Judge Andrew Napolitano has been a champion for freedom and the Constitution, and an outspoken critic of the government which has far overstepped its bounds. That seems to have been too much for the oligarchs and their corporate minions at Fox News. Watch this video.
In a previous post (Who Will occupy Whom? A Warning for OWS) I warned about threats to the occupy movement and suggested a general strategy for achieving popular empowerment, peace, justice, and personal freedom. That post was prompted by, and included, an insightful article by Richard K. Moore. This one is stimulated by an article by Chris Hedges that highlights a more immediate threat that has recently developed in Oakland and elsewhere. That threat appears in the form of violent mob action that goes under the rubric of The Black Bloc. According to Wikipedia, “The Black Bloc is sometimes incorrectly reported as being the name of a specific anarchist group. It is, rather, a tactic that may be adopted by groups of various motivations and methods.” Those methods include violent confrontation with authority and destruction of property, tactics that play right into the hands of domineering oligarchs intent of preserving their privilege and hold on power. No doubt, the actions of many Black Bloc protesters are motivated by their ardently held, though misguided, ideology, but it seems likely that there are among their leadership agents provocateur who are intent on helping to maintain the present power structure by discrediting any opposition to it.
The media have generally characterized these anarchist actions as being part of the Occupy movement, but as Chris Hedges points out in his article, The Cancer in Occupy, The Black Bloc is no friend to the Occupy movement which began as peaceful expressions of discontent with the status quo, and is hopefully maturing into a progressive movement toward popular empowerment. Hedges calls the Black Bloc anarchists “the cancer of the Occupy movement,” and I’m inclined to agree. One feature of the Black Bloc protesters, and the basis for the name, is that they dress in black clothing and use ski masks, scarves, sun glasses, and other means to obscure their faces. But anonymity and concealment are antithetical to civil society and are more likely to enable criminal and anti-social activity rather than protection for the legitimate assertion of people’s rights.
Any movement will eventually develop factions that diverge on the basis of philosophy, goals, strategies and tactics. The mainstream of the Occupy movement must find ways to distance itself from such groups and tactics because, as Hedges points out, “Once the Occupy movement is painted as a flag-burning, rock-throwing, angry mob we are finished. If we become isolated we can be crushed.” One way to preserve the legitimacy of the movement is to insist on openness and transparency. If that can be expressed strongly enough, it might preserve in the public mind the identity of Occupy as a benign and creative force.
I believe that the ends are inherent in the means and that, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12, KJV). The Occupy movement must move toward disciplined organization and employ tactics that are at once compassionate and effective, tactics that even progressives who work within the establishment can embrace. It must be a form of organization that relies not on power hierarchies, but on solidarity and consensus within small communities of peers organized into large networks than can enable concerted action.
The real threat to the powers that be, (and the most promising path toward our goals) is intelligent, non-violent, empowering actions that make them and their systems irrelevant.
The way forward, as I see it, is to assert our fundamental rights and to organize better ways of providing for our basic needs. Yes, there will be adverse consequences, but ultimately right will prevail. I am reminded of a scene from the film Gandhi, in which the mahatma leads a large number of people on a march to the sea—to make salt. Why was that a revolutionary act? Because the British government had a “legal” monopoly that forced people in India to buy their salt from that single source. What a patent absurdity, to tell people that they are prohibited from making their own salt. What a gross infringement of basic human rights!
But people everywhere today suffer under equally absurd “laws” that force people to rely upon banking cartels to provide government-approved forms of money to enable the exchange of the goods and services we all need. In some places, competing forms of currency and financing alternatives are prohibited outright, in others they are impeded by onerous taxation and reporting requirements. But ultimately, the people will reclaim the credit commons and free themselves from oppressive systems of money and finance. I urge you again to heed the prescriptions outlined in my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.
Viva la revolución pacífica!
–t.h.g.
In his recent article that appeared in Counterpunch, Paul Craig Roberts, tells the story of the American economy as it really is.–t.h.g.
February 01, 2012
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Last Friday (January 27) the US Bureau of Economic Analysis announced its advance estimate that in the last quarter of 2011 the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8% in real inflation-adjusted terms, an increase from the annual rate of growth in the third quarter.
Good news, right?
Wrong. If you want to know what is really happening, you must turn to John Williams at shadowstats.com.
What the presstitute media did not tell us is that almost the entire gain In GDP growth was due to “involuntary inventory build-up,” that is, more goods were produced than were sold.
Net of the unsold goods, the annualized real growth rate was eight-tenths of one percent.
And even that tiny growth rate is an exaggeration, because it is deflated with a measure of inflation that understates inflation. The US government’s measure of inflation no longer measures a constant standard of living. Instead, the government’s inflation measure relies on substitution of cheaper goods for those that rise in price. In other words, the government holds the measure of inflation down by measuring a declining standard of living. This permits our rulers to divert cost-of-living-adjustments that should be paid to Social Security recipients to wars of aggression, police state, and banker bailouts.
When the methodology that measures a constant standard of living is used to deflate nominal GDP, the result is a shrinking US economy. It becomes clear that the US economy has had no recovery and has now been in deep recession for four years despite the proclamation by the National Bureau of Economic Research of a recovery based on the rigged official numbers.
A government can always produce the illusion of economic growth by underestimating the rate of inflation. There is no question that a substitution-based measure of inflation understates the inflation that people experience. More proof that there has been no economic recovery is available from those data series that are unaffected by inflation. If the economy were in fact recovering, these date series would be picking up. Instead, they are flat or declining, as John Williams demonstrates.
For example, according to the government’s own data, payroll employment in December 2011 is less than in 2001. Meanwhile, there has been a decade of population growth. The presstitute media calls the alleged economic recovery a “jobless recovery,” which is a contradiction in terms. There can be no recovery without a growth in employment and consumer income.
Real average weekly earnings (deflated by the government’s CPI-W) have never recovered their 1973 peak. Real median household income (deflated by the government’s CPI-U) has not recovered its 2001 peak and is below the 1969 level. If earnings were deflated by the original methodology instead of by the new substitution-based methodology, the picture would be bleaker.
Consumer confidence shows no recovery and is far below the level of a decade ago.
How does an economy recover without a recovery in consumer confidence?
Housing starts have remained flat since 2009 and are below their previous peak.
Retail sales are below the index level of January 2000.
Industrial production remains below the index level of January 2000.
To repeat, the only indicator of economic recovery is the GDP deflated with an understated measure of inflation.
The US economy cannot recover, because the US economy depends on consumer expenditures for more than 70% of its activity. The offshoring of middle class jobs has stopped the rise in middle class income and caused a drop in consumer spending power.
The Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan compensated for the absence of US consumer income growth with a policy of easy credit and a policy of driving up home prices with low interest rates. This policy allowed people to refinance their homes and to spend the inflated equity in their homes that Greenspan’s policy created.
In other words, an increase in consumer indebtedness and dissavings drove the economy in the place of the missing growth in consumer incomes.
Today, consumers are too indebted to borrow, and banks are too insolvent to lend. Therefore, there is no possibility of further debt expansion as a substitute for real income growth. An offshored economy is a dead and exhausted economy.
The consequences of a dead economy when the government is wasting trillions of dollars in wars of naked aggression and in bailouts of fraudulent financial institutions is a government budget that can only be financed by printing money.
The consequence of printing money when jobs have been moved offshore is an inflationary depression. This catastrophe could begin to unfold this year or in 2013. If Europe’s problems worsen, flight into dollars could delay sharp rises in US inflation until 2014.
The emperor has no clothes, and sooner or later this will be recognized.
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached through his website
Posted in Economics, Geo-politics
Tagged economy, inflation, inflation measure, nominal gdp, Paul Craig Roberts
I helped RHD set up their Equal Dollars currency back in the late 90’s. Here is a recent report about it from CNN. Sorry about the annoying commercial at the beginning.–t.h.g.
How I buy groceries without cash – Video – Personal Finance.
Posted in Developing Alternatives
Tagged Equal Dollars, local currency, Philadelphia, RHD
What is it that enables less than 1 percent of the population to control, dominate, and exploit the rest of us? Some will say it’s ignorance and fear, other will say it’s laziness and irresponsibility. There is probably just enough truth in all of that to enable the 1 percent to justify their actions. The fundamental question remains: Are the people capable of self-government?
I think we are, so now it comes down to deciding the best strategies for enabling the necessary massive power shift.
A recent article by George Lakey provides some food for thought. It tells the inspiring story about How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’
Here’s the bottom line:
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
Now read the rest of the story: How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’.
It may not be desirable or even possible for us to apply the precise tactics of 20th century Scandinavia, but the basic approach remains valid: non-violence, social solidarity, and organization in pursuit of the common good.
I don’t take seriously the words of politicians, nor do I pay much attention to the quadrennial presidential election charade. The outcome is decided well in advance of the presidential primaries by the power that be. The mainstream media coverage becomes almost laughable when you notice how the networks contort themselves to make an establishment puppet look like a viable candidate while ignoring anyone who might represent popular interests and real change. That is ably illustrated by this video:
And this article by Patrick Martin helps us to read between the lines of Obama’s speech and understand the dismal state of American government. It is clear that whomever occupies the White House next term, and whichever party controls Congress, WE THE PEOPLE will get no help from Washington. In fact, as David Stockman told us about a year ago, the federal government has become “a fountain of harm.” It is up to WE THE PEOPLE to rebuild American democracy and take back control over our lives, working from our communities on up.–t.h.g.
Obama’s State of the Union address: War and wage-cutting
By Patrick Martin, 25 January 2012
The State of the Union Speech delivered by Barack Obama Tuesday night was memorable only as a further milestone in the decay of American democracy.
While billed in advance by the White House and media pundits as a “populist appeal” by the Democratic president, effectively kicking off his reelection campaign, there was virtually nothing in the speech that even acknowledged the acute social crisis in America, let alone offering any solution.
The annual presidential addresses to a joint session of Congress have taken on an increasingly empty and ritualistic character—the same empty phrases, the same perfunctory ovations, the same gimmick of individuals placed in the First Lady’s box to serve as cameos, the laundry list of proposals, either insignificant or overtly reactionary, the sickening appeals to national unity and militarism.
Four years after the official onset of recession, three years after the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression, the US economy remains mired in slump and the world economy is rapidly approaching a new cataclysm. Yet neither Obama nor his Republican opponents can acknowledge the overriding fact being experienced by hundreds of millions of working people: the desperate crisis of the capitalist system.
The Wall Street crash of 2008 plunged the country into a social crisis: mass unemployment, increasing poverty, the collapse of local and state government budgets, the shutdown of public services, the spread of hunger and homelessness. Yet for both Obama and the Republicans, the only solution proposed is to increase the profits of American corporations at the expense of the working class. Every so-called “job-creation” measure proposed by Obama was, in reality, a tax break or government subsidy for corporate America.
Obama’s speech not only glossed over the causes and consequences of the 2008 collapse, but entirely avoided any mention of the mushrooming financial crisis in Europe, which threatens to break up the euro zone, with incalculable consequences for the US and world economy.
The axis of Obama’s speech was his invocation of the auto bailout as the greatest vindication of his economic policies. “This blueprint begins with American manufacturing,” he said. “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse… In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences.”
By “responsibility” Obama was referring to the White House demand that auto workers take a 50 percent pay cut, along with the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs, major cuts in pension and health benefits for retired workers, and a ban on strike action, cementing the role of the United Auto Workers union as the company police force inside the plants.
While auto workers paid the price, the auto bosses reaped the profits. “Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker,” Obama boasted, “the American auto industry is back.”
He continued with the following extraordinary words: “What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh.” This statement should be taken as a threat to the jobs, living standards and democratic rights of every worker in the United States.
While Obama invokes the success of “Detroit,” the city is bankrupt, with poverty and unemployment over 50 percent, widespread foreclosures and utility shutoffs, and a city government committed to scrapping entire neighborhoods and returning large sections of the former manufacturing capital of America to farmland.
The state government is contemplating the installation of an emergency manager who would suspend local government, rip up union contracts and rule by decree. Detroit has become a synonym, not only in America but worldwide, for urban collapse and social misery. This is what Obama offers to workers in “Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh.”
Besides these remarks, there was much political boilerplate and ballast. The section of the speech described as “populist” in the corporate-controlled media amounted to a few paragraphs out of an address of more than one hour. Obama declared, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”
He made a brief reference to the 2008 financial crash, admitting that the banks were to blame, mainly for the purpose of excusing himself and his administration of responsibility. The president then announced that he had just ordered the attorney general—four years after the fact—to “expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis.” This election-year stunt will likely send no Wall Street CEOs to jail. It will fool only those who want to be fooled.
Obama emphasized that his social policies on education and health care were based firmly on the capitalist market and reiterated his commitment to further drastic cuts in social spending. He cited the deal he reached last summer with House Speaker John Boehner to slash funding for Medicare and Social Security in return for slightly higher taxes on the wealthy, which was derailed by opposition from the House Republican caucus.
Equally ominous and reactionary were the brief opening and longer closing sections of the State of the Union speech devoted to foreign policy. Obama began and ended the speech by invoking what he clearly regards as his trump card, the assassination of Osama bin Laden by a team of US Navy Seals.
Obama hailed “the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces.” He continued: “At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations… They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.”
The president repeatedly beat the drums for economic nationalism, focusing particularly on China as an alleged practitioner of predatory trade practices.
In the course of a long paean to American military strength and foreign policy “successes” like the overthrow and murder of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, Obama cited “the enduring power of our moral example.” Actually, under Obama even more than Bush, America is identified with a policy of global thuggery and murder, carried out by drones, death squads and hired assassins.
In his conclusion, Obama returned to his vision of a society run along military lines when he again invoked the raid that killed bin Laden. For Barack Obama, the cohesion of a team of trained assassins is the highest form of human solidarity.
# # #
Posted in Politics
Tagged david stockman, mainstream media coverage, presidential primaries, propaganda, state of the union
According to the Associated Press, federal negotiators are close to concluding a deal with major banks that would essentially forgive them of crimes committed in connection with the mortgage crisis. You can read the story here, and a critique of the proposed settlement here: Obama Is on the Brink of a Settlement With the Big Banks—and Progressives Are Furious.
In the midst of an economic downturn sharing and cooperation become even more important than usual. If I’m right, our present situation is more than a cyclical downturn, it is the beginning of a fundamental economic readjustment triggered by peak debt, peak oil, peak pollution, etc… The limits to growth have been reached and we will not grow our way out of this predicament.
It seems we are now entering the chrysalis stage of societal metamorphosis, which means that familiar structures on which we’ve been dependent are breaking down. This runs the gamut from money and banking to health care, food and energy systems, education, government and law, and even religion.
As we undertake the necessary community based restructuring, it is essential that we find ways to make sure that everyone’s basic needs are taken care of and that positive developmental projects get the support they need. Alongside the deployment of moneyless and bankless systems of reciprocal exchange, it is essential that we also enhance the structures of the gift economy. More than giving to the usual charities, this means doing what we can to satisfy the needs that we see all around us. Give or share what you have, it need not be money. Most of us have more stuff than we use, and much more than we need.
But wise use of our monetary resources is still important. I recently discovered a new website called givv.org that allows you to designate a fixed amount to donate every month, and to distribute it amongst any number of recipients that you name. You can thus give small amounts and avoid getting on mailing lists that inundate you with appeals for further donations. You can watch a three-minute video here.
If you missed it, you can consult my list of Financing Alternatives, which also includes some other creative ways of giving.
And be sure to read the story about Mali’s Gift Economy in Yes! magazine.
Judge Napolitano’s video clip is not about Ron Paul, it’s about America’s entire political predicament.
The important thing to remember is that there is no leader who can remedy the situation for us. It’s up to you and me. Find your own way to help make this a happier, more peaceful world.–t.h.g.
Posted in Politics
The first edition of my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, was published by Chelsea Green Publishing in 2009. While it remains
as relevant today as it was when first published the printed book has been out of print for several years. But, having had the rights reverted to me by my publisher, I am making the entire book available for free in PDF format. You can read it or download it HERE. If you would like a hard copy of the first edition used copies can still be found on Amazon.com, Abe books, Thrift books and elsewhere.
Better still, you can avail yourself of the new revised and expanded 2024 edition which I have been working on for almost two years and is almost complete. Eighteen chapters have already been posted and can be freely read or download HERE.
My previous books, as published, may be freely accessed in digital format by clicking the title below.
Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (2001)
New Money For Healthy Communities (1994)
Money and Debt: a Solution to the Global Crisis (1980)
Collectors may find used and some new print copies of my books as published, on amazon.com and elsewhere online. Start by clicking on the title below:
Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (2001)
Beyond Money
Beyond Money 