Category: politics

The Dollar Beast: How 1999 Deregulation Created the Crisis We’re About to Live

Posted on by Ray Joseph Cormier

The Architect of the Indictment: Michel Chossudovsky

The indictment you are about to read comes from one of the most respected—and controversial—voices in international economics. Before you read this synopsis of his landmark 1999 article, know the voice behind this prophetic indictment.

Michel Chossudovsky is not a fringe commentator. He is an award-winning Canadian economist, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Ottawa, and the founder of the Centre for Research on Globalization (Global Research). For decades, his work has bridged rigorous academic analysis and unflinching critique, earning him a global reputation as a clear-eyed investigator into the intersections of finance, war, and power—a “Canada’s Chomsky” for his relentless exposure of corporate hegemony and empire.

His authority is built on a lifetime of documenting economic crises on the ground, across multiple continents. This vast, practical experience gave him the rare foresight to see, in 1999, the precise moment financial deregulation shifted from policy to a weapon of global instability.

The Day the Financial Firewall Fell

The crisis we are about to live through did not begin with a stock market crash. It began twenty-six years ago, with a single, fatal act of deregulation that dismantled the architecture of global finance.

In 1999, as the world celebrated a new millennium, Professor Chossudovsky issued a stark warning. He saw what others ignored: the final assembly of a financial monster—the “Dollar Beast.”

His warning was simple, yet devastating. The catalyst was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. In one sentence: it tore down the firewall that for 66 years had kept your federally-insured savings safe from the high-risk casino of Wall Street speculation.

It allowed giant conglomerates to fuse commercial banking, investment brokerage, and insurance, creating “too big to fail” entities that prioritized reckless gambling over public good. Chossudovsky diagnosed this not as an accident, but as the deliberate architecture of a system designed to privatize gains and socialize collapse.

What follows is the distillation of his 1999 prescient analysis—raw, resonant, and ready for the reader without a PhD or Degree in Economics and Finance to understand the salients points of the Professor’s long article.

This is the beginning of the ongoing Economic-Financial crises Worldwide.

The Death of the Firewalls

The central turning point was the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), which revoked the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. This allowed giant conglomerates like Citigroup and J.P. Morgan to fuse commercial banking, investment brokerage, and insurance. This created a new power structure—“universal banks”—that were “too big to fail” and now prioritized reckless speculation over local investment.

“The ‘global financial supermarket’ is to be overseen by the Wall Street giants; competing banking institutions are to be removed from the financial landscape. State level banks across America will be displaced or bought up, leading to a deadly string of bank failures.”

History’s Warning Ignored

The deregulation was a culmination of decades of financial addiction. Crashes in 1987, 1997, and 1998 were prophetic warnings of volatility and global contagion. Instead of heeding these alarms, leaders proceeded with deregulation, creating a system where the government socialized the losses while private elites privatized the gains.

The Federal Reserve: Lifeline to the Supermarket

The system operates on moral hazard: Wall Street takes private risks, but the public pays for the rescue. The Federal Reserve acts less as a regulator and more as a lifeline, using unlimited bailout facilities and near-zero interest rates to ensure financial control rests with a handful of private financial dynasties.

Exporting the Supermarket: Financial Imperialism

The U.S. financial model was aggressively exported globally through the IMF and World Bank, forcing developing nations into privatization and dependency on speculative capital flows, causing global shock waves, mass layoffs, and poverty spikes.

Conclusion: The Beast System is Fully Operational

Deregulation was not an accident—it was a strategy designed to consolidate unprecedented power into a handful of private U.S. conglomerates. This financial hegemony overrides national sovereignty and subordinates citizens to a Global Financial Rule.

The crisis we are about to live through is the inevitable moment when the debt accumulated by the Beast is forcibly transferred to the citizen. This financial structure demands perpetual crisis and the ultimate sacrifice of national and personal solvency to sustain its architecture.

The US Dollar is not merely a currency; it is the Image of the Beast—the mechanism that enforces this speculative empire, threatening the world with perpetual crisis and eventual collapse.

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Matthew 23:9

In a world ruled by money, the existence of billionaires is not success, it’s greed —
and a crime against humanity.

WAR PLAN RED – THE TIME THE UNITED STATES WANTED TO INVADE CANADA

While the World Watches Gaza: The Unreported Israeli War for the Annexation of the ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED West Bank

Posted on by Ray Joseph Cormier

This article, published in The Guardian is the logical followup to my last post The Apostolic Manifesto: The Major’s Seal—From a Canadian Jail to Gaza’s Cry

While the eyes of the world are on Gaza, Israeli settlers in the West Bank still behave with impunity

As the harvest season begins, attacks on Palestinian farmers and their land are spiralling. The words of peace following the Gaza ceasefire ring hollow.

Last Monday, when the US president, Donald Trump, addressed the Knesset alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, my compatriot lawmaker Ayman Odeh and I raised a banner calling them to “Recognise Palestine”. We were brutally expelled by force from the parliament’s plenum, revealing the fragile state of the supposed “only democracy in the Middle East”. How can Trump and Netanyahu speak of peace in the Middle East without recognition of the people deprived for decades of their basic liberties and rights under vicious occupation?

Nowhere is the deceit more clear than in the occupied West Bank. There, the words of peace are but a weak and distant voice, but the horrifying sounds of settler violence and terror still echo loudly. More than 30 occurrences of settler violence against Palestinians have been documented since the announcement of Trump’s 20-point plan at the end of September, including physical assaults, theft of agricultural produce and torching of vehicles and property.

The rise of settler terrorism is not coincidental. This period marks the start of the harvest seasons. More than a vital economic event, it is an important social and national moment that exhibits endurance under occupation. Precisely for these reasons, year after year settlers target Palestinians during this precious time. During the 2024 harvest period, Yesh Din (an Israeli human rights group that collects and disseminates information regarding violations of Palestinians’ human rights in the West Bank) documented 113 separate incidents of violence, harassment, harvest-thwarting or damage to olive trees and crops involving Israeli civilians and soldiers, which took place on lands belonging to 51 Palestinian villages, towns and communities.

Yesh Din also found that “Israeli security forces appeared to have played a greater role in obstructing the olive harvest”. In about 70% of forceful prevention of access to lands, soldiers, border police officers and settlement civilian security coordinators (CSCs) were actually present. They either personally prevented Palestinians from accessing and harvesting in their own lands, or failed to stop settlers who harassed or assaulted them.

This comes as no surprise, as the leader of the settlers’ political party, Bezalel Smotrich, was appointed as an additional minister in the Ministry of Defence in charge of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). In Umm al-Khair, for example, a special COGAT unit uprooted private olive trees of Palestinians, citing lack of permits, but ignored violations of an illegal nearby settler outpost. Last week, the Jerusalem district court ruled to halt all building work in the outpost, which was built on lands seized by Israel and unlawfully transferred to settlers.

In the occupied West Bank, settler terrorism is nothing but a tool by the government to pursue de-facto annexation. Earlier this month, Smotrich led a march of thousands of settlers in support of annexation of the West Bank. He was quoted as saying, “We are continuing to take hold with our feet of the Land of Israel with many pioneers, many heroes, and hundreds of thousands of settlers who live in this part of the land … we need to normalise it and make it eternal.”

The settlers and their supporters in the Knesset are clear on their motives and intentions. Why, then, do political leaders in the west refrain from meaningful sanctions and diplomatic measures? Smotrich was sanctioned by the UK in June, but the effect of the sanction has been minimal. He may not be able to travel to the UK and tour the West End, but he still enjoys the ministerial power to grab lands in the West Bank. Even in the announcement of sanctions, the UK highlighted they take place “in his personal capacity” solely.

If the UK government acknowledges the reality of settler violence and its grave implications on Palestinian life, why does it still allow settlement produce to be sold in markets and shops in Britain? If Starmer is serious about recognition of Palestine as a state, how come it allows the Israeli government to violate its sovereignty with such violent means? Or was the recognition an empty ploy to shut down dissenting voices in the UK, a hollow act only to be realised in the rebranding of some maps?

A just peace must respect the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people for self-recognition, sovereignty and liberty from military occupation and siege. Only when every human being’s dignity between the river and sea is respected can we truly say peace has been achieved.

True peace requires an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel: this is the sole formula that enjoys consensus among the international community, the Palestinian national movement and the Israeli peace camp.

Trump may have inflicted pressure on Netanyahu to halt the genocide, but he probably only did so because the burden of his relationship with the pariah regime of Netanyahu had become too great. The mass protests across the globe for the liberation of Palestine, and the unwavering anti-government demonstrations inside Israel, are the real forces behind this pressure.

It is thanks to this enormous civil movement that a ceasefire has been signed, the hostages released and the people of Gaza can enjoy safeguard from annihilation. After the ceasefire agreement has been signed, it is vital to keep applying this pressure. The world has turned a blind eye to the atrocities in Gaza for too long; it must not repeat the same mistake in the West Bank.

  • Dr Ofer Cassif is a member of the Knesset, representing the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) since 2019

Israel kills 11 Palestinian family members in Gaza’s deadliest truce breach

TRUTH IS FALLEN IN THE STREET AND EQUITY CANNOT ENTER

Posted on by Ray Joseph Cormier

The title of this article is not just a phrase; it is a diagnosis of our age. Truth has fallen in our digital public squares, trampled by algorithms and political agendas. Justice, unable to even get in the door, stands barred by the sins of historical omission. The question is not if we will face this reality, but how we got here. Truth is not merely contested in our age—it is facedown in the mud of the digital square, trampled by the crowd. And justice? She stands barred at the door, unable to enter. This is not a political crisis. It is a spiritual diagnosis from an ancient text: ‘Truth has fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter’ (Isaiah 59:14). How did we get here? The answer lies in an unholy trinity of deception—one as old as religion itself.

Our world is facing an Unholy Trinity of Deception, a spiritual sickness that mirrors the “three unclean spirits” described in Revelation 16″13-16. These are the pillars of fallen truth that hold up a system of power and vanity. With TRUTH fallen in the Street, is it any wonder, some 2700 years after Isaiah, People Today just don’t know what to believe?

The first anti-Christ was not a man of chaos, but a man of zealotry—Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee who knew every word of scripture but missed the living Messiah standing before him. His sin was the omission of the Spirit for the Letter; his “truth” was a weapon to condemn, not to liberate. He became the archetype of an institution that kills prophets and then builds tombs for them.

This is the ultimate sin of historical omission—honouring a dead past while persecuting the living truth. We see this today in the political and media establishments that venerate “democracy” and a “rules-based order” as sacred concepts, while omitting the bloody history of how that order was built and maintained.

If the Four Horsemen bring conquest, war, famine, and death, the Fifth Horseman justifies their ride. He doesn’t carry a sword; he carries a microphone. Once called the ‘Fifth Estate,’ the mainstream media has become a Fifth Column—a traitor to truth within the gates. Its weapon? Not fake news, but omitted news. It hides the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the eight years of bombing in Donbas, and NATO’s broken promises. This isn’t bias; it is betrayal.

Its primary weapon is not the lie of fake news, but the lie of omitted news. It practices systemic, ideological omission by burying the critical context that would expose the truth:

  • The 2014 CIA-backed coup in Ukraine that provoked this war.
  • The 8 years of shelling in Donbas that preceded the Russian intervention.
  • NATO’s relentless eastward expansion, a direct violation of promises made decades ago.

This is not a news crisis. We are facing an exorcism, where the spirit of propaganda manufactures consent for war and hides historical truth to serve the empire. The Fifth Horseman doesn’t carry a sword; he carries a microphone.

When truth is fallen in the street, equity is barred at the door. This is not a metaphor; it is a spiritual and mechanical reality. The tragic reality is that humans cannot thrive when they are isolated, for as the scriptures say, “It is not good that man is alone; I shall make him a helpmate opposite him.” This truth, which experts and amateurs alike are confirming, is as real today as it was 6,000 years ago. Medical science confirms the Genesis creation story of the male and female in the man, with the XY chromosome, while the woman has only the X. The attack on this fundamental truth is a direct assault on the very image of God.

This is why we see the bitter fruits of disconnection and division. The US Christian Nationalism that persecutes the trans and gay community creates an atmosphere of fear that leads to tragedies like the Minneapolis shooting. The hypocrisy is clear: politicians who claim to be “pro-life” in one breath will, in the next, divert humanitarian aid from agencies like USAID to fund more weapons and tax cuts for billionaires. They have not “saved money”; they have defunded hope.

This ideological cruelty is also at the heart of the genocide in Gaza. With US bombs and financing, tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian children and infants are being murdered. This is a profound lack of equity. Every US-Israeli bomb and bullet does not eliminate the opposition; it recruits more civilians to join the legitimate struggle for their national aspirations. When a message of hate and violence is given a platform, it breeds more hatred and violence.

The US Dollar is not merely money; it is the image of a system that makes truth a commodity and equity an impossibility.

The path forward is not easy, but it begins with repentance (metanoia), a change of mind that forces us to see the omitted history. It is a path walked by a remnant—those who refuse to let the truth stay fallen. They are the ones who, like the faithful in Ezekiel’s vision, “sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed.”

“We stand now between two paths:
— The path of Saul: zealotry without compassion, truth without justice.
— The path of Paul: eyes opened by grace, turned toward the true Christ outside the system.

The remnants are those who, like Ezekiel’s witnesses, ‘sigh and groan over all the abominations’ (Ezekiel 9:4). They lift truth from the street. They hold the door open for justice.

Will you stand with them?
Repent of omission.
Speak what others hide.
Refuse the mark of the Beast.

The night is far spent; the day is at hand.

This is not theory for me. In 1976, I stood in Kansas City and declared America ‘found wanting.’ In 2025, I see that verdict unfolding in Gaza, in Ukraine, and on the streets of our cities. The writing is on the wall.