James Corbett | Rockefeller History & The Big Conspiracy Breakdown

00:04 Planet's puppet masters almost surely have a poop. There clearly may be something there they are. And until you've thoroughly tested every last puss just to give more, You think you know the less you really do! That's true Dr. Seuss. Where would we be without THC? Cause' we know they're lying to us Just don't know what to breed Where would we be without DT? The highest-tied Jack show, Greg Carle

00:40 Alright folks, today we're coming back to what many might call Conspiracy 101 examining the history of the Rockefeller family and the other early American industrialists and how they've shaped the world since the late 1800s because many people doubt that on a crowded planet so much influence and power could really be attained by just a handful of families but when you know the history you don't really have to guess. and it becomes clear that the oily appendages of the nefarious few weave through every major sector of life including energy, transportation, education, food, media money, medicine and more. And if this isn't full spectrum dominance you tell me what's left? I'd say not much but here to help us pick up

01:19 pieces of the puzzle few dare to put together is one of my favorite journalists and content creators working today, James Corbett. If you're unfamiliar, James is the one man band behind corbettreport.com where he writes records and produces thousands of hours a video podcast articles in more He's one of the best and he really puts my work ethic to shame ladies and gentlemen The gold standard James Corbett welcome to The Higher Side Well, thanks for having me back on but don't put yourself down. Don't sell yourself short there. Oily appendages of a nefarious few? That right there takes the cake! I don't think I can top that this whole interview. Well thanks man and it is a real pleasure we have done this once before way back in 2013 i'm really psyched to do it again The main thing that prompted me to get in touch with you again was this documentary made a few months back about 70 minutes long called How Big Oil Conquered The World At first I thought

02:09 I don't really need to see this. I know this story, but the truth is that part of history has been so concealed that with each retelling, you're going to learn a lot of new stuff and it's so well made that it's got to be my new go-to recommendation for anyone who needs to be conspiratorially educated." It's that good man! Thank you very much. I do appreciate that and it's great to hear because truly this is an encapsulation of a lot of the research that I've been doing for almost, well about a decade now. So I tried as best I could to try and compress that into an hour or 70 minutes. I hope it speaks for itself. Yeah it definitely does! It's so well condensed down and its very down-to-earth and practical and easy to grasp. And I guess to get us started here

02:52 Most people, they know a little bit about John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil but how did the saga get started? What do you consider the beginning of the big oil story? I well in documentary and just generally I do tend to go back to the progenitor of the Rockefeller clan not John D Rockefeller But his father because it's an interesting little topic that not a lot of people know about but it is a perfectly completely 100% admitted part of the story. It's not conspiracy theory or anything, it is just part of the Rockefeller story that John D. Rockefeller's father was William Rockefeller who changed his name to William Livingston because of a string of – well I mean he was a rogue, he was a cad. He was not

03:35 only a philanderer and someone who went town to town literally selling snake oil, but he was also a rapist and a bigamist. He was run out of town and eventually left the family more or less and adopted the name Livingston. died elsewhere apart from the family. So that is the real origins of the Rockefeller clan and I think it's, I mean doubly or triply or quadruply ironic that the originator of the Rockefeller dynasty was literally a snake oil salesman and I think the apple didn't fall far from the tree although the official story of the Rockefeller dynasty is that John D learnt from his father in a sense learned what not to do he grew up

04:19 under the tutelage of his very devout Baptist mother and became a very devout Baptist man, and understood the work ethic that would bring him and his family out of kind of not the grinding poverty they were in but they weren't in a great situation. And he realized he had to pull himself up by his bootstraps and all that. That's the way they tried to take that story. The other version of that story is another oft-told tale, that William Rockefeller used to brag that he tried to cheat his boys every chance he got because he wanted to make them sharp. And again I think – I mean that's a pretty interesting upbringing for someone who eventually went on to become really one of the world's most richest and influential people

04:59 Right, yeah. Those are crucial details in learning about how this family and how the saga kind of unfolded and one of my favorite parts of it is the prohibition subtext And I was aware of that kind of hidden history there and I do want to elaborate on it a little bit But as far as dominating the energy space and suppressing other options early on Prohibition I've learned from this documentary is really just the tip of the iceberg because As they built their empire and had things to compete with, you say that in the film in the earliest forms of electric vehicles they go back as far as the 1830s. And the first electric car was made in 1884 I mean this is probably really surprising for a lot of people who have been led to believe that technology just isn't there and oil is the only option What else can you say about the electric car component in the late 1800's that people probably aren't aware of?

05:54 Well, I think you brought up the salient points there that a technology for electric engines went back to the early part of the 19th century and that commercially available electric cars were there by the 1880s. And in fact it wasn't just some sort pipe dream type of thing. It was an actually operable technology in London, there was a fleet of all electric taxis that were taking passengers around London by 1897 and at the turn of the 20th century, the world land speed record was set by an electric car In fact, 28% of the cars in the US in the 20th century – at the dawn of the 20th century and around the turn of 1900 were electric. So it wasn't a small part of the market by any means and it wasn't at all certain at that point that the gasoline-powered engine was going to be the dominant form.

06:46 of the engine that would take hold and become the basis for society, which was a potential problem for the would-be monopolists of the burgeoning oil industry. Which had really taken off on the basis of the fact that whale oil – whale blubber – which was still being used primarily for lamps and heating in homes was becoming very scarce. Whales were being hunted to extinction in a lot of cases, so it was becoming something that was difficult to replace and suddenly we had this new techniques for refining petroleum into kerosene for lamp oil and that was really the basis for the takeoff of the industry in the 1860's

07:26 But by the turn of the 20th century, electricity and electric lights were really taking over that share of the market. So they really did need a new catalyst, a new reason for gasoline and petroleum-derived products to be the basis for society in order to maintain the market shares that they had. And the engine and automobile was the perfect thing to come along at the perfect time in order for them to do that. But of course it did have competition as you say like the electric engine which At the time, in the turn of the 20th century was a true competitor to gasoline engines. It was not the dominant share of the market but it was a large share and that only dwindled after this striking of spindle top around 1900 in Texas which brought unimaginable amounts of gasoline into the market relatively cheaply and by that point it started to become quite obvious that electricity

08:23 the main operator for engine technology in the United States. Right, and how synchronistic. I mean it's like if they didn't find this huge reserve at the right time they couldn't have lowered the price of oil down enough to where people basically considered it super cheap and they might have priced other things out on the market And it all does hinge on just a couple key moments where they found these huge reservoirs because if it had taken maybe another five or ten years that market share might've grown to a degree that they really couldn't put the lid back on That's true and it wasn't only electric engines. Of course, there was also alcohol engines fuel alcohol was a significant competitor with alcohol engines technology being refined to the point that by 1909 the USGS actually published a report showing that there was a fuel economy equivalence between alcohol engines and gas engines that you would get the same bang for the buck as if were

09:23 between the two technologies. And again, it was spindle top and the lowering of gasoline prices that really definitively turned the tide in favor of alcohol – I'm sorry in favor of gasoline over alcohol fuels. So again there's that other side to it and then of course that brings into prohibition movement that you were talking about earlier. Right, and not only was alcohol an alternative but it actually seemed like in some ways a better fuel than gasoline I mean apparently it didn't burn as hot It isn't as toxic of course And also people have better control over it A farmer could have a still on his farm and harvest his own

10:00 alcohol to fuel his tractors, fuel vehicles and that component also makes it a better system. It is quite a shame that they were able to do this but another aspect that is really interesting about this, is the public transportation aspect. And man... This really pissed me off and surprised me because so many big cities in the United States don't have good transportation today San Diego's is alright but it still mainly based on gas guzzling buses and now I kinda know why after watching your documentary but tell us a little bit about what you call the bustitution campaign and the national city line saga That's pretty interesting piece of puzzle

10:43 It really is. And the funny part about this is that when you go and look this up online, it's trendy in recent years for people to come back with quote-unquote so called debunkings of this story basically trying to say oh, it was overblown, this isn't really how it happened despite the fact that there was actually a federal indictment and successful prosecution of the companies that were involved in this. Officially, on the court record yes they were guilty of it but apparently it's a conspiracy theory to talk about. But yes this goes back to the point that after World War I there was still very little actual private car ownership in United States only one in ten Americans actually even owned a car at that point and vast majority

11:27 Certainly, city dwellers relied on public transportation like electric trolley networks to get them around the towns. There were extensive electric trolley networks in numerous cities across the United States. So what is an oil-connected monopolist to do in a situation like that? Well you had General Motors starting a front company called National City Lines and Members of that front company included Firestone Tire and Standard Oil of California. Standard Oil of California, obviously one of the offshoots of the Standard Oil Rockefeller dynasty that got broken up in 1910

12:04 And they started, as you say a plan that they called bustitution or that was termed bustitution to scrap streetcars across the country. To tear up the railway lines and to replace it with basically with regular roads running GM buses on standard oil diesel fuel of course so they set to work specifically on that plan and Within a decade, they had already accomplished an incredible amount. They had scrapped over 100 municipal electric transit systems in 45 cities and put gas-burning GM buses on the streets in their place. And by 1955 nearly 90% of the electric streetcar lines in the United States have been ripped out or otherwise eliminated that comes from F William Engdahl in his book Miss Lies In Oil Wars

12:57 And the more you look into it, the more fascinating it is. But the interesting part was that a lot of this was exposed by a retired naval lieutenant commander called Edwin J Quimby who was apparently quite a character in and of himself but he wrote this manifesto talking about this substitution system and saying that This was a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities – your electric railway system. And he went on to detail how this national city lines had been involved in destroying the public transportation lines in Baltimore, LA, St Louis and other cities. his manifesto exposing this, that eventually started to get some media attention. And then in 1949 GM Firestone Standard Oil their officers, their corporate associates were indicted and they ultimately ended up paying a punishing fine of

13:46 $5,000 for destroying. For example I mean if nothing else LA's 100 million dollar Pacific Electric System was scrapped as a result of this Pacific City Line plan and they ended up paying a five thousand dollar fine for that in fact the director of Pacific City Lines was fined $1 for his participation in the scheme. Basically, the judge was saying yes you're guilty of this but I don't think it was a big problem. I think this is overblown so… So it ultimately ends up obviously very well for people who wanted to transform the United States into what we now think of as American car culture. America's built around the car. Well, it wasn't build around the car by accident. It was part of a very strategic plan that

14:31 that was drawn up in the boardrooms of Oiligar Connected companies and was put into place. It was put into operation, and not only were they not significantly fined or imprisoned or damaged in any way for this you ended up having the, I mean just the hideous situation that in 1953 President Eisenhower appointed Charles Wilson the president of GM as his secretary of defense and what did this president of General Motors do? As Secretary of Defense of The United States He, of course started the federal highways system. He started to put in the interstate highways which ultimately ended up not only – I mean obviously the Pacific City Lines and National City Lines had already taken out the transportation systems within cities but between cities rail was still the most popular form of travel until they started the Interstate Highway System directed

15:26 by literally the president of General Motors and that ultimately led to an 84% decline in rail travel in the two decades between 1945 and 1964. God, man. It's just it's an amazing saga and our view is so skewed we think we just don't have these public transportation systems because you know the investments never been made or I've at some points thought oh well maybe these cities just kind of grew too fast and they're way to kinda dense now to institute such a thing but when you find out that it was all there already and of course if these things had been protected they would have been updated over time

16:06 It is just so sad, man. And I think about all these alternatives what the country could have been like today if they were allowed to have stayed where they were? What if electric cars had just been the normal and cities weren't covered in smoke and people weren't breathing in all that Rockefeller breath? bullshit. Also oil is such a big part of our geopolitics we wouldn't need to get involved in all of that stuff and now they have maglev technology I mean obviously were being denied that and who really knows what else people really need to get pissed about this wouldn't you say? Well, let's put it this way. I'm a Canadian who now lives in Japan and have been living here for 12 years and the rail system here is just such an integral part of Japanese culture and it's something that really – I mean genuinely enjoy taking my little rail journeys here. I genuinely enjoy going on the high-speed bullet train here because

16:59 It's such a convenient and just a good way to travel. I mean, it makes so much sense that it boggles my mind that in Canada where I'm from or in the United States or anywhere else that you can think of in a lot of developed countries, there isn't such a system. And obviously it's not like there are no problems with that kind of system. It was developed for example in Japan as with most countries where that type of system takes off. It was developed primarily because of government monopoly which was then broken up and privatized It's only serving to enrich the, you know—very few who happen to be politically connected. But the idea of it and the fact that it does make money and can make money—that's part of the lie that they want to sell you about this is that oh, it doesn't make any economic sense to do this."

17:48 Well, no. It does and it can work and not in all markets, not in always but it certainly can work. And as you say the infrastructure was already there in dozens of cities across the United States. It would have just needed updating upgrading. It wouldn't have needed a complete overhaul and that's really the significant expense of it so it was already there to be used and it took time and effort and money and lobbying to get it taken out specifically for the benefit of these companies Right and it also puts a twist on certain Things like, you know sometimes when people talk about what government with the federal government should be doing with our money. They'll cite something like a program like the highway system the institution of it or the electrical grid and yeah these are moments where we really did have the manpower in the will to set something up for the entire countrywide community that would be beneficial or technologically advantageous

18:47 But really when you learn about why it happened, it's really just publicly funding the wealth extraction grids for a few wealthy industrialists. That is the only true motivation for why those things happened Yes, and speaking as an anarchist I would say that's what government is. That's all it ever is. That's why it always devolves to that point. That's why it's always for the benefit of the politically connected few because it is a government enforced monopoly on violence ultimately which is what underlies this system but underneath that threat of violence they can do all sorts of things to extract wealth from some people and give it others always devolves into basically eluding of the hordes of people. And that's exactly what we can see with the development of these companies, these corporations which in every way and every turn that they took was always benefited by various government rulings and government orders and government regulations that regulated their competition out of existence and allowed them to operate and allow them to do things like creating national city lines too to get rid of public transportation systems

19:51 All of this was enabled, of course by that government monopoly on power and violence. And so that's why I think the idea that we could somehow have some benevolent caretaker government – I'll believe it when I see it. I've never seen it in existence and I don't think we ever will. Yeah, I mean, I like to be an optimist and maybe think it's possible but you can't argue that we haven't seen it yet. That's for sure! And like you mentioned the nerfed consequences of the conviction... You know a $5,000 fine and a one dollar fine for H.C. Grossman for destroying all the public transportation

20:29 That is another interesting aspect of the documentary, is the history you lay out in the film. You can almost see the race to control the media and government before the media and people really wise up and realize what's happening. Some journalists and politicians were concerned but The Tide just swallowed them up it seems! And maybe you can elaborate on how it got to be that way? How did we go from really kind of despising these billionaire industrialists to worshipping them? Yes, unfortunately again this is not just some sort of accident of history. This is a very coordinated plan that was put into place and accomplished on the back of the nearly infinite for all intents and purposes resource of the Rockefellers in their ilk

21:11 I mean, it's fascinating. This probably deserves – well actually almost every single aspect of this documentary deserves a documentary unto itself but this one in particular interests me because obviously I'm in alternative media and this is what I do and the history of media as we know it and what we understand as the media is so integrally tied into this story and these monopolists of the 19th century turning the tide of public opinion as you say from being despised despised by the average sort of working stiff in the US or where have you to the point where we're at today, where you have these memes that go around online about good guy Gates. You know Bill Gates is one of the most wonderful beatific human beings on the planet and it's just so ridiculous that you would have to wonder well is there something behind us? And there

22:01 One example of that would be Ida Tarbell, who was a kind of muckraking journalist around the turn of the 20th century who wrote an explosive series of reports about Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil monopoly and how it came into existence, the types of practices it used to get its power and what it did you know, to keep its power. And it was a very popular series of reports that really did galvanize public opinion against Rockefeller and just go and look at some of the sort of editorial cartoons and depictions of Rockefeller from that time period

22:38 None of them are flattering. They're all about Rockefeller's head and his arms or these octopus legs encircling the globe, those types of things where it's always this insidious horrible influence that really encompasses—in some cases literally he has the Congress in his hand and he is kind of inspecting them to see what he can get out of them. And those types of depictions were very common, that was truly by far and away the sense of the American public around the turn of the 20th century as to what it meant for a Rockefeller or people like him to have that much money and power and influence. People understood that to be something anathema to the idea of some sort of government buy-in for the people or whatever people want to believe about what the American government is supposed to be for. So that was what Ida Tarbell in The Muckraking Press were capable

23:26 at that time and obviously, I mean Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Dynasty and the people around him knew this was a problem. I mean public opinion can count for a very go for a very long way. And if you have the public on your side, you can get away with a lot more." So essentially—I mean, you can essentially say the Rockefeller family created the modern PR industry. They hired Ivy Ledbetter-Lee who is credited and I mean you could look at any mainstream textbook as one of the founders of modern PR. They hired Ivy Ledbetter-Lee who was just a journalist and turned to communications expert

24:04 to basically invent the PR industry to resuscitate the Rockefeller's image. And he started to construct a series of – I mean, he did all sorts of just basic tricks that went a very long way towards changing the public opinion of John D. Rockefeller in particular and then ultimately to all his business interests Like these days, a lot of people if you ask your grandparents or maybe your great-grandparents they would probably associate John D. Rockefeller with dimes because he was always photographed from a certain point they just told him oh whenever you're photographed or we'll set up these kind of on camera appearances you should give out dimes to children and that became the thing the image that would be plastered all over the newspapers because here's John D. Rockefeller handing out dimes to little children

24:53 telling them to invest it wisely and whatever. And this became like the image of Rockefeller, it's just such a basic PR trick that if we saw this today I'd like to think we would be wise to that game but perhaps the game is not all that much more advanced these days But anyway those types are just basic PR tricks were literally invented by Ivy League specifically to resuscitate John D Rockefeller's image And it went a remarkable way towards doing so. I mean, as I say at the turn of the 20th century no one probably was more despised – more universally despised than John D. Rockefeller and within a decade or two he was known – he was synonymous for being The Great Philanthropist giving away all his money to all these great charities

25:39 And, of course when you're giving away money unspeakable unimaginable gobs of money that people can barely even comprehend. You're going to get a lot of great press from a lot of people who benefit from that in very obvious ways But a lot of people are less interested in really scrutinizing that philanthropy and looking at what is it actually accomplishing, and finding out that in case after case after case all of this wonderful philanthropy that John D. Rockefeller was doing was directly benefiting himself and his business interests Right, it is so amazing and people really got to see it the Rockefeller PR machine in motion because you show a lot of the real footage in this documentary and it is so transparent now. Now that we've kind of grown up with this stuff and the tools have been so much better refined when you look at

26:33 early version of it, it's kind of easy to see through but it's really something you got to experience because when you see it. You just know this doesn't seem genuine at things. They just happen to have the film cameras rolling as he is going around handing out dimes to these people and right yeah and and you know the guy could tell 5,000 kids who walk up to him poor and hungry to fuck off and no one would ever know as long as you get the one Time he gives a dime to someone on camera That's the only thing people hear about spread throughout the land on the new airwaves. That's it People understand what they see in here again It does seem so basic to us but for people who were confronting this is a brand-new medium And a new way of interacting with the public it was well It was quite a revelation and something that I'm

27:18 Unfortunately, again got taken up and used to great effect by the darkest powers in society in many ways. Yeah I just love that angle and we also had mentioned that alcohol was an alternative to oil at that time and it was the true motivation behind prohibition but maybe you can elaborate on that a little bit for people who might be kind of new to the idea because when you first hear it's kinda shocking but thats the underlying truth isn't it? Yes, yes it is. And again for people who don't know the history of it, ethyl alcohol ethanol had been used since the early 19th century both in engines and as fuel for lamps and It was more expensive than petroleum derived products But it was more accessible In places like London or Paris or places like that at that time did not have some steady access to oil supplies so

28:11 It was quite popular and the earliest gasoline engines were almost universally designed to run on either alcohol or gasoline. For example, Henry Ford famously designed the Model T to run on either alcohol or gasoline so it was not baked into the cake at that point in the turn of the 20th century that gasoline would be the de facto and standard and only real choice for fuel for these engines And Henry Ford was in fact quite a champion for the idea of ethyl alcohol. He said to The New York Times, and this was in the 1920's after it had really been decided pretty much definitively in favor of petroleum. He said to The New York Times that fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumac out by the road or from apples, weeds, sawdust almost anything there is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented.

29:03 �Ethyl alcohol would be the perfect antidote to a completely monopolizable resource like petroleum. Petroleum obviously can be controlled from wellhead, gas pump and everything in between exactly as standard oil did that vertical monopoly can be very definitively controlled, whereas something that can literally be processed out of anything by anyone at home with a still. You know? I mean it's just the exact opposite idea and I think that's quite obviously why it could not be allowed to thrive by the oil of arcs in their fellow cohorts so there was an

29:43 a tax on alcohol that had been instituted in the Civil War to help pay for the Civil War, that unsurprisingly 50 years later was still in place. There was a big move to get this repealed and even President Roosevelt in 1906 told the US Congress And this is a direct quote, the Standard Oil Company has largely by unfair or unlawful methods crushed out home competition. It is highly desirable than an element of competition should be introduced by the passage of some such law as which has already passed the House putting alcohol used in the arts and manufacturers upon the free list." So the idea here is that alcohol for

30:22 for fuel, alcohol fuel specifically should have this tax repealed. So in 1906 the tax was repealed and corn ethanol was available at 14 cents a gallon which was cheaper than gasoline at 22 cents a gallon so at that moment in history it was actually cheaper to use alcohol fuel and it had the extra bonus as I said of being not monopolizable That didn't last long. As I say, spindle top changed that economy and unfortunately it just definitively made it cheaper for gasoline and the interesting part of all of this as we talked about before is that

31:04 What really helped to turn the tide and ultimately crush the idea that alcohol fuel was going to ever replace gasoline, was the prohibition movement. And it's kind of a tangential way in which this happened but at any rate, the anti-alcohol and anti-drinking movement had been around in the United States for nearly—for over 50 years by that point you would have had a number of movements arise because America was particularly hard drinking country at that time. The average American over 15 years old drank seven gallons of pure alcohol per year, which is actually three times higher than today's average so it was a country of hard drinkers and people who like to work hard and play hard I guess

31:49 This caused a lot of social problems and so you had anti-alcohol movements starting in the 1830s and really gaining some steam in 1869 with the foundation of the Prohibition Party. And then, you had the Women's Christian Temperance Union in the 1870s. These were grassroots campaigns that were against the social levels of drinking alcohol. So that is where it came from And it had some limited successes, in quotation marks. I mean for example Maine outlawed the sale and manufacture of liquor in 1851 but only for five years so there was a little bit of political movement but not a lot of political movement until the 1890s. In fact specifically in 1893 The Anti-Saloon League was formed in Ohio and Ohio should ring a bell for people who know anything about the history of oil because that's the birth home state of standard oil

32:42 And not surprisingly, the ACL founder and director was Howard Hyde Russell who was a personal friend of John D. Rockefeller and the ASL, the Anti-Saloon League got generous annual donations from Rockefeller himself And so, this is when the political movement to force prohibition really started to take off. By the turn of the 20th century you started to see a genuine sort of popular political movement arising out of this and the Anti-Saloon League was instrumental in that Now, again the official Rockefeller history will tell you it's because Rockefeller was a teetotaler himself. He just wanted – he didn't like the effects of alcohol. He thought they were detrimental to community standards. He was such a pious good Christian gentleman that he didn't want to see people devastating themselves. That's again the official story immediately and completely counteracted by his association with for example Stephen Harkness who is one of the original investors in Standard Oil. He was a director in the company all the way until his death

33:43 And how did he catch Rockefeller's eye? He made gobs of money. He made a fortune by getting tips about an excise tax that was going to be introduced on whiskey and he bought up all the whiskey in advance of the new tax so that he could then sell it at huge profit after the tax kicked in, I mean, that's how he made his fortune and that's how he became one of the founding investors in Standard Oil. So clearly Rockefeller didn't have much of an ethical concern with people who made their money from selling alcohol but anyway, that being whatever it is, the point is Rockefeller did

34:21 generously donate to the Anti-Saloon League, which was one of the key groups that helped to get the amendment into existence to enforce prohibition. And one of the immediate effects of prohibition – again it's tangential but it's important – one of the effects is well we can't have alcohol that could even potentially used as a drinking for drinking and well, ethyl alcohol is dangerous but people can drink it. So what we have to do is make sure that they don't drink it by adding by deliberately poisoning it so the government enforced a rule saying that ethanol could be used as a fuel but it had to have

35:05 chemicals added to it to make it poisonous if drunk. And those chemicals, ironically enough turned out to be petroleum byproducts so... Of course! But anyway that ruined the fuel economy of alcohol and ethyl alcohol and of course just made it completely untenable as a real replacement for gasoline which was more easily available more readily available more cheaply available there was just no question of competition after that point So at that point ethyl alcohol was really only ever used as an additive to gasoline to improve engine knock and things like that. So the prohibition successfully terminated the idea that alcohol fuel would ever be a real alternative to gasoline. Man, it's just an amazing story.

35:53 You know, whenever I run into conspiracy skeptics so whether we're talking about 9-11 or anything else it's always the same answers. They just say you know there'd be too many people involved the secret is too big to keep but here you have a great example where everybody knew alcohol could are as a fuel, as part of this whole Go Green movement and they think it's something new. They think it's a new development that they're just learning to do and if only the technology was there they'd convert us over to a cleaner more sustainable fuel I mean this right here is exhibit A that a huge secret can be kept that public knowledge can be put back in the bottle And you know they really have the country by the balls

36:55 I wish it weren't so, but unfortunately it is in a lot of different ways. And I don't want to make into more than it is. I mean I think gasoline is and has been cheaper than ethyl alcohol. It's not a question of which one would have been cheaper in the long run but I think for Obviously, the undermining of ethyl alcohol as even a potential alternative to gasoline. As you say, petroleum has been at the basis of so many geopolitical involvements and entanglements and of course I think it's about so much more what's happening in Iraq or Syria or Libya or places like that

37:32 But it has always been the way to sell it to the American public. It's like, well we need our oil supply and we've got to be involved over there. We have to be bombing brown people on the other side of the planet. That's always been kind of a nudge in the wink to you know the old boys network. You know? We gotta go in there and take the oil! Can you imagine a world in which that wouldn't even be possible as an excuse for the types of entanglements that the US has engaged itself in? And that really is the sort of alternative that was quashed so effectively back in the early part of 20th century. Exactly. It is a huge tangled web and butterfly effects, and all the dominoes seem to fall but yeah obviously the imperialism overseas is about more than the oil but that excuse is so crucial to how they get it done And when you really hear about the history of this stuff it makes all these small incremental changes in ethanol or electric cars another one it makes them seem like such bullshit theatrics You know history shows that technology's a lot more doable

38:33 than they pretend it is. And I guess that should be one of the big takeaways, right? Again you really do have to engage with some of these documents and look at some of the history because as you say it's been so completely and effectively suppressed that most people don't have any inkling of this going on. It's just in the history textbooks—at least in a popular understanding—it's a pretty straightforward path from striking oil in Pennsylvania in the 1850s to the birth of the automobile industry. It's one to the other, and of course how are we going to structure our society is going to be around the automobile? That is a series of decisions and steps and plans that were made over period of time that didn't just arise spontaneously out of the ether. That's kind of the version of history that we are given

39:21 is always coincidence theory history. Well, this happened and then this happened and it just all kind of just happened no one was actually trying to make these events happen and it's kind of an infantile almost a bizarre deranged way of looking at history I don't know why we would think that these types of massive major turning points in history would just be happenstance and oh you know shucks golly gee whiz who would have thought it would have turned out that way as opposed to the idea that people who have power and money would conspire to keep that power and money in interest and further it to their subsequent generations. But for some reason, that's become the unspeakable truth. Mm-hmm And like you had mentioned kind of on socialism or the idea that the government can provide big projects that people otherwise might not be able to achieve like a highway system or electrical grid that's nationwide? You had mentioned

40:15 Every time, you know there's a central authority it always seems to be abusive and negative. What about the idea of the free market? Because is it possible to really have a free market and do this whole let-the-free-market-be-our guide thing And not also end up with an inevitable winner who kind of acts in the same way as these industrialists did Yeah, I mean that's the fundamental question that so many people come back to. And I think part of this is that so many of these words and phrases become so completely tarnished by all of the associations and baggage that people bring to them

40:54 useless in some ways to actually indicate what's happening. So for example, I mean the word socialism, the word communism, the word free market has so many associations for people that people often don't even really understand what it is that they're talking about or maybe they do but what they're talking about isn't really reflected in what that word implies. For example when it comes back to something like free market What I would mean when I talk about free market would be voluntary interactions between adult human beings capable of making engaging in those types of voluntary interactions. That's what a free market is,

41:31 No third party can come in and arbitrarily rule that you can't do this or you can do this in terms of voluntary interactions between consenting adults, which sounds like a pretty basic ethical principle. That is pretty much the golden ethical principle that we're all taught when we're three, four, five years old. Don't hit other people. Don't steal their stuff but if you want to play with that person go play with that person, that kind of thing. But for some reason, of course this all becomes part of this grand socio-political dynamic that is socialism versus these free market capitalists and what have you. So ultimately the answer is – let's put it in this way. It comes down to human nature. Human nature is such that there will always be scamsters and con artists and people trying to pull one over on other people. That is absolutely baked into the cake.

42:19 I mean, I guess you could try to argue otherwise but I'll believe it when I see it. The point is not from my perspective – is not to create then an institution run by people who as I say would still be prone to the same tenets of human nature to try to scam and con and scheme against other people and give them the power to decide what happens in the rest of society because that base of power will always be corrupted by those insiders, those people who want to use that for their scams. The point is not to create those pockets of power in society and really when you think about it all government is a collective mass delusion that the people who are creating these rules and regulations and laws and running this system have the legitimate authority to do so

43:10 How did they gain that authority? By what measure and how did they get that is it because X number of people 50% plus one or whatever the magic number is voted in some election to give them that power. Can you vote to give someone a power that you don't have personally, how does taxation work exactly so there's people who wear funny badges and hats that come to your door if you don't pay the tribute to your supposed masters that you probably didn't even vote for. I mean, what exactly is the basis for this? The more you interrogate it from those fundamental ethical principles, the less sense it makes and if the question is simply a utilitarian question—well, I don't care what's morally right. I just care if it works better for civilization—I still think that freedom would be the ultimate answer to these questions

43:59 because of that central problem that I talked about, which is that when you have these standard oils and GMs and these companies with the people that are headed by these people who are – let's apply the word. I think it fits the bill evil. I mean plotting to do things that are absolutely detrimental to the vast majority of humanity solely for their personal benefit. When you have people doing that, I think Again, giving them access to these centers of power like the US government or any national government you can think of is the problem. That's how these companies become the monopolies that they are and we see this over and over throughout history that large companies lobby governments to make rules and regulations that eliminate their competition and ensure their monopoly positions. It was the exact same with Standard Oil and so many other things

44:55 And then on the back of that, they often set up schemes where the national government, the federal government, the state or local governments will put the bill for the things that these companies are doing. We've seen that again with the Green Revolution that the oiligarchs were behind in the 1960's and 70's and the gene revolution that's taking place right now trying to spread GMO around the world. Again, usually at the expense of US taxpayers for example through USAID and other programs Wow man, I mean that was well said. Those are definitely great points and it does get confusing when you get down to those fundamentals and philosophy of what system is better and i definitely have more work to do there for sure before I really start spouting off my ignorance about it but uh... To get back to this saga the story here gets much worse

45:49 you know, once they really secured a ton of wealth because they weren't comfortable dominating just this one industry and getting fat on an island somewhere. It seems like the next big campaign and a result maybe of the Rockefeller makeover campaign in its success and the founding of The Rockefeller Foundation and the success of their media manipulation, this stuff led them right into going hard after education right? Yes. Education was really the trial run for what became the Rockefeller blueprint for what they were doing, which was to use philanthropy to further business interests and consolidate the power of the political and business power of Standard Oil and its associates. Education was really a test run for this. And it started in really 1890's with the founding of University of Chicago basically John D Rockefeller gave a very generous grant to start the University of Chicago

46:44 As, of course – I mean he was footing the bill primarily for this. So he insisted to have some of his people on the board to help select who would be the professors? Who would be the dean? Who would control what happens at this university? It's only fairer right and that of course was welcomed by open arms by so many people. Hey it's creating this educational institution. It's going to be a place of higher learning. what a wonderful thing for someone who's made all this money to do with his money. How could you impugn that?" And really is the sort of thin edge of the wedge, of what became a standard practice which again was to use philanthropy as a cover for things that would ultimately further their interests and there's a lot to say about

47:27 the various specific things that they did at these different institutions. And you can look at the University of Chicago and the people, for example there was one professor that I came across in when I was doing research for this that didn't make it into the final cut of documentary. I don't have the name off the top my head but he was talking about how trying to talk basically about the Rockefeller interests and he ended up getting fired from his position at the university for daring to do so. And I believe that was directly at the request of John D. Rockefeller again, control people's education. Control their mindset. Control the information they have access to and you control the people." And this was something that was quite specifically understood and talked about amongst the people in Rockefeller set that were

48:12 that were focused on this. Specifically, he had Frederick Taylor Gates, this Baptist minister that Rockefeller knew that he basically put in charge of his philanthropic endeavors generally and specifically as educational philanthropic endeavors who talked about trying to mold society in their image. And their image had nothing to do with trying to make better people, making more learned people. The image of course was for Rockefeller and Carnegie and the others that were involved – the 19th century robber barons who were involved in this process – was to mold people into

48:49 pliable workers for factories, basically. I mean that was the primary industrial interest of the industrialists so why else would they be funding education? It only makes sense and we have this from various documents that they themselves penned like the country school of tomorrow that i talked about in uh in documentary where they openly talked about trying to mold people not into lawyers or doctors or preachers, politicians and statesmen but – certainly not into artists or painters or musicians or anything of that sort. Not trying to make men of learning or science out of them but to make responsive and grateful folk out of these people. So education definitely was the first

49:28 the first place where this money was put and I think probably the least controversial. Again, who could possibly try to find something wrong with the idea that Rockefeller was starting a general education board endowed with $180 million? And this is $180 million in turn of the century dollars. That's an unimaginably large amount of money. He was throwing that hand over fist at all these different institutions And it wasn't long before that directly parlayed into the next part of the takeover, which was big pharma. Because how do you—what do you with this educational power? Well one of them is so you take over the history courses and you start to shape the history curriculum that is then taught not only in universities but then ultimately filters down to grade school level so American history is largely the result

50:21 of an American historical association, which was founded of course by money from the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. So again that process has had a huge effect on the shaping of American history in how people understand it But the other part of this that directly influenced, had a direct influence was the shaping of the American college system when it came to medical colleges and what it meant to be a doctor and how those – that license was awarded. That was part of a concerted attempt to reimagine, reshape the education system for doctors in United States around the early part of 20th century

51:03 And that was on the basis of something called the Flexner Report, that was done by someone who had connections both to Carnegie Endowment. He was funded by the Carnegie Endowment but eventually went on to become a Rockefeller Foundation associate. This Simon Flexner came out with this report basically saying oh look, medical college system is in tatters I mean it differs from state-to-state what a doctor is and there's all these quacks getting awarded these degrees we have to do something about this And of course, the answer that the Carnegie's and Rockefeller has come up with is okay. We'll give all this money tons and tons and tons of money to making and establishing and really cleaning out these colleges and making some good medical colleges so that people can have proper medical training

51:46 And with that came the institutionalization of what we now think of as modern medicine, which wasn't what people in the early part – late part of 19th or early part of 20th century would have recognized as medicine. At that time there was a lot more emphasis on homeopathic and naturopathic ideas and remedies that were essentially taken completely out of the picture by this establishment the American Medical Association, also with Carnegie involvement and with the Flexner Report establishing really the guidelines for licensing of doctors throughout the United States. And how does this all ultimately tie into Rockefeller business interests?

52:25 It all goes back to really, as I say the whole Rockefeller clan starting with literal snake oil salesman William Rockefeller. Well that's ultimately what a large part of the sort of oil connected business interests became involved in. They became involved in processing petrochemicals in various ways for fertilizers and things like that, but also of course for chemical products derived – big pharmaceutical products derived from petrochemicals. And so, you have some of the largest chemical companies in the world and the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world having a large degree of overlap on their boards between large oil companies and sort of standard oil remnants. The big pharma companies – that again all goes back to this idea of trying to take over the education of doctors and that had a powerful effect on shaping the course of the medical industry

53:24 Yeah man boom what a great summary you really covered like four or five of my questions on that subject right there and it is such an unbelievable saga net that one component is so key to capturing. education and schooling because now you control the system that determines experts and you really can control the narrative in flow of any industry at that point. The world is your oyster, and they were just so good putting a positive face on a negative campaign it's really staggering how they accomplished all that. And you mentioned how this

54:01 kind of twisted the teaching of American history. And, you know that is a great example of how this template was rolled out in many different fields including medicine like you mentioned But I'm curious if that move to kind of change and tweak American history, do you see that covering up or changing more than just the PR campaign for the industrialists? Maybe changing the way we look at the Industrial Revolution. Do you feel like it did more than that on the history side of things Well, there are very specific things that you can look at as to how that helps to shape our understanding of who we are and where we come from. I mean history is just one of those fundamental core subjects that really does shape your understanding of where you were coming from what it means to be an American or whatever can be so shaped by the collective story that people tell themselves about the past. That's essentially what history is

55:00 By selecting which events, which people, which things to focus on you really can shape the mindset of an entire nation. One specific example that you can look at with something like that is the Ludlow massacre. So, back in 1914 you had this tent colony of striking coal miners at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Colorado were striking as a result of just poor working conditions. They were part of the United Mine Workers of America. Of course, the Rockefellers owned the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. And then you had the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company in the Victor American fuel company. So on April 20th 1914 there was this battle I mean this skirmish broke out between the National Guard and the striking miners and you ended up with dozens of people dead including children and wives of these miners. It was a horrific event

56:00 And it was given attention at that time, and it did become a PR disaster for the Rockefellers. And that's when they really stepped up their PR campaign and their control. That's really when John D. Rockefeller definitely by that point had left the limelight, and it was John D. Rockefeller Jr who started to step in and junior only ever was really associated with the philanthropy side of things. So that's when they really tried to flip that switch, and it's like, oh, Rockefellers aren't in business anymore. We're just philanthropists. And so that's when that really started to happen in earnest. But as I say at the time, it received a lot of press and definitely gave a black eye to the Rockefellers but

56:40 It was really removed from the teaching of history over time to the point where you had Howard Zinn, The People's History of the United States or whatever. Really resuscitated the understanding of events like that in a way that hadn't been heard for generations so Again, the idea that there was this mass unrest and there was brutal suppression of these workers at various times in history is not something most people would associate with. the history of the United States. I mean, maybe people have some sort of vague understanding of it but specific events and things like that really did catalyze national attention and national interest at that time completely gone. Another great example actually of that probably even a better example would be the founding of the Federal Reserve back again 1913-1914 extremely, extremely popularly followed and understood story at that time from

57:38 really from the late 20th, sorry, late 19th century on there was huge interest in the question of banking and the banks on Wall Street and how much control they had over the American economy. Extremely popular issue and a lot of people very interested in it affected everyone understood how the banks and the bankers affected the rest of the economy. The farmers knew for example I mean every year they had to get loans in order to produce their crop and then sell their crop and pay back their loans. It was the entire economy very much focused on these small number of New York-based Wall Street financial firms that really did dictate what happened in the economy generally. And so, that in 1907 there was a big panic on Wall Street you had all these people just

58:22 all over the place were apoplectic. They were outraged at these banks, at these financial firms that they knew we're controlling the economy that had the economy by the cojones and JP Morgan magnanimously stepped in and made sure to underwrite the economy famously locked a bunch of bankers in the room overnight and wouldn't let them leave until they agreed to underwrite whatever was happening on Wall Street to stop the panic. JPMorgan saves the day, and then a few years later, I mean, As a result of this, you have people clamoring for some sort of solution. So what's the solution that people start to focus on? It is the idea of central bank. We need a central bank in United States to control these banks. Who gets in front of that movement and makes it their own? The bankers! Of course they want – again as I say every time you give this

59:13 monopoly violence institution, the power to create these types of regulatory agencies. It will always be front-run by the people who have an interest in it exactly as it was at that time but they knew at that time it was such a popular issue so many people were focused on it they had to stop the public from finding out what they were up to and trying to get ahead of this and trying to create their own central bank So A number of top bankers met in complete secrecy in 1910 on Jekyll Island. People might know this story, if they don't I suggest they check out one of my previous documentaries Century of Enslavement that talks about this story literally a conspiracy amongst the top bankers and financial oligarchs of the country at that time including Nelson Aldrich who just happened to be the father-in-law of John D Rockefeller Jr., no surprise there

1:00:03 And they met in secret to create what became the seed for the Federal Reserve. It was ultimately forwarded by some different people, but it was essentially the Federal Reserve Act and one of the conspirators themselves, Frank Vanderlip actually wrote 25 years after the fact in 1935 in The Saturday Evening Post wrote about the whole thing and yes we were all conspirators You know, we had to act secretly because the public would be outraged if they knew we were behind this. Ultimately of course they got what they wanted. They got the Federal Reserve which was really just a cartelization of the banking industry in the hands of the bankers so they got exactly what they wanted complete control over the American financial system

1:00:40 And after that point, it had been such a central – such a popular issue. Such a part of the popular imagination so many people focused on it. After that point, the teaching of that part of history and importance of the Central Bank and what it does and how the economy is controlled by the banks completely left the the popular imagination because it completely left the education system. I don't know, again, I'm Canadian and not American so I don't know what kind of things you were taught in US public schools about the central bank and banking system in United States but I know in Canada we were taught pretty much nothing whatsoever about the monetary system or how it works, or monetary history. Or the fact that there were these huge popular movements in – you know, the populist political movements and parties in the late 19th century decrying the bankers and all of this.

1:01:30 That completely has left the history textbooks, unless you really study the history of specifically that time. Maybe if you're specifically focused on that in university or something, you might get some of that history but you don't get it in the average sort of public schooling and that creates again this giant gap in our understanding of what it is? How did this system come into place? How does it affect us? Basic things that are so important to our understanding of the world that again can be effaced because hey, you know if you control history, you control people's understanding of who they are and where they come from.

1:02:07 Right again. Well said and the Federal Reserve is definitely a great example of controlling education Yeah, we also are taught almost nothing about it It's just kind of that's the way it is That's the way it's always gonna be there's no alternative don't even think about it This is just the system and huh Dan James you do such amazing work You really are an inspiration I don't know how you retain so much information and put out such a consistent content. You are really a beast and this is going to be an excellent, excellent show I really appreciate what you do Before we go would you like to remind the people where they can find the documentary that we discussed today? And all of the great stuff your working on If you type how big oil conquered the world into any search engine but preferably not Google um... you will find it very quickly uh... it's also of course available on my YouTube channel youtube dot com slash corporate report and it is available from my website corporatereport dot com

1:02:59 That's the best place to go because you can get the transcript is up there. It's in MP3 form, it's an MP4 form so you can download it either way I do encourage people to download any and all of my work reposted mirror remix it spread it out burn into a DVD and hand it your neighbor whatever you have to do to get this information out other people that what I do when thats why I do it so CorbetReport.com C-O-R-B-E-T-T Report dot com is one stop shop for everything Boom. Very cool, man! Well thanks again for being here keep up the great work out there well thank you so much for having me on I do appreciate it You got it man take care

1:03:36 There it is. Wow guys, what a show big thanks to James his work is really spot-on and I like his approach I think there is a little bit more to magic than he does but every guest has a different expertise in the way James tracks the movements of The elite in the past few centuries is definitely on point I was so psyched when I found his how Big Oil conquered the world documentary because I had been wanting To touch on the alcohol conspiracy again since that show last year with David Blum It really did stick with me And like I mentioned to James, if you're going to approach a skeptic with a few key conspiracy sagas You can't go right to 9-11 and the modern day false flag events People are way too emotional about those things But if you talk about the Titanic and the truth about prohibition... ...and maybe even the education conspiracy

1:04:23 Those are the breadcrumbs that I think soften the blow of really coming to grips with the totality of The Big Bamboozle. But, the story of oil and alcohol shares a lot of parallels with the marijuana hemp story. Here's another resource that would be great for making all sorts of things and undercut the major industrial systems already in place So they attacked it on the consumer side and in turn destroyed its practical application side. Prohibition on marijuana just never really ended, and wouldn't the world be better if we weren't cutting down hundred-year old trees for paper but instead were using a plant that only takes four months to grow? Trust me I know

1:05:00 Plus all the nasty oil-based plastics could come from hemp instead. It really is the same story and the more you learn about the things hemp can be used for, the more frustrated you get And then you can jump over to the more controversial practice of putting fluoride in water. Why do we do that? Well, because as far I know it's a byproduct of the aluminum industry and instead of disposing of it properly they lobby to have the government put it in water as a good thing and now they can sell their trash to us instead of having to pay to dispose of it properly Same thing. And if it's really about health, why not just put vitamins in the water? Well who is going to make money off that? I also like that we got into political philosophy a bit James is really easy to talk to about and he makes sense but not everybody is so reasonable

1:05:49 I like talking about it and hearing opinions, but i'm not a real cheerleader for any system. I see how increased social programs protect at least a basic standard of living which is important but also the argument that tax is theft and keeps the poor suckling at the government teat Then on the other hand, going more towards a libertarian anarchist type system removes the minimum wage and all the other protections we have from a complete cleaning of the house by the bankers and the corporatocracy. I guess for me it's like diet. You don't want to eat just protein, you don't want to eat just vegetables at least i don't...you want a healthy balance of both but sometimes i do want to explore the idea of removing the structure of a corporation altogether sounds kind of bold sure there are still going to be companies around but every company should have an owner who is personally responsible for the company's actions if you can't control what your company is doing then its too big reel it back

1:06:49 I think that right there could be one of the biggest things that puts greed in check is getting rid of that limited liability, that all these rich assholes hide behind. I do vibe with James on the peer-to-peer networks and the way that those are changing many industries. All these digital innovations that are helping people work out their own systems, we talked about a lot in the second hour along with how industrialists expanded from energy to education to medicine to food to full spectrum dominance and where they're going next so in this second hour of today's show we just really completed the story but

1:07:25 I really liked this episode, it's one of those well-rounded very clear narratives where you can see a lot of the power and influence coming from just a few key people. It doesn't incorporate everything but still all those little things they got their greasy fingers on... They add up really fast! So i hope you liked it maybe this is the one that finally gets to sign up for THC plus and support the show if you don't already Maybe not But definitely check out what James Corbett is doing over at corbettreport.com You'll find the link with the episode, but thanks for listening guys I couldn't do it without you that's it for me this week your move corporate criminals of the Rockefeller reality Your fucking move Oh no...you see

1:08:15 The world isn't random, it's attached to puppet strings Control over everything The 9-to-5 is trying to steal ya Now don't that job seem silly? Hello, can you hear me Or should I play back recordings from some spying agency? Wish we were younger and free. I'll be thankful when it's all exposed, the vast conspiracy There is such a difference between us And the Denver child

1:09:09 Hollow from the higher side They're calling out a thousand cries They'll tell you the story Of everything that's been done And they'll call out deception Of the web that's been spawned Hollow from the higher side The earth is hollow inside They'll tell you about something that no one else will Have you heard about Saturn? Have you heard about the real since so long? Oh, No

1:10:06 They're cartoons It's so typical of me to talk about the stuff I'm sorry that's good and well Did you ever hear the argument That nothing really happens? It's no secret And that the best is plus It's doubling your time Hello from the higher side They're calling out a thousand cries

1:10:50 Now tell me you've done something really have done And now call out deception from the web that's been spawned Hello from the higher side Challenging your past And I'll tell you someday That the battle's begun But we can't fight it with violence The mind's where it's won At the war At the war At the war At the war Follow from a higher side

1:11:56 They're calling out a thousand crimes. They'll tell you something the elite have done, and they'll call out deception of the web that's been spun. Tell them from the highest heaven I'm challenging your paradigm And i'll tell you someday that the battle's begun But we can't fight it with violence The mind where is one, that's the problem