Will America Survive?

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Will the American Nation Survive?

by Patrick J. Buchanan, Presidential candidate, Reform Party

Who owns America? Who controls the real levers of power?

In the wake of recent events it seems a pertinent question. Consider: During the debate on merging the U.S. and Mexico in an economic union called NAFTA, a surge of patriotic and nationalist protest arose. Bill Clinton was forced to go down into the trading pits of Capitol Hill, to buy votes outright. Yet, on the pivotal vote, the Republican establishment rescued Clinton.

One year later, when a populist-nationalist coalition arose in protest of GATT and the World Trade Organization - that sweeping surrender of U.S. sovereignty - GOP leaders again collaborated with Clinton, to ram GATT through a lame duck session. Republican leaders denied their own freshmen an opportunity to vote on GATT. Since GATT and WTO had zero popular support, the sense of betrayal was great. Why did the new Republican leadership do this?

Three weeks after passage of GATT, the peso sank like a stone. American investors lost billions. And NAFTA was exposed as the hoax it had always been. Suddenly, the big boys up at Citibank and J. P. Morgan found their Mexican loans resembled junk bonds in a company whose boss had just been exposed by Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes."

They went berserk, and ran screaming to Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to bail them out. That pair concocted a plan to rush $40 billion to Mexico, so President Zedillo could pay off the $28 billion in Mexican bonds coming due in 1995.

End game: Cleanse the Big Bank portfolios of the lousy paper guaranteed by a bankrupt Mexican regime, and replace it with new paper guaranteed by U.S. taxpayers. But, the public was not fooled. A new national roar of protest arose.

Stopped cold by public opi nion, Bill Clinton used his executive authority to rush $20 billion to Mexico, and get the IMF and friends to lend another $28 billion. Again, the GOP rallied to Clinton. Indeed, Republican leaders seem positively relieved that Bill Clinton had brushed Congress aside, and acted unilaterally.

What is going on here? Three times in 13 months, the GOP spit in the face of a mighty nationalist-populist movement, to bail out Bill Clinton. The GOP is acting less like a great party than like the political action committee of Goldman Sachs. How else to explain this near suicidal politics - except that someone else is pulling the strings?

Who might that be? Well, who were the only ones clamoring for GATT, the WTO, and that $40 billion Mexican bailout? Was it not the multinational corporations and the Wall Street financial elite?

And Wall Street's most compelling argument for having the U.S. bail out Mexico? If we do not, said Rubin, the entire world financial system could come crashing down, and take us with it. But, if that is true, who put America at risk? Who guided us to the edge of the abyss? Who led us into a trap where swindlers in Mexico City could bring down the financial system of the West? Was it not Wall Street itself - and its Washington hirelings?

If the U.S. is so horribly vulnerable to sudden devaluations by Third World regimes, what steps are being taken, right now, to insulate us from a repeat of this debacle? Answer: None. Why? Because these men don't want America to escape from the trap they have put us in; they want to lock us in, forever.

Conclusion: Real power in America is not wielded by Congress. Few members have any idea what is going on. Holler "The markets will crash!" and a panicked Congress will pass a $50 billion bailout, and go back to squabbling over pennies for National Public Radio.

Real power in America belongs to the Manhattan Money Power, the one power to which neither party is any longer able to say "No!" Before leaving for Canada to explain to the Europeans why we bailed out Mexico and Wall Street, Rubin said, "There must be a broad understanding that we really and truly are in a new world where we are dependent on other nations in ways that we never were before."

That is the authentic voice of Goldman Sachs, and, regrettably, of our own Republican elites. They are saying, all of them, that America's sovereignty, independence and liberty are things of the past. They are gone forever. We must all accept our dependency upon the New World Order. We can't go home again.

But, we never voted our sovereignty away. If it is gone, they sold us out; they traded it away, without our permission. And we must get it back.

The battle for the future will be as much a battle within the parties as it will be between the parties, a battle between the hired men of the Money Power who long ago abandoned as quaint but useless old ideas of nationhood - and populists, patriots and nationalists who want no part of Robert Rubin's world.

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), February 25, 2000

Answers

Good article, good questions. The Repubs are an egg shell with the insides sucked out. After 20 years voting Repub (after 12 years voting Dem) I will no longer vote the "lesser of two evils". The Repubs must be destroyed so a real conservative party can flourish.

-- JB (noway@jose.com), February 25, 2000.

A good article. It should be required reading for those wearing donkey or elephant shaped blinders.

-- (@ .), February 25, 2000.

Good post. America will survive. The money-losing .com stocks will lead us to victory.

-- Z (Z@Z.com), February 25, 2000.

More info available from Pat Buchanan at his website: www.gopatgo.org

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), February 25, 2000.

Good post--and I'm a liberal. This is all true. We've been sold down the river by The Man. And, as he says, The Man isn't even those jerks in Congress who don't know what the heck is going on.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), February 25, 2000.


Oh no, my hero-ette, Mara, a Liberal? Love dies hard.

Yes, I agree too. Good article. Some fascinating and excellent information. But the grand conclusion is amiss. God is bringing this nation down. This is what happens to nations become and purvey that which is a stinch in God's nostrils. ...sdb

-- S. David Bays (SDBAYS@prodigy.net), February 25, 2000.


>> Oh no, my hero-ette, Mara, a Liberal? Love dies hard. <<

On basic questions of whether our government is controlled by the people or by multi-national corporations, labels like liberal or conservative should have no bearing at all.

Just remember that the majority of people marching in the streets of Seattle protesting the WTO were union members. We should all be grateful to them for their commitment and dedication on this issue, liberal, conservative or yellow dog alike.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), February 26, 2000.


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