is corrupt at the root. Problems are solved, even on the battlefield,
without hatred. The best fighters and
doers fight and do FOR things, not against others.
2. Realize that if you have
prejudice or racist feelings, realize that you are being used. By whom?
First, by the forces and people who are in control. Reactionary corporate forces to divert
attention from what they were doing on a national and international level
created both the violent racist movement and the violent anti-abortion. You are being used the same way that Romanian
Dictator used the “farmers” when he brought them in to club protestors. The Klan kept the Democrats and plantation
owners in power in the South. Remember
the mob (disgruntled White Democrats) burned out, and murdered the black
citizens of Wilmington , North Carolina
3. Make a friend who is of a
different color than you. That is
“friend”, not “acquaintance”, not “neighbor”, and definitely not the “I have a
Black friend” friend. Why not adopt
people who are different than you.
4. Acknowledge the theft and destruction of resources, ideas, creations,
lives, hopes, dreams, religions, values, social structures, and ways of life of
millions and millions of indigenous peoples throughout the world over the past
five hundred years. Support the idea of
turning Columbus Day into Columbus-Taino Day to honor the Taino tribe
that disappeared from the face of the earth after the arrival of the three
little ships. Support reparations and
engage those who don’t with the question: How many more millions must die
before we make things right? Look, Elvis
Presley became what he became because the record companies wanted a “back
voice” without the “black skin".
The Charleston started at the Savoy
Ballroom in Harlem .
5. Patronize local stores. Stop supporting large chains. Realize that small business, locally owned
and operated, has been and will always be the rock bed of prosperity for our
country. This way, people of every color
can pursue their dreams by owning their own businesses. Put McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and all the rest out
of business. Pay a bit more to save more
over the long term.
6. Go live or spend a lot of time
in the local “ghetto”. No, it is not so
far away either in distance or in style.
Find out first hand what it is like to live in a world complete and
totally structured against you. Realize
that the “ghetto” is not really a ghetto for one color—realize that ALL colored
people live in our poor neighborhoods, and they ALL need your help, power,
potency, and wealth. They cannot do it
on their own. Too much of the deck has
been stacked against them. This is NOT
their fault. It is our forbearers fault,
and here and now, we can start to reverse and make amends for what they have
done not to the ethnic populations but to us, and our world—think of the
thousands upon thousands of people who could have or would have contributed
directly to your life, and your happiness, and your dreams if, if ,if they had
been given one chance to do so!
7. Take a local person of color to the bank and see if you can help them
get a business loan. You will be shocked
at what you hear and see. You will
simply not believe it.
8. Give up your political views, and commit todiscovering
the truth about the history of the United States Lincoln
9. Start acting color-blind. When you meet a new person look them in the
eye. Shake their hand. Listen intently to what they have to
say. Think more about them than
yourself. Consider immediately not “What
can this person do for me”, but rather think: “What can I do for this
person.” Soon, faces will look
differently to you. Even your friends will look different. You will see pain and joy that you have never
seen before. You will, in fact, become
responsible (The ability to respond authentically to the people and the world
around you.) In this way, you will
discover the wealth that you possess in your soul, and the wealth you have in
your family and loved ones, the wealth, and potency you can bring to you
friends and community. Without adding
one penny to your bank account, you will become one of the richest people in
the world. Here is a real stretch: If your
children are grown, adopt a bright high school student who has no support, and
provide for him or her as if they were your own child. (Ghandho sggested this
to a Hindu family adopting an Islamic orphan, that they bring hp, up in a
Islamic way)
Well, I have more ideas, but I am
running out of space. I guess the idea I
want to impress upon you is that all the people who you think are different are
not different. Know that volunteerism
and your personal choices will make more of a difference than any government
program. Volunteerism is, and has always
been the source of real change for centuries—the first doctors and nurses were
volunteers! Racism is just an
uninformed, lazy way of looking at the world.
Stop racism, and you move towards spiritual wealth beyond your wildest
dreams. There are millions of people who
have been shut out of America
Footnotes and
Other Books:
1.R.I. College/RI Committee on the Humanities Project, The
Black Experience publishing details not available, approx. 1985.
2.Grun, Bernard The Timetables of History, A
Horizontal Linkage of People and Events, p. 524, Touchstone, Simon and
Schuster: 1982.
Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking ,
The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, Basic Books, 1997
4. Davis, Mike, The Late Victorian Holocausts; El Nino
Famines, and the Making of the Third World, Verso Books: 2001.(Must read)
5. Roosevelt, Theodore, “Burden of the White Man” reprinted
in The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt, His Principles and Policies by
Charles Morris, The John C. Winton Co. : 1909.
6. Hochschild, Adam, King Leopold’s Ghost, Houghton
Mifflin 1999
7. Prescott Bush was convicted of acting as a Nazi
Collaborator in the 40s, and Allen Dulles recovered all of his money in
1951. John Foster Dulles and Allen
Dulles were the two most powerful men in America
8. See:
http://www.ornal.gov/hgmis/publicat/primer2001/4.html, Genome Project and
Its impact on Medicine and Society: 2001 Primer.
9. The Five Gospels, The Search for the Authentic Words
of Jesus, by Hover Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Maxwell McMillan
International: 1993 10. Glasser, William, Reality
Therapy, Harper & Row, New
York
11. Maslow, Abraham h., Towards a Psychology of Being,V.
Nostrand
12.Smead, Howard, CIVIL DISORDER, http://www.lousiville.edu/
provost/womenctr/civil.htmlRun “race
riots” or “Wilmington Riot” on the net. Best:
http://chss2.montclair.edu/schwartsl/BN/wilmington.html
13. Articles and books about “Red Lining” are plentiful.
14. Smead, Ibid.
Other
Books of Interest:
Hitler’s Willing
Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Joseph
Goldhagen, Vintage Books, 1997.(must read #2)
The Simple Stories in various volumes by Langston
Hughes-and any other works by Mr. Hughes.
The Denial of Death and Birth and Death of
Meaning, Ernest Becker
Love is To be Happy With by Barry N. Kaufman.
The First and Last Freedom, J.
Krishnamurti
I Have a Dream, Writings and Speeches by
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Clarence Darrow for the Defense by Irving
Stone
Writings and Speeches of Eugene V. Debs, by
E.V.Debs
The Speeches and Writings of Harry S. Truman, various
editions
Copyright
2002 Marc W. Kohler Stopracism1@aol.com
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