AUBURN – It’s the stuff of conspiracy theories: wars manufactured by political leaders, economic inflation and depression controlled by the wealthiest few, American presidents pre-chosen by the country’s elite and marketed to voters through a tightly controlled media.

To some it sounds fanciful. But Massachusetts writer and speaker James Perloff believes it’s true. In an Auburn hotel conference room Saturday afternoon, he told an audience how it all happened – and what will happen next.

“A lot of us believe a world tyranny is coming forward,” he said.

Perloff was invited to Maine by The John Birch Society, a conservative political action and education organization. He spoke in Augusta on Saturday morning and at the Fireside Inn in Auburn on Saturday afternoon. More than 30 people attended his afternoon presentation. Some were members of The John Birch Society. Others were drawn by Perloff’s views.

In a three-part presentation that included music and slides of historical documents and photographs, Perloff outlined his claims, offering a kind of fast and furious lessons-they-never-taught-you-in-school history course.

Lesson No. 1: Between 1898 and today, politicians have routinely lied about the need to go to war.

The sinking of The USS Maine was caused by an internal explosion as a pretext to start the Spanish-American War, he said. Washington, D.C., knew an attack on Pearl Harbor was coming in 1941, he said, and it could have been avoided. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized the use of military force in Vietnam in the 1960s, was written before the Tonkin Gulf skirmish actually happened, he said.

Lesson No. 2: The economy, including income taxes and the stock market, are controlled by the country’s wealthiest few – who use them to get richer.

The Federal Reserve, he said, was created by those people, who used it to control inflation, interest rates and the stock market and to orchestrate the Great Depression.

Lesson No. 3: American presidents, regardless of party affiliation, are predetermined by The Establishment.

Perloff’s example: President Jimmy Carter, whom Perloff said was “picked in a high place and packaged and sold to the American public” by the Rockefeller family and with the help of a tightly controlled media, including Time, the Wall Street Journal and the major TV networks.

All of this, Perloff said, is tied together, with war, money and political leaders inexorably linked. And it’s ultimately leading, he said, to the creation of a single world government.

Although single-government proponents say such a change would reduce war and increase prosperity, Perloff said he believes it wouldn’t and he worries about empowerment of evil in such a government.

“If a Hitler or Stalin rises to power in a world government, where are you going to go?” Perloff asked.

At points in his presentation, Perloff poked fun at himself, playing his own critic and calling himself a “kook.” But offering books, historical interviews and documents in slides to the audience, he said his claims could be backed up.

Some people said it gave them something to think about. “It’s a different way to link up the history we’ve been taught over the years,” said Wayne Gurschick of Turner, who attended the presentation at the invitation of a friend. “The pieces all fall together, in my opinion.”

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