The views from Monticello are spectacular.  Thomas Jefferson called one panoramic vista his “sea view.” I suppose if Jefferson were alive today he would view the ongoing banking scandal with extreme disgust bordering on an outright declaration of war.  Seems Thomas Jefferson himself suffered similar swindles first hand. 

 

I visited Monticello while in Virginia recently. I toured the house and grounds, (pictured in T-shirt in TJ’s back gardens). I inspected the hilltop plantation during the ongoing Grand Theft of the Grand Old Republic . During the tour I wondered what Mr. Jefferson might have said to the two pretenders posing as presidential candidates, about the cash & carry giveaway to the Wall Street magicians. Somehow the scathing words of Jefferson seemed particularly apropos now.

 

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

 

Deprive the people? Wake up homeless? Surely here was a man who had first hand dealings with fractional bankers and their bagmen.

 

Instead of bailing the bankers out, US lawmen should be jailing them in some maximum security prison as a harsh lesson to others.  Congress, and the missing-in-action mainstream media, should call a swindle a swindle and a fraud a fraud.  The Judicial branch of the government should hand out indictments like breath mints.  Instead, the monetary magicians were rewarded with nearly a trillion dollars of your children’s money, by McCain, Biden and Obama and more than 70 of their fellow Senators and some 260 Congressmen. 

 

Jefferson predicted just such a sellout.  “The system of banking, a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity... is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

 

More dangerous than standing armies?  Check. Swindling futurity on a large scale? Check and checkmate.

 

Senator Feinstein of California stated why she ignored her California constituents to vote for her truest constituents over at Wall Street:  “My office has received over 91,000 calls and emails with over 86,000 opposed.  If we do nothing, more institutions will fail. (Which many deserved to fail and their CEOs jailed)…Now, you may say: what does this mean to me? I work hard, I pay my bills, I pay cash…Again, there is no question this is a tough vote. But there's no question that this is a (Yes) vote that I believe has to be made.”

 

Jefferson replied to Feinstein: “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.”

 

Instead the Banker Bailout Bill sent a crystal clear message to ALL Americans: Fuck You.  Voting is for the hopelessly deluded and clueless.  Elected representatives and public servants neither represent, nor do they serve the public in America .  Nor do your emails or phone messages matter. Fuck off.

 

BOTH presidential candidates, self-styled mavericks claiming to protect the middle class, broadcast their sincere desire to continue the policies of their predecessor, George Weimar Bush, by voting for the gift to Wall Street.  Apparently, the only real change that will remain is the hopeless feeling of loose change in our purse or pocket.

 

Jefferson again: “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” 

 

Neither McCain nor Obama seemed to notice that war and debt were related. During the so-called debates, both men named various countries they intended to attack if given the opportunity--- Pakistan , Iran , Russia --while passing on the debt to succeeding generations of Americans.  Both men embraced the Bush Doctrine, with minor differences.  Of course, both men voted for the bailout.

 

Both California senators, Feinstein and Boxer, voted for the bailout. Both Arizona senators, McCain and Kyl, voted for the bailout. Both Alaska senators voted for the bailout. Both New York senators—naturally—voted for the bailout.

 

The twin Dubyas of Virginia, Warner and Webb, also voted for the swindle.  John Warner, soon to retire, left a legacy of dementia with his last two notable votes: for the authorization of US troops in any domestic disturbance and for the Wall Street bailout. One clearly related to the other. 

 

James Webb posed as a Democrat do-gooder when he ran and won his Senate seat in 2006.  But the former pulp fiction writer and Pentagon maverick quickly caved to the money powers rather than serve his Virginia constituents. Jefferson rolled in his grave.

 

Once again Jefferson emphasized: “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

 

A moneyed aristocracy? Really, here in America ? Who knew. Land of the free and home of the brave, where foreigners hate us for our freedoms? 

 

The clumsy spokesman for that moneyed aristocracy, George Weimar Bush, quickly approved the bailout.  He nearly fell over himself to get to the podium. Print more money now, he pleaded.  Take that money to a fellow named Paulson, in small bills, tens and twenty billions, and leave it at his feet. Do it now and don’t ask any questions.

 

“Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not,” replied Jefferson prophetically, from his grave (pictured) at Monticello.  Indifferent to any of this populist nonsense, Congress voted to take from those who had little and give it to those who had it all and squandered it away. “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground,” Jefferson added.

Monticello was once a small village, a mountain top plantation built and staffed by a visionary, patriot, genius and slave owner.  You can peer into the parlor and see the table for holiday visitors (photo).  You can stroll through the gardens and still see the kitchens and shops adjacent to the main house.  Jefferson ’s heirs were forced to sell the place personally designed and belonging to the author of the Declaration of Independence.  His daughter, Martha, auctioned most of the household objects and prized possessions shortly after his death.

 

As a young man, Jefferson inherited 5,000 acres and scores of slaves. He also accumulated debt and a patrician lifestyle.  Before the Revolutionary War, Jefferson sold some land to pay off the debts, but by the time he received payment, the paper money was nearly worthless, due to the severe inflation of the war years. Easy then to understand Jefferson’s aversion to fiat currency, paper money with no real backing, as practiced by the Federal Reserve today.

 

The tour guides at Monticello readily admitted that Jefferson may have sired one, or perhaps all, of former household slave Sally Hemings’s children.  Hemings eventually gained her freedom. 

 

Curiously, by contrast, Congressmen today appear wholly owned, without any hope of eventual freedom, or the desire for either liberty or integrity. Born free men, both McCain and Obama willingly enslaved themselves to powerful special interests years ago, along with most of their fellow slaves and indentured servants in DC. All they ask is that you enslave yourslef to them.

 

A prominent Virginia newspaper recently noted how the Founding Fathers would have approved the bailout. “We need to send a love note across the centuries to James Madison and the other Founding fathers,” wrote political science professor, Ross Baker in the USA Today. “Our much-reviled Congress did what the occasion demanded in much the same way that the founders intended.”  

 

Evidently, Baker never read any Jefferson :  “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” 

 

The idea of paying tribute to bankers, who hotwired, hijacked and then wrecked the US economy while enriching themselves, would have appalled and infuriated Jefferson . After all, according to the friendly tour guide, it was a banker he trusted who swindled Jefferson, forced his bankruptcy and forcing his heirs into the eventual sale of Monticello .

 

By contrast, we Americans have only lost our country, international reputation, retirement funds, any sort of true representation, and several million jobs and homes and some ten trillion dollars, with the possibility of martial law thrown into the mix at the slightest whim, should we protest too passionately.

 

I believe Jefferson knew what was coming when he wrote: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” He knew the bankers and their wholly owned slaves in Washington would eventually destroy the nation. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Since the nearly trillion dollar giveaway, stocks have fallen a thousand points. Anybody besides me believe that a round up and arrest of various bankers for fraud wouldn’t have had a more beneficial effect?