Thomas Jefferson said, "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." His remark rings truer today than during his lifetime.

Abraham Lincoln provided clarification of this truth when he wrote "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed."Where the power of wealth and money rule, it matters not who is President - or King. As Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild said, "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire. The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the money supply." President Truman was right: "there is nothing new under the sun but the history you haven't read."

Political liberty or freedom is an illusion in an authoritarian economic system. We have evolved into a nation in which over 41,000 lobbyists in Washington, D.C. have become America's defacto legislative entities. Our elected representatives have been captured and reduced to window dressing and publicly paid stooges of vested interests.Examining our nation's present situation, here is what we find in terms of types of financial wealth: The top 1 percent of households have 38.3 percent of all privately held stock, 60.6 percent of financial securities, and 62.4 percent of business equity. The top 10 percent have 80 to 90 percent of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75 percent of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10 percent of the people own the United States of America. (Source: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html)

President Nixon's Chief of Staff, H. R. (Bob) Haldeman, had a sign on the wall of his private office next to Nixon's. That sign said, "When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." It appears that Lincoln's view is vindicated. The money powers now have our nation by the balls.Simon Johnson, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, said, "Once banks are allowed to become too big to fail and too big to save, they have captured our government and society. That spells the end of any pretense of democracy. This is, of course, partly about the political power of corporations. But corporations are, in this sense, merely a veil - this is really all about which people have what kind of power in our society. To what extent are we really still a democracy - and how far have we already slipped down the road to oligarchy?"

Frank Zappa observed that "The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, pull back the curtains, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." A Gordian knot has been laid before America. Have we the wisdom or the will to deal with it? If not, corporate powers will become our rulers, and America will have lost World War II by default.

J. Albert Rowe is a Coeur d'Alene resident.