"History is a battlefield."[1]
Over 200 years on and they are still lying to us about the American Revolution. Here even the Brits, of all people, are getting into the act. Which only goes to prove my contention that we are a world divided into classes; not races, religions or nations. They are but tools in the hands of international capital.
"Those who own the land should govern it." John Jay
The American Revolution was betrayed by a scheming cabal of treacherous "moneyed men". These had an abiding fear and contempt of the democratic ideals and aspirations of the laboring classes which had been loosed by the War of Independence. This propertied class plotted and intrigued against rank and file Americans without whom the rich merchants and landed slave-holding gentry could not have secured their independence from the like of Great Britain. Their liberty in hand, thence did the cabal connive to re-subject the American people to the same depredations as the British had, and by much the same means. The perpetrators of this infamy are known to us as the Founding Fathers.
"Gentleman, let us not be too concerned with what is fair, but let us have a government which protects our property." George Washington
The "Founders" wanted to oust the British, but didn't want a real revolution. Unfortunately for them democracy had broken out all over as a result of the war. Thus did our "Fathers" secretly concoct a state document designed specifically to throttle the ongoing revolution and re-establish the rule of money where it had been overthrown. This document is known to us as the Constitution. It criminalized rebellion, and at the same time generated for the new ruling class obscene, windfall profits from redemption of war debt; booty recovered from the collection of onerous taxes from subsistence farmers, the very same people who had fought and won the war.
"The point of government is to protect the rich from the poor." James Madison
The principal architect of this ignominy was Alexander Hamilton, upon whom the author of the cited article calls to "save" Europe. Just about everything in this FT piece is wrong, or at the very least attenuated. Not all the relevant debt was state debt; it is a gross distortion to define the dispute over whether and at what rate to redeem as regional; and the resolving agreement is equally mischaracterized.
It is of no surprise that the FT, the voice of British capital, has crafted a version of American Revolutionary history devoid of its essential element--class antagonism; and with its arch villain refashioned as hero. It is, after all, the deception taught by school, media and Hamilton's successors in government. All of the war debt was issued at deep discounts. Often wartime economic conditions (here too is Hamilton's work) were so adverse that working people were forced to sell these bonds for next to nothing to feed their families. There were cases of $100 bonds reselling for less than a dollar. Several plans for redemption were put forth by the democratic assemblies (before they were outlawed by the Constitution and state constitutions) which were quite accommodating, substantially in excess of market value averages. But they were not generous enough for Hamilton and the rest of the profiteering Founders who demanded that they be redeemed at par (face value), and whose Constitution homologated that they be payed in specie (gold, silver, i.e. not paper money). Hamilton then devised taxation and other systems by which this enormous sum could be expropriated from the people and transferred to the ruling class. This further immiserating of the laboring classes resulted in countless bankruptcies and home/farm foreclosures, and, of course, severely hampered the latter's ability to resist the moneyed men's coup. There were several attempts at rebellion, but all were put down by force of arms.
Hamilton's policies were a great political and economic swindle. And they are resurrecting his ghost to do it again.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/811611d6-273a-11e1-b7ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1h2WPci7X
[1] I cannot remember who said this. The other quotes are from memory and may not be verbatim, but I'm sure they are accurate in essence.
If you want to learn more about the real American Revolution, I recommend:
Taming Democracy, by Terry Bouton
A People's History of the American Revolution, by Ray Rafael
Forced Founders and Unruly Americans, by Woody Holton
And for a bean-counters view Joseph Ernst's Money and Politics in America, 1755-1775 is invaluable
