The SPOTLIGHT December 6, 1999

Congress Ignores Dirty Money Laundering

A Senate probe has covered up a huge Wall Street cash-wash, which routinely concealed and converted trillions (yes, trillions) of tainted dollars.

By Martin Mann

Congress scheduled a series of hearing into money-laundering last month, but then adjourned them on the second day, apparently frightened by what it had uncovered. What researchers unearthed amounted to a vast financial underworld in which leading Wall Street banks routinely "stashed" trillions of dollars for thousands of unsavory clients from some of the world's worst badlands.

Led by Chase Manhattan, the financial flagship of the Rockefeller empire, most major U.S. money centers maintain so-called private "banking facilities" for special customers with at least $1 million in cash to squirrel away.

Private banks cater to clients who don't just want to bank their funds; they need to hide them,' said Axel Immern, as independent investment adviser.

Often a New York private banker will cater to this need by setting up a so-called "private investment company" (PIC) for his client in a "secrecy area" like the Caymans, where covert money management is protected by law.

A PIC is a front, an offshore shell company. Its registered owner is another shell company. Its registered owner is another shell company based in Panama or Switzerland. The private banker in New York controls both fronts. The name of the real owner of the money is now thoroughly walled off from prying regulators, tax collectors or -- most importantly -- criminal investigators.

Banks call such setups "fiduciary accounts." The name of the depositor does not even appear in the private bank's own accounts, where he is listed only under a code such as CC (Confidential Client.) 2201.

That was the code used by Amy Elliott, a Cuban-born vice president of Citibank's private banking division, to hide the $100 million or so in drug payoffs and other rakeoffs deposited with her by Raul Salinas, brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas.

Citibank also arranged to have the dirty cash brought in by Salinas laundered into offshore accounts. This is best done through conduits called "concentrated transfers" in which a client's money is mingled with Citibank's own funds.

That makes tracing such accounts "Just about impossible," Mrs. Elliot admitted in her appearance before the Senate subcommittee headed by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

That Raul Salinas is serving time in Mexico for murder, while under investigation for a number of other crimes does not affect the case, Mrs. Elliott told the assembled committee.

"Keep in mine that of the seven of eight secret PICs I managed at Citibank, the Salinas account was by no means the most important. It was one of the smallest and least active," Mrs. Elliott explained.

Mrs. Elliott's boss, Citibank executive Edward Montero, subsequently testified that Citibank managed "some 40,000" stealthy private accounts.

"How much suspect cash do those accounts represent? If, as Elliott suggested, most of them are 'larger and more active' than the $100 million belonging to the Salinas family, we're talking about Hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of fugitive funds here," says financial writer Bodo Thalmann.

In fact, Wall Street's private banks are estimated to hide an eye-popping $21.5 trillion in such deviously deodorized deposits, according to an unpublished estimate by the Organization for Economic cooperation and Development (OECD), the prestigious international economic monitor.

WHY?

Why does such vast wealth go underground? The Citibank executives at the Senate hearing could offer only halting and lame explanations to that question, arguing that some very affluent clients feared being "kidnapped" or "extorted" if their riches were publicly displayed.

"That's nonsense," snorted Thalmann. "Such deep secrecy is not contrived to hide wealth from 'kidnappers.' It is meant to hide these trillions from the law."

The Senate's money-laundering hearings shied away from exploring such potentially explosive issues. This populist newspaper, however, will continue its investigation of this stunning financial mystery that has robbed taxpayers of trillions of dollars.

The SPOTLIGHT December 6, 1999

Was EgyptAir Sabotaged As political Retaliation?

What's behind the EgyptAir Flight 900 mystery crash? Could it be a co-pilot torn by a society "at war with itself" over a pact with Israel?

By James Harrer

No United States administration since Jimmy Carter's has ever told the truth about the corruption, humiliation and repression endured by the Egyptian people in the wake of the so-called Camp David accord with Israel -- a pact that has so far cost U.S. taxpayers $50 billion. Nor has any news media ever told the truth.

Not surprising, the Clinton administration is unable to deal with the truth about the mysterious crash of EgyptAir Flight 900 in the North Atlantic.

The consensus of American and Arabic aviation experts contacted by The SPOTLIGHT is that all available evidence indicates the plane did not malfunction. It was downed intentionally by one of the four pilots on board, reportedly by relief pilot Gamil el-Batouty, 59.

Against this conclusion, U.S. and Egyptian spokesmen argue that el-Batouty was an observant Muslim, to whom such a monstrous act of mass murder would have been "unthinkable."

HARD BLOW

But Middle eastern diplomatic sources and political observers noted that it is permitted -- in fact, urged -- upon all Islamic faithful to "strike a hard blow against all enemies, oppressors, persecutors, false confessors, schismatics and defilers of the 'True Faith,'" even at the cost of their own lives.

"If any regine in the Middle East can be described today as an enemy of true Islamic law and devotion, it is the government of Egyptian President Hosmi Mubarak," said veteran foreign correspondent Nouri al-Fawzi, who covers the U.S. for a group of Arab-language broadcasters.

In order to stamp out all opposition to its pact with Israel -- denounced by most Muslim religious leaders as "treason" and a "sellout" -- Mubarak's savage repressive forces have killed more that 5,000 suspected Egyptian Islamists since 1987.

Perhaps 10 times as many Muslim activists have been arrested and brutally tortured, according to a human-rights survey compiled by Arab League observers last year.

El-Batouty, who allegedly sent the plane into its fatal dive while invoking the name of Allah, was a traditional Islamist who began his flight career as an Egyptian air force pilot, explained al-Fawzi, one of the old-line officers who trained and strained to wrest back Palestine from its occupiers.

As his flight departed New York at 1:19 a.m. on Oct. 31, el, el-Batouty knew that among the 217 passengers and crew aboard his aircraft there were 33 Egyptian air force pilots returning home after a year's training in the United States.

"This was a new generation of Egyptian military, trained not by Muslim instructors to defend the faith, but by infidels to put down their people,' said a senior military attache from a Gulf nation, who is a veteran aviator. "Everything they stood for must have been anathema to el-Batouty."

As he apparently sent his giant aircraft hurtling into the ocean, the veteran co-pilot was overheard by the cockpit voice recorder uttering the same Islamic prayer invoked in recent years by some suicide bombers of the Islamic resistance who sacrificed their lives to strike a blow against Zionist occupation and its relentless U.S. enforcers.

In the consensus of these knowledgeable sources, el-Batouty must have been torn by an agonizing inner conflict between this traditional Muslim faith and its betrayal by his country's corrupt ruling elites, Egyptian "leaders" built fortunes on the billions of collars extracted from U.S. taxpayers. Egypt is near a civil war over such issues.

That conflict reflects the deep divisions that have made all Egypt a "society at war with itself" since the adoption of the tainted Camp David pact, these sources asserted.

The SPOTLIGHT December 13, 1999

Global Elite Seethes as Protests Rock Seattle

Contrary to what the Establishment media wants you to believe, the World Trade Organization is anything but benign. It is comprised of divergent special interests and was set up to subvert U.S. sovereignty and promote one-world government.

By James Harrer

Some 5,000 business bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists from the 135 member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO), who gathered in Seattle Nov. 30-Dec.3 for the so-called "millennial round" of global "free-trade" talks, are a squabbling, seething cauldron of divided interest groups.

By contrast, the anti-WTO movement, which simultaneously invaded Seattle with an estimated 60,000 protest marchers from hundreds of various factions, is united as never before, well-placed observers report.

The reasons for this seemingly paradoxical contrast are not difficult to divine, noted Dr. Hugo Wildstroem, an economist who specializes in studies of transnational commercial integration at the State University of New York.

"The WTO came into being in January 1995, a year after NAFTA [the noxious North American Free Trade Agreement] was born," related this academic expert. "It replaced a more loosely organized convention on world trade, called GATT."

Unlike GATT, the WTO was an institution of one-world government with real police powers. Even its first head, Renato Ruggiero, former WTO director-general, described it as "the Constitution and administration of a global world economy."

The WTO soon demonstrated its ability to override and nullify, when necessary, the sovereign powers and statutes of its member states, including the U.S. Constitution.

In the process, it generated more controversy than consensus. The United States wanted to secure Duty-free status for all e-commerce and products in eight other sectors: chemicals, energy products, environmental products, fish, forest products, jewelry, medical equipment and toys.

"The Japanese oppose half of these proposals; the EU {European Union] opposes the other half," Wildstroem explained. "Other nations resisted the labor standard and food safety regulation urged by the United States and the EU.

European farmers fought to keep the WTO from smashing their subsidies. Asian nations argued against the unfettered invasion of Wall Street's financial-services giants, but demanded an end to U.S. anti-dumping penalties.

The opponents of WTO, on the other hand, found themselves in agreement on many major issues.

"Under WTO, multinational corporations have become much to powerful," noted Prof. Walden Bello who teaches public administration at the University of the Philippines in Manila. "Governments are losing the capacity to control capital and pernicious speculation. That must be sped."

Workers around the world are coming to realize that the WTO endangers their hard-fought basic rights and they need protection, U.S. labor leader Thelma Lee of the AFL-CIO said. David Foster, a spokesman for American steelworkers, agrees. "The WTO is tearing apart the social fabric and the safety net we have struggled for a hundred years to construct," he said.

Americans have "a lot to lose" when they give up their constitutional rights in order to let the WTO's secret panels of corporate lawyers and foreign "experts" override local and state laws, warned Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio).

"In our system, responsibility for regulating public health, welfare and the environment resides with the states, not with a faceless phalanx of international bureaucrats," declared the Midwestern lawmaker.

In early 1998, the anti-globalization movement became a roaring avalanche with the realization that despite the rosy corporate propaganda about the "universal benefits" of globalization, "free trade" had, in a few years, more that doubled the number of people living in abject poverty around the world.

In September 1998, tens of thousands of people staged angry demonstrations in the traditionally placid streets of Geneva, Switzerland, to protest a ministerial meeting at WTO headquarters there.

Last summer, London and Geneva were swept by violent riots when WTO planners met to schedule the agenda of the Seattle round. "The delegates could not even agree on a meaningful agenda. The meeting was a failure," Wildstroem said. "But that did not stop the demonstrators."

As this issue of The SPOTLIGHT went to press, riot-control brigades and SWAT teams, acting in the role of Global Darth Vader-like Robocops using tear gas and the latest in anti-personnel devices, were battling tens of thousands of anti-globalization patriots around the WTO convention center in Seattle.

The SPOTLIGHT December 13, 1999

Who's Behind The New World Order?

This is an updated reprint of a special report first published by The SPOTLIGHT. Since 1955, Liberty Lobby, the people's Institution that publishes The SPOTLIGHT, has been reporting on those super rich power brokers, who fervently work back rom deals to lay the foundation for a one-world government. For years, anyone who talked about the New World Order was attacked as a "right-wing extremist," a "kook," a "Bible thumper" and a fanatic. Today, however, the so-called mainstream media is rife with favorable talk about "the death of nationalism" and the need for a new global government. What the media doesn't report, however, are the names of the organizations and institutions that are promoting the New World Order. This special report from The SPOTLIGHT provides you a brief overview of the dark forces at work -- the U.S. government officials, business leaders, scholars, university professors, clergymen, heads of state and other prominent figures, who have sold their allegiance to their nations in support of eliminating national sovereignty.

Who's behind the so-called "New World Order" that the international Establishment has been promoting?

By Michael Collins Piper

First things first. It's not really a "new" idea. The grand design for a new world order has been in the works for decades; it was the original premise upon which the ill-fated League of Nations was conceived and, later, the basis upon which the United Nations was established.

Only as a result of the war with Iraq did those who had been scheming for a New World Order begin to talk publicly of their ultimate aim: one world government. This was because it had taken them until that point in time to see their globalist dream placed within their reach.

A lot of key players in global affairs have been in the forefoot among them are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

As early as 1974 the CFR launched its "1980s Project" which had as its aim "nothing less than the creation of a new global political and economic system to replace the existing one" that is, a New World Order.

This is the assessment of Professors Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, writing in their landmark study of the CFR, "Imperial Brain Trust: The CFR and United States Foreign Policy." (Monthly Review Press 1977).

To understand how U.S. foreign policy is conducted, you have to understand the CFR. Some go so far as to say that the CFR is "America's secret government." What is the CFR?

Formally headquartered in New York, the CFR's membership constitutes a wide-ranging array of powerful individuals (including members of the Rockefeller family) who operate in the Rockefeller sphere of influence.

These include major figures in the media, academia and the corporate, legal and financial worlds. There is also a significant number of government officials (both elected and appointed) who serve as CFR members.

According to author Fercinand Lundberg, writing in the Rockefeller syndrome (Lyle Stuart, Inc. 1975): "The people associated with the CFR include just about all who have a direct ownership stake in the external economic and financial instrumentalities that service the American Market.

"They know ling before the average citizen does when these instrumentalities are being threatened or interfered with. The maintenance of peace, of course, is important. But there come times when one may have to fight for one's vital interests."

As shown by this quote, the CFR plays a major role in deciding whether America goes to war. Today, as the United States stands on the brink of catastrophe in the Middle East, it is the members of the CFR who are deciding when and if America should go to war.

As the chart on the inside if this special report demonstrates, the key policy making positions in the Clinton administration (particularly in the realm of foreign policy) are occupied by CFR members.

CFR publishes the quarterly journal, Foreign Affairs, and conducts regular meetings and seminars. Key meetings are confidential and off the record.

Created in 1921 with Rockefeller family funding, the CFR emerged as the American branch of the British Royal Institute on International Affairs (RIIA).

The RIIA was the brain child of English financier and imperialist Cecil Rhodes. It was devoted to the ultimate goal of restoring British hegemony over the United States.

It is this British link that leads many critics to charge that the CFR has never failed to advance U.S. Foreign policy measures that prop up Britain in one fashion or another; most notably, engineering U.S. intervention into the European conflict that evolved into World War II.

It has been this way since the establishment of the CFR. CFR members, beginning with the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover, on through the present day in administrations of both parties, have continuously been appointed to key policy making posts, steering the course of America's engagement in world affairs.

Leading figures from within the CFR played the primary role in creating the UN, the global body that -- at least under the so-called New World Order -- would function as the de facto "world government."

(No surprise, then, that it was the Rockefeller family itself that donated the land upon which the United Nations headquarters building occupies.

According to Shoup and Minter, "The planning of the UN can be traced to the 'secret steering committee' established by Secretary of State Cordell Hull in January 1943." All of the members of this secret committee, with the exception of Hull -- a Tennessee politician -- were members of CFR.

"They saw Hull regularly to plan, select, and guide the labors of the State Department's Advisory Committee. It was, in effect, the coordinating agency for all the State Department postwar planning."

These CFR figures "were most responsible for the final shape of the United Nations."

These CFR figures "were most responsible for the final shape of the United Nations."

Today the UN -- The CFR creation -- is playing a pivotal role in the design for a New World Order.

Former President George Bush cast his war against Iraq as part and parcel of the plan for a New World Order. U.S. intervention in Somalia and in Serbia are part of the plan. Likewise GATT and the WTO.

However, for the Establishment to successfully foist upon its American people, it will first be necessary for the powers-that-be to propagate its "party line" to the masses. The mechanism is there for the CFR to do this.

Although the CFR is Manhattan-based, its reach is coast-to- coast, and beyond. The CFR has affiliate entities (dozens of them in fact) in major cities across the country: Locally prominent figures in politics, society and academia are invited to "exclusive" membership in the CFR affiliates.

These entities bring to their forums well-known global figures and conduct policy seminars which promote the New World Order propaganda line of the CFR on the local level.

A major part of the Establishment's drive for the New world Order is shaping public opinion -- this so that the voting public will accept the internationalist agenda laid forth by the planners behind the scenes.

According to one leading CFR member, the planners of the New world Order "seek a private consensus" on major issues. "Consensus seeking," he said "must be a central element."

The super power brokers "will seek to educate attentive audiences so that public opinion will come to reflect the private consensus." or so they say.

In other words, the CFR power brokers will seek a consensus among their own particular elite regarding what approaches to take toward major international issues.

And after such a "consensus" is reached, the power brokers will use their influences to "educate" local elites (such as those who make up CFR affiliates around the country) as to what is "best" for the people.

As a result, these influential local groups will then propagate the CFR's new World Order propaganda line "in the public interest."

In this way a small clique (such as those operating in the Rockefeller-CFR sphere of influence) is able to propagate its views to eager local audiences who then spread globalist, anti-national thinking in their own communities.

The SPOTLIGHT December 20, 1999

Americans Win Battle in Seattle -- WTO Foiled by Patriot Protests

Consider it a victory for you and more than 50,000 demonstrators from all political walks of life who took to the streets of Seattle protesting the WTO.

By James Harrer

In a roaring firestorm of popular protest, resistance and rebellion, more than 50,000 working Americans and student volunteers took over the streets of Seattle earlier this month, routing the jamboree of trade bureaucrats and corporate dealmakers, known as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and opening the way for a worldwide populist alliance to counter the global governance of financial elites.

In the consensus of all observers, it was a historic event. "The WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle was supposed to usher in a new dawn for the global trade system," reported The Financial Times. "Instead, it turned into a nightmare."

The insurgent spirit blazing in the city's streets spread to the convention hall and even sparked a revolt among the divided and squabbling delegates attending the convention.

"Envoys from a number of countries pounded their desks, booed, catcalled and walked out to protest the high-handed way Charlene Barshefsky, the U.S. trade chief, tried to run the WTO meeting," reported Guy de Jonquieres the respected European financial writer.

There were derisive shouts of "We're not in the Knesset here," a jab at Ms. Barshefsky's ethnic and cultural ties to Israel and its brusque and abrasive parliamentary style.

For all the U.S. delegation's desperate attempts to salvage the event, it was a "disaster in Seattle," admitted The Financial Times.

"The debacle has left the five-year-old WTO homelessly divided and without an agenda or political direction," recognized the semi-official daily of the world's money markets. "The WTO...has been cast adrift."

The collapse of what was to be the centerpiece of its globalization drive has left the Clinton administration stunned and slack-jawed.

In a fumbling attempt to appease the rebellious demonstrators, President Clinton promised "sanctions" to enforce better "labor standards" among WTO nations. Barshefsky spoke of the "democratization" and "reform" of the global trade system. Leading Establishment economists such as Dr. Fred Bergsten anxiously attempted to convince the protesters that commerce can create "millions of jobs."

But representatives of U.S. labor, who led an orderly demonstration of some 50,000 protest marchers in Seattle, rebutted the "weasel words" of the politicians.

"We don't want to 'reform' the WTO," proclaimed AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to the huge crowd of workers. "We want to replace it."

To replace the global rule of financial elites, Sweeney called for a world-wide alliance of labor unions and populist movements against the "rule of secretive, unelected, multinational bureaucracies and corporations accountable only to themselves."

There are tens of thousands of American workers protesting "here in Seattle today," Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa told the marchers. "There are machinists, electricians, welders, assembly-line workers, airline pilots, truck drivers, service employees -- if 'free trade' is good for jobs, why are we here?

The answer is that the claim of the politicians about so-called "free trade" being "good for jobs" is an "out-and-out lie, plain and simple," Hoffa proclaimed.

Hoffa's fiery speech was greeted with thunderous cheers -- "the resounding shouts of working men and women no longer willing to be deceived" as one protest speaker, the president of the American Airline Pilots Association, put it.

The SPOTLIGHT December 20, 1999

Cronkite Wants World Government

Walter Cronkite, the veteran newsman watched for decades by so many, has thrown off his deceitful veil of objectivity and is calling for an end to U.S. Sovereignty.

By James P. Tucker Jr.

Popular news broadcaster Walter Cronkite, speaking before the United Nations, recently called for that international body to become a world government and for the United States to surrender its national sovereignty. First lady Hillary Clinton stood by, hailing his remarks.

Cronkite delivered a speech before the World Federalist Association (WFA), where he received the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award. The WFA met at the UN on Oct.19.

"We must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace," Cronkite told the WFA.

This is precisely what internationalist groups such as Bilderberg and its brother group, the Trilateral Commission have been advocating for years.

"To do that, of course, we Americans will have to surrender some of our sovereignty...It will take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order," he said. "We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity, time will not wait."

The world needs "a new system governed by a democratic UN federation. Today, we must develop federal structures on a global level," Cronkite said. We need a system of enforceable world law -- a democratic federal world government -- to deal with world problems."

The "notion of unlimited national sovereignty means international anarchy," he said. "We must replace the anarchic law of force with a civilized force of law."

Resolutions approved by majorities at the UN should be "binding, enforceable law" and the UN must have "reliable financing" and a "standing UN peace force," he said. The United states should pay its "UN dues, with no crippling limitations."

In recent years, under the direction of internationalists, the UN has sought to levy direct taxes on the people of the world, proposing an oil tax to be paid by every motorist at the gas pump and taxes on international airline travel, among others. When exposed, public outrage prevented the imposition of direct taxes by the UN.

Cronkite called for the United States to ratify such sovereignty-surrendering UN treaties as the Law of the Sea, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, the Convention to eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the child and the Treaty for a Permanent International Criminal Court.

"That court will enable the world to hold individuals accountable for crimes against humanity," he said.

Resistance to a world government is led by Christians (Cronkite is an Atheist) and "a handful of willful senators who chose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives," he said.

"This small but well-organized group has intimidated the Republican party and the Clinton administration," Cronkite said.

"The only way we who believe in the vision of a democratic world federal government can effectively overcome this reactionary movement is to organized a strong, educational counteroffensive," Cronkite said.

Hillary Clinton, like the president, a Bilderberg member, lavished praise on Cronkite for his speech.

"Thank you, Walter, thank you for inspiring us all to build a more peaceful and just world," she gushed*

The SPOTLIGHT December 20, 1999

New Group Meets; Offers Options to Establishment Media

Information Alternatives

A new group held its first conference recently to discuss how the average patriot can get his or her voice out for not a lot of money and compete with the big boys in the "news" business.

By Frank Tompkins

The newly-established Committee for Local Media held its founding conference on Dec. 5 in Las Vegas. Twenty two determined populists and patriots met with instructors to learn the basics of establishing a local newspaper.

Inspired by the examples of Don Harkins, publisher and editor of the Idaho Observer, who chaired the one-day instruction class, Ed Snook of the Oregon Observer and Jon Brake of the Manhattan (Kan.) Free Press, the "students" spent the day getting briefed on doing the same thing in their localities.

Statewide newspapers, operating for the express purpose of exposing the corruption, crime and dishonesty of politicians and judges, seem to be the answer to local corruption, pervasive throughout the United States.

NO FREE PRESS

Sadly, all major newspapers throughout the country are part of the international Bilderberg-plutocratic New World Order conspiracy to withhold and doctor news that is uncomfortable for the ruling political establishment. This has been proven as a fact time and time again by The SPOTLIGHT, which consistently reports national and international hard news that is important to all American consumers, taxpayers and voters but is suppressed at the national level by every media outlet.

Local newspapers, which can be set up for an astonishingly low investment, thanks to computer technology, can do the job locally that The SPOTLIGHT does on a national level. The experience of pioneers Snook, Harkins and Brake proves the point When wrongdoing that is covered up by the big newspapers is reported in a local newspaper -- even a small one with limited circulation -- big changes can be expected for the better.

Instructors, in addition to Harkins and Brake, were Willis Carto, Clyde Reynolds, Howard Carson, Paul Hall, Clay Douglas and George Kadar. Each of them has had extensive hands-on experience in setting up and operating a small paper or in the technical requirements of the job.

Speakers stressed that the main requirement to set up a local newspaper is the determination to do so and a bit of writing ability -- a talent possessed by almost any populist, most of whom are experienced correspondents or political missionaries.

The entire conference was video-taped by The SPOTLIGHT's staff photographer. Copies will be made available to interested parties who were unable to personally attend.

The SPOTLIGHT December, 20 1999

Speak Out on Spotlight Web Forums

Spotlight on the Internet

The SPOTLIGHT'S Internet web site is not "interactive" featuring five all new forums plus polls and surveys. The SPOTLIGHT's web site address is www.libertylobby.org.

The professionally-produced forums will allow SPOTLIGHT readers and other Internet users to hash out their ideas and stratagems in an easy to use, give and take format, where everyone can have his say. We will maintain a regular "current events" forum where you can discuss breaking news with others, and a revolving forum which will treat dedicated subjects, each for a designated period of time. The first revolving forum is on the ever-popular ic of "Who Killed JFK -- and why"?

Two additional forums are available to those interested. One is a place for discussion of that always controversial subject, money: "What is 'Real Money' and What Makes It Real." it seems everyone has his own idea of what money is. Now you can let the world know your views."

Another, "threaded," forum is open to ideas and discussion of "Suppressed Inventions and Technology," an area of great interest, not only to The SPOTLIGHT and its readers, but to millions. With this forum, those interested in a particular subject, Tesla, "free energy, Alternative fuels, you name it, may run a "thread" of discussion on that matter alone, while other can do the same with totally different subjects, each grouping with its own thread.

Another threaded forum is dedicated to alternative health care. Tom Valentine, of Radio Free America and The SPOTLIGHT's health editor, has volunteered to offer his expertise, as time permits, to those who post here.

Polls are multiple choice. In conjunction with the money forum we are polling visitors to see how each would best describe money. A second poll asks about the necessity of political parties. These polls show immediate results by percentage and, with more modern computers, a color pie chart. There will be regular polls on a variety of subjects of interest to SPOTLIGHT readers.

Surveys are write-in format. For openers we are asking visitors who they like for president at this juncture. You cannot check the results of your survey entry but after a reasonable period of time, we will post the results and begin a new survey.

Finally, there is a "feedback" feature so that you can let us know what you like or dislike about our site and The SPOTLIGHT. A place where you can offer ideas to improve our efforts for you and the American people.

We have mastered our Legislative Action Center, which is also accessed by clicking on its description on The SPOTLIGHT home page. When congress returns in January, the site will become very active. Liberty Lobby's Andy Arnold, who is keeping a close eye on the inner working of congress, will be posting alerts as necessary concerning proposed legislation and will generally keep you informed of congressional action.

With the Legislative Action Center you will be able to keep tabs on our running tally of important votes in Congress and you can e-mail directly from the center to your representative and senators. Check in often to keep up-to-date on what's happening "on the Hill."

Regularly check The SPOTLIGHT home page at www.libertylobby.org for its established features including weekly articles from The SPOTLIGHT, book offerings from Liberty Library and links to other good sites.

The SPOTLIGHT December 27, 1999

SPOTLIGHT's Y2K Security Guide

DO:

* Drinking water (bottled or otherwise) to last a family for at least one week.
* Washing and cooking water for the same period.
* At least a week's worth of beans, rice, canned goods, vegetables.
* Portable radio, preferably with single sideband shortwave capacity.
* Batteries for flashlight, portable radios.
* Extra supplies for infants, ill persons.
* Make sure your car's tank is full and store additional gas if possible.
* Cash in $20 or lower denominations (as much as you can safely store).
* Fuel for the fireplace or cooking fires to last at least a week.
* A firearm (pistol, rifle, shotgun) for security.

DON'T:

*Don't rely on frozen foods because your electricity supply may be interrupted.
* Don't panic. If Americans can't ride out Y2K, even if the economy is disrupted severely, we are pretty pale reflections of our forefathers.

The SPOTLIGHT December 27, 1999

U.S. Marines Train Foreign Troops

Urban warfare trainng offered by U.S. Marines drew soldiers from Britain and the Netherlands to practice close-quarters city fighting in a mock ethnic crisis in Northern California

By Mike Blair

Foreign elite troops participated last spring in a Marine Corps urban warfare training exercise in the Alameda-Oakland metropolitan area, across San Francisco, The SPOTLIGHT has learned.

The exercise nearly ended in a disaster when a Marine helicopter caught fire, endangering civilian lives.

One of many exercises the Marine expeditionary units have held nation-wide during the last few years, the Alameda-Oakland exercise included landing operations on the beaches of Alameda from vessels anchored in Monterey Bay, off Santa Cruz, about 70 miles to the south.

Participating with the Marines were units of British Royal Marines and royal Netherlands Marines.

The Royal Marines helped brief and train some 250 civilians they hired at $50 and $75 per day. The exercise focused on a fictitious ethnic clash between two groups, the "Booleans" and the "Furzians."

The Booleans, the majority group were at odds with its minority counterpart, the Furzians. The two groups occupied the country of "Orange," which took place in the Alameda-Oakland area. The Marines practiced their "peacekeeping" mission of keeping the two ethnic groups apart. The area had just experienced a mock devastation earthquake, further complicating the ethnic clash for the Marines.

After two days of training and orientation at Fort Ord, the civilian participants gathered at Oak Knoll, the former Naval Hospital at Oakland, where the actual ground activities took place. The Marines came ashore to provide mock humanitarian assistance, accompanied by units of British and Dutch marines from ships anchored off shore.

The Marines established a command center, utilizing the latest in security and crowd control gear. They searched, interrogated, photographed and issued identity cards to the mock "ethnics" each time they passed through the barbed wire gate.

Among the ships involved in the mock battle were the then six-month old Wasp -class amphibious assault ship; the LHD-5 Bon Homme Richard, a vessel capable of carrying 1,900 troops; six to eight AV-Harrier vertical take-off jet fighters and 42 CH-46E Sea Knight helicopters.

Some of the civilian participants were flown to the Bon Homme Richard for a tour of the shiny new vessel. The visit almost ended in disaster when a CH-46 Sea King helicopter took off for its return trip to shore and an serious fire broke out at the rear of the helicopter. Sailors immediately covered the deck with foam. The helicopter dropped back onto the deck and the passengers were quickly taken off without injuries.

As in past training exercises, the dangers posed to civilians were hushed by the Pentagon.

Critics of urban warfare training maneuvers held in cities across the country have repeatedly warned that serious mishaps will ultimately occur. They point to the dangers presented by multiple helicopters, particularly those hovering at night just above the roofs of large civilian apartment complexes.

The U.S. Special Operations Command elite troops are involved in the training, sometimes in conjunction with FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and other federal police agencies as well as with local police departments.

They also have trained with troops from countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union. Russian troops, bearing shoulder patches indicating they have participated in such joint training, have turned up in the breakaway Chechen republic, which is being ravaged by Russian air and ground forces.

There have been cases of live ammunition used in some of the exercises in U.S. cities.

The SPOTLIGHT December 27, 1999

Handful of Families, Corporations Controlling the Global Media Monopolies

Americans need independent newspapers like The SPOTLIGHT that aren't controlled by the big-money controlled global media monopoly that runs ABC, CBS, NBC CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and all of the "mainstream" media.

By Michael Collins Piper

Ten years ago "they" said The SPOTLIGHT was "paranoid when we featured an exclusive report in our No. 52, dec. 25, 1989, issue declaring "International corporations Grabbing Control of Major Media." Critics said it was just another one of those wacky conspiracy theories -- "just like you see in the movies." Well, it was a theory backed up by facts and it's gotten worse.

"Some of the names of those big media giants will be familiar," The SPOTLIGHT said. "Many will not be. But this handful of major media empires is literally calling the shots and, in a very serious sense, charting the course of the world's future. Thus, there is a big question as to whether or not there really is a 'free market' in the media industry..."

"In totalitarian countries," The SPOTLIGHT pointed out, "the government controls the media. But in the United States -- and around the world -- many would say (with good reason) that the controllers of the privately owned media also control the governments, in order to promote their own special interests."

Professor Ben Bagdikian, a prominent media critic and author of the book, The Media Monopoly, has pointed out:

"The media lords of the global village have their own political agenda. All resist economic changes that do not support their own financial interests. Together, they exert a homogenizing power over ideas, culture and commerce that affects populations larger than any in history. Neither caesar nor Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt not any Pope, has commanded as much power to shape the information on which so many people depend to make decisions about everything from whom to vote for to what to eat...

"Monopolistic power dominates many other industries and most of them enjoy special treatment by the government. But media giants have two enormous advantages: They control the public image of national leaders who, as a result, fear and favor the media magnates' political agendas; and they control the information and entertainment that help establish the social, political and cultural attitudes of increasingly larger populations...

According to Robert W. McChesney of the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: "The global media system is fundamentally noncompetitive n any meaningful economic sense of the term. Many of the largest media firms have some of the same major shareholders, own pieces of one another or have interlocking boards of directors. When variety compiled its list of the fifty largest global media firms for 1997, it observed that 'merger mania' and cross-ownership had 'resulted in a complex web of interrelationships' that will 'make you dizzy.'"

"What you are seeing is the creation of a global oligopoly. It happened to the oil and automotive industries earlier this century; now it is happening to the entertainment industry," according to Christopher Dixon, media analyst for Paine Weber.

In 1989, there were 11 major media giants emerging as the most powerful names in the global media monopoly. As The SPOTLIGHT predicted, the numbers of the major controlling entities would decrease even as their various media holding would increase.

Today there are nine major corporations dominating the global media (although, as we shall see, two of the nine are actually controlled by one family), The nine major global media giants today are:

TIME WARNER. The biggest by far, Time Warner, the largest media corporation in terms of annual revenues, is 50 times larger in terms of annual sales than the world's 50th largest media firm.

Once the fiefdom of American media icon Henry Luce, founder the the Rime-Life publishing empire, this global media conglomerate is dominated by Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress and heir to the Seagram's Liquor fortune of his late father, ex-bootlegger Sam Bronfman, a -level figure in the international crime syndicate dominated by the late Meyer Lansky. Admirers and detractors alike have been known to call Bronfman "The King of the World."

The merger in the 1980s of the former "Lucepress" (as it was known in its heyday) with Warner Communications set the stage for expansive growth of this massive worldwide empire, which has more than 200 subsidiaries.

Although Bronfman's Seagram company did hot purchase a controlling interest in Time-Warner until 1993, longtime Bronfman associates had already established themselves in this once eminently American media empire.

The Warner Brothers Studios, the famed Hollywood film company, was actually merged with the Seven Arts Production Company, based in Canada, in 1967. The founder of Seven Arts was Louis Chesler, a longtime front man for Lansky. The new operation formed by the merger was dubbed "Warner Communications."

Not surprisingly, a major stockholder in Warner was the infamous "flight capital money laundering empire known as Investors Overseas Service, which was headed by Bernard Cornfeld. A flamboyant playboy, Cornfeld was actually no more than a front man for Swiss banker Tibor Rosenbaum, a high-level arms procurement official for Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad. Rosenbaum's Banque De Credit Internationale, based in Geneva, also functioned as the chief drug and gambling money laundry for the Lansky crime syndicate.

Considering all of this, it was probably inevitable that the Bronfmans (moving from their organized crime antecedents into the world of "legitimacy") would emerge as key players in the Time warner empire.

What follows is a representative (although far from complete) list of the more eminent holding in the Time Warner ocus:

* Home Video: Time-Life Video; HBO Home Video; Warner Home Video;
* Cable Franchises reaching 11.7 million subscribers;
* Turner Broadcasting, including all of the CNN holdings, including TBS Super-station, CNN International, CNN radio, Headline News;
*Magazines: Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Life, fortune, Money, Vibe, In Style, Parenting, Baby Talk, Martha Stewart living, Sunset, Health, Hippocrates, Asia Week, President, Who, Entertainment Weekly, Cooking Light, southern Living, DC Comics (50 percent holdings), American Lawyer (85.25 percent holdings) and Cancyu ; and
*Book Publishing: Oxmoor House, Sunset Books, Little Brown & Co. Time-Life Books, Warner Books, Book-of-the-Month Club.

SEAGRAMS. Although Time warner is nery much a Bronfman family-dominated operation through the Time warner shares held by the Seagram company, Seagram is one of the major media conglomerates on its own part. Edgar Bronfman's son, Edgar Bronfman Jr., operates Seagram as his personal plaything, controlling Universal Music Group, the largest recorded-music firm in the world, along with Polygram, a major music company, as well as Universal Studios and TV channels throughout Europe and Latin America.

NEWS CORPORATION. This is the empire of Rupert Murdoch, whose flagship newspaper, the "conservative" New York Post, and his "conservative" Weekly Standard magazine (edited by Bilderberg figure William Kristol) are among the most powerful voices for the Israeli lobby in America. Murdoch's sleazy Fos Television reaches 40 percent of the American viewing public. Murdoch also controls substantial media properties in Asia and Latin America.

DISNEY. Now tightly run by Michael Eisner, this global giant has assumed control of ABC television and radio, Hyperion Books, Chilton Publications (a variety of trade publications), Fairchild Publications (Women's Wear Daily), the Arts & Entertainment Network, The Lifetime Network and ESPN, along with the following newspapers: Fort Worth Star Telegram; Kansas City Star; St Louis Daily Record; Narragansett Times; Oakland Press and Reminder (Pontiac, Mich.); Belleville News-Democrat (Ill.); Albany Democrat (Ore.); Daily Tidings (Ashland, Ore.).

GENERAL ELECTRIC. Formerly "the light bulb company," this corporate giant controls NBC television and radio, CNBC and the Bravo cable channel and has shares in Arts & Entertainment, the History Channel and Court TV.

AT&T/LIBERTY MEDIA. Formerly "the telephone company," this media giant has holdings in Time Warner, News Corporation, CNBC and Sprint PCS Group, along with substantial holdings in South America and Asia in cable, satellite and broadcast television.

SONY. Controlled by Japanese billionaire Noboyuki Idei (who has been accused of being a "front" for the Rockefeller family which bought up substantial interests in Japanese corporations following World War II), Sony produces films in Europe and Asia and television programming on five continents, not to mention its lucrative music empire that reaches round the world. The "inside joke" is that the name "Sony" is a clever acronym that really means "Standard Oil of New York," the firm that established the Rockefeller billions.

VIACOM. Headed by Summer Redstone, another powerful figure who is a devout supporter of Israel but who is little known to the American public, this firm owns Paramount pictures, MTV and the Blockbuster video chain. Redstone is moving to purchase CBS radio and television, which is owned by Westinghouse.

BERTELSMANN. Established in Germany in 1835, this is the largest TV and radio firm in Europe and owns the U.S.-based Random House Publishing, which critics have called "the CIA's favorite publishing company." Random House subsidiaries include such well-known book publishers as Alfred A. Knopf, Ballantine Books, Beginner Books, Crown Publishers, Fawcett Books, Fodor's Travel Publications, Modern Library, Orion, Pantheon Books, Times Books and Vintage Books. This German company has publishing enterprises in Germany, Britain and Argentina.

The comments of Bagdikian regarding the growing concentration of media ownership summarize the matter well:

When 50 men and women, chiefs of their corporations, control more than half the information and ideas that reach 249 million Americans, it is time for Americans to examine the institutions from which they receive their daily picture of the world.

The United States has an impressive array of mass communications. There are 1,700 daily newspapers, 11,000 magazines, 9,000 radio and 1,000 television stations, 2,500 book publishers and seven movie studios. If each of these were operated by a different owner there would be 25,000 individual media voices in the country...

And far from opening their systems to journalists, authors, dramatists, musicians and citizen groups, the big corporations are working to close them off to idiosyncratic outsiders and ideas. Theirs is a strategy of total control. They buy every possible means of delivery (print, broadcast, films, etc). They strive to use their own rather than independently produced material. Then they convert it to as many forms of media as they control Even the world's scholarly, scientific and technical journals are now largely controlled by the big media barons...

Belatedly, the nations of the world are recognizing that they and their corporations must be restrained from polluting the earth and its atmosphere with chemicals. The basis for all liberty -- freedom of information -- is also in danger of being polluted, not by chemicals but by a new mutation of that familiar scourge of the free spirit: Centrally controlled information.