I Can’t Get You Out of My Head
Part 3 Money Changes Everything
Directed by Adam Curtis
Film Review
Part 3 of I Can’t Get You Out of My Head concerns the gradual handover of political power from elected official to banks and financial institutions. Curtis traces this process to Nixon’s 1973 decision to abolish the gold (and silver) standard. Once currencies ceased to have any fixed value, power began to shift to banks (who create the vast majority of our money*) and currency traders. For Curtis, one of the most significant cultural events of the seventies was the publication of a Russian emigre’s 1974 book It’s Me Eddie. The main theme of the novel is that Americans mistakenly believe they are free when they’re really simplified robots controlled by the rules of money.
The 1973 oil embargo (which caused oil prices to skyrocket) reinforced the popular sense that elected officials had lost control over government.
Nixon, who was naturally paranoid, was aware from the onset of his presidency that there were intelligence insiders at the White House plotting against him.** This led to his decision to tape record all his Oval Office conversations, providing ammunition for opponents who forced him to resign.
Meanwhile in China, Mao’s fourth wife Jiang Qing (see Part 1 Where Has Democracy Gone?) was briefly the most powerful woman in the world. Beginning in 1971, Jiang lost control of the Red Guards, which broke into warring factions. Mao, in turn, removed her from power and exiled troublesome Red Guard leaders to the desert and the provinces. Determined to succeed Mao, Jiang allied herself with three other party officials to form the Gang of Four.
Deng Xiaoping, who would succeed Mao in 1977, immediately had them arrested and imprisoned.
For me, the most interesting segment of Part 3 concerns the discovery by Kerry Thornley, co-founder of Operation Mindfuck (see Part 1 Where Has Democracy Gone?) that many of the individuals New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison implicated in the JFK assassination were involved in the Watergate break-in. Thornley ultimately decided he had been manipulated by intelligence operatives to start Operation Mindfuck and spread phony Illuminati conspiracy theories.
*Contrary to popular belief, private banks create 97-98% of the money in circulated with government creating the 2-3% that exists as notes and coins. See 97% Owned
**Russ Baker probably gives the best account of the conspiracy by Bush Sr intelligence operatives to bring down the Nixon presidency by undertaking a bungled burglary at the Watergate Hotel and implicating Nixon in the operation. See Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last 50 Years*
The Most Revolutionary Act 