Elbert Hubbard’s “A Message to Garcia”—The Story Behind the Story…by Mark Arnold

        

I

first heard of Elbert Hubbard about 6 years ago. For the 5 years or so before that I had been engaged, along with a number of our parishioners, in a fundraising effort for our church, the Church of Scientology of Washington State in Seattle, to procure and renovate a building which would become our permanent home base. It was a project every Scientology church around the world was carrying out. We all were putting a great deal of effort into getting our projects done but some of us were having more success than others. To help us international church management made available to us a new edition of a little booklet written by a guy named Elbert Hubbard. The booklet was called “A Message to Garcia”. Management had become aware of the little booklet because it was mentioned in a lecture by the founder of Scientology, American philosopher and writer L. Ron Hubbard. As it turns out, Elbert Hubbard was the famous Scientology founder’s great uncle, though not by blood; LRH’s father Harry Ross Hubbard having been adopted into Elbert’s brother’s family as a very young boy and raised by them as a Hubbard.

Elbert Hubbard

         No doubt Harry Ross heard much about his uncle Elbert as he was growing up. In the late 19^th and early 20^th century America it seems most people had, for Elbert Hubbard was unquestionably one of the most colorful and dynamic figures on the American scene during his era. I have only very recently come to understand this. Just the other day a friend of mine gave me as a gift a copy of a book entitled Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora. The book was written by a guy named Felix Shay in 1926 and the copy given to me by my friend is a first edition with a foreword written by none other than Henry Ford, who seems to have personally known and admired Elbert. The book’s author Shay was a close associate of Elbert’s and worked with him for many years. I have started to read the book and as yet am only a few chapters into it, but from the little I have read I can already tell that Elbert Hubbard was one of those rare “larger than life” individuals and once met he was not easily forgotten. To understand him better a little history is in order.

         Elbert Hubbard was born in 1856 and raised in the town of Hudson, Illinois. In 1872 at 16 years old he was a door to door soap salesman for the Larkin Soap Company. He was a natural at sales and within 10 years he rose to being the number two man at Larkin. A genius at promotion, by the time he was 30 Elbert had transformed Larkin Soap away from door to door sales into one of the largest catalogue retailing companies in the nation, rivaling Sears and Roebuck. He is considered to have been one of the greatest creative forces in American business in the latter part of the 19^th century as regards promotion and marketing. He had married at the age of 24 and by 30 he was wealthy with a growing family and an excellent job with excellent prospects.

         Despite his success, however, Elbert was not happy. He felt something was missing in his life. He had been reading the works of Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau and ultimately determined that his future lay in being a writer. He quit Larkin, cashing in his stock options for $75,000 (over $1 million in today’s currency) and eventually enrolled in Harvard to pursue his writing dream. He also had started an affair with another woman, Alice Moore, and the relationship ultimately led to not only a daughter but Elbert divorcing his first wife and marrying Alice. Elbert considered Alice his soul mate and would spend the rest of his life with her.

         Seeing that university was not for him Elbert dropped out of Harvard but in no way abandoned his dreams as a writer. In 1894 he travelled to England to do research for a series of short stories he planned to write called “Little Journeys”. While there he became enamored with the works of William Morris who was one of the driving forces behind what was being called the Arts and Crafts movement in England. Arts and Crafts had sprung up as a protest to what its adherents considered the dehumanization of industrialization and mass production techniques and advocated a return to the handmade skills and quality of the artisan in fields such as woodworking, furniture making, leather and ornamental metal work. It even eventually extended into the field of architecture influencing some of the top architects of the time including Frank Lloyd Wright. Morris also had started his own printing and book making company called Kelmscott Press which specialized in creating and publishing limited edition, high quality books reflecting the Arts and Crafts ideal.

         Elbert was massively inspired by Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. Never one to sit on his inspiration, upon his return to the United States Elbert took the step that would ultimately define his life. In the town of East Aurora, New York, where he had already been living for some years, he became a partner in a small printing company called the Roycroft Press and launched a new magazine called “The Philistine”. The magazine gave Elbert a vehicle to refine his writing style as well as take satirical and witty pot shots at religion, industrialists, the medical establishment, elitist society or any other target that interested him. Initially intending only one edition, Elbert’s magazine became an overnight sensation and so went into regular publication. With its success came Elbert’s growth and success as a writer.

         But Elbert had much more in mind for Roycroft than “The Philistine”. Before long he became sole owner of Roycroft Press and within a few years had turned it into what was not only the first but also the most successful Arts and Crafts oriented organization in the country. Starting with the Roycroft Press, which he developed into a printer and maker of fine, aesthetic, handmade books on the model of Morris’s Kelmscott Press, he ultimately turned Roycroft into an artisan based production facility for all the trades involving woodworking, furniture making and iron working. At its peak over 500 artisans lived and worked there and as a result the Roycroft campus grew and grew. Elbert used his marketing genius to promote the products produced, finding eager publics tired of mass produced uniformity and willing to pay more for the high quality artisanship from the Roycrofters, as they were coming to be called.

Early edition of "A Message to Garcia"

          How Elbert accomplished this astounding feat has everything to do with “A Message to Garcia” for it was with the publication of this little article that Elbert roared onto the national stage and attracted national attention to what he was doing at Roycroft. The idea for the article sprang from a conversation Elbert had with his son Bert. One evening in February of 1899 they were discussing who the real hero was of the recently concluded Spanish American War. Popular thought maintained that Teddy Roosevelt was due to his charge up San Juan Hill.  Bert pointed out, however, that that the real hero was a soldier named Rowan who had been given the assignment by President McKinley of carrying a message to the rebel leader Garcia in the interior of Cuba. Rowan carried and delivered the message without hesitation or questions braving swamps, jungles and the enemy in the process. After a moment’s thought Elbert realized his son was right, dashed off to his study and within an hour or so wrote “A Message to Garcia”.

         In writing the story of the soldier Rowan carrying this message Elbert emphasized that the real heroism he displayed was the fact that he could receive instructions from the President to deliver the message and without asking any more about it simply took it and delivered it. He did not ask where Garcia was, how he was to get to Cuba or what he should wear; he just performed the duty assigned with no further questions. Using Rowan’s example Elbert pointed out that “…civilization is one, long, anxious search for such men” and that businesses were in the constant process of weeding through employee after employee just to find them. “A Message to Garcia” was at once an appeal to the common man to strive for these Rowan-like characteristics and  a validation of the businessmen and executives who were working the long hours to get things done while searching to find such people, who were, unfortunately, very scarce.

         Elbert originally intended to use “A Message to Garcia” as a filler piece in an edition of “The Philistine” and that is how it was first published. Once the piece got out, however, its sympathetic take on the plight of the executive in trying to find people who can actually do things resonated mightily with business owners and administrators everywhere. A top executive at New York Central Railroad named George Daniels ordered 100,000 copies of the little booklet for his employees and businesses and military from all over the world jumped on the “Message to Garcia” bandwagon. The booklet was translated into 37 languages, sold over 40 million copies (more than any other publications at the time except the Bible and dictionaries) and was made into two movies. In his book “Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora” Felix Shay describes the impact of “A Message to Garcia”:

         “For more than twenty-five years the “Message to Garcia” has been printed and distributed in millions of copies each year. The demand does not decrease. Time only mellows the tone of the tale. The lesson and the moral is still there… The “Message to Garcia” officially opened the Twentieth Century: for Elbert Hubbard, for the Roycrofters and for American business.”

         With the publication of “A Message to Garcia” Elbert Hubbard became a national phenomena and celebrity. As a result of the booklet he was much in demand as a speaker and lecturer and used that avenue to promote and market Roycroft and the products produced there in the Arts and Crafts tradition. Arts and Crafts artisan colonies following the Roycroft example were started by others in the early years of the 20^th century but none attained the success of Roycroft, the chief difference being that Elbert and his marketing genius stood behind the Roycroft colony. As the first years of the new century rolled by artisans from all over the country made the trek to Roycroft to visit and many stayed becoming permanent residents living, working and producing their art there. 

         Elbert and Alice Hubbard continued to run Roycroft until the advent of World War I at which time time Elbert decided to make a voyage back to Europe. He wanted to inspect the scene for himself as well as report on the war. He also had in mind securing an audience with the Kaiser see if he could have any effect at bringing peace to the warring nations. Ignoring the German public warnings not to board her, Elbert and Alice booked passage to England on the Lusitania and so were on board when that ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on May 7^th, 1915.

         A survivor of the sinking, a man named Ernest Cowper, in a letter to Elbert’s son Bert, reported that both Elbert and Alice emerged from their room onto the deck immediately after the torpedo hit.  Cowper saw them both standing arm and arm and said that neither of them seemed upset in the least, though the ship was sinking fast and many of the lifeboats could not be accessed due to the ship’s list. As Cowper hurried past them he looked back at Elbert and asked him what he and Alice were going to do. Elbert just shook his head. Alice smiled and said, “There does not seem to be anything to do.” Cowper concluded by saying that after Alice’s comment Elbert turned away and that he and Alice went into a room and closed the door behind them, choosing to die together rather than risk being parted in the water.

         Thus ended the life of Elbert Hubbard, marketing genius, founder of Roycroft and author of “A Message to Garcia”. The little town of East Aurora, New York, on hearing of his death held a parade through town to honor him with over 2,000 citizens in attendance. A little later Roycroft Press published a book entitled “In Memorium: Elbert and Alice Hubbard  that included contributions from such luminaries as J. Ogden Armour of meatpacking fame, ketchup entrepreneur Henry J. Heinz, National Park Service founder Franklin Knight Lane, and Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington. On the campus at Roycroft there is a large boulder. On the boulder there is a bronze tablet with this inscription as a tribute to Elbert and Alice:

“THEY LIVED AND DIED FEARLESSLY”

         From all I have been able to gather about the author of “A Message to Garcia”,  truer words have not been spoken.

Copyright © 2013

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved

How Tax Exempt Foundations Have Destroyed the United States... by Mark Arnold

Note:

          As a kid growing up in the mid 1960’s the dinner table was the time and place that my dad often chose to deliver his talks on the lessons of life to his children. In getting these lessons across he had his work cut out for him as there were six of us kids, of which I was the second oldest. Often these lessons would start off in one direction and then drift into the subject of politics. My other siblings would scurry off for the most part but I would often sit through his talks, taking in what he had to say. As I listened to him it became clear to me that he was very upset at the direction our country was taking. Keep in mind that this was in the mid ‘60s, the Vietnam War was getting going for real and most Americans were very patriotic and anti-communist, meaning they supported the war and saw the need to stop Ho Chi Minh and his minions in their tracks, lest South Vietnam fall to the Reds from the North. The fear was that this would lead to the rest of the countries in South East Asia, and inevitably the world, falling to the communists. This idea was called “the domino theory” for obvious reasons; push one and they all go. My dad was no different than most Americans at the time and had pretty much bought into the anti-communist, domino theory principle. That much I had taken from his talks.

          Occasionally, though, my dad would become pensive and would say to me that he just didn’t understand why things on the world scene and even here at home just seemed to keep going against our country and its ideals, the ones he believed in and had laid his life on the line in World War II to defend. I could see that he tended to view the Vietnam War the same way that he viewed our country’s role in WW II, and that his view of our country had been molded during that same, simpler time. He held strong to these patriotic views, and yet, during these thoughtful moments it was clear that he sensed something was wrong. I can still hear him saying to me with regard to whatever situation he was decrying…

          “Son, what is happening (to our nation) just can’t be an accident. If it was accidental things would go our way at least half the time, but they don’t.”

          I never forgot what my dad told me, but many years would go by before I realized that he was on to something when he said that. My dad’s thoughtful observation was my unknowing introduction to “conspiracy theory” when it comes to the subject of the decline of our nation. For that reason I am dedicating this particular article to my dad, David Arnold. That seed of inquiry he planted all those years ago around the dinner table has borne some fruit.

          The puzzle of the decline of the United States of America, which we are now witnessing at an unprecedented rate, has a number of facets to it. A large part of it is economic, as the country has bought into and employed false economic doctrines from sources antipathetic to the ideals our nation was founded upon as embodied in the Constitution and other founding documents. I include here such things as income tax, the Federal Reserve System of debt-money creation and the welfare state. Part of it stems from the destruction of morality and the systematic elimination of religion as a central aspect of our lives, largely due to the introduction of false ideas from psychologists and later psychiatrists that man is an animal and has no spiritual aspect. There is another facet, though, that has been as insidious as any other and that is the role played by the large tax exempt foundations. In stating this I am referring to groups such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Under the guise of charity, good works and philanthropy, these foundations have, since their formation, been operating in such a way as to condition the US and Americans to accept the concept of a one world government that, in effect, would be a socialist oligarchy. Solid evidence of this exists and to illustrate this I am relaying to you here the experience of a man who had the task and opportunity of investigating these foundations first hand. I give to you the story of Congressional investigator Norman Dodd.

          In 1953 Congress formed the Congressional Special Committee to Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations. The Special Committee was being run by a congressman from Tennessee named B. Carroll Reece and so was otherwise known as the Reece Committee. As director of this investigation for the Committee Carroll selected a man named Norman Dodd. Dodd was Yale educated and had career history in banking and manufacturing as well a financial advising. A short story about Dodd speaks volumes about his integrity as well as his knowledge of the banking industry. In 1929 Dodd was working for what he describes as a “Morgan” bank in New York. Shortly after the crash of 1929 and while the banking panic was still going he was approached by other officers of the bank who wanted to know from him what they (the bank) should now do to handle the panic. Dodd simply told them that they should take this disaster as evidence that there was something they did not know about banking and to get busy and find out what that was and once they did to then act accordingly. Four days later the bank assigned that task to Dodd himself to carry out. He was relieved of his other duties and for two plus years carried out his investigation and when done reported his recommendations to the bank. In sum Dodd’s recommendations stated that the banks should return to sound banking principles and cease their speculative activities to which the bank officers told him basically that due to the introduction of what were termed “conflicting interests” in this country there will never again be sound banking practices in the United States. According to Dodd this was stated to him by one of the senior officers of the Morgan bank in New York, a man who was one of the top bankers in the country.

          Needless to say Dodd was shocked by the statement, coming as it did from a man of that stature. After considering this for a while Dodd realized he could no longer work in the bank and tendered his resignation, at which time he was told that the bank had reconsidered and now wanted to implement his recommendations. At the same time he was promised an eventual Vice President position, nice salary and good pension. Dodd agreed to stay but eventually realized the bank had no intention of implementing his recommendations, that the salary, pension and position were just to buy him off and so he did actually resign from the bank. Upon trying to get hired in other banks Dodd found that he had essentially been blacklisted by the banking industry, could not get a job in a bank anywhere despite impeccable credentials and so had to change careers. The integrity Norman Dodd displayed with the Morgan bank experience provides a clue to the man Representative Reece selected to head the Reece Committee in 1953.

           The Committee’s and Dodd’s mandate was to investigate the tax exempt foundations to determine if they were involved in “un-American” activities. Unfortunately Congress did not define what was meant by “un-American”. Dodd resolved this problem by defining “un-American” as a “determination to effect changes in the country by unconstitutional means”. Dodd reasoned that there were means provided in the Constitution for altering or amending our government or laws and that these should be used by anyone attempting this. Clearing up what was meant by “un-American” gave focus to Dodd’s investigation so he knew exactly what he was looking for.

          Dodd carried out his investigation and filed his report which basically stated that the effect of these large endowed foundations had been to orient our educational system away from support of the principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and implemented in the Constitution. He concluded that these foundations actually were trying to gain control over the content of American education.

Norman Dodd

          A couple of examples serve to illustrate what Dodd had discovered. One of the foundations Dodd investigated was the Ford Foundation. Upon hearing of Dodd’s investigation for the Congressional Committee the chairman of the Ford Foundation, Rowan Gaither invited Dodd to New York to visit. When Dodd got there Gaither asked him why Congress was interested in the activities of the foundations. Without waiting for Dodd to say a thing Gaither went on to make an “off the record” statement that the Ford Foundation operates according to certain directives and that the substance of these directives was to use their grant making power so as to alter life in the United States so that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union. Dodd practically fell off his chair. Here was the President of the Ford Foundation in 1954, admitting without prompting, that they were working to merge the US and Soviet Union. Recovering from his surprise, Dodd pointed out to Gaither that the U.S. government was spending $150,000 of tax payer money to find out what Gaither had just said and that since the Ford foundation was enjoying tax exempt status perhaps he should tell the American people what the foundation was up to. Gaither responded by saying no, the Ford foundation would not do that.

          Dodd then went on to investigate the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dr. Joseph Johnson, president of the Endowment, actually turned over the records and minutes of the Endowment to Dodd’s researchers starting with the first meeting of trustees in the year the endowment was formed, 1908. According to these records the initial question considered by the trustees was “Is there any means more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people?” They concluded that there was not. The next question raised by the trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, according to their own records, was “How do we involve the United States in a war?” That question was answered with “We must control the State Department.” And in order to do that they resolve:  “We must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of the country.” So that becomes their objective, according to their own records. And by 1917 the U.S. is drawn into World War I. 

          Finally the war ends. And now the interest of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shifts to preventing what they call a reversion to the way life in the U.S. was before the war. In order to do this they concluded that “we must control education in the United States.” Now this is a big task even for the Carnegie Endowment to tackle. So they team up with the Rockefeller Foundation and decide that the portion of education considered domestic will be handled by the Rockefeller Foundation and the portion considered international will be handled by the Endowment. They then determine that the key to the success of the above project lay in the alteration of the teaching of American history. To affect this they approach four of the most prominent teachers of American history in the country for that time period. They ask these teachers if they will alter the way in which they present American history. To this suggestion the teachers issued a resounding “no!” So the trustees of the Rockefeller foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace decide to “build our own stable of historians.” To do this they approach the Guggenheim Foundation, which specializes in fellowships, and work out an arrangement for their handpicked doctoral candidates in the field of American history to be given fellowships based on the recommendation of the Endowment. Using this mechanism the Endowment eventually gathers twenty potential teachers of American history and takes them to London, England to be briefed on what is expected of them.

          That group of twenty historians ultimately becomes the core group of the American Historical Association. Toward the end of the 1920s the Endowment grants the American Historical Association $400,000 for a study of our history with an eye towards what this country can look forward to in the future. This action culminates in a seven volume study with the last volume being a summary of the first six and in which it is predicted that the future of the United States belongs to collectivism (Socialism), though administered with characteristic American efficiency.

          Norman Dodd is long dead now, but in his research into the records of these tax exempt foundations, while operating as director for a Congressional committee, he had come across direct evidence of the ongoing conspiracy the U.S was and is being subjected to and he did his best to inform us. Perhaps it is now a bit clearer just how it is that the United States is being subverted as a free nation. If enough citizens get informed fast enough and confront the situation there is still time to do something about it.

          For myself I will do all I can. I owe it to my dad.

Copyright © 2013

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved

Some Comments on "War" on Planet Earth...by Mark Arnold

(Note: It is all good and well to talk about balancing the Federal Budget and cutting the deficit but the reality is that this will not be done until the two largest areas of Federal spending are somehow dealt with. The two areas are Government funded entitlement programs and Defense spending. War and preparation for war have been nearly constant conditions for our country over the last century and have long been justified as necessary for the security of the United States.  If we are to ever rise to a higher level as a nation both economically and morally then we must get past these considerations.  To do so requires a knowledge of the factors that seem to make war so necessary.  Behind every persistent negative condition there exists a lie. So let’s crank up our confront of evil and take a short look at the subject of “war” on our planet Earth.)

         A few months before he was assassinated in 1963 it is claimed by some that President John F. Kennedy commissioned a group of scholars, economists and other specialists to do a unique study. The group was to look into and report on the barriers that could be expected to be encountered in the event that the United States should shift away from the confrontation policy of the Cold War and start pursuing a policy of attaining a permanent peace. The group was also to recommend possible solutions to those barriers. Though Kennedy was killed in November of ’63 the group continued to meet over the next two years. Their initial meeting took place at “Iron Mountain” in the state of New York where a number of major corporations maintained underground records and administration facilities to be used in the event of nuclear war. It is from this initial meeting ground that the group’s final report, completed in the mid ‘60s, took its title: “Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace”.  

         The report concluded that, even if it was possible to attain a condition of permanent peace it would probably not be desirable to do so. The reason?  War served to fulfill certain important social functions.  Among these functions were population control and the fact that war served as an economic whip for a society, spurring the need for production. The main reason, however, that the special group concluded that war should not be turned away from was that it appeared to them that the special power of a government to control its population resided in its war powers. They concluded that the power to make war and mobilize its citizenry for war was practically synonymous with the concept of nationhood. Based on this the study group concluded that until a reliable surrogate was found that fulfilled all the conditions that war fulfilled in accomplishing these social functions we should not be looking to eliminate war as a condition on planet Earth.

         “Report from Iron Mountain…” was released to the public in book form in the mid ‘60s. The man who released it claims he obtained the report from one of the study group members who broke security because he had second thoughts about his involvement in the group and felt the public should be aware of the recommendations being made to their government officials by the group. Upon its release the report was immediately attacked as a hoax. There are those, however, who claim otherwise. L. Fletcher Prouty, who for many years coordinated the military support for CIA covert operations around the world in the 50s and early 60s, in his book “JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy” refers to “Report from Iron Mountain…” and states that the concepts of the report are representative of the thought processes of many of the cold warrior types in government at the time he was there.

         This starts to give you some insight into why to date on this planet it has been impossible to do away with the blight of war as a constant condition. But there are other reasons as well. Let’s take a short look at the recent history of war just as regards the United States. Consider the following, and while doing so keep in mind that the founding fathers through the first 20 years of our existence as a nation worked very, very hard to keep the United States out of war. Their stated policy was to stay out of foreign and particularly European entanglements and wars. A huge reason for this was economic...they knew the country could not afford it and would inevitably wind up in the back pocket of the bankers if they went the war route.  So they worked hard to stay out.

         This effort to stay out of war succeeded until the war of 1812 in which we fought the British for a 2^nd time. This was followed by the Mexican War in the 1840s, the Civil War in 1861 and the Spanish American war at the close of the 19^th century. Moving into the 20^th century we have WWI followed by WWII. In both of these wars our enemy on the continent of Europe was Germany. It may interest you to know that in World War I the chairman of the German Reichsbank, the central bank of Germany, was a man named Max Warburg. At the time Max’s brother, Paul Warburg was the chairman of the fledgling Federal Reserve Bank in the US, and thus you had the unique condition of the two brothers being Chairmen of the Central banks of the two warring nations.

         Do you suppose these guys at the minimum had a conflict of interest?

         Well, WWI ends and Germany is defeated. But within 14 years Adolph Hitler rises to power and Germany rearms itself and within 20 years after the end of WWI the world is engulfed in WW II. How is that possible.?

         In his insightful book, “Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler”, researcher Antony Sutton chronicles the support given to the 3^rd Reich by Wall Street bankers and firms who funneled money into Germany and formed corporate connections with companies in Germany, including the German chemical giant IG Farben, the company infamous for its production of the poison gas used in Nazi mass murder schemes.

         Farben in the early 30s was a giant company that had an American corporation as well as a German one. Directors on the board of American Farben sound like a who’s who of the top industrialists and bankers of the day, including Edsel Ford of Ford Motor Co., C.E. Mitchel of the Fed Reserve Bank Of NY, Walter Teagle, director of the Fed Reserve Bank of NY and of Standard Oil of New Jersey as well as the omni-present Paul Warburg, first Chairman of the US Fed Reserve Bank. Of course the aforementioned Max Warburg, Paul’s brother was a Farben director in Germany.  Three American Farben board members were found guilty at the Nuremberg War Crime trials after WWII  but this did not include the ubiquitous Paul Warburg, Edsel Ford, or the Fed Reserve bankers.

         Often representing Farben and its American subsidiaries was the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, two prominent  members of which at this time were John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles. John Foster would go on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower in the 50s during the height of the Cold War. Allen would be director of the CIA from the early ‘50s until he was fired by John Kennedy in 1961 following the ill fated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs by a brigade of Cubans that the CIA had trained and equipped to retake Cuba from Castro.

         Many believe that it was Kennedy’s firing of Dulles and other top CIA officials as well as his decision to move away from the policy of confrontation and war (as evidenced by his famous speech at American University in June 1963, where he said we as a nation must re-examine our basic notions about the Soviet Union and ourselves “for we all breathe the same air and we all cherish our children’s future”) that led to his assassination in 1963. It is a matter of record that JFK was going to pull the plug on the Vietnam War, having already ordered the first thousand troops home at the time he was killed. It is also a matter of record that within 24 hrs after Kennedy’s death his directives regarding Vietnam were countermanded by the new President Lyndon Johnson. Sadly, the Vietnam War was about to start for real. Before it was through some 58,000 Americans would die and by some estimates 2 million Vietnamese.

         In addition to the above Allen Dulles, prior to the establishment of the CIA and even after (CIA was established in 1947) was one of the principles in getting the NAZI intelligence apparatus turned over to the US as well as helped to relocate ex Nazi’s to the West who were considered to have value in the Cold War effort against the Soviet Union. You can see then, that the connections of Wall Street to the NAZIs were instrumental in creating the conditions that led to WWII and continued unabated into the Cold War against the Soviets.

         The pattern has been repeated through the administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush One, Clinton and Bush Two. Also consider that each of these administrations was dealt nearly impossible situations to deal with that had them at effect from practically the word go. JFK had the Bay of Pigs debacle within the first 3 months of his administration. Reagan and Ford both had assassination attempts near the start of their terms, Nixon had Watergate and Bush two had 9/11 within the first 8 months of his administration.

         Across the same time, within the context of the Cold War which lasted from 1945 until the Iron Curtain came down in ’89-90 we have had the Korean War, the Vietnam War, as well as the US Military interventions in Libya, Grenada, Panama, the Balkans, The first Iraq war and now the second Iraq war and the Afghan War.

         The question that must be seriously asked here is a simple one:

         Who benefits from all of these wars and military actions?

         Certainly not the millions who died during WWI and II and the wars since.

         The fact is that, as noted in “Report from Iron Mountain…” war is big business. Defense is currently the second largest item in the federal budget annually with $100s of billions being spent. While I disagree with much of what President Obama stands for and many of the actions he is taking, to expect him or any President to be able to balance our budget and reduce our deficit in the face of the types of pressures I have out lined above is ludicrous until the factors of the equation change in this country. And while there may be some mental factor shared by the peoples of this planet that helps to pre-dispose us to war, the simple truth is that the Central Banks of Europe and our own Federal Reserve have operated as hidden influences to bring about the conditions of war that have devastated this planet, indebted the nations of the world and killed and brought despair to millions while inventing elaborate justifications like those in “Report from Iron Mountain…” so they can sleep better at night.

         It is high time we changed the equation…don’t you think?

Copyright © 2013

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved

From a Native Son....Announcing a new blog...by Mark Arnold

Hello Friends!

         With this message I am launching a new blog for the purpose of communicating my views on the various political and social issues of our times. The blog is entitled “Mark Arnold: From a Native Son…” and has the additional purpose of generating dialogue from readers and raising awareness in the direction of solutions to the problems affecting our nation today. With that in mind I look forward to your response to anything that I publish using this line. There is a great deal going on in our society right now and I find myself with much to say about it. You probably do too. My original blog “Mark Arnold: Views from the edge…” has become largely a sports blog and from this point forward will be dedicated to sports only.

         Thank you for being there, for reading and for being aware. The legendary Chinese curse seems to have come to pass; for these are, indeed, interesting times…MA