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Revive Lincoln’s Monetary Policy: an Open Letter to President Obama
Dear President Obama:
The world was transfixed on that remarkable day in January when, to poetry, song, and dance, you gazed upon Abraham Lincoln's likeness at the Lincoln Memorial and searched for wisdom to navigate these difficult times. Indeed, you have so many things in common with that venerable President that one might imagine you were his reincarnation in different dress. You are both thin and wiry, brilliant speakers, appearing on the national stage at pivotal times. Fertile imaginations could envision you coming back triumphantly as one of those slaves you freed, to prove once and for all the proposition that all men are created equal and can achieve great things if given a fighting chance. But as Wordsworth said, our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; and if that is true, you may have forgotten a more subtle form of slavery from which Lincoln freed his countrymen, even if you were there at the time. You may have forgotten it because it has been omitted from the history books, leaving Americans ill-equipped to interpret the lessons of our own past. This letter is therefore meant to remind you.
We are now met on another battlefield of that same economic war that visited Lincoln and the Founding Fathers before him. President Obama, the fate of our economy and the nation itself may depend on how well you understand Lincoln's monetary breakthrough, the most far-reaching "economic stimulus plan" ever implemented by a U.S. President. You can solve our economic crisis quickly and permanently, by implementing the same economic solution that allowed Lincoln to win the Civil War and thus save the Union from foreign economic masters.
Lincoln's Monetary Breakthrough
The bankers had Lincoln's government over a barrel, just as Wall Street has Congress in its vice-like grip today. The North needed money to fund a war, and the bankers were willing to lend it only under circumstances that amounted to extortion, involving staggering interest rates of 24 to 36 percent. Lincoln saw that this would bankrupt the North and asked a trusted colleague to research the matter and find a solution. In what may be the best piece of advice ever given to a sitting President, Colonel Dick Taylor of Illinois reported back that the Union had the power under the Constitution to solve its financing problem by printing its money as a sovereign government. Taylor said:
"Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes ... and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also. If you make them full legal tender ... they will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution."
The Greenbacks actually were just as good as the bankers' banknotes. Both were created on a printing press, but the banknotes had the veneer of legitimacy because they were "backed" by gold. The catch was that this backing was based on "fractional reserves," meaning the bankers held only a small fraction of the gold necessary to support all the loans represented by their banknotes. The "fractional reserve" ruse is still used today to create the impression that bankers are lending something other than mere debt created with accounting entries on their books. 1
Lincoln took Col. Taylor's advice and funded the war by printing paper notes backed by the credit of the government. These legal-tender U.S. Notes or "Greenbacks" represented receipts for labor and goods delivered to the United States. They were paid to soldiers and suppliers and were tradeable for goods and services of a value equivalent to their service to the community. The Greenbacks aided the Union not only in winning the war but in funding a period of unprecedented economic expansion. Lincoln's government created the greatest industrial giant the world had yet seen. The steel industry was launched, a continental railroad system was created, a new era of farm machinery and cheap tools was promoted, free higher education was established, government support was provided to all branches of science, the Bureau of Mines was organized, and labor productivity was increased by 50 to 75 percent. The Greenback was not the only currency used to fund these achievements; but they could not have been accomplished without it, and they could not have been accomplished on money borrowed at the usurious rates the bankers were attempting to extort from the North.
Lincoln succeeded in restoring the government's power to issue the national currency, but his revolutionary monetary policy was opposed by powerful forces. The threat to established interests was captured in an editorial of unknown authorship, said to have been published in The London Times in 1865:
"If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic during the late war in that country, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."
In 1865, Lincoln was assassinated. According to historian W. Cleon Skousen:
"Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution."
The institution that became established instead was the Federal Reserve, a privately-owned central bank given the power in 1913 to print Federal Reserve Notes (or dollar bills) and lend them to the government. The government was submerged in a debt that has grown exponentially since, until it is now an unrepayable $11 trillion. For nearly a century, Lincoln's statue at the Lincoln Memorial has gazed out pensively across the reflecting pool at the Federal Reserve building, as if pondering what the bankers had wrought since his death and how to remedy it.
Building on a Successful Tradition
Lincoln did not invent government-issued paper money. Rather, he restored a brilliant innovation of the American colonists. According to Benjamin Franklin, it was the colonists' home-grown paper "scrip" that was responsible for the remarkable abundance in the colonies at a time when England was suffering from the ravages of the Industrial Revolution. Like with Lincoln's Greenbacks, this prosperity posed a threat to the control of the British Crown and the emerging network of private British banks, prompting the King to ban the colonists' paper money and require the payment of taxes in gold. According to Franklin and several other historians of the period, it was these onerous demands by the Crown, and the corresponding collapse of the colonists' paper money supply, that actually sparked the Revolutionary War. 2
The colonists won the war but ultimately lost the money power to a private banking cartel, one that issued another form of paper money called "banknotes." Today the bankers' debt-based money has come to dominate most of the economies of the world; but there are a number of historical examples of the successful funding of economic development in other countries simply with government-issued credit. In Australia and New Zealand in the 1930s, the Depression conditions suffered elsewhere were avoided by drawing on a national credit card issued by publicly-owned central banks. The governments of the island states of Guernsey and Jersey created thriving economies that carried no federal debt, just by issuing their own debt-free public currencies. China has also funded impressive internal development through a system of state-owned banks.
Here in the United States, the state of North Dakota has a wholly state-owned bank that creates credit on its books just as private banks do. This credit is used to serve the needs of the community, and the interest on loans is returned to the government. Not coincidentally, North Dakota has a $1.2 billion budget surplus at a time when 46 of 50 states are insolvent, an impressive achievement for a state of isolated farmers battling challenging weather. 3 The North Dakota prototype could be copied not only in every U.S. state but at the federal level.
The Perennial Inflation Question
The objection invariably raised to government-issued currency or credit is that it would create dangerous hyperinflation. However, in none of these models has that proven to be true. Price inflation results either when the supply of money goes up but the supply of goods doesn't, or when speculators devalue currencies by massive short selling, as in those cases of Latin American hyperinflation when printing-press money was used to pay off foreign debt. When new money is used to produce new goods and services, price inflation does not result because supply and demand rise together. Prices did increase during the American Civil War, but this was attributed to the scarcity of goods common in wartime rather than to the Greenback itself. War produces weapons rather than consumer goods.
Today, with trillions of dollars being committed for bailouts and stimulus plans, another objection to Lincoln's solution is likely to be, "The U.S. government is already printing its own money - and lots of it." This, however, is a misconception. What the government prints are bonds - its I.O.U.s or debt. If the government did print dollars, instead of borrowing them from a privately-owned central bank that prints them, Uncle Sam would not have an eleven trillion dollar millstone hanging around his neck. As Thomas Edison astutely observed:
"If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people."
A Wake-up Call
Henry Ford observed at about the same time:
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Today we the people are starting to understand our banking and monetary system, and we are shocked, dismayed, and furious at what we are discovering. The wizard behind the curtain turns out to be a small group of men pulling levers and dials, creating an illusory money scheme that, behind all the talk and bravado, is mere smoke and mirrors. These levers are controlled by a privately-owned, unaccountable central bank called the Federal Reserve, which has recently dispensed billions if not trillions in funds to its banker cronies, without revealing where these monies are going even under Congressional inquiry or in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. As Chris Powell pointed out recently in conjunction with an FOIA request brought by Bloomberg News, which the Fed declined to comply with:
"Any government that can disburse $2 trillion secretly, without any accountability, is not a democratic government. It is government of, by, and, for the bankers." 4
There was a time when private central bankers were the heavyweights in control, able to run their ultra-secret agenda with impunity; but that era is coming to an end. The bankers are scrambling, trying to patch up their crumbling creations with schemes, bailouts and sleight of hand. That effort, however, must ultimately prove futile. As investment adviser Rolfe Winkler said in a recent article:
"The great Ponzi scheme that is the Western World's economy has grown so big there's simply no ‘fixing' it. Flushing more debt through the system would be like giving Madoff a few billion to tide him over. Or like adding another floor to the Tower of Babel. To what end? The collapse is already here. The question is: How much do we want it to hurt? Using the public's purse to finance ‘confidence' in a system that is already kaput may delay the Day of Reckoning, sure, but at the cost of multiplying our losses. Perhaps fantastically." 5
The bankers are on the run, feverishly trying to use the collapse of the current system to steer us toward an "Amero"-style North American currency, or a one-world private banking system and privately-issued global currency that they and only they control. We the people will not accept those solutions, however, no matter how bad things get. We demand real solutions that empower us, not enslave us.
Abraham Lincoln had such a solution. President Obama, you can finally bring his monetary solution to fruition. Manifest the vision of Lincoln, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin, and we the people will make sure you are placed in the pantheon of our greatest leaders and are revered for all time. America's greatest days can still be ahead of us; but for this to happen, we need to expose and root out the deceptive banking scheme that would enslave us to a future of debt and increasing homelessness in this great country our forefathers founded. The time has come for democracy to rise superior to a private banking cartel and take back the power to create money once again. Such a transformation would represent the most epochal and empowering shift that humanity has ever seen. As you recently said:
"This country has never responded to a crisis by sitting on the sidelines and hoping for the best. Throughout our history we have met every great challenge with bold action and big ideas."
Your words are a timely reminder of our long legacy of action and bold solutions in the face of adversity. Can we do this? Yes we can.
- Posted in
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65 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
Interesting that Ms. Brown brought up the subject of reincarnation. There were some emails making their way to "New Age" recipients suggesting that Obama was the reincarnation of Lincoln. I never bought it. Lincoln would never be a sell-out company man! Souls don't regress unless they perpetrated major crimes against others in prior incarnations. It is the "consciousness" that is carried over from life to life.
While the article raises important historical points and I'd LOVE to see the U.S. money system break away from the bankers' control, are enough citizens educated enough to demand this timely prescription for sounder national fiscal health?
Now I wonder if Lincoln's intention to break from the banker's clutches was the real reason for his asassination?
I also found the image of Lincoln's statue looking out pondering America's current fiscal fate quite compelling and poetic.
Gee, I missed the Lincoln reincarnation theory. Must have been distracted by the Malcom X lovechild theory. LOL. I like the Lincoln one better.
Lincoln though was a bit of a mixed bag. He was a Hamiltonian. He trampled on states rights, gave in to the banksters with the travesty known as the National Banking Act, an act as bad as the Fed, and established the income tax that was overturned after a decade by the Supreme Court, and he suspended habeus corpus.
Violent mass arrests, the suppression of civil liberties and opposition against the war, and conscription were also his legacy.
Even before he was President Lincoln sided with the idea of a Central Bank that was rejected by Andrew Jackson, Much of the financing for the railroads that Lincoln was involved with before he was President came from London and the money powers there via their agents on Wall Street.
We went to war against states who seceded because of the unfair economic policies and tarrifs that favoured the northern bankers and manufacturers at the expense of the south. The War on Slavery was the issue he used to get support for the war from the Northern citizens who initially saw it was a war fought for the banksters and were reluctant to fight it, much like we used terrorism to justify the war in Iraq. In the South of course, citizens were told Lincoln would free the slaves to gain their support, but even Lincoln in his own words before the war never intended to free the slaves in the states, he just wanted to keep the territories free of slavery.
He did issue the greenbacks and recognized that the British and their banksters were behind the Souths secession efforts to divide the US into two. A divided South would have been easy pickings for the European powers and we would have had perpetual conflicts with them, so even with the deaths of 600,000 Americans (equivalent to 5 million today) and destruction of 40% of our economy, it was necessary.
Unfortunately, after the first issue of the greenbacks which were made legal tender, Congress gave into the banksters and ensured subsequent issues would not be legal tender which weakend the value of the greenback and ensured the war would end with the US in serious debt.
Slavery would have ended without war, as it did everywhere else, since we had no shortage of cheap labour as immigrants were clamouring to escape Europe, unlike in the early days of the British colonies when the slave trade was at it's peak.
It was recognized that having wage slaves was more economical than having slaves you need to raise, feed, cloth, house and take care of when they were sick, and they were prone to run away, not to mention the threat posed of an uprising which required costly security measures. Southerners had a great fear of a black revolution such as that which took place in Haiti, so even those who did not own slaves were fearful of slavery ending.
The importation of slaves had long ended, with a death penalty in place (the only country with a punishment of death) and all that remained was negotiating compensation with the states for those slave owners to replace their losses and addressing the security concerns. The legacy of slavery was inherited from the British, but was not the main reason for the war, although it was the popular reason. The official reason for war is rarely the real reason.
Lincoln also contributed to the mass murder of the Plains Indians in order to make room for the transcontinental railroads Lincoln pushed so hard for, and he built the foundations for our subsequent imperialistic policies abroad, with McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR and Bush all taking lessons from Lincolns execution of the Civil War in their own wars and occupations.
He might have been killed for winning the war, not just the greenbacks, as the Brits and French would have preferred we remained divided. Also, he might have been killed since he would have been an obstacle to the looting of the South with the reconstruction. Lincoln was pretty intent of being fair to the South in order that the union might be reinstated smoothly. It's interesting, but the Czar was assasinated some years later as well, by Lenins brother. If not for Russias intervention we might have lost the Civil War and never had the opportunity to get Alaska, so that may have been one of the reasons. The Czar also ended serfdom and slavery in Russia in 1861 at the time Lincoln started the Civil War which ended slavery in America.
While we are in an assload of debt, if I'm not mistaken, right now the Fed is lending to the Treasury at near zero interest, isn't it?
Sure sure, the banksters are currently lending nothingness at a nothingness rate, but later to lend nothingness for a fat slice of our real production surplus. We're waiting for the day we can start trading our surplus, once again, to the banksters for nothingness in return.
Actually, the Fed has been forced to return all interest less cost (including 6% dividends to their shareholders)to the US Treasury since Patman and the 70's. Thats why they do not normally lend us much money but force us to sell treasuries to the principal dealers (some of them member banks of the Fed), OPEC and China where we must pay the interest. The fact that they are doing so however allows the system to monetize this debt. For example, 1 trillion will allow the creation of 10 trillion in new money since we have a fractional reserve system (actually, the rules have been adjusted to make the 10% more like 3% ) Money of course is just a reflection of debt, no debt, no money, so they issue a loan and then create the money to give those they loan the money to, 10 trillion in new money, and 10 trillion in new debt of one form or another. A system like that is FUBAR.
Copenhagen Blues,
Can you explain further why we are in debt to China when we can "borrow" money from the feed, essentially interest free (less cost)? I've been trying to understand this. Does it also have something to do with the trade deficit?
This libertarian political movement is very dangerous and is establishing its roots within the New Age Movement and the ultra right wing. It is no accident that both the New Agers and the neo-Nazis have adopted this mindset. The roots of the two can be traced back to the Nazi party of Germany, which not only attacked the "conspiracy" of the Jewish bankers as the cause of all evils, but also wrapped itself in the symbols of the occult. Whenever one reads the catch phrases of this movement, such as "New World Order", "World Government" or "North American Currency", the alarm bells should go off.
The purpose of this movement is to confuse and distort the real causes of the economic crisis, the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system itself and replace it with grand conspiracy theories, that like all such theories hold an element of truth, but don't tell the whole story.
The fact that Ellen Brown's past writings are on New Age themes like "Nature's Pharmacy" doesn't suggest that she is any kind of authority on political economy. Rather, it verifies the linkages that exist between the New Agers and the ultra right.
This world view is being promoted throughout the Internet and winning more and more adherents. It is essentially an anti-working class analysis trying to cover up the operations of the capitalist system itself with the view that the problems of capitalism are not its internal contradictions but rather simply a problem with the way money is distributed. Although this movement takes on power elites as the enemy, it also views the Left and more particularly the Marxists as its enemy. In other words, it is an anti-communist movement first and formost. A little investigation of the linkages of this movement will show the cross linking that occurs between the New Age Movement and the Neo-Nazi Movements. People, be careful! It is a very dangerous trend.
So then, please explain what a genuine leftist alternative would be.
Simply put, the end to the private appropriation of wealth by the capitalist class. In other words, socialism, where all wealth is appropriated by the people that actually produce the wealth of a society - the working class. Each country will establish a socialist system unique to both its own technological development in the means of production and its political development and history. So I can't give you details on the "leftist alternative" other than the basic concept that a capitalist class will no longer be there to exploit the labour power of workers for its own private wealth. Rather, society's wealth will be appropriated in full by the working class, be it through state controlled industries or worker co-operatives or a mix of the two.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Struggle, you have clearly never read a shred of history or economics for that matter.
Socialism will always fail as it cannot accurately assess, anticipate, nor appropriate the proper resources for the individual, and it cannot know the cost of doing so.
Read the Governors journal from Plymouth Rock about their experiment with Socialism. They starved because of collective sharing, and only realized prosperity when he put an end to it. When he let the individual decide how hard they needed to work, and what kind of resources they needed.
Read Socialism, by Mises. Read The Road to Serfdom by Hayek.
"Struggle, you have clearly never read a shred of history or economics for that matter."
I don't know how much you've read on these subjects over your life time, but I can assure you that I've read plenty. I've spent over 40 years studying this stuff in depth. I guess you discard what I'm saying because the concepts are so alien to you. These concepts have been purposely kept away from people because they challenge the capitalist hegemony.
I base my understanding of economics on the writings of Karl Marx whose economic theories was the first to nail down the actual workings of capitalism and have yet to be disputed. His economic theories have certainly been distorted, but never been shown to be incorrect. In fact, capitalist economists that followed him have been trying to do that for well over a hundred years and all their theories have proven to be incorrect.
As to history, the only thing that makes sense is Marx's "historical materialism" and if history is read through that lens, history takes on a real meaning and not just the prejudices of the ruling classes of the eras covered.
May I suggest you read Das Kapital - Volumes I through III and then get back to me. I'm sure you'll find it enlightening. :-)
If that is too heavy and you don't have a few years to read and comprehend this great work, you might want to look at an introduction to the subject. Although I've got the original pamphlet here in my library, I'm glad to see it is available online:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/index.htm
Your concepts are not alien to me...I unlike you have read all sides of the economic story. Your concepts are outdated and failed.
You reveal your ignorance with your misunderstanding of the word "capitalism". We have nothing like it in this nation. We haven't for nearly a hundred years.
I don't know how people don't get it...YOU DON'T HAVE A FREE MARKET IF YOU HAVE A CENTRAL BANK. It is absurd or juvenille to believe that you can have a truly free market of mutual transactional cooperation if a central authority arbitrarily manipulates interest rates, the supply of money, lending standards and reserve ratios.
All of that banking manipulation creates distortions, misallocations that a truly free market would not.
All of that banking manipulation happens for one reason...to facilitate the growth and power of the Leviathan superstate to make war and extort money for a small group of plutocrats.
America is not a free capitalistic society. It is a proto-fascist, corporatist society, where the governing elite manipulate laws and regulations to advance their wealth and power.
BTW, Das Kapital is heavy????? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!
I dare you to pick up a book by Mises. He is one of the most advanced intellectual thinkers of the 20th century. I doubt you could get through any of his important works.
Hahahaha yourself, brushfire.
We don't need no more stinkin' neocons -- Mises, Von Hayek, FRIEDMAN -- thank you very much!
N.M.
NM... do you know what a Neocon is? Clearly you are wanting.
A neo-con is a fascist, corporatist, mercantilist, ambitious power crazed freak.
Mises was a pacifist who believed in freedom, choice and the classical ideas of liberty that gave you the opportunity to write here.
Mises abhorred the superstate that creates neocon fanatics, global wars and global poverty.
Not that many New Agers aren't 'out there,' but I do not see the evangelical ultra right ever embracing their "I Am God" philosophy. That being said, the ultra greedy will embrace whatever furthers their selfish aims. Generally, New Age groups regard themselves as more 'progressive,' or secular humanists. Psychologically, I think the old rule applies: birds of a feather flock together (regardless of their professed beliefs).
Philosophy can be divided into 2 trends. One is the idealist trend and the other is the materialist trend. The former has the view that the consciousness creates our reality, while the latter offers the view that reality creates our consciousness. These two schools of philosophy is the basis of ones worldview. There is not a lot of difference between the New Agers, UFOligists, Christian fundamentalists from a philosophical perspective. All start from the point of view that some higher consciousness creates the world. So you're quite correct, "birds of a feather flock together". :-)
"Philosophy can be divided into 2 trends. One is the idealist trend and the other is the materialist trend. The former has the view that the consciousness creates our reality, while the latter offers the view that reality creates our consciousness."
I used to study AI and cybernetics in grad school many moons ago and there I learned to think of the process as a feedback loop involving both approaches. From this perspective, we develop a model of the "out there" in our brains (in our consciousness) based on experience, i.e. absorbing energy of various kinds from the "out there" with our sensory organs and using processes programmed by evolution to analyze such energy and organize neurons in response to form a useful model, and then with that model we activate our body to manipulate the "out there," and that process provides its own various types of feedback to adjust or terminate the activity, leading to more feedback and so on. So our consciousness is determined by the "out there" but our consciousness also in part determines the "out there" in a continuous feedback loop. Maybe that is somewhat reminiscent of the emphasis many Buddhists place on "being one with the universe." However, what I was describing was not really related to religious or quasi-religious concepts having to do with some universal or master consciousness that creates or nurtures a human individual's own puny consciousness.
Sioux Rose
STRUGGLE: First off, "These two schools of philosophy IS..." WRONG! One is, two are, as in how about some subject-verb agreement if you want to make sense.
As to your strict either-or hypothesis, BOTH systems operate. We live in an interactive universe and we, meaning human mortal beings, are NOT the highest form of life regardless of what science at this point in human understanding can specify. Consciousness impacts matter and matter impacts consciousness. It's a complex invisible "dance." The universe is light and energy and these change form. I am not going to get into a heavy debate on this topic, I just wish to relate that the premises are NOT and never have been mutually exclusive except to those minds who seek a very limited materialistic notion upon which to hang their version of "reality." And you sound an awful lot like Hootowl. Any resemblance?
We have the occasional philosphy student visit our site who sees the world entirely thru the prism of this discipline.
That's fine, all perspectives are welcome. But when you view the world through a telescope you're going to have a limited view.
I too remember Hootowl.
I had a long debate with him.
He was completely unaware that quantum physics had already PROVEN that consciousness affects physical reality and still would not admit it even after I provided an endless supply of links.
He wanted to believe what he wanted to believe.
Our friend STRUGGLE also makes statements about links between New Agers and Neo-Nazis that are WAY off-base.
I invite our friend STRUGGLE to go to a New Age expo and talk to the people. I defy him to find a single New Ager who believes ANYTHING, ANYTHING at all that a neo-nazi does.
Perhaps he's using the term New-Ager as it applied to Nazi Germany. If he is he should make a distinction.
Quantum mechanics has proven no such thing. Your misconception is common among people who are not comfortable with math. Unfortunately for them, math is the language of nature.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray
http://www.paulmurray.id.au/ageofworms
And a link to your homepage with your picture does?
The second link did not work.
I'm going to be collapsing some wave functions today, how about you?
Right, our consciousness perceives and acts within the 'field' of a broader (some might say Cosmic) Consciousness, which serves as a mirror for our projections; we do not transform the Greater Reality of which we are part, but It allows us to transform ourselves (i.e., our interaction within this Greater Field). A popular New Age notion is that we actually create the whole of Reality through perception, rather than ourselves being a creation within IT. Egoic perception is limited and cannot rise above it's own limitation, so it generally concludes that what it perceives is all there is which is, of course, an illusion--albeit a very persistent one.
You might be interested in a series of discussions where a mystic J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm (a renown quantum physicist) explore the nature time, consciousness, and the ground of being in a book called "The Ending of Time." You can find the complete text here:
http://tchl.freeweb.hu/
Enjoy!
Sioux Rose
CHESSGAME: Very well-stated. You capture the essence of the argument. Thank you.
Thanks Rose, I've wasted many hours discussing this at another site. :o)
Sioux Rose
CHESSGAME: Thank you. What an odd belief to see opposites uniting, but he has ONE point I will concede: agents/publishers are very interested (given they, too, work for large corporations) in "product" that reinforces the current economic-political bottom line, and it is "YOU" are responsible, i.e. YOYO economics.
The discourse in spiritual/mystical/metaphysical literature published BEFORE the l980's was profound and that is where my education began. What it has morphed into seems to follow a hybrid where the pure teachings have become adulterated to suit a model of "success;" and it's one that's about "getting" and "creating abundance." That is where a bridge between right wing ideologies and certain elements of "new age" material can be found.
The popularity of "The Secret" and the idea of bending the laws of manifestation to suit one's personal desires I happen to term "Republican spirituality," and as a writer I have seen my visionary work repeatedly rejected in favor of this type of pabulum. This species of material is READILY published because it resonates with the dense sensibilities of those who decide. The editors are the gatekeepers of culture, and sworn to their corporate masters who also relish earthbound views.
The material I read prior to l980 was not spiritual teachings IN SERVICE to materialistic goals. And some of what the uninitiated term "New Age" is hardly that, we're talking beliefs (like astrology and reincarnation) that go back thousands of years.
In my view any authentic spiritual teaching points to a state of 'higher consciousness' through the dissolution of the artificial self, not through the attainment of self-centered desire, which is its antithesis. This so-called faux 'spirituality' is nothing of the sort, but only egotism in another form, and can be adopted by any 'false' teaching. For example, some Christians claim that their material wealth is proof that 'god' has blessed them which, of course, is nonsense, and fits in with the republican philosophy quite well.
Sioux Rose
CHESSGAME: That is what I was pointing out, that the ONLY area of congruence between conservatives (what Struggle may have meant by Nazis) and "New Agers" is the common concept that one can create a desirable reality and if they are able to do so, it is PROOF of "God's favor." Divine right of nouveau riche style.
This libertarian political movement is very dangerous and is establishing its roots within the New Age Movement and the ultra right wing.
--------------------------------
I think progressives are simply evaluating the idea of taking back control of our money supply from the private bankers.
If this idea has its roots in libertarianism then so be it.
The idea seems to have a great degree of merit.
I don't see progressives, especially on this website, as susceptible victims to the entire crazy libertarian menu.
I cannot speak for the New Agers or Right Wingers.
Obviously it sounds like you are a Communist. Anyone exposing the conspiracy is dangerous to the Communists. However, you have a right to your beliefs. I do find some communists tend to resort to name calling, anti-semite (if anyone refers to financial conspiracy), neo-nazis (if anyone refers to a Communist conspiracy), etc, and generally do not accept any type of conspiracy, as conspirators seek protection from the theories which may expose them.
I would suggest people read Blacklisted By History by M. Stanton Evans for more about the Communist Conspiracy that some Americans tried to address in the 50's, since discredited as McCarthyism.
In 1995, there was the public release of the Venona Project which shows that there was such a conspiracy. Venona consisted of a series of Soviet messages, mostly between the years of 1942 and 1945, which were decrypted by American and British intelligence agencies. Venona revealed the vast Communist underground operating at the highest levels of government. Despite the fact that the intelligence community publicly released Venona through a congressional commission chaired by the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, it received little attention in the press.
As for the use of the word New World Order, you obviously have not been paying attention to global leaders who use the term very frequently of late.
The term capitalism was invented by Marx. Before that our economy was described as a free market economy where the government served to prevent monopolies and the states had much power, and central control by the Federal Government was minimal. It was based on competitive capitalism. Shortly after 1848, the Civil War led to the US pursuing monopoly capitalism and increasingly centralized control over the economy, adopting over time many of the same measures as outlined in Marx's Communist Manifesto.
Marx's vision was never state run Communism as practiced by Stalin or Mao, he recognized the world must be industrialized via Capitalism first, which is why China and the Soviet Union gave up pure Communism, so they could be inustrialized, while in American we have voluntarily de-industrialized to accomodate Chinas growth. Marx's vision was Global Communism. Russia's failure at Democracy and their attempt at a capitalist economy was likely by design, to discredit democracy and capitalism, but failing to acknowledge that Russia was controlled by oligarchs who were monopoly capitalists.
Nietzsche at about the same time express the ideas that led to fascism, which is the intermediate step to Global Communism, although today you might better refer to it as corporate government, or a defacto corporate global government, which is essentially what we are now. He believed that to be powerful is to do things expressing that power. Thus it is impossible to expect a beast of prey to ever truly be a lamb. Essentially a ringing endorsement of letting the beast-of-prey conscience range freely, which is essentially an endorsement of fascism.
A core theme of Nietzsche’s thought is inegalitarianism, or elitism: clearly, some people are better than others. He frequently expressed a fundamental distrust of democracy, or majority rule. He did not believe weaker or disenfranchised people should receive the protection of law, since such protection would only preserve or reinforce their weakness. In short, only the superior ones have rights, and their rights are commensurate with their power. He believed the superiors have responsibility to one another only to the extent that others can help them to build their own power. This is not unlike the views expressed by philosophers from Plato to Leo Strauss which have been adopted by our ruling elite.
To the inferior ones, the superior have no responsibility at all, except to present them with adversity, in the hope of building their strength and fashioning them into worthy opponents. This kind of fits in with the Social Darwinists, eugenicists, and neo-malthusians world view.
And the free trade that has destroyed our economy is the same Free Trade that the British established in the 19th century, as it is necessary tool for the strong nations ruling elite to assume control over weaker nations, even if it is done at the expense of their own peoples economy. The British elite in those days were globalists. Of course, when a nation gives control over it's money it the financial ruling elite, and embraces free trade (like the WTO, NAFTA), it's government seizes to be a government representing the people, and indeed it is controlled by the finacial ruling elite, who then use governments to pursue their globalist agenda.
Now, it's a very funny thing, but if you were go back in history to look into those who backed Zionism, Communism and Fascism (Hitler), you would find some of the same folks, and not all Jewish. In fact, they wanted to wipe out the devout followers of all religions, Jews, Christians and Muslim alike, to make room for a secular state religion for when we have a One World Government.
In fact, I would suggest you read the following, a real eye opener.
Zionism and Cosmopolitianism by Arthur D Lewis, published by English Zionist Federation in 1919.
It may still be available on-line as a free pdf downlaod. It is clear that this publication was designed to inflame anti-semitism, as was the Protocols which was translated into English and published in the West about the same time. Anti-semites like Hitler latched on to these 2 publications, and the rest is history.
Clearly this is not a Jewish Conspiracy, but a conspiracy of the global ruling elite to re-engineer the world into a world where they can rule freely without being constrained by laws protecting rights, or moral laws of religions. Kind of like a paradise on earth for them, and hell on earth for the majority.
If Lincoln's threat to established interests probably got him assassinated, how long would Obama last if he was considered a threat to larger interests established for much longer?
Referendums would be a threat to established interests, but they can't kill us all, can they?
Oh shut up about those stupid conspiracy theories already ! You're doing nothing but giving Barry a "free" pass !!
Just injecting another viewpoint Jennifer. No need to be rude. If you really want to influence Barry, I think there are better ways of doing it than joining Rush to make him fail.
I'm not asking for Barry to fail unlike Rush. In fact, I wish he'd wake up and realize what he's dearly costing this country. If you want to state those silly cowardly conspiracy theories as excuse for Barry not to do the right thing, fine. Don't come crying when he gets the pink slip in 2012.
"I second Jennifer. ezeflyer should indeed shut up."
What are you guys, the left conservative versions of Bill O'Reilly?
GREAT ARTICLE!!!!!
Ellen Brown’s proposals are designed to remove the financiers and their usury-based private banking system from its policy-making role in the national economy so that monetary policy can be formulated by the people’s government in the public interest, or the general welfare, as the Constitution refers to it.
Why not do both?
Stop borrowing from bankers to fund our needs AND take back the control over decisions about those needs. Support leaders who will channel fury into non-violent change - with bodies on the line to, as Roosevelt said, 'make me do it.'
Obama could still be that leader, but he must decide which fork to take - and soon. We could still support him - but we must get active - together. Belonging leads to meaning which begets hope. Peace.
Obama is either corrupt or a coward, he's not going to challenge the money-changers.
It's not going to happen. So give up on this line of thought.
America is a credit-junkie. Most junkies do not change until they hit rock-bottom.
You think things are bad now? You ain't seen nothing.
When this baby crashes we'll be lucky if it doesn't leave a black-hole in its wake.
Whatever or whoever is around after the impact will have the opportunity to learn from history and get it right.
Hopefully there'll be justice for the bankers as they get dragged kicking and screaming from their now unsafe compounds.
Ellen,
You need to pick up a book by Mises, Rothbard or even Hayek. You only have half the story right.
Mises (and the Austrian School) have shown without a doubt that inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon. You cannot simply inflate your way to prosperity by creating more paper money. The colonists (with Franklin) enjoyed a brief perception of "prosperity" which is created by the new money. So did we during Greenspans lower rates as "easy" money flowed through the system.
This is a false and market-disconnected phenomenon. It is not reality. You neglected to tell the story of the Continental, which the Continental Congress printed lots of money to pay the army and its supplies. Very shortly the phrase "That aint worth a Continental" became popular, because the supply of money was so great, each one became worth less and less. The colonists began using the Spanish milled silver and gold coins shortly thereafter, as supply was restricted.
You cannot defy the most fundamental law of economics simply by printing more. America will relearn that again in short order.
Having said that...I applaud your criticism of the Federal Reserve system. Mises debunked that long ago...but then, so did Jefferson. We forget the lessons of history, preferring the quick fix.
"The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."
brushfire,
why don't you tell the whole story? The quick version is that neoliberal hegemony has been a careful project since the end of WWII beginning with Hayek's convening of the Mont Pelerin Society seeking to reestablish the supremacy of the market in all matters based on the belief that society is best run by a small coterie of men groomed to leadership. The role of the masses is to do what the leadership needs them to do; the role of the leadership is to hold on to that leadership by any and all means, which their superiority to the masses justifies. Is this beginning to sound familiar?
N.M.
You are confusing Hayek with Marx. Hayek believed the supremacy of the market lie in the vast ability of individuals to choose a life that they saw fit.
The Continental was inflated way out of proportion to the goods and services of the colonists because of the war they were waging with England. War costs inflated the system the colonists had created. Perhaps those advising Lincoln knew their history and did not make the same mistake again for the civil war, at least as regards the usury of the central bankers. The Lincoln-Obama connection would be well served by remembering what Ellen Brown is pointing out about the Greenbacks, as well as what Franklin pointed out about the Continentals.
"The refusal of King George to operate an honest colonial money system which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution. The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters, had it not been that England took away from the Colonies their money, which created unemployment and dis-satisfaction."
Benjamin Franklin
PS You can call me a New Ager if you want, but I have no intention of subscribing to the Libertarian side of the equation. We do, however, need enough people from all sides hammering home the point that usury and war are, and have always been, evil, and just plain stupid! for the human species.
Clarabell.
The Continental was overprinted. Plain and simple.
"War costs inflated the system the colonists had created." What? You don't make any sense. Take a look at Zimbabwe today. They are printing money like crazy...and it is never enough. One day they create a million dollar note...days later a 100 million dollar note. The reason is supply, and the Zimbabwe government has destroyed the demand for its currency by printing too much of it. Toilet paper is more valuable.
Money follows all the same laws as any other commodity. Too much supply and demand drops. THIS IS WHY THE CHINESE ARE NOT BUYING ANY MORE US TREASURIES!!!!!! We have overprinted and they are losing their ass. The game is up.
Franklin was one of the wealthiest Americans (proportionally) of all time. He got that way printing currency for the King.
When the supply of money is inflated...at first things seem great. More money! Yippee! Soon its effects are felt.
The supply of money in this country have doubled recently. See a chart of M1. The cost of milk, eggs has risen 25% in the last year. The reason isnt because of egg costs...it is because each dollar buys less. Costs go up as the supply of money increases.
Gold has tripled in 10 years, because people fear inflation. The loss of purchasing power caused by a rampant increase in the supply of currency.
Beware Mises and Von Hayek -- and Von Hayek's disciple, Milton Friedman. How do you think we got into this mess?
N.M.
We got into this mess because we permit a central bank to manipulate the supply of money, by lending to the government to make war.
We got into this mess because of Keynesian economic philosophy, which advocates central banking, authoritarian control over wages, prices, excessive regulations and laws.
Not because of Mises, Hayek or Friedman. Their ideas have largely been ignored by the economic world. I have debated college economic professors on this. They reject the ideas of these men in the mistaken belief that a central authority can decide what is best for the individual.
"bold action and big ideas."
How about equitable action and sensible ideas? You see O'Bamba's rhetoric itself reflects what's the matter with the USA.
We are all being affected by the collapse of our privatized monetary system as this deflationary storm gathers strength, and yet based on the comments to Ellen Brown's article thus far you wouldn't know it. Commentators seem to have plenty of leisure to bloviate over the inane and irrelevant.
"Libertarian", "new age", "reincarnation"? What the hell has this got to do with monetary policy and financial survival? Why not pay attention to what the author of the article is saying and respond to it? That seems basic courtesy.
She's saying that our Constitution invests our government with the "money power", the sovereign right to issue the nation's currency, and that Abraham Lincoln's administration was the first and only administration to exercise this sovereign right when it issued the greenback, a fiat paper currency. It was this paper currency that allowed the North to win the Civil War. This is historical fact. The $450,000,000 in pure fiat currency backed by the full faith and credit of the government saved the Union.
In the same way the continentals allowed the Continental Congress to win the Revolutionary War. The primary difference between the greenback and the continental was that the greenback were not successfully counterfeited, whereas the British easily duplicated the continentals and created a devastating inflation by shipping boatloads of counterfeits into the colonies. Even so, the continental worked long enough to prosecute the Revolution before the British destroyed it.
We are confronted by the failure of the private Federal Reserve to competently manage the nation's monetary system. The crisis we are in is as dire as any we have faced since the 18th Century. Comparisons with the 1930's do not adequately suggest the profound nature of our dilemma. We should look to our history and our Constitution for solutions. Our sovereign status is at stake.
I am appalled by the narcissistic complacency in this commentary.
President John Kennedy also did an end-run around the Federal Reserve by issuing "Silver Certificates" in competition with Federal Reserve Notes. Jim Douglass, in his book "JFK and the unspeakable : why he died and why it matters," suggests that this was one of the issues that led US elites to arrange his assassination. (Sorry I don't have a page reference--I have mislaid my copy of the book, or perhaps lent it to a friend.)
He was also pushing an Interest Equalization Tax which would have taxed all capital leaving the US for investing in factories overseas, this was water downed after he was killed. He gave Big Oil a hard time of the oil depletion allowance, and Israel was getting grief from him over their nuclear program, and he was not inclined to go big in Vietnam, and there were worries he would try to make nice with the Soviets and tone down the Cold War and even Castro, not to mention the grief his brother was giving the Lansky Mafia. Plus he was Catholic.
A radical approach would be for individuals to begin eschewing money altogether and begin creating a complex barter system. A complex barter system would not need to simply rely on trading what one has on hand. It could also incorporate the use of personal scrip. For example, person X gives me ten ears of corn now for my promise to give him three pairs of shoes no later than a specified time. This "shoe promise" could be held by person X, or traded to person Y by person X for something else person X values. The parties in the transaction decide the trade-value of each item or service being offered. It true that such a system depends on honest individuals - but then so does our current system.