The Binary Circumstance

Right now NBC is airing a star-studded telethon called Tsunami AId: A Concert for Hope.

TV personalities, political commentators, ex-presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, scores of movie stars and singers are all encouraging viewers to donate money to the American Red Cross.

We are bombarded with images of children who have lost their parents and any sense of security in life. Drew Barrymore just told us about all the pregnant women who have been left homeless who will be delivering babies in the next three months.

The head of the American Red Cross was interviewed by Chris Matthews and she assured potential donors that 94% of their contributions would go directly to those who were harmed by this natural disaster.

I hate to be a party pooper and I risk being viewed as the biggest cynic on the entire planet by saying what I’m about to say, but it has been said that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

So you can regard this as my own effort to “reach out and touch somebody’s hand and make this world a better place if you can” as Diana Ross is instructing me in song right now on the TV.

The truth will set you free.

When I recently read G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island, it was the first I’d heard of the role that Wall Street bankers played in financing the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the role that the Red Cross played in masking that operation.

In searching the Internet tonight I found a book by Antony C. Sutton, Wall Street & the Bolshevik Revolution that covers the same topic. A copy of the book is also available online here.

Back to the show: Hugh Grant just told us that he’s always skeptical when movie stars and celebrities tell us what to do, but that even he has written a check, though he is “famously stingy.”

But I digress.

Chapter V of Sutton’s book is called “The American Red Cross Mission in Russia – 1917.” It provides documentation of how Wall Street bankers used The American Red Cross like a Trojan Horse to slip into Russia to influence the political scene and ultimately to bring the Bolsheviks to power, supporting one of the bloodiest, most brutal regimes in history which ultimately took the lives of an estimated 20 million people, in order to obtain access to the country’s natural resources.

In August 1917 the American Red Cross Mission to Russia had only a nominal relationship with the American Red Cross, and must truly have been the most unusual Red Cross Mission in history. All expenses, including those of the uniforms — the members were all colonels, majors, captains, or lieutenants — were paid out of the pocket of William Boyce Thompson.

[...]

The majority of the mission, as seen from the table, was made up of lawyers, financiers, and their assistants, from the New York financial district. The mission was financed by William B. Thompson, described in the official Red Cross circular as “Commissioner and Business Manager; Director United States Federal Bank of New York.” Thompson brought along Cornelius Kelleher, described as an attache to the mission but actually secretary to Thompson and with the same address — 14 Wall Street, New York City. Publicity for the mission was handled by Henry S. Brown, of the same address. Thomas Day Thacher was an attorney with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, a firm founded by his father, Thomas Thacher, in 1884 and prominently involved in railroad reorganization and mergers. Thomas as junior first worked for the family firm, became assistant U.S. attorney under Henry L. Stimson, and returned to the family firm in 1909. The young Thacher was a close friend of Felix Frankfurter and later became assistant to Raymond Robins, also on the Red Cross Mission. In 1925 he was appointed district judge under President Coolidge, became solicitor general under Herbert Hoover, and was a director of the William Boyce Thompson Institute.

The table Sutton mentions gives the name of all those who went on the mission and there were clearly more Wall Street operatives than medical personnel.

To spell it out more clearly, The Red Cross, in union with Wall Street financiers, went on a “humanitarian” mission which ultimately brought about one of the worst man-made disasters in the history of mankind.

In contrast, Sutton notes, The American Red Cross also sent a mission to Rumania that was more in keeping with their charter:

In 1917 the American Red Cross also sent a medical assistance mission to Rumania, then fighting the Central Powers as an ally of Russia. A comparison of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia with that sent to Rumania suggests that the Red Cross Mission based in Petrograd had very little official connection with the Red Cross and even less connection with medical assistance. Whereas the Red Cross Mission to Rumania valiantly upheld the Red Cross twin principles of “humanity” and “neutrality,” the Red Cross Mission in Petrograd flagrantly abused both.

I’m all for private efforts to help people who have suffered from a sudden natural disaster. If I was in a similar situation, I would certainly be grateful for any assistance that others offered to me.

As I have noted before, however, the scope of current natural disaster is quite small in comparison to other natural disasters and pales in comparison to man-made disasters like the current war in Iraq, or the genocide in Rwanda where an estimated 800,000 Tutis were slaughtered and an estimate quarter million to one half million women were raped. Amnesty International UK says that 70% of the rape victims are now infected with with HIV/AIDS.

Now that’s a disaster.

So when the United Nations, the governments of the world, movie stars, and politicians all rush to the aid of the tsunami victims after remaining comparitively silent in the face of far more devastating disasters, I have to wonder what the real motives are. If they were politically neutral and purely humanitarian, wouldn’t disasters receive aid in proportion to their magnitude?

Aid to the tsunami disaster victims is being so heavily promoted that I think it is fair to assume that the government and the rich and powerful see much to gain from infusing themselves into the situation, just as Wall Street bankers saw much to gain from financing the Bolsheviks, using The Red Cross in 1917 as a facade for their real motives.

The big difference is that now the rich and powerful don’t have to finance the entire operation with their own money. They’ve enlisted the help of celebrities to encourage the working classes to donate the money. The working classes have already “donated” with the tax dollars that have already been offered in aid by our government.

Shortly after the tsunami occured and the initial pleas for financial aid were made, I saw one of those unscientific polls online. The question was “Do you think the money will reach the people who really need it?” I was surprised that something like 85% of respondents answered “No.”

UPDATE 1/16/05: MSNBC has a report on the event today.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2005 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Books, Government/Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.