FOREWORD

By L. Fletcher Prouty

s the Society of Mankind approaches the threshold of the Third Millennium, and ponders the prospect of the years ahead, it is marching into an uncharted wilderness during a time unlike any in history. What does this portend for us and for our common homeland, planet Earth? Will that enterprise that began in the Garden of Eden prove to be timeless, or has the day arrived when mankind must depart the garden and its boundless offerings?

To bring things into focus during these trying times, just ask yourself a few basic questions, 1) How will the nation states of the world govern and protect themselves in the future? 2) If they cannot find a way to govern all events, civil, foreign and domestic, peacefully, what will be the nature of inevitable future conflicts, and are we all to become the formless serfs of a World Power Elite? Will democracy live, or will only the lure of the profit motive remain?

It has been proved by the thirty years of warfare in Vietnam, 1945-1975 and in Korea, 1950-1953, that the most powerful military forces ever created and assembled by man, those of the American democracy could not achieve true victory, in the traditional sense. There remains no way to win a modern war without a clearly defined military objective, and with the presumption of the non-use of nuclear weapons. The intensity of warfare cannot be limited. Alternatively, the unlimited employment of nuclear weapons in a "no holds barred" classic strategic struggle will assuredly bring about the end of man and the extinction of life on Earth.

These are ominous questions, as we face a momentous period in our history. Until considered in depth, they may appear ridiculous; but considering the significance of the role of warfare throughout history, they must be confronted. There is no viable alternative for mankind other than to find a new way to the future.

On the other hand, can there be a glorious and ever-brighter future for the Society of Mankind? We have the means. We have abundant resources and the "know-how" to use them profitably. To this we can add that we possess a strong history upon which to build, and we have the almost limitless potential of modern man that can be harnessed for good deeds both for the individual and for the masses: but these assets must be used effectively and with sincere concern.

From the point of view of a national government, all of the skills, resources and know-how of its people, resources and property must be wisely and expertly channeled into the progressive and meaningful design, construction, and operation of the very finest infrastructure possible to be placed under the management control of the most skilled specialists available. Otherwise, mankind will experience the twilight of civilization as it crumbles into dust and decay. These are not simple facts. They are the fundamental steps to an understanding of the challenge of the future. Let us see what help we can get from history.

It was Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of the Republic of India, 1952, who addressed the most immediate problems facing his great country, after it had gained its independence, with a program of "agrarian reform and the betterment of the masses."

It was this same Nehru who, while in prison in 1932, had written to his daughter Indira, along with other letters published in 1934, under the title GLIMPSES OF WORLD HISTORY:

"Real history should deal, not with a few individuals here and there, but with the people who make up a nation, who work and by their labour produce the necessaries and luxuries of life, and who in a thousand different ways act and react on each other. Such a history of man would really be a fascinating story. It would be the story of man’s struggle through the ages against Nature and the elements, against wild beasts and the jungle and, last and most difficult of all, against some of his own kind who have tried to keep him down and to exploit him for their own benefits. It is the story of man’s struggle for a living. And because, in order to live, certain things, like food and shelter and clothing in cold climates, are necessary, those who have controlled these necessities have lorded it over man. The rulers and the bosses have had the authority because they owned or controlled some essential of livelihood, and this control gave them the power to starve people into submission. And so we see the strange sight of large masses being exploited by the comparatively few; of some who earn without working at all, and of vast numbers who work but earn very little.”

"All over the world there is trouble and change. Indeed, all over the world, the old system totters and threatens to collapse. Countries talk of disarmament, but look suspiciously at each other and keep armed to the teeth. It is the twilight of Capitalism, which has lorded for so long over the world. And when it goes, as go it must, it will take many an evil thing with it."

These words and ideas from Nehru are even more important today than they were when written. The developments of the last 200 years have shown us how man can construct the greatest man-made "Wonder of the World" in the 300,000 mile railway network that provided the backbone of commerce and inter-communication for the sparsely settled North American continent, and they have also proven that left to the ways of the financiers our money system and its uncontrolled and devastating usury system has deprived the citizens of this great nation the benefits of their hard won birthright, while encouraging the growth of an overwhelming Power Elite.

This Power Elite is not easy to identify and to define; but the fact that it exists makes itself known from time to time. Concerning the Power Elite,

R. Buckminster Fuller wrote of the "vastly ambitious individuals who have become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery." Fuller noted also, "Always their victories are in the name of some powerful sovereign-ruled country. The real power structures are always the invisible ones behind the visible sovereign powers."

 

This Power Elite is not a group from one nation or even of one alliance of nations. It operates throughout the world and no doubt has done so for many, many centuries.

These leaders are influenced by the persuasion of the greatest propaganda schemes ever put forth by man:

1. The concept of "real property", a function of "colonialism" that began with the circumnavigation of Earth by Magellan’s ships in 1520. John Locke described this “doctrine of discovery and rights of conquest” in his philosophy of natural law.
2. The population theory of Robert Malthus. (Malthusian Theory.)
3. Darwin’s theory of evolution, as enhanced by the concept of the “survival of the fittest”.
4. Heisenberg’s theory of indeterminacy, that is, that God throws the dice, and similar barriers to the meaningful advancement of science and technology today.

All history is firmly rooted in philosophy. In one of the greatest philosophical history books of all time, "THE MUQADDIMAH" written by Ibn Khaldun in 1337, we find this basic and undeniable description of warfare and the methods of waging war as practiced by the various nations of the emerging eras of our civilization:

"Wars and different kinds of fighting have always occurred in the world since God created it. The origin of war is the desire of certain human beings to take revenge on others. Each party is supported by the people sharing in its group feeling. When they have sufficiently excited each other for the purpose and the two parties confront each other, one seeking revenge and the other trying to defend itself, there is war. It is something natural among human beings. No nation and no race is free from it."

Khaldun then goes on to list four kinds of war:

1. “This war usually occurs between neighboring tribes and competing families.
2. War--caused by hostility--is usually found among savage nations living in the desert, such as the Arabs, the Turks, the Turkomen, the Kurds, and similar peoples.
3. The religious law calls this next type the Holy War.
4. Dynastic war is waged against seceders and those who refuse obedience.”

This is the historians’ study of the past. Are these definitions still valid? Can mankind continue to live under such conditions? What is their validity in today’s world?

As a veteran of World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars followed by nine years (1955-1964) in the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defence (Thomas Gates and Robert McNamara), in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer and Gen. Maxwell Taylor) and with the Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Gen. Thomas White and Gen. Curtis LeMay). I believe that there is no way that these truths of the past can be made to apply to the situation we all share on planet Earth today.

In support of this statement, I wish to make use of a quotation from a speech delivered by one of the greatest military leaders of this century, General Douglas MacArthur. This speech was given before a joint session of the Congress of the Republic of the Philippines, July 5, 1961:

"But this very triumph of scientific annihilation--this very success of invention--has destroyed the possibility of war’s being a medium for the practical settlement of international differences. The enormous destruction to both sides of closely matched opponents makes it impossible for the winner to translate it into anything but his own disaster... Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. No longer is it a weapon of adventure--the shortcut to international power. If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide."

Consider those words with care. General MacArthur was one of the great voices of his era. He spoke from the varied experience of a man who had been in command of elements of the most powerful force of arms ever assembled, during World War II. On top of that, as the Senior U.S. Representative of the Occupation Forces in Japan after that war, he proved himself to be as successful a nation builder as he had been its destroyer. What he said, from that podium in 1961, merits careful thought.

General MacArthur spoke of warfare in the classic style of Gustavus Adolphous, of Frederick the Great, of Napoleon. To all such great warriors warfare is the absolutely unlimited, unrestrained and unharnessed maximum effort of a nation. True wars are fought for positively defined national objectives. This is what General MacArthur had in his mind when he spoke of warfare today no longer having the chance of the winner of a duel. He was underscoring that there had been no bona fide military objective in the Korean War, and that there never had been a true military commander or military objective for the Vietnam Warfare. Those were not real and "winnable" wars, because they were limited by the fact that the most powerful weapons in the nation’s arsenal could not be used for fear of retaliation in kind. The generals were never actually in charge of those wars. They were always under the orders of civilians who purposefully limited their capacity to win.

It is too bad that most Americans, and most others around the world did not understand the full meaning of what General MacArthur said in 1961. It was true then. It is true now. It will continue to be true in the future. But, as in all such dilemmas there are always alternatives.

Today we find that there is an entirely new arsenal of weaponry, the new family of Horror Weapons. There are chemical and biological weapons, and other unconventional items such as blinding lasers, radiological weapons, and ultra-low-frequency sound wave guns. These, and others, are on hand and are being developed in an attempt to create an entirely new kind of warfare. Most national leaders recognize that the newest type of hydrogen bomb can destroy Earth and all life on it, therefore they are desperately searching for alternatives; but will these "horror weapons" really bring about victory in a future war? Once out of the "bottle" can they really be controlled? This is the great question; and if not, what is the alternative?

One alternative, for limited goals, has been the "make-war" tactic as used in Indochina and in other trouble spots such as the Balkans of 1996. In Indochina, more than one million northern Vietnamese were terrorized by a special CIA "Saigon Military Mission" into leaving their ancestral homeland in the Tonkin China region to be transported by the U.S. Navy and by CIA’s airline to the south. There they became a burden on the new, and troubled country South Vietnam. Homeless, with no food and no money these "foreigners" by necessity became bandits. As this situation increased they were called "Communist Inspired Insurgents" and the U.S. Armed Forces set up Counterinsurgency forces to deal with them. This created a most profitable war that overall grossed at least $570 billion for the war makers.

A similar tactic is being used in Bosnia and the surrounding states of the Balkans today. A program of "Ethnic Cleansing" has caused tens of thousands of natives to be forced to move to other areas. There, they too, are starving, homeless and hopeless. They must submit to that last resort of mankind... banditry. In that role they are called the enemy, and another profit-making war is underway.

These are not Earth-destroying battles; but over time they will produce massive genocidal results as the strong wipe out the weak, "for the good of mankind". This is not classic warfare; but it certainly is not peace and normalcy. It may be the wave of the future. Who can stop it?

I have inserted these opening paragraphs of my contribution to this most promising manuscript, because it is a subject I know from experience, and because the reader will note that my words are intended to compliment the most effective and comprehensive material of this main work by Robert Harris Brevig, BEYOND OUR CONSENT: A HISTORY OF SECRET POWER, DECEPTION AND ABANDONMENT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. This work provides a most penetrating and comprehensive look at those parts of the spectrum of modern life that so many others fail to perceive. His analysis of such important aspects of the modern scene as the role of the Federal Reserve and the banking system is unmatched. Yet he is equally at home describing village life and its vitality, and the great step forward made by the discovery of agriculture. I expect the readers of this book to discover that they have been guided through significant functional areas of human effort that they have not perceived before, at least not in modern garments.

My introductory work above is, of course, but one aspect of the major problems, tasks and opportunities that face mankind as we enter the Third Millennium. To be quite frank and honest, the task is going to be enormous and the future does not look too bright; but there are several more ways to look at these challenges.

Such epochal periods have been faced before, and intelligent beings have not only survived; but, for the most part, have improved their lot in life. Such has been the case of the early society of the warm-water regions of the Pacific and Indian oceans, who learned not only to live and thrive in their natural environment; but to explore Earth on unbelievable voyages of discovery with the aid of nothing more than water-navigation techniques that made the "Navigator" the most important man in his community.

This significant role of the "Navigator" in those earliest times has been so aptly described by R. Buckminster Fuller in his book CRITICAL PATH:

"When the supposedly God-ordained chieftain of those islands finds his prestige and popular credence declining, he can go to the navigator and ask him to produce a miracle. The chieftain knows naught of navigation. He thinks of the navigator as a magician or miracle-maker. All the chieftain knows is that his miracle-producer goes off to sea sailing his catamaran out of sight... to another far-off island where there exist items such as have never been found on the home island. He brings them home to the island king-chieftain, who displays them before the people, who spontaneously assume that the chieftain has conjured up the strange objects with his divine powers."

"Generations later, prehistory’s successors of the ancient navigators eventually became the high priests of Egypt, Babylon, and other great civilizations. Both their mathematical calculating ability and their navigational intuiting ultimately led to their discovery that the Earth is a circumnavigatable sphere. This knowledge made them more powerful than the physically powerful fighting kings."

Mankind faces a similar future today as the new horizons of transport, communications, finance, food production, living conditions and even governmental functions and controls have expanded faster than our culture has been able to comprehend and to accommodate.

A small, but important book, RISK AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS, written in 1986 by Walter B. Wriston, formerly Citibank chairman and among his peers "Mr. Banker of the United States" underscores this worldwide phenomenon in words that were, at the time, prophetic and almost beyond belief:

"People of all nations have long since adjusted to the grim reality that an intercontinental ballistic missile can travel from the Soviet Union, or reverse path, in about thirty minutes, carrying enough explosives to render our society unliveable. We now have a less visible but perhaps equally profound challenge to the unlimited sovereign power of nation-states in the technical reality of global communications. Satellites have made communication costs almost insensitive to distance. There has been steady elimination of economic and technical barriers to the instantaneous exchange of information among peoples. This information is not always welcome and the political implications are enormous, even though barely visible on the horizon today."

This is the writing of one of the most powerful and influential men in the United States during the nuclear era. It shows clearly how far we have travelled since the earlier days of the nineteenth century, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

"(He) feared that the inevitable growth of democracy would also lead to despotism and militarism. While peace is peculiarly hurtful to democratic armies, war and its popular passions give them advantages which cannot fail in the end to give them the victory. The secret connection between the military character and that of democracies is the profit motive." In that day he added, "no protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country, if only because it must increase the powers of civil government."

There we see the extremes from Walter Wriston’s recognition and acceptance of the nuclear era upon warfare and the great powers; and de Tocqueville’s finding that the "profit motive" was the true source of power within the democracy. We all shall have to live to see the day when the One World "solution" of the "Power Elite" has been revealed to a troubled Society of Man.

It may be that Ibn Khaldun had such a thing in mind when he wrote, back there in 1337, the following:

"The world is a garden, the fence of which is the dynasty. The dynasty is the authority through which life is given to proper behaviour. Proper behaviour is a policy directed by the ruler. The ruler is an institution supported by the soldiers. The soldiers are helpers who are maintained by money. Money is substance that is brought together by the subjects. The subjects are servants who are protected by justice. Justice is something familiar, and through it, the world persists. The world is a garden..."

As we all have learned, the world is a garden and it was first populated by Adam and Eve. Later someone conceived of a shovel and put one together. With man’s ingenuity thereafter that garden became productive through the medium of agriculture and mankind survived and thrived. Since the very beginning there have also been those whose ingenuity led them to devise more effective ways to plunder and take from those who produce and give. Yet the garden persists and in this there is hope.

This is the story we turn over to Robert Harris Brevig and his great work, BEYOND OUR CONSENT: A HISTORY OF SECRET POWER, DECEPTION AND ABANDONMENT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. It

may be that the true situation is such that we have abandoned our own future. We shall see.

L. Fletcher Prouty

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