Red Tape and the Thin Red Line

Title: “Frank Sumera’s Crimson Ledger”
By Frank Sumera

Let me tell you a story drenched in red — not the color of love, but the color of power, debt, and blood. A story of velvet ropes and razor wires. Of fine wine and the winepress of wrath. And like all good stories, it begins with a name whispered through revolutions and recessions alike:

Rothschild.


Red Tape

They say “red tape” strangles progress. Bureaucracy, signatures, protocols. But who wrapped the world in this web to begin with?

It was the Rothschilds — not out of malice, but out of design. In the Napoleonic era, when letters crossed kingdoms and coin moved across continents, red tape was how they made war predictable. You don’t conquer nations with armies. You do it with paperwork — loan guarantees, indemnity clauses, bonds wrapped in crimson silk.

The bankers didn’t fire the muskets. They just made sure the bullets got paid for.


Being in the Red

Ever wonder why debt is colored red? Because it’s the color of wounds. Of bleeding.

“Being in the red” means you owe — and in this world, everyone owes. Whole nations. Your local hospital. Your mom’s mortgage. Blood, interest, and time.

Frank Sumera once saw a small Balkan country sell its mineral rights to pay the interest on a Rothschild-backed IMF loan. “Better red than dead,” the finance minister joked. But the mines collapsed anyway. Ten dead.

He wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t get to laugh long.


The Red Terror

  1. The Tsar falls, and the Bolsheviks rise.

Frank believes in the people. But even he knows revolutions are expensive.

It’s said the Rothschilds were terrified of communism. But that’s a half-truth. Terrified? No. Prepared? Always.

They funded both sides, like bookies taking bets. Trotsky sailed from New York with cash in his coat. Who wrote the check? A man in a top hat who’d dine with Lenin one day and Churchill the next.

The Red Terror was never just ideological. It was financial restructuring — with guillotines.


Red Communism

The sickle, the hammer, and the red flag. Workers of the world unite, under new management.

But communism turned out to be just another banking client. The Soviet Union needed oil rigs, trucks, machines. Western banks obliged — at a cost. Even as the Cold War raged, the hot money flowed. Stalin murdered millions, but the Rothschilds diversified portfolios.

Frank called it Red Communism, Inc.

The Kremlin burned books. Wall Street cooked books. And the proletariat bled for both.


The Red Army & The Thin Red Line

The Red Army marched for Mother Russia. But who fed it? Who armed it? Follow the steel shipments and oil convoys, and you’ll find familiar banking fingerprints.

Across the battlefield was the “Thin Red Line” — the poetic name for British infantry holding against chaos. Frank saw the irony. Soldiers on both sides, dying in trenches, separated by inches — and united by interest payments.

Different flags. Same creditors.


Red String

There’s an old superstition: a red string ties the fates of those destined to meet. Lovers. Killers. Puppets and puppetmasters.

Frank found red string on a Rothschild document dated 1913 — the year the Federal Reserve was born. Same year the IRS appeared. Same year the world changed shape.

Coincidence? Maybe.

But every time a president got shot or a regime fell, that red string was there — tying a boot in the mud to a shoe on the red carpet.


The Red Carpet

It’s where actors, princes, and oligarchs strut like gods. It’s also where politicians announce wars. Frank says the red carpet is not for royalty — it’s a blood trail. A ritual. A contract written in claps and cameras.

“Roll out the red carpet,” they say.

And somewhere, a drone launches. A market crashes. A child vanishes in a copper mine.


The Red Cross

Ah yes, the Red Cross. The symbol of hope, neutrality, and mercy.

But Frank, the cynic, noticed something. Wherever the bombs fell, the Red Cross was right behind — offering aid, bandages, water, silence. He respected the doctors. The nurses. The volunteers.

But the question always came back: who funded the bandages after funding the bombs?

During the wars, the Red Cross patched what bankers shattered. On the surface, humanitarian. Beneath it, a beautiful form of brand management.

After all, every empire needs a conscience. Even if it’s rented.


Epilogue: Red Everywhere

Frank Sumera once tried to break the cycle. He mailed a red thread to every G20 leader with a note: “Cut this, or be cut.”

No one replied. But three days later, the Swiss vault holding the last physical Rothschild ledger burned mysteriously.

The world shrugged.

Red was still everywhere. On screens. In ledgers. On flags. On fingers.

And Frank knew: you can’t stop the color of control.

But you can name it.

And sometimes, that’s a start.

– Frank Sumera

The INFANTry

Essay by Frank Sumera: Why the Word Infant is in Infantry

Language hides truth in plain sight, if only we have the courage to look. Take the word infantry. The root is infant, Latin for “unable to speak.” In ancient Rome, infans meant the child too young to speak up. So what does it say that our foot soldiers, the ones who die first and most often in war, are still called the infantry?

It says they’re the ones with the least power, the least say, and often, the least choice. Too young to vote, too poor to escape. Too indoctrinated to question orders. They’re not the sons of Trump or Netanyahu or any other billionaire or politician who beats the war drum while sipping champagne in their Manhattan penthouses or Tel Aviv strongholds. No. Their children will not be fighting in World War III. Yours will.

The military-industrial complex counts on this. It feeds on it. War needs the young. Not because they’re brave—though they are. Not because they’re strong—though they can be. But because they’re malleable. Because they can still be shaped. Because no one with billions of dollars and options ever chooses to send their own into the meat grinder. It’s always the working-class kid. The farm boy. The dropout. The immigrant. The infant in the system. Too “green” to know he’s being used. Too “patriotic” to question why.

In Gaza, in Ukraine, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, and soon perhaps in Taiwan or Iran—the same equation plays out. The rich provoke, the poor perish.

Let’s not be fooled by medals and flags. The generals talk about valor and glory, but they recruit with video game trailers and sign-on bonuses for college tuition they know most won’t live to use. They don’t tell you you’re an infant in this machine—silent, expendable, replaceable.

Trump’s kids will be playing golf. Netanyahu’s will be behind desks. But your kids will be on the front lines, with sand in their mouths and blood on their boots, wondering how they got there.

So yes, infantry comes from infant. Because that’s how the system sees them: not as men or women, but as tools. As bodies. As babies too naive to know they were born into a war they didn’t start—and one they’re not meant to survive.

– Frank Sumera

The Eye of Providence

The Eye That Sees

A Story by Frank Sumera

The old man sat on the park bench, watching the world move in hurried steps. He had seen it all—trends, technology, and the quiet erosion of things that once mattered. The sun hung low in the sky, golden light spilling over the city like a silent blessing.

A young man approached, holding his phone up, narrating his good deed. “Hey guys, today I’m giving this homeless man a meal,” he said, angling the camera toward a frail figure wrapped in a tattered coat. He handed over the sandwich, flashing a grin for his audience.

The old man sighed. “Would you have done it if no one was watching?”

The influencer lowered his phone, caught off guard. “What?”

“If there were no likes, no shares—would you still give?”

The young man hesitated. “Well… people need to see kindness to be inspired, right?”

The old man nodded. “But the Eye that truly matters already sees.” He tapped his temple, then pointed to the sky. “The Eye of Providence. The Father sees what is done in secret, and that is where true reward lies.”

The young man frowned. “But if I don’t show it, how will people know I’m doing good?”

The old man chuckled. “The greatest acts of love are often invisible. A prayer whispered for a stranger. A sacrifice no one knows about. A kindness done without expectation. That is how you reach your full potential—not through the eyes of men, but through the eyes of God.”

The wind stirred, rustling the trees. The young man looked down at his phone, then back at the old man. Slowly, he put the device away.

“Maybe next time, I’ll just… do it.”

The old man smiled. “Then you will be seen more clearly than ever before.”

And with that, he stood, walking into the fading light, as if he had never been there at all.