Politics And Money

In the American system, citizens were taught that the transfer of political power accompanied elections, formal events when citizens made orderly choices about who shall govern. Very few Americans, therefore, understood that the transfer of power might also occur, more subtly, without elections. Even the President did not seem to grasp this possibility, until too late. He would remain in office, surrounded still by the aura of presidential authority, but he was no longer fully in control of his government. The American system depended on deeper transactions than elections. It provided another mechanism of government, beyond the reach of the popular vote, one that managed the continuing conflicts of democratic capitalism, the natural tension between those two words, "democracy" and "capitalism." It was part of the national government, yet deliberately set outside the electoral process, insulated from the control of MERE politicians. Indeed, it had the power to resist the random passions of popular will and even to discipline the society at large. This other structure of American governance coexisted with the elected one, shared power with the Congress and the President, and collaborated with them. In some circumstances, it opposed them and thwarted them. Citizens were taught that its activities were mechanical and nonpolitical, unaffected by the self-interested pressures of competing economic groups, and its pervasive influence over American life was largely ignored by the continuing political debate. Its decisions and internal disputes and the large consequences that flowed from them remained remote and indistinct, submerged beneath the politics of the nation. The details of its actions were PRESUMED to be too esoteric for ordinary citizens to understand. The Federal Reserve System was the crucial anomaly at the very core of representative democracy, an uncomfortable contradiction with the civic mythology of self-government. Yet the American system accepted the inconsistency. The community of elected politicians acquiesced to its power. The private economy resonded to its direction. Private capital depended on it for protection. The governors of the Federal Reserve decided the largest questions of the political economy, including who shall prosper and who shall fail, yet their role remained opaque and mysterious. The Federal Reserve was shielded from scrutiny partly by its own official secrecy, but also by the curious ignorance of the American public. *********************** This is the first one and one-half pages of the book 'Secrets of the Temple', by William Greider, published in 1987. This book and others by this author are available at Amazon.com. I recently purchased it for less than $20. A great read, and it's about 800 pages, so curl up and learn... This is, so far, the most disgusting example of the power of the wealthy over the masses. I feel like I have been had, all my life, and I don't like this feeling. There must be a way to reverse this trend, or else. Or else what ? Use your imagination. Remember, the elite were a head shorter after the French revolution. Enjoy !!