Americans know something doesn’t ‘feel right’. Luckily, the AfD knows what it is, and is already engaged in a grassroots ground battle for the soul of America.
By Robert Simmons
The issue is not issues, the issue is the system.
Ronnie Dugger, American Progressive Journalist and founder of Alliance for Democracy
History cannot shut up. It keeps repeating itself, over and over, ad nauseam. It’s as if all those dead people are trying to tell us something, but what could they possibly know that we don’t? Whatever happened to them could no longer happen to us. The best thing is to simply tune them out; we tune out each other already – we certainly can tune out a bunch of dead people.
Some of us, however, are not convinced that this is a wise strategy. The Alliance for Democracy is one of ‘those types’, and must have some ‘sixth sense’, because they apparently talk to dead people (or at least listen to them); much of what they believe is strongly rooted in American History.
Back in the 1880’s, the American farmer was struggling to do a job that anyone who eats would surely concede is a fairly essential line of work. Their desire to be heard formed the basis of a ‘Populist Movement’ in the United States – a cooperative ‘people’s movement’ that ultimately failed, and was absorbed by a Progressive Movement. This bigger movement focused on a bigger picture: that industry drove urbanization, which drove people away from an agrarian (or rural) way of life. Urbanization drove economies of scale, which drove ‘monopolization’ of the marketplace, which drove small business (like farming) into a ditch. This drove the wealthy to hire politicians, in order to thwart Democracy, because this ‘industrialization’, though seen by most as ‘progress’, could never exist ‘as is’ within a true Democracy. Urbanization also led to ‘negative externalities’ (like pollution, disease, and violence) that occur when people are crammed too tightly together. Social distancing, it seems, is more than just a good ‘pandemic strategy’.
It is instructive to see how the historical model for political change fails us. As smaller ‘grassroots’ movements, like the Farmer’s Alliance, failed to gain traction at the national level, they were forced to ‘compromise’ their individual concerns, and join forces with a ‘national’ coalition of many, often divergent or disparate smaller movements.
Individual concerns are replaced with big philosophical arguments no one can really win; meanwhile the candidates running on these ‘big ideas’ can only get elected by aligning themselves with some monied interest, whose agenda is always bound to be against the interests of these smaller ‘people’s movements’.
So this time around, the ‘Populist / Progressive’ agenda, in the hands of The Alliance for Democracy, has decided to forgo begging Big Government to trim the ‘Growth’ of Economic Disparity, and instead take matters into its own hands, and begin sowing the seeds of Economic Democracy.
The Alliance for Democracy, founded by American progressive journalist Ronnie Dugger, is fighting a grassroots ground battle for the soul of America. It is a war waged on 4 distinct but connected fronts:
- Make America a collective of many cooperative Communities, versus the commodified asset of Corporate Globalization,
- Make Water a human right, and not a commodity in the hands of any profit-seeking entity,
- Make sure every American’s vote counts, in the service of Democracy, and
- Make public banking the hub of Community finance, in order to ensure all citizens have equal access to the American Dream.
History has shown us that big parties who sow seeds of discontent, and bring groups together that have nothing in common, only create gridlock. The AfD has started their campaign from the ground up, and collected like-minded people along the way, as they branch out into the general community. Here are some of those people, and what they are working toward.
ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION
Their GANE is our Gain
The General Agreement on a New Economy (GANE) “is a way of thinking about the economy which centers on the local and builds outward to regional and national levels. It focuses on full employment, equity, and environmental sustainability. This systemic approach is described in GANE as ‘community federalism.’” Ruth Caplan, who powered the creation of this document, has been with AfD since its inception, and co-chairs many of its campaigns and grassroots projects.
The GANE document promotes healthy diverse communities as the engine that will drive our future economy. The Third Option wholeheartedly agrees, and has also employed a public bank – a National Public Bank – to fund these Communities, in order to ensure all essential infrastructure meets the standards of environmental sustainability, full employment, and the good health of a diverse citizenry.
The story we are taught in school and by the media is that the United States is a democracy, with policies set by We the People. In reality, money is power in the United States where the wealthy class institutes public policies serving their interests rather than the common good for people and the planet. The consequences are disastrous and the solutions require everyone’s engagement to ensure a sustainable future for all.
The Grassroots Institute
The Grassroots Institute
The Grassroots Institute: Progressive Solutions for the Common Good “is an initiative to educate on systemic causes of our deteriorating political, economic and environmental systems, and the citizen-based solutions that are creating a vibrant future.”
The Institute has taught a course on this subject for the past three years, at Mendocino College, in California. They make the course material available online in order to educate the general public on how much of our “social crises are rooted in corporate and money power”.
The Institute has taught a course on this subject for the past three years, at Mendocino College, in California. They make the course material available online in order to educate the general public on how much of our “social crises are rooted in corporate and money power”.
The Institute knows there are many businesses and groups already actively working toward sustainable solutions in every area of the country, and is in the process of identifying them all, as part of their ever-widening support system.
Local Food Rules: The People’s War for Food Sovereignty
True to the original Farmer’s Alliance and Populist Movements at the turn of the twentieth century, AfD is forming a movement around local food, in an attempt to “regain democratic participation in our political system, promote the survival of small-scale farming, institute scale-appropriate rules around food production, build community and strengthen local economies.”
La Via Campesina first coined the term “food sovereignty”, identifying it as “the right of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to market forces.” Food Sovereignty focuses on who controls local food and agriculture policy, and feels the answer should be those people directly affected by the policies, and not some outside corporate interest.
Corporate Agriculture products, like genetically engineered seed patents, fertilizer, pesticides, and machinery, raise a small farm’s cost of production; meanwhile, ‘Big Agro’ undercuts these same farmers, by importing produce at prices well below this raised cost of production. This practice is called agricultural “dumping”. The WTO, through so-called Free Trade Agreements, facilitates the importation of cheap agricultural produce, (“duty-free”), seen by local farmers from lower-income countries as “an extension of colonialism”.
They have forced many farmers to give up their trade, and join the vast number of people who emigrate and immigrate in order to survive in a world where the wealthy have literal control over the life and death of their fellow human beings.
To add insult to injury, governments impose regulations, like the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which adds various costs and oversight protocols easily absorbed at the large-scale corporate level, but financially overwhelming to the smaller farmer. This tag-team fight, which joins agribusiness with government, and uses small family farms as their punching bag, only succeeds in raising the (financial) stock of Corporate Agriculture. Ironically, this was an (alleged) attempt by the FDA to eradicate ‘food poisoning’, which is actually a byproduct of industrializing agriculture; instead, it is eradicating the small farmer, while leaving other ‘food poisoning’ (like artificially enhanced junk food) completely untouched.
The excellent point being made by all is that corporate control of food has not alleviated food security issues; people everywhere are still somewhere between hungry and starving. This is, of course, because a profit-seeking model will never prioritize feeding people who do not have any money. AfD’s contention is that government is regulating food in order to corporatize the entire food industry, in essence making it economically impossible for people to actually feed themselves. Standing in line to get a loaf of bread sounds a lot like the communist propaganda America used to feed its people back in the Cold War era. Working the soil with one’s own hands, one has to admit, does have a more Democratic ring to it.
THIRD OPTION TAKE
The smarter way for Government to do its job (which by the way allegedly derives its “powers from the consent of the governed”) is to give all communities the tools to feed themselves. The theory that money trickles down from on high has been debunked; the trickle down theory of food security has likewise now been debunked. Government can still fulfill some mandate to eradicate food poisoning, but do it by simply supplying the equipment or infrastructure necessary, rather than make a rule only large-scale farming can afford to follow. It is beyond comprehension that government would want to drive its own people out of viable and sustainable employment, unless there is some new (secret) theory that massive national welfare-driven debt is good for Economic Growth. The Third Option plan is to use a National Public Bank, filled with all the money generated from annual federal income tax collection, and supply communities with regenerative and supplementary vertical farming, tended by local farmers, in order to empower people to take care of themselves, and protect the precious soil, which can no longer be trusted to profit-seeking entities.
…corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
A 28th Amendment: AfD is on the Move to Amend Corporate Personhood
Corporate usurpation of personhood rights has led to attacks on labor law and environmental regulation, as well as influence over elections
Alliance For Democracy
After the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, where corporations became people and money became speech, Move to Amend joined with many other organizations in an attempt to reverse that ruling permanently. They advocate for a new constitutional amendment to draw a clear line between corporations and people, money and free speech; 620 Organizations have already endorsed this amendment. Click here to add your organization to that list.
TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION
The National Board of Directors for Move to Amend brings together several activists working on several other important projects. National Director Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap is also Board President for Democracy Unlimited, and a fellow on the Liberty Tree Foundation. Barbara Gerten also spends time with Neighbors, Inc., South St Paul Restorative Justice Council, Partnership for Education of Children in Afghanistan, US Peace Memorial Foundation, Citizens for Global Solutions, Minnesota Peace Team, and Isuroon and Friends for a NonViolent World. Outreach Director Greg Coleridge has worked with the American Friends Service Committee in Ohio, and is the author of both Citizens over Corporations: A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future (2003). He is a Principal with the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) and Board Member of the Alliance for Just Money (AFJM). He also served on the national governing board of Common Cause.
Daniel Lee is a veteran of the Occupy movement. George Friday was a National Field Organizer for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and spent time with the Independent Progressive Politics Network. Jason Bayless has been on the Advisory Board of the Food Empowerment Project, and is currently Board President for Center for Farmworker Families; he also works with Pachamama Alliance. Joni Albrecht first worked with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), and currently helps at Friends of Broward Detainees, Health Over Profit for Everyone (HOPE) and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Leila Roberts has done work for the California Domestic Workers Coalition, ORAM (which advocates for LGBTIQ refugees), and the EDGE Funders Alliance. She currently volunteers with True North Organizing Network and Centro del Pueblo. Saleem Chapman worked as Deputy Director of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability.
Check out the rest of Move to Amend’s staff, all with a passion to help people lost within our inadequately thought-out system. This small list is meant to demonstrate how wide the ripples can extend from dropping a single issue in the middle of a Community.
Securing ‘Election Protection’
We must end vote manipulation and voter suppression. We must campaign for hand-counted paper ballots where we live.
Alliance For Democracy
One of the AfD’s main campaigns is centered around voting rights. Applying its ‘from the ground up’ strategy, AfD is growing a “national network of citizen activists” based in each community, who are “working to implement paper ballot voting to stop election theft and restore transparency and public oversight.” They are justifiably disappointed (but not surprised) that our voting machines are made by private corporations (ES&S, Dominion, and Hart). Tampering with them is neither detectable nor traceable, so independent inspectors would never be able to verify if votes were being counted correctly or not. Unfortunately, even our current paper ballots are shoved into a machine with the same flawed oversight protocols.
AfD is asking communities to keep an eye on their elections, and report any ways in which election security seems compromised. Barbara Clancy is in charge of collecting and documenting the findings. You can reach her here.
In addition, the organization is working with primarily Hispanic and African-American communities, who are being denied their right to vote because of various ploys to limit voting access. Any one wishing to join this campaign can click here for more information.
THIRD OPTION TAKE
The Third Option is always about attacking a problem from both sides. In theory, the right to vote is already secured, so while The AfD attempts to amend the Supreme Court decision (Citizen’s United), the Federal government needs to do their Constitution best to give persons an equal right to their ‘personhood’. Only the Feds can step straight over state’s rights, and build the infrastructure necessary – in the form of a National Communication Grid – to finally make communication a right. With a Communication Grid, every citizen can have a secure ‘account’, in order to 1) pay taxes and receive National Public Bank ‘dividends’, 2) have access to Universal Education and Healthcare, and (per this discussion) 3) exercise their right to vote (locally and nationally). Through this Grid, citizens can meet candidates, discover where they stand on issues, then within their secure account, cast votes, not only for candidates, but on other important community decisions as well; even taking local or national surveys and polls when applicable.
Money influences votes mostly because it buys more media coverage, or political ‘advertising’; this implies our citizenry is not ‘informed’, and thus can be manipulated by anyone who has more access to them than other candidates. Not only should voting be mandatory (with a holiday proclaimed in order to achieve this) and secure (by whatever means necessary), it should also be equal, where all candidates have a platform to be heard. Someone will always want to get an ‘edge’ in any competition; our task should not be to worry about putting a ceiling above anyone, but rather a clearly established floor underneath. In the ‘emerging future’, politics should no longer be about usurping the tool of government and wielding it for individual purposes, but simply to do ‘public service’. Boring, yes, but completely doable, when Control is broken into a thousand pieces, and handed over equally to every Community.
Let the DC Council and Mayor know you support establishing a DC public bank to invest in our economy and create jobs, affordable housing, and small businesses…
DCPublicBanking.org
From the Ground Up: Public Banks at the Community Level
What is not to like about the push to establish a Public Bank in the nation’s capitol, fill it with taxpayer money, and invest in local business, affordable housing, and green infrastructure, all designed to create jobs, lower debt, and support the areas of the city that need it most? The only question is, why isn’t every city in the U.S. doing this?
Local Public banks could easily be created by either an act of the City Council, or some kind of referendum, which again, the City Council would need to approve. A referendum, like a proposition, is basically a specific question asked of the general population: are you okay with having a public bank? To which every informed citizen would answer “YES”! So why is no one in control asking this question? Hmmm. Allegedly, our government is a watchdog for economic monopoly, but somehow private banking is allowed to monopolize the most important factor of all: money. DC Public Banking Center has a petition up for city residents to sign, in order to spur their mayor into action. Boston Public Bank and Portland Public Bank, both affiliated with AfD, have similar petitions in place; too bad they do not have the same amount of ‘Free $peech’ that private banking has.
Public banks can help us create the communities we want. Parks, good roads, safe bridges, clean energy and housing we can afford. We want lower interest rates for local small business loans, local control of our tax dollars, investment in our local communities, and ethical and transparent financial institutions managing our public funds. Public banks can be the financial engine that makes this happen for our communities.
Public Banking Institute
The Public Banking Institute
Ellen Brown and her Public Banking Institute are affiliated with this groundswell of public banking interest. She has written several books on the subject of Public Banking and is also affiliated with the Democracy Collaborative.
Walt McRee has helped her to promote Public Banking in every way possible; as president of the Public Banking Institute, but also by directing public banking initiatives in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as presiding over Public Banking Associates, a “national consultancy of public banking experts helping legislators and policy professionals address creation of their own public banks.” You can see (or hear) him co-hosting “Public Bank Solution” and “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown”, designed to help the public become more aware of what public money can do for their communities.
A New Media for a New Economy
One of the pillars of our current economic growth system is the media that perpetuates it. Utilizing a narrative of ‘Consumerism’, complete with its own language, American media barrages us daily with subliminal advertising designed to let us know that we are all commodified ‘assets’, and that this is ‘okay.’ Wall Street market numbers are recited to us like the weekday weather report, and every issue is framed within a narrow Economic Growth picture. Intelligently, The Alliance for Democracy has created its own programming, in order to frame its own message, complete with a new language: the language of cooperation.
Economic Democracy News Platforms
Populist Dialogues (Cable Television)
Click Here
Populist Dialogues (Cable Television)
Hosted by David Delk, this half hour show interviews people on topics “such as corporate personhood, single payer healthcare, and money in politics…all from a populist progressive perspective.”
- Carol Anderson speaks with host David Delk about her book, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy.
- Garrett Hour, founder of municipalbroadbandpdx.org wants the city of Portland (Oregon) to ‘build out its own Internet Infrastructure”, while Russell Senior, President of Personal Telco Project, is on a mission to make internet public and available to all citizens.
- Leslie Gregory is President and founder of Right2Health, and wants the CDC to declare racism as a causative factor in poor health outcomes for African-Americans.
- Suzanne Gordon, author of “The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare, Dispatches From the Front Lines of Policy Making and Patient Care”, discusses the drive to privatize the VA, and why we should oppose this “attack”.
- Juan Carlos Ordonez, Communications Director with Oregon Center for Public Policy, outlines how legislative decisions have systematically increased the wealth gap these past forty years.
Corporations and Democracy (Radio)
Click Here
Corporations and Democracy (Radio)
“”Corporations and Democracy” looks at how corporate rule stands at odds with good public policy on a range of issues, and provides an opportunity for listeners to learn what individuals and communities are doing at the grassroots to build better and more sustainable alternatives.” Annie Esposito, Steve Scalmanini, and Lynda McClure are the hosts of this radio show, now in its 20th season.
- Ashik Siddique, a research analyst for the Institute for Policy Studies’ National Priorities Project, shares how $300 billion could be cut from US military spending, and used to fund necessary programs in our communities.
- Marissa Hatton, civil rights attorney for Equal Justice Under Law, discusses For-Profit Prisons, and the implications when states contract with corporations who seek to profit from the criminal justice system.
- Public Banking guru Ellen Brown discusses her latest book, Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.
- Peter Phillips discusses his book, Giants: The Global Power Elite, about the small group of very powerful men who make up a global transnational corporate oligarchy.
- Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange, discusses her book Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as current situations in North Korea and the Middle East.
- Sarah Kleiner and Ashley Balcerzak, reporters for the Center for Public Integrity, discuss the flow of ‘dark money’ in politics.
- Geoff West, reporter for the Center for Responsive Politics (aka opensecrets.org), talks about where the NRA is putting their money.
- Patricia Popple, expert on ‘frac’ sand mining, reports on the secondary, and often overlooked, health and environmental impacts from the mining and preparation of sand used in the fracking process.
- Finally, Gar Alperovitz, co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, discuss the rise of a new economic system based on ‘cooperatives’, public banks, and clean energy.
Justice Rising (Print Media)
Click Here
Justice Rising (Print Media)
“Justice Rising is the Alliance’s flagship publication, a thematic guide for anyone dedicated to ending corporate rule and establishing true democracy. Each edition of Justice Rising examines a single issue, such as food, health care, water, war, and money in politics, and looks at how corporate influence impacts policy and how grassroots groups are achieving people-focused solutions.” Jim Tarbell, Ruth Caplan, Nancy Price, Emily Kawano, and Carrie Durkee are among the many contributors to articles outlining a paradigm shift in American economic (and political) thinking. Click here for their most recent issue, or for all of their past (archived) issues.
The question is: can we do better by constructing a more just and sustainable economy grounded in our better angels — our impulses of love, solidarity, cooperation, mutualism, and compassion rather than narrow self interest and competition?
Emily Kawano
The U.S. Solidarity Economy Network (SEN)
TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION
- Kali Akuno Cooperation Jackson
- Hendrix Berry Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network
- David Cobb Cooperation Humboldt
- Jeuji Diamondstone Worcester SAGE (Solidarity & Green Economy)
- David Ferris Highlander Research and Education Center
- Marcus Hill Forsyth Foodworks, RIPESS
- Emily Kawano Wellspring Cooperative
- Tori Kuper New Economy Coalition
- Alison Malisa CA Public Banking Alliance
- Micky Metts US Federation of Worker Cooperatives & Agaric
- Jerome Scott Project South
- Mike Strode Kola Nut Collaborative
- Ethan Miller Grassroots Economic Organizing
- Dan Swinney NANSE (North American Network for the Solidarity Economy)
- Jessica G Nembhard Democracy Collaborative.
- Melissa Hoover United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Emily Kawano (who also directs the Center for Popular Economics in Western Massachusetts, and is Co-Director of Wellspring Cooperative) serves as Coordinator of the US Solidarity Economy Network. The SEN uses words like mutualism, cooperation, social welfare, equity, economic democracy, and pluralism, and (no surprise) prefers change to be driven from ‘the bottom up’.
SEN was conceived during the U.S. Social Forum in 2007, and summed up in the words of Jenna Allard and Julie Matthaei:
“Most of the over 10,000 people who traveled to the first-ever U.S. Social Forum would consider ourselves activists, and most are acutely aware of the many systemic problems that our country faces, from increasing inequality and persistent poverty to environmental degradation…a corrupt political system…the continuing struggle with racism and sexism…the intolerant policies enacted against immigrants and gay / lesbian / trans-gendered people. We know these issues are present, but we tend to prioritize some over others, sometimes missing opportunities to form alliances with activists with similar values and different issues. Often we lose sight of the fact that “we are all in this together”.”
Julie Matthaei, professor of economics at Wellesley College, also works with Transformation Central, which is a hub where many diverse organizations come together under this common thread of mutualism and cooperation. Again, the ripples spread outward.
All of the knowledge can’t be in the cities. We need to fix that urban and rural connection. We need to have this discussion about how we build our movements, so it is not just urban, but rural and urban together.
Dr. Shirley Sherrod, New Communities Inc.
THREE DEGREES OF SEPARATION – The Third Option
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
Robert Frost
IT’S A ‘RACE’ TOWARD ECONOMIC GROWTH
Let us apply some fifth grade-level reasoning skills to understand why A) Private Banking and Democracy do not go together, B) Poverty is an ‘Economic Growth’ thing, and C) Economic Growth is ‘racist’ thing (wait for it).
A) Private banks will not lend to anyone who is a financial ‘risk’, meaning anyone who doesn’t already have some money – in the form of tangible assets – that a bank could seize should the loan go into ‘default’. This leaves a high percentage of citizens without the ‘liberty’ to achieve personal ‘economic growth’; they are forced, instead, to become a ‘wage’ earner, and work for someone who does have the money. If any of these poorer ‘working class’ citizens are deemed a ‘financial’ risk and an ‘employment’ risk, then it’s two strikes and you’re out in this game of Economic Growth.
Even worse is when ‘opportunity’ dries up within a community (like it did when steel, coal, cars, or agriculture left certain U.S. cities); while the ‘upwardly mobile’ are quick to leave for ‘greener pastures’, those intrinsically tied to the area have equally good reasons to remain behind. Unfortunately, banks will no longer invest in areas where there is no visible ‘opportunity’. Those who stayed behind further suffer financially, as homes are devalued. This has led, in many cases, to Eminent Domain being imposed by the government, taking land away from homeowners at these devalued prices, oftentimes in order to build highways to service those upwardly mobile types, who have fled to outlying areas. The people who choose ‘upwardly mobility’ – by trading in what they have for something MORE – are the darlings of the ‘Economic Growth’ model (and Economic Growth thanks them, even though it does not specifically reward them, except with more debt and the life-shortening stress that goes with it).
The only difference between a poor black person and a poor white person is that a poor white person feels like it’s not supposed to be happening to them.
Dave Chappelle, Sticks & Stones
B) Poverty is primarily an ‘economic growth’ thing (secondarily a ‘race’ thing). Witness the Economic Growth model at work in white communities, where those who remain ‘at home’ in their small rural towns see opportunity run away to the ‘big city’, to be replaced with government welfare. That being said, statistics do show that homes occupied by people with color tend to go for $48,000 less on the market than homes in predominantly white neighborhoods (okay, that part is ‘racist)’, but the truth is that poverty itself is color-blind, and afflicts those people who tend to remain in one place, versus being ‘mobile’. Poverty is the ‘singularity‘ within an Economic Growth model of the Universe: once trapped within Its ‘event horizon’, people are sucked in, stretched thin, and rarely escape Its gravitational pull.
The Economic Growth model informs every one (every chance it gets) not to attach oneself to spiritual things, but to material things, and the Smith’s and the Jones’s cannot help but get on the ‘upwardly mobile’ train for fear of being left at the station. Back at the station, neighborhoods with no legitimate source of employment still need to survive; enter the economy of all things deemed ‘illegitimate’, like drug dealing, prostitution, and gambling. To be clear, we are all drug dealers, prostitutes, and gamblers in an Economic Growth model – an ‘underground’ (illegal) economy is a completely predictable phenomenon within this paradigm – but our stubborn denial of this forces us to ‘draw a line’ somewhere. In reality, poor neighborhoods are just trying to run the best version of the ‘economic growth’ model that is available to them.
C) Since every one likes to throw the word ‘race’ around, let us utilize it, rather than shame each other with it. The world is full of many peoples who fall under the category of ‘indigenous’. They are akin to the trees and plants of a specific area: they grow ‘roots’, and tough it out right where they are. There is a certain amount of comfort, dignity, loyalty, unity – even certainty – derived from this strategy. Then there are the ‘nomadic’ types. They are looking for something better. We euphemistically say that these people are ‘in pursuit of happiness’, as if happiness is not inside of them, but apparently somewhere outside of them.
Economic Growth is the brainchild of these nomadic types. They came, they saw, then conquered the indigenous types, and fashioned an economy of the nomads, by the nomads, and for the nomads. Unfortunately, those with ‘roots’, who are tied to community, people, or simply the ‘Earth’ beneath their feet, are bound to be losers in this Economic Growth paradigm.
As there is a kind of dignity in having ‘roots’, and being tied to people and community, there needs to be a paradigm that treats both groups fairly, whether they are nomadic or rooted.
Opportunity, like Liberty, can be something you give, or something you take. If we continue to peddle the model where the winners must ‘take’ what they can get, how can we possibly judge the manner in which they take it? The private banking model, because it is the lynchpin of Economic Growth, is by association complicit in every shady deal we make, whether it be deemed ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’. Public Banking is about giving people an avenue of opportunity (and liberty) that every citizen would surely take, if offered. It is understandable that we all feel powerless within this system – that is how it is designed. Even so, we are also complicit in the wealth disparity and ensuing violence, incarceration, pollution, division and factionalism that it creates. Until we each take responsibility (and thus accountability) for the world around us, we will continue to allow words like ‘Liberty’ and ‘Democracy’ to be used against us, to divide us, while being taught to fear words like ‘Cooperation’ and ‘Unionization” as somehow destructive of those ends.
What is the point of having a Democracy if none of its citizens has a clue about how to operate it? Many of the so-called ‘woke’ are taking it to the streets, clamoring for their voices to be heard, but are these people simply the other side of the same coin? Is being heard all we really want? Before burning all our energy shouting in the streets, perhaps we should spend the limited time and energy available to us within this time and energy-draining neo-feudalistic system, and actually think about what we want. Are we not simply mewling infants content to have a pacifier shoved into our mouths, if we can be satisfied with a momentary concession? How much longer will we play ‘dress up’ and pretend to be adults, before we actually stand up and truly become adults?
Time for a Product Recall
Trying to fix the current system, so it does not harm any people, is like trying fix a gun so it won’t harm any people. We need to rethink our thinking. The original purpose of a gun, unbelievable as it may sound, is to protect people. When framed this way, perhaps we can find more effective and efficient ways to protect people. Attempting to put locks or ‘safeties’ on guns has not proven to be enough. To keep Economic Growth from firing, or going off by accident, we will need to rethink its design as well.
SECIAL THANKS
We appreciate DC Public Banking Center for clicking the ‘follow’ button on social media, in order that we could learn about their important cause, and how they are tying their fates together with many others. Each separate ‘movement’ practices what they preach: to cooperate, and mutually work to benefit each other, the planet, and society. By creating this intricate web of interconnected ‘movements’, soon all our fates will be tied together.
Otto Scharmer, and Getting to the Bottom of Theory U