The Daily Bell hoax?

In this article, Memehunter explores the murky underworld of the Libertarian movement, in the wake of blogger Lila Rajiva’s stunning revelations about the “long-standing relationship” between Ron Paul and the founder of financial behemoth Agora Inc., with which the well-known libertarian website The Daily Bell is affiliated. The ramifications of the partnership between the Daily Bell, known for its strident “gold bug” mindset, and gold mining concern Dicon Gold Inc. are also discussed.

The Daily Bell, a leading libertarian website known as much for its staunch support of Austrian economics as for its strident “gold bug” mindset, recently featured an article entitled “The Ron Paul Hoax?” which attempted to defend Ron Paul’s reputation in the wake of a series of articles on Clint Richardson’s  Reality Blog showing Paul to be essentially nothing more than a fraud. Although the Bell admits to having doubts about the efficacy of Paul’s “Audit the Fed” legislation, they refuse to believe that Paul himself is a fraud. Of course, one may wonder how much evidence the Bell and its supporters will need before accepting the truth.

But more importantly, this unshakeable belief in Ron Paul as “the world’s only apparently honest politician” (no less!) strikes one as an inscrutable paradox in the face of these recent revelations about Paul’s character, especially coming from an anarcho-capitalist website that purports to denounce party politics, Western-style democracy, and the institution of government in general.

Ron Paul and the Agora Empire

One clue to this enigma has recently been provided by blogger Lila Rajiva, co-author with William Bonner (president of the publishing company Agora Inc.) of the bestseller Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, and herself a libertarian sympathizer. In a scathing article, Rajiva revealed that the Daily Bell is closely associated with the Agora network, a large conglomerate known for its financial newsletters promoting “get-rich-quick” schemes and assorted penny stocks, all the while touting bogus “free markets” and Austrian faux economics.

Some of the numerous Agora affiliates and alternate business names include the Daily Reckoning, the Oxford Club, International Living, Penny Sleuth, Whiskey & Gunpowder, Doug Casey’s International Speculator, Gary North’s Remnant Review, as well as Laissez-Faire Books, a leading libertarian bookseller. In fact, according to Rajiva, the Agora network and its executives Bonner and Addison Wiggin hold sway over most of the libertarian circles in the West.

Agora also appears to have ties with the Rockefeller dynasty via Peter G. Peterson, longtime chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and chief backer of the film “IOUSA”, whose content was inspired by Bonner and Wiggin’s book Empire of Debt. Going even deeper, Rajiva finds all kinds of shady characters associated with Agora, including ex-CIA director William Colby and Le Cercle member Lord Rees-Mogg, a close associate of the Rothschilds.

But the real stunner was Rajiva’s disclosure that Ron Paul had “a long-standing relationship” with Agora founder James Davidson, via Murray Rothbard. Perhaps not surprisingly, Agora and its affiliates, including the Daily Bell, have until recently been indefatigable promoters of Paul’s political platform. However, the Daily Bell has never mentioned its ties to Agora, which would obviously throw into question the Bell’s credibility as an impartial observer of the political and financial scene.

“Private gold-backed currencies” and Colombian gold mines

Another reason why the Daily Bell, itself an ardent promoter of privately gold-backed currencies, is enraptured with Paul’s unremitting advocacy of the gold standard could be that the directors of the Bell have a vested interest in a return to a gold standard, and more generally a larger role for gold and silver as circulating currencies. Indeed, as Diana Zoppa, an advisor to the Daily Bell, acknowledged in an interview with Kerry Lutz of the Financial Survival Network, Zoppa’s hiring by the Daily Bell was facilitated by the existence of a business partnership between the directors of the Bell and Zoppa’s husband, Shawn Perger, owner of a gold-mining company called Dicon Gold Inc., whose main assets are found in Colombia.

This partnership seems to have been a very close one because Perger and Zoppa apparently followed Daily Bell founder Anthony Wile and moved to Switzerland (the Daily Bell’s home base until recently) for a few years. We also learn from the Daily Bell that Perger and his team “have built deep social relationships with the wealthier and more private Colombian families who have held the ownership rights of some very attractive gold projects”. Coincidentally or not, the Daily Bell has been, of late, very vocal in its support of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe’s pro-business administration and “free-market strategies”, and has even established an “on-the-ground editorial presence” in Colombia.

Conclusion

As with most of the alternative media, the Daily Bell does play an important role in opening the eyes of “red pill” newcomers who are exposed for the first time to a non-mainstream view of politics and economics. The Bell has not been afraid to tackle controversial issues, including questioning the veracity of the official accounts of the Apollo XIII mission and of Osama bin Laden’s death. Nevertheless, the Bell’s refusal to address the issue of usury, its blatant dismissal of the Zionist role in the New World Order conspiracy, coupled with its relentless pro-gold and pro-Paul propaganda, are symptomatic of a larger malaise in the alternative media. It is time for dedicated truthseekers to move past these gatekeepers and their phony dialectic, in order to continue their quest for real alternatives and authentic solutions to the monetary, political, and spiritual issues of our age.