What's so bad about the CFR?

[eromitlab]

Couldn't turn up much of anything on a search, so I thought I'd pose this to everyone here.
Last night, I was on a social news site and in a comment thread of an Obama picture, someone of course brings up the Obama/Council on Foreign Relations connection. I usually see this one pulled out by Ron Paul supporters, claiming every candidate except RP is a globalist puppets, and I once saw a video from the Minnesota splinter faction of the WACs where they "confronted" Michelle Obama with chatter about how "the CFR is destroying America" and such.
Now let it be said, I don't think the CFR is an evil organization. A look at their website didn't send up any "ZOMG evil~!" alarms. Any-who, in this particular thread, when challenged to prove how the CFR is particularly eeeeeevilllll beyond conjecture and claims, the only thing produced was a quote from Colonel Mandell House. Supposedly, House said this to Woodrow Wilson in some manner of meeting in 1910:

“Soon, every American will be required to register their biological property in a national system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging. By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda, which will effect our security as a chargeback for our fiat paper currency. Every American will be forced to register or suffer being unable to work and earn a living. They will be our chattel, and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions”.

“Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the bills of lading to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, forever to remain economic slaves through taxation, secured by their pledges. They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one or two should figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability. After all, this is the only logical way to fund government, by floating liens and debt to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges. This will inevitably reap to us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a contributor to this fraud which we will call `Social Insurance.’ Without realizing it, every American will insure us for any loss we may incur and in this manner, every American will unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope for their redemption and, we will employ the high office of the President of our dummy corporation to foment this plot against America.”

Eleven years later, House founded the Council on Foreign Relations... of course, according to the conspiracy folk, he founded the organization based on achieving the ideals he espoused in this one quote eleven years earlier, and didn't try to use Woodrow Wilson's term as President to do anything about it. And, of course, eighty-seven years later, the CFR continues to semi-secretly plot to achieve those ideals, even with many different people of all different ideologies.
Obviously, there won't be video or audio of House's quote actually being said. I guess my question is, has anyone ever heard of this quote? Is it partially or entirely made up? Or, for that matter, does anyone have anything about the CFR being evil beyond an existing conspiracy huckster claiming that it is? I mean, they sent something to my father a few weeks ago; just another piece of junk mail really, but how would my father, a retired COE computer programmer, fit into their plot to take over the world?

 

[Drudgewire]

Dude, the CFR is just a front... the REAL evil goes on when the Bilderberg Group meets.

AND THEY'RE MEETING TODAY THROUGH SATURDAY IN VIRGINIA!!!

 

[abenja1]

All the CFR is about is a bunch of rich people sitting around a table and talking about various things. It all ends there. Truthers on the other hand believe its some secret cabal because they aren't in on it. Goes back to their jealousy for political power.

 

[Clippy]

All the CFR is about is a bunch of rich people sitting around a table and talking about various things. It all ends there. Truthers on the other hand believe its some secret cabal because they aren't in on it. Goes back to their jealousy for political power.

And what do you suppose they talk about?

 

[Drudgewire]

And what do you suppose they talk about?

Shoes.

 

[Clippy]

Shoes.

The men too?

 

[Mr. Skinny]

The men too?

I think the men talk about their new business cards, like they did in American Psycho.

 

[Drudgewire]

I think the men talk about their new business cards, like they did in American Psycho.

And then they excuse themselves to return some videos.

 

[fezzic]

That supposed statement seems unconvincing to me. Reference to biological? property... in 1910? Fiat paper currency at a time when the US still used gold and silver coins and certificates and would until 1933 or so?

I went looking for the Col. House on google and found a couple of sites that reiterated the quoted statement yet provided no reference to where the statement was taken from especially since House died in 1938, so a live quote would not be possible. Another place, wiki, made no mention of this statement.

So the provenance of the quoted statement remains (to me) indeterminate.

 

[ktesibios]

The book The intimate papers of Colonel House arranged as a narrative by Charles Seymour can be read online.

Readers might be interested in chapter 6, "The Administration goes to Work", in particular Seymour's analysis of House's novel Philip Dru: Administrator, which indicates that House's opinions, particularly those relating to banking, currency and the rights of labor, were absolutely irreconcilable with those expressed in the purported quote.

My money would be on fabrication, followed by the process of unquestioning propagation and embellishment which is a hallmark of the paranoid conspiracy theory industry.

Why fabricate such a thing? One possibility lies in the fact that House was highly influential in shaping the Federal Reserve Act, that perennial bête noire of conspiracists.