Ranting, Raving, and Rocking by Sal Canzonieri

This was my second column in AMP magazine, it is first column with the usual format I use and the beginning of the LONG rants! This one Rants on how Bush's family supported Hitler's finances, Raves on buying things online, and Rocks on the Top 5 best new rock bands: Ironhead, Drag Citizen, Clams, Nasty On, and Ironboss.

Welcome to my second column for AMP magazine.

I'll start with my Rant:

At the risk of offending the "red state' people that might be reading this, and for people who are willing to spend the next 4 to 8 years (maybe 20!) with their head in the sand, what is going on today is the long-planned "mayflower mafia" takeover of the US Gov't, under the auspices of the Bush crime family. All you have to do is read the three sets of files in the congressional record and the US National Archives, public information at your disposal via both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

Going way back to WWII, Prez Bush's grandfather, future US Senator Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of companies that were making money from dealing with the financial backers of Nazi Germany, who were not only caught selling arms and chemical weapons to Hitler, but they had created a corporation set up almost exactly like Enron was today (of which ex-Prez father Bush was an investor and Prez Bush is best pals with the head of Enron). This false corporation, just like Enron, was making all their money by convincing people to invest in them by showing high earning, which were really one department's expense being counted as another departments income. In other words, there was no money being earned, it was a shell game. The company's assets were seized by the US Gov't in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The Archive documents, some only recently declassified, show that even after the war was declared and Nazi plans and policies were made clear, Prescott Bush continued to financially profit from German business that were bankrolling Hitler, and with this money he was able to build the family fortune that bolstered the Bush family's power to this day. The documents show Bush, after being hired by his father-in-law George Walker, worked for Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), which acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s. Also, Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war and Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.

By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war. By 1942, the assets of all these companies were seized by the US Gov't and no further action was taken. On Oct. 28, 1942, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S. partners to carry on the business, which were a shipping line, which imported German spies; an energy company that supplied the Luftwaffe with high-ethyl fuel; and a steel company that employed Jewish slave labor from the Auschwitz concentration camp. In January 22 1944, an executive order was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. Lawyers for some survivors of Auschwitz, who are trying to sue the Bush family and the US Gov't, claim the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director.

The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion on whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear their case. The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented." Ah, but Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W Bush, was not only a good friend of Allen Dulles, CIA director, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and international business lawyer. He was also a client of Dulles' law firm, which managed to keep all this out of the media.

The big joke of all this is that in other business dealings, his father-in-law George Walker along with Averill Harriman also were investing in the Bolshiveks! So, they were working both sides! During this time, future prez George HW Bush was 18 years old and training for piloting in the navy. But, his family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project. The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which later boosted him into the Central Intelligence Agency and up to the White House, were his father's partners in the Hitler project. In 1950, Prescott Bush received $1.5 million for his share in UBC. That money enabled Bush to help his son, George Herbert Walker Bush, to set up his first oil royalty firm, Overby Development Company. It also helped Prescott Bush leave the business world to enter the public arena in 1952 with a successful senatorial campaign in Connecticut.

After leaving the CIA in 1977, George HW Bush was made director of the vast drug company, Eli Lilly by none other than Dan Quayle’s father and family, who owned controlling interest in the Lilly company and the Indianapolis Star. Funny thing is that in order to make Heroin, precursor chemicals are need, which are made by companies like Eli Lilly. Later as VP under Ron Reagan, he was appointed "Drug Czar" to do something about the US "drug problem". Result: the most Heroin use ever seen in the US. The number one crop out of Afghanistan now is Heroin again, which in it's manufacturing process uses chemicals made by large drug manufacturing companies (guess who?). While President, George HW Bush played both sides too, with the sale of TOW missiles to Iran at the same time he was selling biological and chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein.

Cut to today, and you will find that George HW Bush is a partner in the Carlyle Group, along with ex-UK Prime Minister John Major, ex-Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, among many others (and which partners in deals with both the Bin Laden family and the Saudi Princes). What the Carlyle Group does is to strategically buy out companies and then resell them for a profit. One such company is United Defense Industries, of Crusader artillery and Bradley Fighting Vehicle fame, which is under contract with the Defense Department to manufacture weapons for Iraq. Conflict of interest when your dad owns the defense contract for a war that you declared? (The Carlyle Group even used to own a 28% share of Vivendi Universal Publishing!). It was the War Powers Act the allowed FDR to shut down the family business, and its' neat how both Bush prez's declared war while in office so that they can use the War Powers Act to their own ends.

And, how neat is it that, in 2000, the Project for a New American Century (who are now members of the neo-Con infrastructure of the Bush administration), published a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", that said that in order to take control of oil interests in the Middle East, since there is only about 100 years of oil left in the world, these plans were only contingent upon "a catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor," to gain the majority support of the American public to set the plans into motion. Well, bingo, 9/11 happened a year later, which prompted an accusation by former British Environmental Minister Michael Meacher, Tony Blair's longest-serving cabinet minister, that George W Bush allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen to justify an oil war in the Middle East; and a RICO lawsuit filed by 9/11 widow Ellen Mariani against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Council on Foreign Relations (among others), on the grounds that they conspired to let the attacks happen to cash in on the ensuing war profiteering, and the FBI exonerating—though never identified—the speculators who purchased, a few days before the attacks (through a bank whose previous director is now the CIA executive director), an unusual number of "put" options, and who made millions betting that the stocks in American and United Airlines would crash. Especially since the White House has verified George W Bush's personal knowledge, as of August 6, 2001, that these terrorist attacks might be domestic and might involve hijacked airliners and that, as says Michael Hasty of Online Journal: "on the morning of September 11, 2001standard procedures and policies at the nation's air defense and aviation bureaucracies were ignored, and communications were delayed; the black boxes of the planes that hit the WTC were destroyed, but hijacker Mohammed Atta's passport was found in pristine condition; high-ranking Pentagon officers had cancelled their commercial flight plans for that morning; George H.W. Bush was meeting in Washington with representatives of Osama bin Laden's family, and other investors in the world's largest private equity firm, the Carlyle Group; the CIA was conducting a previously-scheduled mock exercise of an airliner hitting the Pentagon; the chairs of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were having breakfast with the chief of Pakistan's intelligence agency, who resigned a week later on suspicion of involvement in the 9/11 attacks; and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States sat in a second grade classroom for 20 minutes after hearing that a second plane had struck the towers, listening to children read a story about a goat.."

What I want to know is this: if the 9/11 thing was done by Saudi and Yemenite citizens under the orders of Osama Bin Laden, and we rightly declared war on their terrorist organization, then why is he still free while we have wasted almost a trillion dollars in Iraq to wage a war that is now basically against Sunni Moslems opposed to our presence there? Why, after making our nation in debt for the next 100 years with this huge deficit spending, are we no safer than we were before 9/11 and in fact are actually more unsafe, since the "war" in Iraq has kicked open a hornet's nest of hate against the US. Especially since American forces in Iraq today are applying the same brutal counterinsurgency tactics pioneered in Central America in the 1980s, under the direct supervision of then- Vice President George HW Bush. If we never went to Iraq, since there were no WMDs, etc., etc., we could have poured all that wasted money back into our economy and rebounded faster and better from the fallout of 9/11. And we could have focused on crushing Osama Bin Laden and his organization once and for all before they spread out of their hiding spot in Afghanistan. And over 1,000 US soldiers would be still alive, as well as over 100,000 innocent men, women, and children would be alive too.

Someone is making money in Iraq or we never would have gone there, and it isn't the US taxpayer, that's for sure. Maybe it is because in the early 1970s, the newly-formed Trilateral Commission published a report that recommended that, in order for "globalization" to succeed, American manufacturing jobs had to be exported, and American wages had to decline, which is exactly what happened over the next three decades; and that, during that same period, the richest one percent of Americans doubled their share of the national wealth, or because the protection of US supplies of Middle East oil has been a central element of American foreign policy since the Second World War and that global oil production has been in decline since its peak year, 2000. (WHY are we even still using oil? Let's get rid of our dependence on oil and invest in non-oil fuels. We have to in 100 years anyway!).

Now for my Raving:

I love buying stuff on the internet! I love getting my books and records from Amazon.com. It's no hassle, fast transactions, fast delivery, and for amazing prices! All done in the luxury of your own home and any hour of the day or night. With a little research, you can find anything you want for the most unbeatable prices, without risking a parking ticket, pushy salesmen, and crowds of smelly dorks.

There are lots of really cool WORLDWIDE on-line merchants selling the coolest stuff for the best prices, punk records old and new can be bought direct from labels or bands, t-shirts, toys, model kits, comic books, DVDs from all over the world, it's all there in one vast catalog just waiting for your wallet to open.

If you are in the market for some great hard to find toys, especially Monster figures, then check out www.cryptoys.com and www.wickedcoolstuff.com. Cryptoys.com features toys like Rat Fink figures, Universal Monsters, Japanese Monsters, Horror Movie characters, Living Dead Dolls and Goths, Ray Harryhousen figures, and more.

Wickedcoolstuff.com features, well, that, wicked cool stuff, like toys, action figures, games, plush animals, bobble heads, cartoon characters, statues, lunchboxes, car stuff, and lots more! You can't leave either site empty handed, especially since a lot of items are limited edition.

Finally, the Rocking:

Well, my top 5 bands right now that I think are the greatest and that I love to listen to and who are all ready to show the world their new albums but need to find a trustworthy and smart record label (like TKO, Acetate, or Estrus always are - hint hint - sign these bands before it is too late)

- Ironhead, from Virgina Beach, Va., who sound like a daring and exciting cross between the Dead Boys and prime era Motley Crue, with a dash of 60s garage rock for seasoning. They are a 3 piece that often tours with The Candysnatchers and other High Energy Punk Rock & Roll bands and feature a Angela Fox on bass, and Johnny Sonic on vocals and stun guitar. They are in the middle of mixing their new full- length album (produced by yours truly!) and will be looking around for a good label that knows how to promote their brand of Action Rock! You can check them out at: www.iron-head.net.

- Clams, from the UK, who are positively the greatest band I have heard in a long long time! Also a three piece, these often bearded youngsters also are about to unleash their new album to the world, once they find a great label too. Right now though you can find their first 3 cd eps on www.amazon.uk. Amazingly, the Clams got five stars in Metal Hammer for their new album and it is not even out yet. Clams sound to me like if you took the best musical moments of Led Zepp, Alice in Chains, Kyoss, early day Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Wire or even the Cure and put them altogether! The press calls them Blues Rawk. Truly creative and ground breaking songs that go from atomic explosions to Jimmy Page like guitar sweet slow tempo bits. Check them out at www.clams-rock.com where you can actually download a demo of their whole first album!

- Nasty On, from Vancouver, Canada. Now this is a musically wild band that walks the line between the Raw power era Stooges and the Damned's Strawberries album, with a hint of The Birthday Party. Very intense lyrics and unique guitar work on their two releases to date are just as compelling live, having had the pleasure of doing 3 shows with them last year. Their music makes you feel like you are on a shipwrecked raft, spinning around the ocean, dazed and confused but desperate to survive- great post- punk music that defies easy categorizing. They are looking for a US label to get their stuff into the stores and homes of those that get it. Be a he-man or woman and try it! Check them out at: www.thenastyon.com.

- Drag Citizen, from NYC. Man, this is a real Rock & Roll band in the 70s Mott the Hoople sense. Live they are great visually and sonicly, like early Alice Cooper meets Cheap Trick. Or, as they describe it: "a raucous maelstrom of sound generated by these four lads in tight jeans has caused long dormant fault lines in lower Manhattan to tremble and shake, leaving in their wake a trail of shattered stages, sizzling amps and spent audiences." Indeed, I'll vouch for that! And, yes, them too have a new album ready to go out there door, if there was a real label out there that will let them Rock with the best of them. Check them out at: www.friedalive.com or www.myspace.com/dragcitizen.

- Ironboss, from Maryland, last but for sure not least, this is a steam roller of a High Energy Rock & Roll band, thundering and pounding bass and drums, totally tasty guitar works, and great raw vocals that actually tell a story. They have 3 or 4 albums all recorded and released on the ultra tiny Small Stone label. If Black Oak Arkansas was a fast and heavy punk band in the 70s instead, then Ironboss is what they would sound like! If you like your Rock big and heavy, with as much Blues and Boogie as Punk Fury, then here it is, come and get it. Sarcasticly funny too. Check them out at: www.ironboss.com.

That's it for this issue! Click here to read column #3

Sal Canzonieri - www.electricfrankenstein.com / www.myspace.com/electricfrankenstein
salcanzonieri@att.net