BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 52. Jim Benton meets with Jackson. TOPICS COVERED: Reparations to Native Americans, Skull and Bones, thieving Indian Agents-they built & bought NY, US railroads landgrab,etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_land_grants_in_the_United_States#

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

MARCH 28, 2010

As Senator Little of Illinois re-introduced the stalled Reparations Bill, the media was again filled with stories of injustices perpetrated against various minority groups in the country.

‘What about the Native Americans?’ Tom Folger argued from the Senate floor. Members of the opposition endeavored to pit one minority voice against another in an effort to tie up the vote against the Blacks. ‘How can we grant these payments just to Black Ameri- cans and leave out the Native Americans, who lost land and life and suffered countless wrongs on their native soil?’ Trying to use up the clock, he added, ‘I say, stay this decision until all sides can be heard.’

But Senator Little had expected men like Folger to try such tactics, and he was prepared to use that divisiveness to make the bill even stronger. With a full Senate in attendance, he presented his all-encompassing proposal.

‘Yes, Native Americans also deserve reparations. This must be addressed. In the year following the enactment of the Black Reparations Bill it should be written into law that an equal and equitable reparation be paid to each and every Native American as well. Following the twenty-five thousand dollar standard, that same amount should be paid to each member of each family of Native American descent, whether in prison or out, young or old, sick or well. That means dividing roughly eight hundred and seventy billion dollars among forty million Black Americans, plus one hundred billion dollars to four million people of Native American descent.’

There was muttering on the Republican side of the aisle – several senators clearly outraged at the exorbitant figures. Then Senator Little added the bombshell.

‘I recommend one trillion dollars total, per year, for four consecutive years. That’s four trillion in total.’ He hurried on over the increased uproar. ‘But to ensure the constructive value of this gesture to both Black Americans and Native peoples, this bill must, I say must, contain a provision that allows for testing to establish the beneficiaries’ freedom from substance abuse.’ There were audible gasps from the floor in response to this unexpected stipulation. ‘Yes. Drug and alcohol testing. Twice. The first test will take place two weeks before payment of reparations, and a final test on the actual day of delivery will determine if an individual is qualified to receive his or her payment. It would be irresponsible to give people this money just to see it land in the hands of drug pushers and liquor stores.’

Senator Little received loud applause from about half of the assembly, while the other half booed him vigorously. But his supporters raised their voices louder, drowning out the catcalls. Even when he specified that the elderly and the youngest children would be spared the ordeal of tests, his opponents used the controversy in a last ditch effort to defeat the measure, declaring that this drug-testing requirement went against the Bill of Rights. In the days that followed, several hard-line Black Republicans appeared on TV to make disparaging remarks about ‘Uncle Tom Little’. The debate was rehashed and dissected in editorials and headlines around the country, and in a very short time Jackson Little had became a household name.

Jackson’s wife’s uncle, Jim Benton, who had guided him over other hurdles, from winning the first Alderman’s seat in Chicago to Assemblyman and a Senatorial victory, requested a secret meeting as soon as he heard about the controversial ‘drug’ provision. They met clandestinely, as usual, in the parking garage below the Hyatt Regency Towers. Considering the stakes, Benton, who maintained that rooms could be bugged, was willing to make the extra effort to avoid risks. As soon as Benton saw Jackson’s car arrive, he flashed his headlights on and off. Jackson caught sight of the dark blue Mercedes in the usual slot, parked his car, and headed over.

‘Hi Jim,’ he said as he slid onto the dark leather upholstery. The garage was relatively quiet at 8pm except for the occasional sound of tires screeching around curves on the levels above. It had been a while since Benton had called a meeting, and as Jackson settled into the seat he wondered what mysteries were to be revealed on this occasion.

‘About the Reparations drug requirement,’ Benton began, wasting no time in getting to the point. ‘It just can’t fly, in my estimation. The senators will bury the bill with it. Marcus and Johnson already have a campaign up and running that feeds into the self-loathing of the Black community, talking about “the indignity of it all”.’

‘But hell, Jim,’ Jackson jumped to a quick response, ‘you know that money will be eaten up in a few weeks if the drug and booze provision isn’t nailed as part of the bill.’ He spoke concisely, having already considered the issue from every angle. ‘And there’ll be serious medical consequences. Many hard addicts will simply end up ODs, crowding the hospitals. In Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, New York . . . these cities’ facilities are already maxed out. They’ll be over- flowing beyond capacity. It would be insane to remove this drug provision.’

‘Actually, you’re dealing with some particularly sane folks here,’ Benton rejoined. ‘The people who oppose you are dependent on the flow of drugs. They depend on the vast amounts of untraceable cash from drug sales to run their secret operations, even their political campaigns. This is nothing new. We’ve discussed Zapata, Mongoose, Phoenix, and ComtelPro, so you shouldn’t be surprised to hear this. The Reparations money shoveled into the Black community will be regarded as a huge payoff for the cartels. They already consider it “their” money. The biggest drug dealers are anticipating a huge boost in sales of heroin, crack, and other substances, just as soon as the checks are doled out. It’s a true heyday mindset. They’ve backed the bill so they can line their pockets with the dollars of the taxpayers. It’s no more complicated than that. You don’t want to believe it, but that’s the situation.’

Anguish showed in the new furrows on Jackson’s brow. Benton knew he was required, by virtue of their long friendship, to go further, explain more. So in this one special instance he spoke beyond caution. ‘You remember our discussion of certain clandestine operations in the Vietnam era – all the way back to Kennedy?’ He waited for Jackson to respond.

‘Yes,’ said the Senator, hesitantly.

‘Then trace the timeline with me. Bay of Pigs . . . Cuban counter- military . . . CIA housecleaning . . . the anger, hostility, and betrayals.

..Panama...Nicaragua...Chile...back to Mexico...and Texas. The Kennedys got in the way of the flow. LBJ knew well to step clear. Nixon . . . just a decoy in the end. Martin Luther King . . . kept Hoover busy. Look at the Bush ops, Iran Contra, and its bedfellows. Casey. The cowboys after. It’s all Skull and Bones. Their people cashed in from the importing of huge amounts of drugs, smuggled in through national security channels. Drugs and oil.

‘Trace the careers of Sturgis, Hunt . . . even Liddy. Follow the Bay of Pigs and CIA personnel . . . their connections to oil profits . . . Bush and his sons again. The Bonesmen were responsible to themselves, only themselves, to insure that their big money interests thrived in good times as well as bad. In fact, those bad times worked out better. They could buy low when no one else had the capital, then sell high.’

Jackson had heard all this before, but somehow it hadn’t registered as a complete and unsettling picture. ‘You’re saying that Republicans will let the Reparations Bill pass so that they can extort the money from the Black communities by way of drug sales, and line their own pockets.’

‘Bingo!’ said Benton. There was no more to add, he hoped. But Jackson could feel there was more to hear. Before he could ask the next critical question, a pair of headlights illuminated the nearby cement walls, followed by the purring sound of a new engine. Both men instinctively froze as the black Cadillac drifted slowly past. The second it turned out of sight at the end of the lane, Jackson pressed on. ‘Is it really that cut and dried? Do the Bonesmen really believe it’ll be that easy?’ Mincing words was no longer an option.

‘My friends tell me that the largest drug shipments in history have already landed on our shores,’ replied Benton. ‘Tons and tons. And that the . . . organizations . . . are hiring additional pushers to prepare for the unusually high demand they expect. What you’ve been doing, what your drug-testing provision is doing, is literally threatening to bankrupt these organizations, tying up money that they’ve already spent, billions of dollars either promised or committed. As Jackson stared through the windshield at the wall ahead, he felt a chill, even though the recently warmed air inside the Mercedes had not completely dissipated. He turned to look at Benton again. ‘You’re Skull and Bones, Jim. Your friends are Bonesmen. Why are you telling me all this?’

Jim Benton’s eyes remained fixed on the steering wheel. ‘To be an effective public servant you'll need to see all the cards on the table, including those that are being secretly palmed by your opponents. You can’t beat them – and I know you don’t want to join them. But you can operate more effectively with the hand you’ve been dealt if you understand the end game. And I have some personal concerns. If you’ll permit, I’d like to explain more fully.’ A slow nod from Jack- son.

‘America has been a secret society from the very beginning. Just look at the Declaration of Independence. A few men in a room invented this country for their own purposes, and then sent their Revolutionary era spin-doctor friends out proselytizing, so the common man would assume he had a say in the way the game was played.

‘Make no assumptions. You have to look at the founding of the US as a pet project of a private men’s club with the sign “No Coloreds” on the wall, where jokes about Jews and Blacks got the biggest laughs. Where if you lined my pockets I’d line yours. It was hard giving up all those slaves, as they ensured a profit margin, but it was easy to dice up the countryside. Our government deeded a ten-mile-wide swath of land on each side of the track to those robber barons who built the rail system out West, giving away over twenty-five percent of America’s total land- mass. That represents the transfer of over one hundred million acres of land, an area about three times as big as the state of Alabama. Think about it. Ten miles across. Each side of the tracks. To these men, “cities” were just a concept to hawk land and create customers for their manu- facturing and shipping. People have always been made to focus on the three little cups before they lost their money to a huckster.

‘In the 1880s almost the entire US Congress, President included, went for a free train ride from Washington, DC, to Montana, to enjoy an outing on the nation’s newest rail line. The joy ride was financed with tax-payer dollars, resplendent with fine wine, loose women, and caviar. They had all agreed, in secret, that a bill would be passed to supply government funds for the construction. Of course they’d bought up most of the railroad stock beforehand, for pennies on the dollar. There was hardly a man in Congress who didn’t consider himself a major stockholder. When the “free land” proviso was added, by unanimous vote, they all became millionaires. In essence they gave the country to themselves.

‘As the railroads sold off all those parcels, 640-acre checkerboard plots you can still see from the air every time you take a plane ride, the speculators bought up prospective townsites and prices soared. Towns were founded overnight and people began depending on the rails to carry goods back to markets in the East. And the little guy paid . . . and paid . . . until the railroad barons got greedy and demanded even more exorbitant shipping fees, amounts that cut too deep into the settler’s meager profits. At that point, farmers and businessmen formed their own societies, like the Grange and others, to covertly fight for survival. Secret societies abounded. You’ve got your Rotary, Masons, not to mention KKK, and Black Hand, and, believe me, there were some societies so secret that you never heard their names. And if you did, it was for the last time.’

Turning the ignition key to on, Benton lowered his window a few inches to let in some fresh air. ‘Please excuse me if I’m boring you, dear friend . . . getting carried away with all this ancient history. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, in Brown’s excellent history department . . . or . . .’

‘Not in such colorful terms, I’m afraid,’ said Jackson. ‘Please do continue.’

‘Now, what was your question?’ Benton asked, smiling. ‘Something about fairness? Let’s look at the Indian situation that you so generously wish to marry to your Black Reparations Bill. We corralled the tribes, set up reservations, and gave the indigents such gifts as alcohol and smallpox. Then we sent agents out to monitor the subjugation, and profit from it. The salary for a US government Indian agent was set at two thousand dollars per year – good pay in 1870. But how did agents manage to return with fifty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars after their two-year appointments? Well, they simply pocketed all the funds appropriated by treaty for yearly upkeep of their charges, stealing the money earmarked for the Indians’ care – foodstuffs, tools, medicine, new housing. The agents skimmed money at every turn. They got fat off the perks and returned to New York City and other industrial centers, bought real estate on a vast scale, purchased factories, large companies, maybe a utility or two. Ever gaze out over the Manhattan skyline and wonder who the hell owns all those high-rises?’

Jackson nodded at Benton. He had wondered.

‘And who picked the agents? They were appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. And who appointed him? The President of the United States, of course, most likely Bonesmen all. We’ve had four Presidents over the years, you know. Things have been like this for quite a while.’ Jackson remained silent. He wanted to let Benton finish the history lesson in his own time.

‘Remember all that fuss over President Clinton’s pardons in 2001? He granted fewer than two hundred in the last hours of his administration. FDR handed out almost thirty-seven hundred. Who were all those people deserving of pardons? Friends, business partners, cronies, rich bastards with pay-off money?

‘So the boys’ club has had a big influence right from the start. Well before anyone came up with the Internet, those boys had their own world-wide web. And what’s different now? Nothing. Your people . . . Blacks . . . slaves . . . just helped make our group and others richer. Even if you do get your Reparations Bill passed, that money will just filter back to descendants of the nineteenth-century elite, rich landowners who rent apartments, own food conglomerates and whole- sale outlets, corporations that supply energy for heat and electricity, oil companies and their gas stations. And the drug pushers. Need I go on?’

‘If it’s all so hopeless, then why even waste your breath spelling it out?’ Jackson could feel his anger rising.

‘Well, I was one of them,’ said Benton, readjusting his window against the tomb-like chill before continuing. ‘In my day there was hope and optimism: high ideals were entertained. Sure, we were always bent on winning . . . but I’m afraid that spirit of competition, that zeal for material success, has moved us in a sinister direction. Power has poison in it, Jackson. Like any good Bonesman, I’m looking out for my own.’

Jackson remained silent, struggling with the picture of what his country had become. A half-minute later, Benton finished up.

‘The drug business is, pardon the expression, bad karma for us. A slush fund derived from sales of cocaine and heroin cannot, by definition, be well managed. We’re creating an army of hoodlums, petty gangsters high on power and greedy for a larger piece of the pie. In the end we’re creating an army of evil men with no real allegiance. In my estimation, the boys’ club is in way over its head. The gentlemen have left the party, and the bums will wreck the place before the sun comes up again.’

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