America __ $old Off to the Highest Bidder

America’s politicians have been selling their influence for votes and money since 1789, if not earlier.  Those elected by “The People” who have gone to Washington to manage America’s affairs in the interest of their electorate have been the exception and not the rule. Most enter politics for self interest rather than out of any noble sense of duty. So, we know who the influence peddlers are: the 536 people we so carelessly elect every few years to “represent” our interests, as well as, countless agenda driven bureaucrats.

It’s common knowledge who the buyers of the influence being peddled by the politicians are: the rich and powerful  _ be they individuals or large corporations or front organizations used to do their bidding; such as, well funded think tanks and foundations.

As a result, a large fraction of the laws and regulations on the books are there to aid the few at the expense of the many.

So far, we’ve talked only of the selling and buying of domestic policy. What about foreign policy? What about national sovereignty? Are they for sale too? If so, who are the buyers? Three reporters for the New York Times produced an excellent bit of investigative journalism on September 6, 2014, titled, Foreign Powers Buy Influence At Think Tanks. (Hat Tips to Bad Blue, Blazing Cat Fur, and Tablet) Unfortunately, this well done investigative report, which is rare in what passes for journalism today, has received little attention from the rest of the mass media. An earlier article the authors link started out:

Foreign governments are a major source of money for think tanks in Washington, making donations, in many cases, with a goal of trying to influence United States foreign policy. The think tanks offer the donor governments special access to United States government officials, at times in exchange for the financial support.

Members of the more important think tanks are often invited to testify before Senate and Congressional committees to share their “expertise” on policy issues under review. Also, those rich and powerful entities discussed above use their lobbyists to promote the same positions of these foreign powers where they are doing or want to do business.  From the NYT article:

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.

Norway, for example, has spent millions on think tanks to influence US policy on drilling for oil and gas in the Artic. Japan has likewise spent millions to spur the US to accelerate negotiations over a free-trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Maybe most disturbing is the money spent by Middle East countries who, in my opinion, want to influence the US policy on the conflicts in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, of course, with Israel.

The reporters are rightly concerned that these “intellectual/academic” think tanks are acting more like lobbyists. But, because they are not registered as lobbyists, they do not receive the same scrutiny and, therefore, it is hard to get accurate information on how much money they are receiving from foreign governments.

What little information the organizations volunteer about their donors, along with public records and lobbying reports filed with American officials by foreign representatives, indicates a minimum of $92 million in contributions or commitments from overseas government interests over the last four years. The total is certainly more.

That $92+ million was for the period since 2011.

But, selling out America’s foreign policy and sovereignty is not a new phenomena. In the opinion of this humble observer of the asylum we all have to live in, President Harry Truman and the rest of the political elites got the ball rolling they  pushed through the establishment of the United Nations. Over the years, presidents past and present have implemented treaty agreements which were never approved by the Senate, as required by that once important document known as our Constitution. Presidents past and present have tried to give away our territorials rights to the UN’s Law of the Sea and to negate our 2nd Amendment Right to the UN’s gun control laws.

Do you remember Zbigniew K. Brzezinski? He was an advisory to President Lyndon Johnson and he was National Security Advisor to that Marxist peanut farmer, President Carter, from 1977 to 1981. He was/is one of the original members of the Trilateral Commission. Mr. Brzezinski is very big on controlling the mass at home and abroad. He wrote a book in 1970. Below is an excerpt. If you click of the link in that excerpt, you will automatically get a pdf download. A scary read!

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values … The capacity to assert social and political control over the individual will vastly increase … Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen.” — Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Adviser, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (New York, NY: Viking Press, 1970)

In the late 1980’s and eary 1990’s,  the United States Army War College Strategic Studies Institute imbarked on an analysis on what the world might be like by 2010. The 134 page document was published in 1992. It was titled: A World 2010: A New Order of Nations. (That link automatically downloads the entire report) The following was taken from the Foreward:

This book is a description of a plausible future world
environment for the years around 2010. This environment
describes a world where the influence of one superpower of
the 20th century is diminished and where the government and
the nation of the other has collapsed and reorganized into
several new national entities. It also portrays a world where
20th century Third World nations achieve a new status in the
world’s family of nations. The author depicts in this book a world
where new international status and alignments lead to a new
world order of nations. The new order places the nations of the
world in 2010 in five groups according to their relationship to
modernization and industrialization.

Clearly, the New Order of Nations didn’t happen by 2010. But, it wasn’t for lack of trying by the powers that be in our government. So far, Americans have been successful in fending off efforts their government to disarm them; an important key for the new order to take place. Meanwhile, the sell outs in Washington keep looking for that one crisis that will scare enough Americans into demanding that the government disarm The People in total disregard for the constitution. On the other hand, the government has been very successful in expanding NATO, undermining the dollar, and more recently in reducing US influence in the world.

You can bet they will keep coming after your guns. You right to defend your rights is the only thing they haven’t been able to sell off…, so far.

Well, that’s what I’m thinking. What are your thoughts?