Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Little Political Dictionary



 Learn what the politicians, CEO's,and mass media types  mean when they use the following words:

Anarchist – an enemy of freedom, an insane person who opposes domination, war and exploitation and foolishly thinks people capable of running their own lives.
Apolitical– someone who accepts the status quo, and thus always deemed non-political. Only those opposed to the status quoare political. Example, teaching about working class history in school is a political act, ignoring this history is not.
Austerity– ordinary people forced to pay the gambling debts of the wealthy and powerful.
Authoritarian leader – applies to popular, democratically elected, reformist, left-wing Latin American presidents. But does not apply to repressive, reactionary, narco-terrorist leaders put in place by fraud. These are called democrats.
Banks– government chartered institutions allowing charter holders to make money out of thin air and then charge high amounts for borrowing it.
By-laws– municipal regulations to aid the real estate and construction industries and keep the busy-bodies occupied.
Capitalist- someone made wealthy through free enterprise.
Censorship – where minority viewpoints are suppressed or marginalized in counties the US government doesn't like. When minority viewpoints are suppressed or marginalized and media ownership concentrated in a few corporations in the USA or its friends. this is called freedom of the press.
Christian - 1. someone who abides by the teachings of Jesus, i.e. turns the other cheek, is not judgmental, favours peace, love and poor people. 2. a member of a cult that is vindictive, judgmental, warlike, hateful and glorifies the rich and greedy.
Common sense – popular affirmation of the status quo
Communist1. describes any country that refuses to subordinate its interests to those of US corporations. 2. any person critical of the status quo.
Conservative1. an extinct political viewpoint that stood for tradition and suspicion of extremist ideology. 2. now used to describe an extreme political ideology emphasizing the corporate state, smashing of trade unions, the destruction of democracy, and the promotion of militarism, extreme nationalism and misogyny.
Conspiracies– what leftists do. However, when politicians and corporate leaders gather secretly, say to lower your wages or overthrow a foreign government, these are not conspiracies, but examples of good business practices and democracy in action.
Corporate lobbying – vote buying, guaranteeing the best government money can buy.
Corporate state – a state that subsidizes and prioritizes the power and profitability of corporations, blurring the line between government and business.
Corporation– capitalist collectivism, a form of state socialism based on state granted privileges and subsidies to the wealthy and powerful. An example of free enterprise.
Corruption – offering a policeman a hundred dollar bribe is corruption. Spending a hundred million of taxpayers money on corporate welfare for your political backers is not corruption, but politics as usual.
Courts– a tool to keep the lower orders, terrorists, anarchists and communistsin line through violence or the threat of it.
Crime - anti-social acts committed by poor people. When done by politicians or business, such acts are examples of free enterprize or are in the national interest and are therefore honourable.
Debt– something you or I have to pay but corporate officers and shareholders do not, thanks to limited liability.
Environmental extremist – anyone who takes destruction of the environment seriously. People who minimize or deny such problems are moderates or realists.
Fascism1., a meaningless swear word 2. a political ideology emphasizing the corporate state, smashing of trade unions and oppositional parties, the destruction of democracy, the promotion of militarism, extreme nationalism and misogyny.
Fiscal restraint – increasing the war budget and corporate welfare while cutting back on education, health care and social welfare.
Flag of convenience – a legal form of fraud whereby a ship owner in say the USA, registers his ship in Panama, thereby avoiding regulations and unionization.
Free enterprise - the name given to a situation where inherited wealth and government privileges creates a rich capitalist.
Free trade – a market tightly regulated to insure the domination of multinational corporations, the extinction of all other economic forces, and the crippling of sovereignty and democracy.
Freedom– the right to be dictated to and exploited by a small powerful minority, so long as that small powerful minority is not deemed communist. If the latter, see totalitarian regime.
Government debt. - a legal form of fraud where the government creates money, then hands it to private institutions (banks) who then lend it to the government at compound interest. At the same time politicians cut taxes to the rich. Interest payments plus lower tax income equals ever-increasing government debt.
Greed– the motivation behind trade unions and workers who demand raises. Billionaires who want more wealth, however, are merely being altruistic.
Idealist – a naive person who wants to save humanity from war, poverty and environmental destruction. People who promote war, poverty and environmental destruction are, on the other hand, known as realists.
Laws1. regulations to keep the lower orders in line 2. government granted privileges to the wealthy and powerful 3. a way for a powerful minority to impose its prejudices on the populace by the threat of violence.
Limited liability – a legal form of fraud involving laws that allow corporate shareholders and officers to be not responsible for the debts of a corporation.
Marxist– a meaningless word used to describe everyone from gentle college professors to mass murdering tyrants. A term with about as much content as calling someone an SOB.
National interest – always at stake when workers go on strike, but not so when corporations ship jobs overseas or engage in tax evasion in the Caymans.
Objective– 1. the corporate media is objective. Critical or left wing media are, on the other hand, ideological and one-sided. 2. The person who you disagree with is ideological, you are objective.
Patent– a government granted monopoly privilege, one of the foundations of free enterprise.
Person– 1. a living breathing human being who has intrinsic rights. 2. A legal form of fraud whereby a corporation is deemed a person and thus has the rights of a human being.
Political correctness – at one time an exaggerated fear of racism and sexism sometimes leading to overreaction or false accusations. Today, the term is used by the media to suppress any mention of racism or sexism, whether justified or not.
Political prisoners – Only totalitarianstates have political prisoners. People in jail for politically motivated acts in democracies are just common criminals.
Propaganda– what left wing parties disseminate, the mass media and corporatist parties only tell the truth.
Protest demonstration – something only kooks and commies do. The flaws in our free market economy and democratic system are so few you don't need to protest.
Right to vote – the right every four years to choose which of two nearly identical groups will dominate you, i.e., an elective one party dictatorship, but with the one party divided into two, to provide democratic choice, as in “Pepsi or Coke?”
Social democrat – at one time meant a gradualist or reformist socialist. Now, especially in Europe, means the smiley face of the corporate state.
Socialism1. according to socialists, the act of extending democracy into the economy so the people who do the work can own and control the means of production 2. according contemporary conservatives, where there is state involvement in the economy that helps the ordinary person. For state involvement in the economy that helps the rich, see free enterprise.
Stock market – a casino for the wealthy and powerful.
Tax haven – a form of fraud where a company opens an office in a country with low or nil tax rates. The company is then registered and pretends it operates out of the tax haven, thus evading the taxes in its country of origin.
Terrorist– 1. someone who commits acts of political violence of which the regime does not approve. People who commit acts of political violence of which the regime does approve are patriots, militants or rebels. 2. Since 2001 a meaningless scare term that has replaced “communist”.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission – you kill us, we hound you till the end of time, we kill you, we demand and expect forgiveness.
Totalitarian- any state that the US is hostile to, regardless of political structure.
War– results from a falling out among groups of the wealthy and powerful over how to divide the plunder, but fought by their respective lower classes.
War on Drugs – US government program to make the illegal drug industry as profitable as possible to benefit the money-laundering Wall Street banks and keep the CIA in hidden “black ops” funds. Also a method of keeping much of Latin America destabilized.

Monday, June 25, 2012

A very good question!





MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR June 25 – July 1


JUNE 30

1812 – FIRST US TREASURY NOTES AUTHORIZED BY THE UNITED STATES 
Treasury notes are promise to pay notes to borrowers to raise revenue. The US needed funds to fund the War of 1812. Rather than print US money (such as “Continentals” – an interest- and debt-free money issued by the Continental Congress to pay for the Revolutionary War), the US government followed a different course – to issue notes to borrowers with promises to pay the principal with interest at a later date. The original interest rate was 5.4%. Wars cause indebtedness. Bankers tend to like wars since they tend to create financial dependency of nations to bankers. Thomas Edison would later say about Treasury bonds, “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...” 

2005 – PUBLICATION OF "A MATTER OF INTEREST" BY WILLIAM HIXSON, CANADIAN ECONOMIST 
"The very idea of a government that can create money for itself, allowing banks to create money that the government then borrows, and pays interest on, is so preposterous that it staggers the imagination. Either everyone in government in charge of the procedure is lacking in intelligence or they have been bought and paid for by those who profit from their skullduggery and their infidelity to the public interest." 

JULY 1

1818 – SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF US TRIGGERS RECESSION/DEPRESSION
The Second National Bank of the United States (a private financial institution) on this day reversed its financial course from monetary expansion to contraction. They called in loans and cut future loans. They required payments from state banks in gold alone. This caused deflation, leading to a two-year recession/depression – called the “Panic of 1819.” This is what happened time and again when private financial corporations control a nation’s money system instead of We the People through their government. 

1944 – BRETTON WOODS CONFERENCE BEGINS 
The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, known as the Bretton Woods Conference was a meeting of 44 Allied nations in New Hampshire, where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were created. Participant nations agreed to fix their currencies to a set value of gold. Debtor nations were to be helped with payments. The actual program was the use of loans (to be paid back with interest) to create political and economic dependence to loaning countries and their bankers. Agreements to receive further loans were often conditioned on “Structural Adjustment Programs” which called for privatization/corporatization of public services, wage cuts, and perversion of economies to service debt payments.

1967 – US POSTAL SAVING SYSTEM ENDS 
Because of opposition from the commercial banks the postal savings system does not develop in a substantial way. The United States Postal Savings System was a postal savings system operated by the United States Postal Service from January 1, 1911 until July 1, 1967 

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NOTE:  Several individuals have inquired about the June 24 posting from last week. On that date in 1996, the US Supreme Court ruled, in Lewis v. United States that federal reserve banks were not federal agencies. Below is background on the case from http://nesara.org/court_summaries/lewis_v_united_states.htm 

John L. Lewis was injured by a vehicle owned and operated by a federal reserve bank, and brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The District Court dismissed the case by ruling that the federal reserve bank was not a federal agency within meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act and the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. The Appeals court affirmed the decision.

The court stated “Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks, and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purpose of the FTCA, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.”

However, this does not imply, as so many wrongly interpret, that private individuals own the banks for the court also stated “Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. The stockholding commercial banks elect two thirds of each Bank’s nine member board of directors. The remaining three directors are appointed by the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board regulates the Reserve Banks, but direct supervision and control of each Bank is exercised by its board of directors. 12 U.S.C. Sect. 301. The directors enact by-laws regulating the manner of conducting general Bank business, 12 U.S.C. Sect. 341, and appoint officers to implement and supervise daily Bank activities. These activities include collecting and clearing checks, making advances to private and commercial entities, holding reserves for member banks, discounting the notes of member banks, and buying and selling securities on the open market. See 12 U.S.C. Sub-Sect. 341–361

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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com
  For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html

Monday, June 18, 2012

MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR June 18-24

JUNE 19

1843 – DEATH OF LORD ACTON, ENGLISH HISTORIAN, POLITICIAN, AND WRITER

“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later, is the people versus the banks.”

JUNE 21

1940 -- DEATH OF SMEDLEY BUTLER, MARINE CORP MAJOR GENERAL (MOST DECORATED MARINE IN US HISTORY AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH)

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things that we should fight for. One is the defense of out homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket…. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912…” [A very timely quote given the just-ended “Marine Week” in Cleveland]

JUNE 24

1996 – LEWIS VS. UNITED STATES (AMENDED DECISION OF THE US COURT OF APPEALS, NINTH CIRCUIT)

“Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Tort Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations in light of fact that direct supervision and control of each bank is exercised by board of directors, federal reserve banks…are locally controlled by their member banks, banks are listed neither as 'wholly owned' government corporations nor as 'mixed ownership' corporations; federal reserve banks receive no appropriated funds from Congress and the banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own names. . . .”

JUNE (not certain of exact date)

1992- UPDATED PUBLICATION OF MODERN MONEY MECANICS BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CHICAGO

“The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. Banks can build up deposits by increasing loans and investments…This unique attribute of the banking business was discovered several centuries ago…At one time, bankers were merely middlemen. They made a profit by accepting gold and coins for safekeeping and lending them to borrowers. But they soon found that the receipts (bank notes or IOUs) they issued were being used as if they were a means of payment. These receipts were acceptable as if they were money since whoever held them could go to the banker and exchange them for metallic money…Then bankers discovered...that they could make loans merely by giving borrowers their promises to pay (bank notes). In this way banks began to create money...More notes (IOUs) could be issued than the gold and coin on hand because only a portion of the notes outstanding would be presented for payment at any one time...Demand deposits (checks) are the modern counterpart of bank notes. It was a small step from printing notes to making book entries to the credit of borrowers which the borrowers in turn, could 'spend' by writing checks.”

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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact monetarycalendar@yahoo.com  For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html
 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Expands Corporate Rights

From "Newly Leaked TPP Investment Chapter Contains Special Rights for Corporations"
http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2012/06/13/newly-leaked-tpp-investment-chapter-contains-special-rights-for-corporations/

The most important paragraph is:
"The new texts reveal that TPP negotiators are considering a dispute resolution process that would grant transnational corporations special authority to challenge countries’ laws, regulations and court decisions in international tribunals that circumvent domestic judicial systems."

This is entirely consistent and predicable with how corporations have responded in the face of people flexing their democratic/self-goverance muscles over the last several centuries. Corpses escape democratic control in three distinct but related ways. They seek to shift decision-making from:
1. A lower level of government to a higher one (local to state, state to federal, federal to international) -- which are further removed from the public.
2. The legislative level to the courts - especially appointed ones – which are easier to influence or capture.
3. The legislative level to regulatory agencies (which are often stacked with corporate appointees, serve as shields between the public and corporations and can always be appealed to courts - see point 2 - in the oft-chance that decisions are made in the public interest.

It's simply the latest chapter to what began with the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, dubbed by corporate anthropologist Jane Ann Morris as "Baby NAFTA" (see her book Gaveling Down the Rabble) which shifted trade powers from the states to the federal government over 200 years ago. The U.S. Constitutional Convention was in some striking ways similar to the current TPP in terms of meeting/deliberating in secret (including not making the minutes public for decades) and is usurping existing and established laws and rules (the Constitutional Convention was intended originally to amend, not replace, the Articles of Confederation). The TPP, however, is worse in that corporations can directly challenge laws, rules and court decisions without having to use government as a surrogate. It's expanding what even the U.S. Constitution never intended — corporate rights.

Maybe this will give rise to a global Move to Amend campaign.

Monday, June 11, 2012

MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR June 11 - 17

JUNE 15

1836 – CHARTER (LICENSE) FOR SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF THE UNITED STATES REPEALED
This was the third quasi national bank of the US — following the Bank of North America (1781-1785) and Bank of the United States (1791-1811). While called a “national” bank, it was not public but actually a commercial/corporate bank with the power to issue money directly. Early on, it issued a huge amount of money (more than 20 times its reserves) as loans that led to financial speculation and large corporate profits. A year later, it stopped issuing loans, resulting in a severe contraction of the money supply. This led to massive bankruptcies and the Panic of 1819. When President Andrew Jackson threatened to repeal its charter, the Bank’s leaders used its power to restrict money circulation to cause another depression. Bank President Nicolas Biddle wrote, “Nothing but widespread suffering will produce any effect on Congress…Our only safety is in pursuing a steady course of firm restriction – and I have no doubt that such a course will ultimately lead to restoration of the currency and the recharter of the Bank.”

President Andrew Jackson said this about the bank, “The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and it undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce at its pleasure, at any time and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling the issues of other banks and permitting an expansion or compelling a general contraction of the circulating medium, according to its own will.”

JUNE 16

1929 – DEATH OF VERNON PARRINGTON, HISTORIAN
“The only safe and rational currency is a national currency based on the national credit sponsored by the state, flexible and controlled in the interests of the people as a whole.”

1933 – PASSAGE OF GLASS-STEAGALL ACT
Actual title was Banking Act of 1933. Considered one of the most important post Depression laws, the legislation created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which protected bank deposits. It also instituted several bank reforms to curb speculation that caused the Depression. One important provision was to create a firewall between Main Street depository banks and Wall Street investment banks. The Act was repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999

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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt?
Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice.
This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini and Greg Coleridge helped in its development.
Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, contact
monetarycalendar@yahoo.com  For more information, visit http://www.afsc.net/economiccrisis.html