Heads We Win, Tails You Lose: The Fascist Philosophy Behind Private Equity’s Leveraged Buyout of Everything

It’s been the same head­line for months now:
* April of 2020: Amer­i­can bil­lion­aires have got­ten $280 bil­lion rich­er since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic
* May of 2020: Amer­i­can bil­lion­aires got $434 rich­er dur­ing the pan­dem­ic
* August of 2020: Amer­i­can bil­lion­aires got $637 rich­er dur­ing the pan­dem­ic
* Sep­tem­ber of 2020: U.S. bil­lion­aires got $845 bil­lion rich­er since the start of the pan­dem­ic/Wealth of US bil­lion­aires ris­es by near­ly a third dur­ing pan­dem­ic
* Octo­ber of 2020: US bil­lion­aires saw their net worth rise by almost $1 tril­lion between March and Octo­ber — Jeff Bezos remains the rich­est, a study says.

From near­ly the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic it’s been clear that the pub­lic health dis­as­ter was­n’t a dis­as­ter for every­one, with the wealth­i­est indi­vid­u­als being not only large­ly insu­lat­ed from the eco­nom­ic lock­down but in many cas­es well posi­tioned to prof­it from it. The pan­dem­ic was turn­ing into a giant upward trans­fer of wealth. And as we’re going to see, giant upward trans­fers of wealth are essen­tial­ly what the pri­vate equi­ty indus­try is all about. The rise of ‘sup­ply-side’ eco­nom­ics in the 1980s coin­cid­ed with the rise of pri­vate equi­ty and that’s no coin­ci­dence. The phi­los­o­phy behind the pri­vate equi­ty move­ment is the phi­los­o­phy of sup­ply-side eco­nom­ics. An anti-New Deal phi­los­o­phy, where ruth­less­ness is a virtue, that fueled a 40 year giant fas­cist lever­aged buy­out of soci­ety.

Gehlen, Nazis, Nuclear War: History of Cold War, Germany, the U.S. and China

A recent “Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy” post pro­vides his­tor­i­cal depth and con­text to the Full Court Press against Chi­na. West­ern anti-Chi­na pol­i­cy incor­po­rat­ed and was informed by Third Reich exter­mi­na­tion­ist ide­ol­o­gy and prac­tice. Prepara­to­ry to the planned drop­ping of 34 nuclear war­heads on Chi­na, Nazi East­ern-Front tank com­man­ders work­ing under BND aus­pices helped draw up and coor­di­nate plans for Kuom­intang units to occu­py Chi­na after the nukes were dropped. Work­ing direct­ly with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s son “Wego, for­mer­ly a cadet in the Nazi mil­i­tary,” the Nazi units con­tin­ued their work on Tai­wan. In addi­tion, Nazi SS influ­ence man­i­fest­ed in the show­ing on Ger­man TV of SS doc­u­men­tary films about Tibet, fea­tur­ing footage of Bruno Beger (above right), an SS war crim­i­nal and mem­ber of the Tibetan Gov­ern­ment-in-exile. Vet­er­ans of the Waf­fen SS and Wehrma­cht helped pro­pel the momen­tum of the Uighur “op” in Bavaria.

They’re “Shocked, Shocked”: Reflections on the Debate, GOP, Fascists

FTR #‘s 1146 through 1150 chron­i­cle the syn­chro­nous evo­lu­tion of the con­tem­po­rary GOP, the CIA and the Third Reich. No one should be “Shocked, Shocked” at Trump’s com­ments on white suprema­cists. This post reviews, and excerpts that infor­ma­tion for the con­tem­pla­tion and con­ve­nience of listeners/readers. It was Trump who ulti­mate­ly took over Resorts Inter­na­tion­al. ” . . . Might not the OSS-SS con­nec­tion also throw light on the unex­plained inter­lock between James Cros­by’s com­pa­ny Resorts Inter­na­tion­al, tight­ly con­trolled by the relat­ed and dou­bly inter­mar­ried Cros­by-Mur­phy fam­i­lies, and Cap­i­tal Cities Broad­cast­ing, the major invest­ment of the CIA’s present direc­tor William Casey. (51) Casey would be the log­i­cal per­son to have estab­lished the orig­i­nal con­nec­tion between the Cros­by-Mur­phy fam­i­lies and their mys­te­ri­ous Ger­man-Swiss part­ners. For it was Casey who, in 1944–45, ‘was giv­en over­all oper­a­tional con­trol of [OSS] Ger­man projects,’ and ‘co-ordi­nat­ed . . . the over 150 men’ whom OSS sent into Ger­many. (52) With Dulles, Wis­ner, and For­gan, Casey was also one of the OSS vet­er­ans who lob­bied suc­cess­ful­ly for a CIA which could legit­i­mate­ly uti­lize the resources of the Gehlen Org. . . .”

2000 Redux: Baker Botts and The Supreme Court

If, as seems alto­geth­er prob­a­ble, Amy Coney Bar­rett is con­firmed to sit on the Supreme Court, there will be three judges on SCOTUS that worked for Bak­er Botts on the Flori­da recount that gave Dubya the Pres­i­den­cy in the 2000 elec­tion. John Roberts is now Chief Jus­tice. Brett Kavanaugh also worked on the Flori­da deba­cle for Bak­er Botts. We should not for­get that Trump aide and long-time GOP dirty trick­ster Roger Stone [right] led the so-called “Brooks Broth­ers Riot” that helped shut down the Dade Coun­ty vote recount.

What’s Wrong With These Pictures?

Mr. Emory began his polit­i­cal broad­cast­ing odyssey research­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. With so much atten­tion focused on polic­ing and the meth­ods there­of, it is inter­est­ing to ana­lyze one of the most dis­cussed aspects of the imme­di­ate Dealey Plaza crime scene. Short­ly after the killing, three “tran­sients” were tak­en into cus­tody by the Dal­las Police (or indi­vid­u­als dressed like Dal­las cops). The three were appre­hend­ed behind the grassy knoll, from which at least one shot is believed to have orig­i­nat­ed. There has been much spec­u­la­tion about who they actu­al­ly were. We sus­pect that–whoever they actu­al­ly were–they were involved with the assas­si­na­tion in some respect. What is strik­ing is the casu­al demeanor of the arrest­ing offi­cers and the fact that none of the sus­pects were hand­cuffed! In addi­tion, the “Dal­las police­men” are tak­ing the sus­pects to the Sher­if­f’s Office, which is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly unusu­al. These men were appre­hend­ed in the con­text of the mur­der of the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States! Look at the offi­cers. A casu­al observ­er would nev­er guess the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Just imag­ine what these pic­tures would look like if the “three tramps” were African-Amer­i­can “tran­sients”!

The “Mulan” Furor (Fuehrer?): Spooks, Fascists, Nazis and “The New York Times”

In pre­vi­ous pro­grams, we have not­ed that the Uyghur “inde­pen­dence” move­ment is inex­tri­ca­bly linked with ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence, as well as a pot­pour­ri of fas­cists of var­i­ous stripes. A “New York Times” arti­cle posi­tions Adri­an Zenz as an author­i­ty on the Uyghurs. Zen­z’s promi­nence as an “expert” on the Uyghurs comes by virtue of his posi­tion with the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion, ” . . . . an out­growth of the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee, a group found­ed by Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist Lev Dobri­an­sky to lob­by against any effort for detente with the Sovi­et Union. Its co-chair­man, Yaroslav Stet­sko, was a top leader of the fas­cist OUN‑B mili­tia that fought along­side Nazi Ger­many dur­ing its occu­pa­tion of Ukraine in World War Two. . . .” OUN/B’s founder was Stepan Ban­dera, pic­tured at right. Just as the Net­work of Chi­nese Human Rights Defend­ers based their report on inter­views with eight indi­vid­u­als out of a pop­u­la­tion of 20 mil­lion, Zenz based his esti­mate on a sin­gle report by a TV sta­tion that broad­casts mate­r­i­al from Al-Qae­da and ISIS-linked ele­ments and indi­vid­u­als: ” . . . . Zenz arrived at his esti­mate ‘over 1 mil­lion’ in a dubi­ous man­ner. He based it on a sin­gle report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media orga­ni­za­tion based in Turkey . . . . Far from an impar­tial jour­nal­is­tic orga­ni­za­tion, Istiqlal TV advances the sep­a­ratist cause while play­ing host to an assort­ment of extrem­ist fig­ures. One such char­ac­ter who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulka­dir Yapuquan, a report­ed leader of the East Turkestan Islam­ic Move­ment (ETIM), a sep­a­ratist group that aims to estab­lish an inde­pen­dent home­land in Xin­jiang called East Turkestan. . . . ETIM has been des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion with ties to al-Qae­da by the US, Euro­pean Union, and UN Secu­ri­ty Council’s Al-Qai­da Sanc­tions Com­mit­tee. The Asso­ci­at­ed Press has report­ed that since ‘2013, thou­sands of Uighurs… have trav­eled to Syr­ia to train with the Uighur mil­i­tant group Turk­istan Islam­ic Par­ty and fight along­side al-Qai­da,’ with ‘sev­er­al hun­dred join[ing] the Islam­ic State.’ . . .”

Does O.J. Simpson’s Life Matter?

The crim­i­nal and civ­il tri­als of O.J. Simp­son cap­ti­vat­ed the pub­lic aware­ness, yet the facts con­firm­ing, beyond doubt, O.J.‘s inno­cence were obscured by a blitzkrieg of media-assist­ed and gen­er­at­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion. Sup­ple­ment­ing the medi­a’s insti­tu­tion­al­ized lying was a grotesque dis­tor­tion of the record and out­right crim­i­nal behav­ior by ele­ments of the Los Ange­les legal estab­lish­ment. The very issues at the fore­front of the unrest over race and polic­ing were front and cen­ter in the case of Mark Fuhrman, yet the same pub­lic that is up in arms–literally–over George Floyd, Bre­an­na Tay­lor et al took no notice of the facts in the Simp­son case. Take a half hour to lis­ten to the linked autio of FTR #39, about Mark Fuhrman. Why was­n’t there more dis­cus­sion of this?

Do Black Lives Matter at Port Chicago?

In Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M23, we explored Peter Vogel’s hypoth­e­sis that the July 17, 1944 explo­sion of the ammu­ni­tion ship E.A. Bryan was the det­o­na­tion of an atom­ic bomb. In FTR #444, Peter sup­ple­ment­ed his research, devel­op­ing infor­ma­tion that the Port Chica­go explo­sion was a test of an ear­ly atom­ic weapon–the auto­cat­alyt­ic ura­ni­um hydride lat­er­al implo­sion exper­i­men­tal device—named the Mark II. (His­to­ri­ans of the atom­ic era have often won­dered why the Hiroshi­ma weapon–“Little Boy”–was clas­si­fied as the Mark I, while the Nagasa­ki weapon–“Fat Man”–was the Mark III. Peter’s dis­cov­ery explains the “absence” of the Mark II from the record.) Sub­se­quent­ly, he and author Dean McLeod sup­ple­ment­ed that work, fur­ther rein­forc­ing the hypoth­e­sis that Port Chica­go was the test of the Mark 2. Peter’s work has also been sum­ma­rized in a book. To date, we have heard no com­men­tary on the delib­er­ate sac­ri­fice of the lives of scores of African-Amer­i­can sailors.

Reflections on “Epidemic Prevention” and “Vaccine Development”

In past pro­grams, we have briefly not­ed that mil­i­tary and [osten­si­bly] civil­ian pro­grams offi­cial­ly involved with “epi­dem­ic pre­ven­tion” might con­ceal clan­des­tine bio­log­i­cal war­fare appli­ca­tions designed to cre­ate epi­demics. The offi­cial dis­tinc­tion between “offen­sive” and “defen­sive” bio­log­i­cal war­fare research is aca­d­e­m­ic. Note­wor­thy in that gen­er­al con­text is the obser­va­tion by Jonathan King (pro­fes­sor of mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gy at MIT), that Pen­ta­gon research into the appli­ca­tion of genet­ic engi­neer­ing to bio­log­i­cal war­fare could be masked as vac­cine research, which sounds “defen­sive.” In FTR #1130, we not­ed the role of four-star gen­er­al Gus­tave Per­na in Trump’s “Oper­a­tion Warp Speed,” insti­tut­ed by Gen­er­al Mark Mil­ley, Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Whether the pro­gram serves as cov­er for mil­i­tary research seems a rea­son­able ques­tion to ask, under the cir­cum­stances. One should note that the offi­cial title of Unit 731, the noto­ri­ous Japan­ese bio­log­i­cal war­fare unit was “the Epi­dem­ic Pre­ven­tion and Water Purifi­ca­tion Depart­ment of the Kwan­tung Army.”

Historical Amnesia

In a pre­vi­ous post, we not­ed the “pro-Democ­ra­cy” ele­ments in Hong Kong hav­ing adapt­ed the salute of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist OUN/B (and their UPA com­bat­ant wing) “Glo­ry to Ukraine! Glo­ry to the Heroes!” to their polit­i­cal lex­i­con. This fol­lowed the decamp­ment of ele­ments of the Ukrain­ian Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion and Pravy Sek­tor (Right Sec­tor) to Hong Kong. Their East­ern sojourn was under­writ­ten by an EU NGO. Azov’s Hong Kong com­pa­tri­ots have adopt­ed the OUN/B slo­gan, now the offi­cial salute of the Ukrain­ian police and mil­i­tary. ” . . . . The inter­est has been mutu­al, with Hong Kong’s ‘democ­rats’ draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from Ukraine’s pro-West­ern Euro­maid­an ‘rev­o­lu­tion’ that has empow­ered far-right, fascis­tic forces. Hong Kong pro­test­ers have embraced the slo­gan ‘Glo­ry to Hong Kong’, adapt­ed from ‘Sla­va Ukrayi­ni’ or ‘Glo­ry to Ukraine’, a slo­gan invent­ed by Ukrain­ian fas­cists and used by Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors dur­ing WWII that was re-pop­u­lar­ized by the Euro­maid­an move­ment. . . . ” The Hong Kong iter­a­tion of the OUN/UPA salute has become an anthem. In its cov­er­age of the ban­ning of that song by the Chi­nese author­i­ties, “The New York Times” [pre­dictably] fails to dis­cuss the her­itage of the slogan/song, nor the nature of the Ukrain­ian Nazi “trou­ba­dours” who brought it to Hong Kong.