Poor Mojo's Newswire

Our entire newsroom was covering the RNC (save the four reporters who were reserved for other news). I was part of the team covering events outside the convention center. In large part that meant protests and police. Protests took place everyday and while they began as a crowd listening to music or speakers they often became police watching protestors, protestors watching police and media watching them both. As you may have read or heard, arrests were much higher in Saint Paul than they were in Denver. We had reporter teams at both events. Our impression is that the arrests had little to do with protestor behavior and a lot to do with police approach. At every protest I reported confrontations with police began with an action by police, such as police grabbing a protestor or reporter who was looking in his backpack. The expectation that protestors would be violent was strong. In Saint Paul the longtime sheriff has a reputation for his interest in garnering attention and making a show of force. In this instance he may also have wanted to take attention away from the federal corruption charges that had just been brought against his deputy sheriff and personal friend. This may have had something to do with the number of arrests. I am not suggesting the plate glass windows and police windshields that some protestors smashed are the fault of overeager police. Nope. That’s the fault of stupid protestors being hostile, aggressive and stupid. But the vast majority of people arrested were released without charges being brought. I mention all this because it’s one of those occasions where the way a particular media group covers something determines what message you receive. I was around many CNN and Fox reporters and some of what they reported and how they reported was lacking context and often misinformed. That said, the way police or protestors perceive the course of events is neither wrong nor right but usually different. I thought I’d send you two of our stories. One of them is mine. It’s a play-by-play of the last protest as I saw it from within the crowd. One chant I didn’t get on tape was “you’re sexy, you’re cute, take off that riot suit.” (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/09/05/final_protest_rnc/?refid=0) This is a first person account by another reporter of ours. He was swept up in arrests and when he read the complaint against the protestors the list of charges didn’t match what he and others witnessed. (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/09/05/rncprotest/) I hope none of you read this and think I’m pushing a particular vantage point. I wanted to offer some insight into what I saw and reported at this national event. The local never disappears even when it’s national.

BOMBSHELL #1

Cecil Rhodes, the founder of De Beers and creator of the Rhodes' Trust (of which the Rhodes' Scholarship is a part) formed a secret society with some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Britain and New York. The primary goal of this group was to federate the English speaking world and to expand the British empire. The structure of this society was an inner circle of "initiates" and outer circles of "helpers." The outer circles were called Round Table groups.

This was during the Gilded Age and it is difficult to even comprehend the wealth of these people (I posted a pic of one of their houses just to convey). And to truly understand their aims, you have to appreciate the reach of their industry. These were the first globalists of the modern era and their vision was breathtaking in scope. They sought to create a transnational trading system that would allow them unfettered access to markets and resources worldwide with minimal red tape. In essence, they were the pioneers of globalization and national sovereignty and colonial unrest was their primary impediment.

It appears the specific goals of this group evolved over the years, and their dream of a world federation gave way to a softer, more subtle alignment. But one can only describe their general aim of recalibrating the political environment, consisting of most major nations, into a global free trading system as being highly successful.

We are witnessing now the fruition of a plan set in motion over a century ago, conceived in secret, and implemented over multiple generations. And while the modern world certainly differs from that imagined by these founders, they are truly the architects of what we may call the Anglo-American empire that thrives today. They laid the foundation, both for the transnational banking and industrial system we have now, and for the methods of exerting the power to create that system.