What happened to America? -- A superb collection of quotations to explain the current situation in a dying republic

Hi folks and especially you newbies,

I posted this list of quotes several months ago, but a lot of the new people haven't seen this yet, so I'll do it again. Just by reading through these quotes, you will have a very clear picture of what happened to America and how we got in this fix in the first place.

It took me a while to compile this list, but it really belongs to each of you. Feel free to copy it to your hard drive and post quotes from this list on other forums so that others can understand what happened to America.

1. "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

2. "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." - James Madison

3. "If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations." - Andrew Jackson

4. "The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. " - Abraham Lincoln

5. "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world - no longer a Government of free opinion no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.... Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” – President Woodrow Wilson, In The New Freedom (1913) after signing into passage the Glass Owen Act of 1913 that established the Federal Reserve System. (read more)