An Interview With `The World Is Turning' Author Don Paul--Conclusion

On April 14, 2007, New Orleans-based writer-poet-musician-Marathon runner-activist Don Paul was the Chief Prosecutor for the "San Diego Citizen's Grand Jury on the Crimes of September 11, 2001 in New York City" event that was held at San Diego State University. He co-founded the organization Rebuild Green three days after Hurricane Katrina and moved from San Francisco to New Orleans in January 2006 to help with effort for recovery there. The author of more than 20 books and the producer of more than 20 albums, Paul was recently interviewed by email about the Democratic Obama Administration's first 100 days and about his most recent book: The World Is Turning: `9/11,' The Movement for Justice & Reclaiming America for the World. (The text of this interview was originally posted on the http://blog.puppetgov.com site. See below for parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5).

In your new book you also write that "another financier linked to major events of the 9/11/01 day, Warren Buffett, spoke to shareholders of the Berkshire Hathaway company that he heads;" and "Berkshire Hathaway was a big financial winner after 9/11/01." How would you evaluate the way the Big Media and most left alternative media cover the role that Warren Buffett has played in U.S. history in recent years?

Don Paul [DP]: So far as I can tell, mass media is generally fawning toward Warren Buffett, while almost all of what’s called left media ignores the integral roles played by Warren Buffett and similarly mega-financiers in directing society.

In your book you also note that "Warren Buffett was photographed with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lord Jacob Rothschild at a meeting on Rothschild's English estate of investors in Buffett's NextJet Company" and you seem to emphasize the special influence that banking families like the Rothschilds have played in determining the direction of world history. What kind of information about the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Federal Reserve Bank and the Big Banks do you think anti-war readers will find in your book that they wouldn't generally find from just watching CNN and PBS or just listening to left alternative media radio shows like "Democracy Now!'?

DP: Corporations such as CNN and PBS—Corporations that are dependent upon systems of private money-lending as the method of sustaining national economies—that is, Corporations that are ultimately dependent upon the status quo Central Banks such as the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Canada—completely fail to report the defrauding, life-sucking realities of these private Central Banks.

So-called “Left” media likewise ignore these most fundamental realities, for all of its fuss about scandals and crises. The volume of Project Censored that presents the “Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007-08”—years of bail-outs totaling more than $1 trillion!—has only one instance of misdeeds that involve the Federal Reserve System: the Fed’s shipping of $12 billion of bank notes to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (L. Paul Bremer) over one year between 2003 and 2004.

Then there’s the role of families and Corporations’ Foundations in exercising social control through their funding of media and other agencies of the “Left”--that are supposed to expose and combat inequties--and “Right.”

Do you think any of the liberal establishment foundations on whose boards sit board members of Wall Street firms like A.I.G, the Federal Reserve Bank or the Big Banks are likely to give you a literary grant to write your next book--after they read what you write about banks in The World Is Turning?

DP: Not likely. A grant from any Lord or arm of the empire is as unlikely a prospect for me as suicide. But—you never know. There is no Other in the sea of us and we all may hope to be subjected to more enlightenment.

How can folks who wish to read your new book obtain a copy, if they can't find a copy of your book in their local library or at the local corporate bookstore chain outlet?

DP: Well, readers can—if they’re so moved—request that Public Libraries obtain a copy of The World Is Turning. Ingram or another distributor can bring the book to Public Libraries through standard channels. I love Public Libraries.

If someone wants to order the book for direct purchase, I recommend going to the http://www.wireonefire.com/donpaul/wit.html

sub-site and using the means there. It’s also available there as an e-book and a three-CD audio book. (end of interview)

An Interview With `The World Is Turning' Author Don Paul--Part 5

On April 14, 2007, New Orleans-based writer-poet-musician-Marathon runner-activist Don Paul was the Chief Prosecutor for the "San Diego Citizen's Grand Jury on the Crimes of September 11, 2001 in New York City" event that was held at San Diego State University. He co-founded the organization Rebuild Green three days after Hurricane Katrina and moved from San Francisco to New Orleans in January 2006 to help with effort for recovery there. The author of more than 20 books and the producer of more than 20 albums, Paul was recently interviewed by email about the Democratic Obama Administration's first 100 days and about his most recent book: The World Is Turning: `9/11,' The Movement for Justice & Reclaiming America for the World. (The text of this interview was originally posted on the http://blog.puppetgov.com site. See below for parts 1, 2, 3, and 4).

Recently some Big Media attention has been focused on the American International Group [A.I.G.] because it used a lot of its U.S. taxpayer-provided bail-out fund money to just give big bonuses to A.I.G. executives. But your book seems to indicate that A.I.G. also apparently profited from what happened on September 11, 2001 in Downtown Manhattan. Besides learning more about how A.I.G. may have profited from what happened on 9/11/01, what other kinds of information about the 9/11/01 events which the Big Media or U.S. left alternative media generally never mention, will U.S. anti-war readers find in your new book?

Don Paul [DP]: The insurance pay-outs from demolition of the three World Trade Center Building is dwarfed by profits realized by grants in the insurance and re-insurance businesses since 9/11/01. The biggest of these are the American International Group [AIG] and holdings of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway company, including General Reinsurance. Because these giants were able to raise premiums as much as 2000%, their revenues rose about 40% in the three years after 9/11. For the year 2004—before it dove into the global grand casino of “derivatives” and Credit Defaults Swaps et cetera—AIG reported a profit of $9.73 billion.

The giant insurance corporations also got great breaks from Congress post-9/11. Maurice Greenberg, then CEO of AIG, and his son Jeffrey, then CEO of March & McClennan, an insurance-firm that lost 295 employees due to demolition of the South Tower, went to Congress less than two weeks after 9/11. The insurance industry came away with a new law, the Terrorism Risk Prevention Act of 2002, by which the public would absorb 90% of insurers’ losses up to $100 billion after a minor deductible of $5 or $50 million. The TRPA remains in effect under the Obama Administration. (end of part 5)