Rohatyn and Shultz Drive
Bloomberg `Beer Hall Putsch'
by Jeffrey Steinberg
Regardless of the outcome of the Feb. 5 "Super-Tuesday" primary vote, a hard core of London-linked fascists, typified by Pinochet patrons Felix Rohatyn and George Shultz, are intent on imposing a Schachtian dictator in the White House in January 2009. At the moment, the leading Shultz-Rohatyn candidate to fill that spot is New York City's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg is at the center of a nationwide "independent candidacy" drive, spearheaded by a strange-bedfellow coalition that includes Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.); California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) (whose wife Maria Kennedy Shriver is Ted Kennedy's niece); Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.); and New York City political freak Lenora Fulani (see "Bloomberg's Fascist Plot To Steal the U.S. Election," EIR, Feb. 1, 2008). The Mayor is Shultz and Rohatyn's designated "Benito Mussolini" corporativist, whose ill-gotten fortune would enable him to put billions of dollars of his own money into a nationwide independent campaign, built around the preposterous notion that Bloomberg is "too rich to be bought by special interest groups" (in fact, Bloomberg has already been bought, in a manner reminiscent of "The Devil and Daniel Webster"). While Bloomberg continues to issue coy signals that he is willing to be drafted for President, his political operatives are active in all 50 states, quietly buying up independent ballot lines, and paving the way for a "man on a white horse" candidacy—once the political preconditions have been orchestrated from above.
A Feb. 1 story in the pro-Bloomberg New York City neocon newspaper The New York Sun confirmed that Bloomberg is pouring sizeable funds into a new data-mining company, Symposia Group, whose main goal is to assemble nationwide polling data to launch Bloomberg's Presidential drive. The firm's founder, James Robinson IV, the son of the one-time American Express CEO and Bristol-Myers Squibb chairman, James Robinson III, told the Sun that Bloomberg is his major client, and that he has six full-time employees, a team of contract employees, and 18 other field operatives, all working on the Bloomberg contract. Furthermore, the Sun reported that a former Bill Clinton campaign strategist, Douglas Schoen, who later worked on Bloomberg's mayoral campaigns, is coming out with a book, touting Bloomberg's chances of winning the Presidency as an independent candidate.
The Sun has been described as the intersection point of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)—i.e., a point of neocon penetration of both political parties. It was founded by four leading neocon moneybags: hedge-fund manager Michael Steinhardt, the founder of the DLC; Conrad Black, the now-jailed Hollinger Corp. boss and funder of AEI and the Hudson Institute; New Republic publisher Martin Peretz; and speculator Roger Herzog.
Over Whose Dead Body?
What drives the likes of Rohatyn and Shultz, and their City of London oligarchical allies, to such desperate stunts, is the onrushing collapse of the global financial system, which they—along with Lyndon LaRouche—understand to be, potentially, the biggest blowout since the 14th-Century collapse of the Lombard banks, which led to a European-wide Dark Age. Under such circumstances, they are desperate to prevent a new "Franklin Roosevelt coalition" from taking over the White House in January 2009—which is the only thing that could foil their plans to destroy the United States, once and for all, as a sovereign republican nation-state. And they will resort to anything and everything to prevent that from happening.
Commenting on this crisis on Feb. 1, LaRouche, the leading American architect of an "FDR solution" to the collapse, warned, "It should be obvious to everyone that the fascist team of George Shultz and Felix Rohatyn and the financier crowd around them are predetermined to have Bloomberg as the next President. And, Bloomberg couldn't make it if any of the present candidates were still in the running. Therefore, we have not seen the worst of the dirty tricks against the candidates from these fascists, particularly against Sen. Hillary Clinton. In this financial breakdown, Shultz and Rohatyn are determined to put in their boy, Bloomberg, who is owned by this fascist team. It is time to grow up. Sometimes," LaRouche concluded, "politics is for real."
LaRouche noted that many otherwise astute strategic analysts and patriotic activists, are missing the significance of the Bloomberg plot, because they fail to grasp the magnitude of the financial crash process, already underway; and because they have forgotten some basic lessons of history. The most basic lesson lost is that a still-powerful faction of London-centered European oligarchs hate the United States, hate the nation-state system, and are committed to using the current global financial collapse process as their last, best opportunity to create what former British Prime Minister Tony Blair calls a "post-Westphalian new order," in which private financier power would supplant the power of sovereign governments, and the planet would be plunged into a new Malthusian nightmare of permanent wars.
LaRouche added, that his harsh warnings may be considered "shocking" to some, but this "is the nature of the times we are living in." He warned that the situation today is more dangerous than the period of the early 1960s, when one leading government after another was toppled, by City of London-orchestrated murder and destabilization. In 1963 alone, the British government of Harold MacMillan was brought down by the Profumo sex scandal that Summer; the government of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was ousted in the Autumn; and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November. French President Charles de Gaulle was the target of numerous Permindex assassination attempts, before ultimately falling from power in the Synarchist insurgency of 1967-68. In a short period of time, the leadership of the planet was violently changed.
Hillary Clinton: Number One Target
LaRouche elaborated on his assessment of Shultz and Rohatyn's "Bloomberg Option," with three basic points. First, in the aftermath of the disaster of the Bush-Cheney Administration, it is virtually impossible for any Republican candidate—including the aged John McCain—to win the Presidency in 2008. Second, Sen. Barack Obama cannot be elected, in part, because of the scandals that have already been put before the public. His candidacy is, in part, being backed by people who are on the inside of the Bloomberg scheme, including Sen. Ted Kennedy. Whether Obama has figured it out yet or not, these people intend to use him to bring down Hillary Clinton, and then dispose of him, the same way they jettisoned former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, through a mountain of crime-infested scandals.
Therefore, LaRouche warned, the Anglo-Dutch gang have their scopes set on destroying the Presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton—through whatever means are necessary. They will, LaRouche added, stop at nothing to wreck both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
For the past month, ABC News has been systematically assembling the evidence of Senator Obama's ties to a shadowy Chicago wheeler-dealer and slumlord named Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Rezko is currently behind bars, pending a March 2008 trial on a range of financial crimes, including political payoffs to local Chicago politicians, among them, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich—and Barack Obama. While Obama's name has not surfaced in any of the indictments of Rezko, media investigations have turned up hundreds of thousands of dollars in Rezko-linked contributions to his campaigns (Obama has since donated $125,000 of this to charity), along with Obama's ties to Rezko in a questionable sweetheart home purchase deal in 2005.
The first ABC News broadcast on the Obama-Rezko scandal aired nationally on Jan. 10—a week after Obama's Iowa caucus victory, which suddenly propelled him into a close race with Senator Clinton for the Democratic nomination. That first ABC broadcast, which has been followed by even more damning exposés, posed the question: "Is the Rezko Connection Obama's Achilles Heel?"
The Fabian London Guardian has also been all over the Rezko scandal, through its own ongoing probe of London-based Iraqi exile financier Nadhmi Auchi, who was one of Saddam Hussein's banking pals. A London resident since 1979, Auchi is the founder and head of the Anglo-Arab Society, and an intimate of Lord David Steel, the former head of the Liberal Democratic Party. His connections, however, did not prevent the Serious Fraud Office from raiding the offices of one of Auchi's companies in 2002, in connection with what Guardian writer Nick Cohen wrote, is "alleged to be the biggest swindle ever of the NHS" (National Health Service).
On Jan. 28, Brian Ross, ABC News' chief investigative reporter, and a man with longstanding close ties to the FBI, broke the story on Obama financial angel Rezko: "In a court hearing in Chicago, prosecutors detailed a $3.5 million wire transfer from a bank in Beirut, Lebanon that they said was moved through a series of accounts until it reached Rezko or some of his relatives who had posted property for his bond. Under the terms of his agreement, prosecutors said in a filing with the court, Rezko was obligated to disclose any change in his financial status. In court, prosecutors said Rezko had become a 'flight risk' because of his secretive transactions in the Mideast. According to the court filings, the money came from a company, General Mediterranean, owned by a British-based Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who was convicted in France on fraud charges."
Anton Chaitkin and Michele Steinberg contributed research to this article.
