Oil has fallen below $30 per barrel. The decline in oil prices that alarmed the world when it began in 2014 has lasted much longer than expected. Natural gas, steel, copper, and other commodities are also seeing their prices fall. Economists are becoming alarmed as all the signs indicating some kind of pending recession are appearing.
US media would have us believe that the “Chinese Slowdown” is solely responsible for this looming escalation of the economic crisis. However, it is widely acknowledged that the low oil prices are quite costly for the global economy and that this prolonged, artificial deflation is getting more and more dangerous. The price drop is intentionally planned and being carried out for specific purposes. For very selfish reasons, the House of Rockefeller is playing with fire, and threatening to burn the entire global economy to the ground.
Securing the Power of Exxon-Mobile
The Rockfellers are one of the most powerful families in the United States, and have been for a long time. Their history can be traced back to the 19th century and the rise of a corporation called Standard Oil. Today, their power can be found in the world’s largest oil corporation, Exxon-Mobile. Exxon-Mobile, a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, is the fifth-largest corporation in the entire world.
Long ago, when the Rockefellers were rising to power, their favorite tactic for beating out their competitors was price manipulation. In the 1800s, the Rockefellers would lower their prices and flood the markets with cheap oil. Once their opponents went under, they would raise their prices back up, and make bigger profits than ever. This method for centralizing economic power was developed almost into a science by John D. Rockefeller and his minions. Eventually, Standard Oil was targeted by Theodore Roosevelt with his famous “trust-busting” reforms.
In more recent decades, the Rockefellers have distinguished themselves among the US power elite by being visibly political. The Council on Foreign Relations, the highly secretive think tank in which US foreign policy is discussed and established, is almost completely funded by Rockefeller and Ford Foundation money. Rockefeller money is behind the Asia Society, the Open Society Foundations, and many other key voices in US political discourse.
While the Rockefellers are among the richest people on earth, their wealth does not translate to conservative politics as some might naively assume. Since the end of the Second World War, the Rockefellers have been liberals. Inscriptions honoring the Rockefellers can be found inside Riverside Church, a New York City religious institution associated with anti-war and civil rights activism.
MSNBC, the US television network that promotes the liberal politics of Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, as well as the pro-Democratic Party comedy sketches of Saturday Night Live, broadcasts from inside Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) media conglomerate was created by General Electric, one of the biggest military contractors. GE is also part of the Rockefeller empire.
The Rockefeller family is known for promoting reproductive choice, as well as LGBTQ rights. They are closely linked to the Democratic Party. The land on which the United Nations headquarters was constructed was once the property of the Rockefeller family, given as a personal donation.
The powerful family’s ownership of Exxon-Mobile cannot be separated from their strategic political alliances. Barack Obama’s administration and the Democratic Party have been faithful economic and political servants of the Rockefeller dynasty. The money behind the primary opponents of the Democrats on the political stage comes from Exxon-Mobile’s primary competitor. MSNBC’s obsession with demonizing the “Koch Brothers” as the incarnation of modern political evil isn’t simply about politics. Behind the politics is a classic market rivalry between Exxon-Mobile and Koch Industries.
The Rockefeller-CIA Oil Scheme
Three countries which are major opponents of the United States on the geopolitical stage — Russia, Venezuela, and Iran — are also oil exporters and major competitors with US oil corporations. All three of these countries have independent economies centered around government-owned natural resources. Each of these countries are also suffering serious consequences from the oil-price drop.
In Venezuela, the right-wing opposition — funded by Rockefeller- and Ford Foundation-linked NGOs — won control of the parliament in the 2015 December elections. The Bolivarian movement, led by the United Socialist Party and Nicolas Maduro, rose to power by utilizing the oil proceeds to fund housing, education, medical care, and community-controlled media. The oil price drop has caused these forces tremendous problems, and weakened the social programs.
The economic problems created by US sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran were intensified by the oil-price drop. Difficult economic circumstances swayed Iranian public opinion, strengthening President Hassan Rouhani and the forces calling themselves the “reformist movement.” The oil-price drop was a significant factor in bringing about the P5+1 nuclear conclusion, in which two-thirds of Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program was dismantled.
Russia has been forced to cut its domestic budget. The spending of government money made Vladimir Putin very popular. Government-owned oil and natural gas allowed Russia to reboot its economy following the disastrous period of the 1990s.
The Rockefellers and their friends at the Council on Foreign Relations have determined that keeping oil prices low serves long-term US foreign policy objectives — i.e., keeping Wall Street at the center of the global economy.
So, how is the oil-price drop being carried out? What is causing the prices to go down? Innovations in technology, such as hydraulic fracking and new drilling methods, have certainly played a role. However, the primary reason for the extreme drop has been the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The repressive, human-rights-violating Saudi monarchy continues to pour tens of millions of barrels of oil onto the international market every day. Despite losing billions of dollars and experiencing an escalating internal crisis, the Saudi regime continues to expand its oil production apparatus. Saudi Arabia executed 47 people on January 1, indicating that its internal problems are getting larger.
The reason for Saudi Arabia’s indulgence in self-destructive economic policies is merely obedience. Saudi oil is the de facto property of Wall Street. Saudi Arabia has the fourth-largest military budget of any country in the world, purchasing weapons almost exclusively from the United States. The Kingdom serves as a Middle Eastern extension of major US oil and military corporations. The Saudi regime is flooding the market, losing money, and wrecking their country, because the bosses at Exxon-Mobile, i.e., the Rockefeller family, are ordering it.
Trump and the Koch Opposition
The oil-price drop does not only serve geopolitical ends. There is a domestic side to it as well. The invention of hydraulic fracking and the rise of domestic oil production in the United States have both brought all kinds of strength to Rockefeller’s competitors. The Koch Brothers emerged stronger than ever, along with a slew of smaller oil tycoons, who lack the kind of longstanding and entrenched influence wielded by the Rockefeller dynasty.
US Congress has lifted the 1973 oil export ban and these domestic competitors can now export on the international markets. It should be no surprise that the Keystone Pipeline, and “Drill, baby, drill!” have become rallying cries of Republican politics. “Drill, baby, drill!” means breaking the power of the Rockefellers and strengthening Koch Industries, along with a whole crew of nouveau riche grouped around them, wanting a bigger chunk of the oil profits.
The Rockefellers are hoping that the oil-price drop can not only defeat the emerging anti-capitalist bloc around the world, but also their domestic competitors. This strategy is working out as well. Houston, a political headquarters for the Koch insurgency, is having a housing crisis because of the oil-price drop. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlighted how a town in Montana called Williston, booming a few years ago with new oil, has also been devastated.
Now that the more ideologically right-wing Tea Party has run its course, the Koch Brothers have put up Donald Trump as their strongman against the Rockefeller establishment. As Trump preaches hate for immigrants and Muslims, beating his chest with a false “everyman” populism, he is attempting to build a political army. The hope is not so much to capture the presidency but to strong-arm the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller think tanks away from their monopoly on setting policy. The reason Trump strays from the standard US foreign policy script, seeming friendlier to Russia and more critical of Saudi Arabia, is because he represents Wall Street opposition to Rockefeller dominance. Different strategies in relation to oil-exporting countries are not completely off-limits.
In addition to market rivalries, there has been a long history of tension between the CIA and the Pentagon. The CIA leadership is trained at places like Harvard and Yale, carefully studying the art of how to achieve long-term geopolitical goals. The military brass, on the other hand, is trained only in the hard science of blowing things up. Not surprisingly, the two groups frequently come into conflict with each other. The Rockefellers, with their Council on Foreign Relations and alliance with George Soros, have always been closer to the CIA and the Democrats. The military lines up consistently with the Republicans.
On the global stage, the Rockefellers hope to gradually cash-starve opponents of US power, while fomenting “color revolution”-style internal crises. On the other side of things, Donald Trump talks about “bombing the hell” out of Iraq, and his followers have much more enthusiasm for direct military attacks on defiant countries. The tense standoff surrounding the P5+1 nuclear deal was a manifestation of these strategic differences.
The Agony of Capitalist Crisis
As the Rockfellers and Obama Administration continue to wage economic war against Russia, Venezuela, and Iran — while at the same time trying to economically weaken Koch Industries and secure the power of the oil monopolies — the global economy is headed for catastrophe. The Saudis are obediently churning out oil, and prices in other sectors like natural gas are following close behind. Investor confidence is dropping and the expected panic is setting in.
As things spiral downward, Donald Trump and the Koch Brothers are attempting to utilize the ideological right wing. The obsessively pro-Israel, anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant sectors of the US working class, primarily found among the dispossessed whites of the south and rural areas, are seen as a potential political goon squad.
Meanwhile, the left is being politically re-shuffled as radical ideas reemerge in US discourse. Rockefeller money is deployed to control and direct the re-energized (but completely confused) US left. The Ford Foundation has staged entire conferences against police brutality, hoping to point “Black Lives Matter” away from a confrontation with the US political establishment. The talking heads on MSNBC are working very hard to push the millions of Americans who now identify themselves as “socialists” away from militant labor activism, and toward campaigning for the Democratic Party. The Rockefellers have given up on trying to suppress basic anti-capitalist sentiments, and instead are hoping to redefine socialism with classless phrases like “a government that works for everyone.”
The younger generation of Americans, who are statistically much more left-wing, are the target audience of the Rockefeller political machine. The goal is for the former chaos-loving residents of Zuccotti Park to become disciplined foot soldiers against the Kochs. The last thing that the owners of Exxon-Mobile want is an upsurge of militant street fighters. They don’t want the radicalism of the 1960s Revolutionary Youth Movement or the 1930s Young Communist League. They want obedient functionaries who study Saul Alinsky.
Behind all of this is an almost unresolvable economic problem. The computer revolution has made it cheaper and easier than ever to produce things, and now millions of people have no place in the world economy. The world market is full of commodities, cheaply produced by machines. These products cannot be purchased by the increasingly impoverished people of the world who no longer have a place at the assembly line.
In a crisis of mass migration, the people who the system no longer has a place for have fled from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Within the United States and Western Europe, the standard of living is dropping and the next generation is adjusting to a low-wage economy.
With Russia and China as the lynchpin, a new bloc of state-controlled, centrally planned economies has emerged, carving out an alternative in the world economy. Global events continue to reinforce the notion that western neoliberal capitalism is not the end of history.
The financial system, based on usury and exploitation, that has ruled the world for over 500 years, is in a long, deep crisis. Within the power structure, different factions are scrambling to save it, as alternatives to it are becoming more attractive to the dispossessed. Different strategies to defeat the rising global opposition are being utilized. Gradually, police state repression and militarism are beginning to replace the “democracy” and “human rights” western societies have often bragged about.
Everywhere the stakes are getting higher, and there is rising danger of greater catastrophe. The global stage of the 21st century is gearing up to unleash world-shaking surprises.
Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
