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The Federal Reserve
By
Stephen Lendman
Published in this website on April 2nd, 2007. Taken from: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10501
The dirty secrets of the Federal Reserve of
USA (
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Years ago I
read William Greider's excellent book published in 1987 on how the US Federal
Reserve System works. It was detailed and explicit and makes wonderful and
informative reading, except for the solution he suggests to a huge problem. His
was far too timid. This article proposes a much different one. Greider called
his book Secrets of the
Let's be clear
at the outset. The US Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and the
European Central Bank (for the 12 European countries that adopted the single
Euro currency in 1999) are institutions with enormous power far beyond what most
people everywhere can imagine. These most dominant of all central banks, as well
as most others, have a powerful influence on the financial conditions in
virtually all countries including their own, of course, in an increasingly
borderless financial world where a significant economic event in one nation can
affect most others for better or worse.
One other
powerful bank is also part of today's financial world. It needs mentioning
because of its importance, even though it requires a separate article to explain
how it works more fully. It's the secretive, inviolable and accountable to no
one Bank of International Settlements (
It's believed
by some academicians and others who've studied the
The dominant
central banks and
No nation's
central bank is more powerful today than the US Federal Reserve, but it wasn't
always that way, and it now has competition for the top spot it hasn't known
since WW II. The Fed, as it's called, has existed since it was first established
by an act of Congress in 1913. But the Bank of England has been around since
Britannia ruled the waves beginning in 1694 when King William III needed help
funding the kind of escapade that takes lots of ready cash - war. Back then it
was with
The Brits may
have had a 219 year head start on the Fed, but central bankers are only as
powerful as the countries they represent and their economies. Today the former
dominant Brits must settle for a far lesser role as being just one of many
junior partners to a
It's easy to
challenge that view and think that champ has climbed into the ring a few times
too many, has endless plans for more return engagements, and is likely to meet
the same fate many a former human one did who didn't know when to quit and ended
up with chronic brain damage known as dementia. The lesson from history is
always the same. The price for reckless behavior is high, painful and
inevitable. It's true for countries as well as individuals, but too often
neither one sees it until it's too late. The biggest difference between the
It All
Began in 1910 On
It sounds like
the title of a horror movie, but the real life events that happened at this
privately owned island off the coast of
The Federal
Reserve Act that began it all must surely rank as one of the most disastrous and
outrageous pieces of legislation to the public welfare ever to come out of any
legislative body. It may have also have been and still is illegal according to
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution which happens to be the inviolable law
of the land. The article states that Congress shall have the power to coin
(create) money and regulate the value thereof. In 1935, the US Supreme Court
ruled the Congress cannot constitutionally delegate its power to another group
or body. The Congress thus acted in violation of the Constitution it's sworn to
uphold and in so doing created the Federal Reserve System that, as will be
explained below, is a private for-profit corporation operating at the expense of
the public welfare. By its action, our lawmakers committed fraud against the
people of the country and so far have gotten away with it without the public
even knowing about the harm done.
The shameful
result is that what should have arrived stillborn is now the most dominant
institution on earth, and all because of what began on a privately owned island
with a scary name. But had the Congress acted responsibly, the act of Fed
creation might never have happened. The legislation establishing it was so
harmful to the public interest, it likely never would have passed if it hadn't
been shepherded through a carefully prepared Congressional Conference Committee
meeting scheduled for between 1:30 -
It almost
happened 43 years ago when one president decided to act on behalf of the people
who elected him. That man was John Kennedy, who before his death planned to end
the Federal Reserve System to eliminate the national debt a central bank creates
by printing money and loaning it to the government. That debt has now risen to
over $8,400,000,000,000 ($8.4 trillion) which every taxpayer must pay for and
has done so in the amount of nearly $174,000,000,000 ($174 billion) in just the
first three months of 2006. This debt service is now an annualized amount
exceeding two-thirds of a trillion dollars. It's made the bankers rich (which
was the whole idea) and the public poorer because we're taxed to pay the tab.
It's no exaggeration to call this the greatest financial scam in world history
and one that gets greater every day.
The debt was
less onerous 40 years ago, but Kennedy understood its danger to the country and
the burden it placed on the public. Thus, on
The
predecessors of the possible Kennedy coup plotters were the men who met on
This was the
dawning of the age of powerful cartels when the seven financial titans meeting
secretly in the island's clubhouse decided no longer to compete with each other
and wanted the power to arrange it. They were already colluding informally but
knew it would all work better under a legally sanctioned cartel. They wanted a
banking cartel and got one that flourishes today below the public radar with the
tool they wanted most - the ability to control the nation's money supply that
gave them almost unlimited power. The cartel now works cooperatively with their
governments and all other powerful transnational corporations in a dominant
global alliance that allows them to control the world's markets, resources,
cheap labor and our lives.
The Federal Reserve System Is Not A Government Agency - It's
A Privately Owned Cartel of Powerful Banks Protected By Law
It's commonly
but falsely believed the Federal Reserve System is a function of government and
subject to its control. False. It's often referred to as a quasi-governmental,
decentralized central bank, but that's just cover to disguise what, in fact, it
really is: a privately held and operated cartel made to look like the government
is in charge. The fact that it's headquartered in
The Fed is
composed of a Board of Governors in Washington and 12 regional banks in major
cities throughout the country (including in my own city of Chicago where anyone
once but no longer could walk up to a teller's window and buy US Treasury
securities). The system also includes many and various member banks including
all national banks that are required to be part of the system. Other banks were
also allowed to join and many did. The Federal Reserve began operating in
November, 1914, almost one year after the Congressional act creating the system
the previous year as explained above. It was mandated by law to have the
greatest power of any institution in the country - the power to create and
control the nation's money supply.
Most people
know little or nothing about money and banking, likely never think about it, and
have no idea how what the Fed and bankers do affect their lives. Before writing
this article, I had little more than the modest knowledge I learned in a
required course on the subject and basic accounting as part of my MBA curriculum
46 years ago. Those courses left out the most important parts of the story and
never hinted at anything sinister about how the banking system works in fact.
But no one should ever imagine banks were established or intended to be run for
our benefit. They surely are not, and anyone suggesting they are should read on.
They're about as beneficial to the public welfare as was the MX Peacekeeper ICBM
(the clever language is impressive) intended to carry nuclear warheads back in
the mid-80s that had the power to destroy all life on the planet and one day may
do it in its old or updated form.
The Federal
Reserve Act of 1913 (the law of the land) stipulates that the Federal Reserve
Banks of each region are owned by the member banks in it. These Fed banks are
privately owned corporations that make a great effort to hide the fact that
they, in fact, own what the public largely thinks is part of the public treasury
and government. It's easy to think that as Fed chairmen and seven of the twelve
Governors are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. As such,
the FRB is a sort of quasi-government entity, but the fact is the System is a
privately owned for profit enterprise just like any other business. It has
stockholders like other public corporations that are paid 6% risk free interest
every year on their equity holdings. The public doesn't know this, and it likely
wouldn't be good PR if it found out. People might be even more upset if they
learned some of the owners of our Federal Reserve are powerful foreign investors
in the
The issue of
private ownership of the Federal Reserve Banks has been challenged several times
in the federal courts to no avail. Each time the courts upheld the current
system under which each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by
commercial banks in its region. One such case was Lewis v.
Our
Founding Fathers Had Different Ideas Than the Powerful Men who Met on
Throughout our
history, there was disagreement over who should control the power of the
nation's money supply and the right to issue it. The Founding Fathers understood
that the British Parliament was forced to levy unfair taxes on its American
colonies and its own citizens because the Bank of England had run up so much
debt the government needed revenue to reduce it. Benjamin Franklin, in fact,
believed that was the real cause of the American Revolution. Most of the
Founders also understood the danger that could result from bankers' accumulating
too much wealth and power. James Madison, the main drafter of our Constitution,
called them "Money Changers," referring to the Bible that said Jesus twice drove
the Money Changers from the
"History
records that the Money Changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit
and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by
controlling money and its issuance."
Thomas
Jefferson was just as strong in his condemnation when he said:
Jefferson and
Madison understood the dangers of commercial monopolies of all types and tried
to assure they never would exist in the new nation. They, in fact, wanted two
additional amendments added to the "Bill of Rights" in the Constitution but
never got them. They believed to protect the liberty of the people the nation
should have "freedom from monopolies in commerce" (what are now giant
corporations including the big international banks and Wall Street investment
firms) and "freedom from a permanent military," or standing armies. Try to
imagine what the country would be like today if Jefferson and Madison had gotten
their way - a country without giant predatory corporations exploiting everyone
for profit and without a rampaging military waging war on the world, threatening
to destroy it, and doing it so those corporate giants could earn even greater
profits.
They never
did, of course, and the people have paid dearly ever since including the great
harm caused because the government relinquished its right to control the
nation's money supply. It gave it away secretly with the public none the wiser,
never knowing how greatly it's been harmed. It's been even worse since the 1980s
because the power of the Fed grew under a friendly Republican president, and the
corporate media led cheerleading for it hid the effect. For them, no public
demeaning of it, its giant member banks or Wall Street allies is allowed.
Things were
especially out of hand during the tenure of Alan Greenspan - a Fed chairman no
one should have found much reason to cheer either before he headed the Fed when
he was a presidential advisor or during the time he did. It was only after his
economic consulting firm failed that he went into government service likely
because he needed a new line of work. There he managed to become a larger than
life seer of central banking who was elevated to near sainthood by the business
pundits who thought under his tenure the skies were only blue and the few clouds
in sight always had silver linings. Now Alan is retired to the greener pastures
of lucrative book contracts and speaking engagements, which shows when you do
your job well for the rich and powerful (at the expense of the rest of us) who
gave it to you, you'll be well rewarded in the end. It's likely the new Fed
chairman has taken note and will dutifully try to follow in the tradition that
preceded him.
But try
imagining a different sort of Fed chairman, one who knew, believed in and
practiced the words and wisdom of another American president of some note -
Abraham Lincoln. In 1886
Lincoln also
appears to have said (although some dispute it): "I see in the near future a
crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of
my country.....corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high
places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is
aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." Imagine what
Given
How the Federal Reserve System Works
The Federal
Reserve System is the result of the Congress and President having agreed to
privatize the nation's money system and relinquish the power that should have
remained the government's exclusive right. That act was so outrageous the Fed
had to be deliberately designed to look like a branch of the federal government
to hide the fact that it's really an all-powerful privately owned banking cartel
whose member banks (including all the national ones) share in the vast profits
earned from having the most important of all franchises governments alone should
have - the right to print money in any amount, control its supply and price, and
benefit hugely by loaning it out for a profit including to the government itself
that must pay interest on the money it should never have to if it simply printed
its own. Think of what happened as the government having legalized the right to
counterfeit the national currency for private gain. It's no exaggeration to
claim this is the greatest ever of all financial scams causing incomprehensible
harm with the public none the wiser. Here's how it works in simple terms:
The Fed was
given the authority to conduct the nation's monetary policy with the power to
control the supply and price of money. It has three ways to do it - through open
market operations, the discount rate it charges member banks, and the reserve
requirement percentage of member banks assets it requires them to hold and not
loan out. The Board of Governors is responsible for handling the discount rate
and reserve requirements while the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is in
charge of the open market operations of buying or selling bonds explained
further below. Using these tools, the Fed is able to influence the supply and
demand for money and thus directly control the federal funds short-term rate
that's always fixed unless the Fed wishes to raise or lower it. Longer rates are
controlled by the powerful institutional traders in the bond market.
The FOMC and How It Works
The Federal
Open Market Committee is really key to the whole process of money creation or
contraction. It consists of 12 members - seven members of the Board of Fed
Governors, the president of the New York Fed Bank (the most important one of
all) and four of the remaining 11 Reserve Bank presidents who serve one year
terms on a rotating basis. The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings a
year to assess economic conditions and decide how loose or tight it wants
monetary policy to be to further its stated goal of sustainable economic growth
and price stability.
The FOMC
literally has the power to create money out of nothing. It does it in a four
step process:
Step 1 - The
FOMC first approves the purchase of US government bonds on the open market.
Step 4 - The
banks receiving the credits can then use them as reserves to enable them to loan
out as much as 10 times their amount (if their reserve requirement is 10%)
through the magic (only banks have) of fractional reserve banking and, of
course, collect interest on all of it. What a business, and it's all legal.
Imagine how rich we might all be if we as private individuals could do the same
thing. Borrow a million from the Fed and like magic it becomes 10 times as much,
and we get to collect interest on all but the 10% of it we must hold in reserve.
This is the magic of fractional reserve banking money creation and explains how
powerful an economic stimulus it is when the Fed wants to enhance economic
growth.
When the Fed
wishes to contract the economy by reducing the money supply, it simply reverses
the above process. Instead of buying bonds, it sells them so that money moves
out of the buyers' bank accounts instead of into them. Bank loans must then be
reduced by 10 times if the reserve requirement is 10%.
How the Fed Harms the Public Interest
The Federal
Reserve System exists only to serve its owners and member banks and in doing so
is hostile to the public interest. That's because it's a banking cartel with the
power to restrict competition for greater profits gained at our expense. It goes
from our pockets to theirs, and the public loses in at least four ways:
One - Through
the invisible tax of inflation that results from the dilution of purchasing
power caused by newly created money entering the system reducing the value of
dollars already there. The Greenspan Fed was especially expansive, never was
held to account for its excess and was able to pass a serious problem it created
on to a future Fed chairman and society to deal with. The man we now lionize as
a monetary magician began sensibly. From 1982, before he arrived in 1987, until
1992, the money supply increased on average by 8% a year. But from 1992 - 2002,
the printing press worked overtime in sync with the deregulation and growth of
global markets expanding the currency by more than 12% a year. It became even
more extreme post 9/11 and since 2002 grew at a 15% rate. It now has more than
doubled in less than a decade. It appears that the new Fed chairman has taken
note and has begun reducing the rate of money expansion as he continues raising
the federal funds rate to whatever level he has in mind.
Currency
traders as well apparently have taken note of the rate of money supply expansion
overall. Except for a respite in 2005, it's quite likely the dollar weakness
since 2002 is the result of the excess amount of them created for the Bush
administration's profligate spending to fund its endless wars and reckless tax
cuts for the rich. The problem is further compounded as from 1964 to the present
debt service has grown from 9% to 16.5% of the federal budget and rising; the
current account deficit has gone from a 1% surplus to an almost 7% deficit; and
federal indebtedness has grown by 40% just since 2001 and financed in large part
by "the kindness of (foreign) strangers" that may be growing restive.
Furthermore, since March, 2006, the Fed stopped publishing the M-3 aggregate of
the total amount of dollars in circulation. With that transparency gone, big
buyers of US Treasuries now have to calculate the value of the dollar based on
speculation and uncertainty rather than hard data - not a way to inspire trust
in the financial markets that function best in an atmosphere of openness and
clarity.
Two - The
public also loses because the banking cartel is able to practice usury - from
it's power over a flexible currency to artificially move rates up or down to any
level it chooses which many small lenders in a truly free and open market can't
do. In addition, the cartel's market dominance forces most borrowers (especially
smaller ones less able to issue their own debt instruments) to come to them for
loans which it's then able to make using what should be the peoples' money
available to them at the lowest possible cost from many highly government
regulated small lenders competing for customers.
Three -
Through the taxes, we, the public, must pay to cover the interest on the huge
national debt (now over $8.4 trillion) accumulated from the money the Fed
printed and loaned to the government. As mentioned earlier, that now totals an
annualized amount exceeding two-thirds of a trillion dollars and increasing
daily. It's made the bankers rich, ordinary people poorer, and the public none
the wiser it's been fleeced big time.
Four -
Compounding the above abuse, the cartel is able to get the public to bail out
the system with more of its tax dollars. It happens whenever any of the
too-big-to-fail banks need financial help to survive. The same is true for big
corporations like Chrysler or Lockheed, large investment firms or hedge funds
like Long-Term Capital Management or even countries like
How Would Adam Smith Have Reacted to the Federal Reserve
System
This
concentration of banking cartel wealth and power is the opposite of what Adam
Smith, the ideological godfather of free market capitalism, advocated in his
writings including his seminal work The Wealth of Nations. Smith wrote about an
"invisible hand" that he said worked best in a free market with many small
businesses competing locally against each other. He strongly opposed the
concentrated mercantilism of his day (what there was of it) which now would be
the equivalent of today's giant transnational corporations and the banking
cartel with the power to restrict competition, maintain higher prices than
otherwise possible and earn greater profits as a result at the public's expense.
The kind of
banking cartel that exists today is precisely what Smith would have condemned.
But having a central bank is not in itself a bad thing provided the bank is
government owned, controlled and operated for the public welfare. There's only a
problem when through subterfuge the bank is set up to appear government owned
and run but is, in fact, for private profit the way ours is and most others as
well. And in the US, to make the arrangement work, a mostly publicly appointed
governing authority runs the System acting as a shill for its private for-profit
banking cartel members that wanted it in the first place and got a corrupted
Congress to give it to them. To work, the cartel needs the cover it gets from
its partnership with government, but it's through that arrangement that it harms
the public interest for its own private gain.
And that goes
to the heart of the problem: that the Congress elected to serve the people
instead betrayed them by creating an all-powerful banking cartel and gave it the
authority to practice fractional reserve banking with the power to get free
money by creating it out of nothing. It then allowed its members a near-monopoly
right to set the rates of interest they wish to charge borrowers. The whole
process amounts to a legally sanctioned heist by the powerful banks working in
league with government for its own gain. It's also part of a more extensive
government arranged process to transfer wealth from the people to the pockets of
large corporations and the rich and doing it while those being harmed are
unaware it's even happening.
Another Way the Federal Reserve System Harms the Public
The Fed harms
the public welfare in one other important way, and again most people are none
the wiser about it. Supposedly the Federal Reserve System was established to
stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, maintain a healthy rate of
sustainable growth while holding prices steady and benefitting everyone. So how
well has it done its job? Since its creation in 1913, and with them in charge,
we had the crashes of 1921 and the most important and remembered one in 1929.
That was followed by The Great Depression that lasted until the onset of WW II
that noted conservative economist Milton Friedman explained was caused and
exacerbated because the Federal Reserve oddly decided to reduce the money supply
at a time of economic contraction instead of increasing it. We then had
recessions in 1953, 1957, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1990 and 2001. We also had inflation
beginning in the 1960s which became quite severe through much of the 1970s and
early 1980s. And we had a major banking crisis in the 1980s at which time more
banks and savings and loan associations failed than ever before in our history.
It happened in the wake of financial market deregulation when banks were allowed
to pursue their own interests without government oversight to check their
willingness to assume excess risk or stop them from trying to get away with
deliberate fraud.
Along with the
economic stability the Fed never achieved, we've also had soaring consumer debt;
record high federal budget and trade deficits; a high level of personal
bankruptcies and rising mortgage loan delinquencies; interest on a mounting
national debt that's a large and rising percentage of the federal budget; the
loss of our manufacturing base and it's high-paying jobs with good benefits
because they're being exported to low wage countries; an economy in which
services now account for nearly 80% of all business that provide mostly lower
paying, less skilled jobs with few or no benefits; and a widening income and
wealth gap that continues to harm lower and middle income earners to benefit the
rich and well-off privileged few and a government that encourages it.
Sum it all up
and the conclusion is clear. The one thing the Fed failed to accomplish above
all else was what it was established to do in the first place. But it's much
worse than that if we understand a cartel's real motives. It's not to serve the
public interest. It's to abuse it because that's how it benefits most. It's able
to do it with its legally sanctioned concentrated power and a friendly
government in league with it as partners or facilitators. It's from that cozy
hidden from view arrangement that it's able to get away with the grandest of
grand thefts.
A Needed Solution to A Huge Problem
From the
information presented above, it's clear that the Federal Reserve System was
established through stealth and deceit by a handful of corrupted politicians in
service to their powerful banking and Wall Street allies. They did it to defraud
the public and without them being any the wiser about what, in fact, had been
done or how harmful it was to be to their welfare and interests. Those in the
Congress and President Wilson (a man trained in the law, one-time practicing
attorney, former esteemed academic and president of Princeton University) either
knew or should have known that the act he and they approved establishing the Fed
was in direct violation of the Constitution they were sworn to uphold. They
didn't, they broke the law, and the public paid dearly for their crime ever
since to this day.
So what
recourse is left, and can people be mobilized to pursue it. There's only one
sensible and just solution to undo the damage done to so many for so long -
abolish the Federal Reserve System and restore the power it now has to the
federal government working for the public welfare. Take it back from the
powerful banking cartel working against it and never allow it to be in its hands
again. That alone is the only way. The great German poet and playwright Bertolt
Brecht would have agreed and once said it was "easier to rob by setting up a
bank than by holding up (one)."
Freeing us
from the these powerful "Money Changers" would have enormous benefits for
everyone. It would establish a prudent policy of money creation that would
minimize our most unfair tax - inflation which is caused by private for-profit
bankers manipulating the nation's money supply to enhance their profits. It
would stabilize the economy and smooth out the extremes in the business cycle
exacerbated by the cartel working for its benefit and against ours. It would
lower the cost of money for borrowers because it would end the monopoly power
the cartel now has to set the rates it chooses by opening the market to more
competition. It would reduce the growing and oppressive national debt freed
eventually from the extra money supply growth needed to pay it off. It would
lower the public's tax burden as less revenue would be needed for debt service.
It would be a momentous step toward reducing and hopefully one day eliminating
the overwhelming power of all predatory corporate giants preying on us so they
can grow and prosper. It might even discourage wars which are only fought for
wealth and power - never for glory or to make the world safe for democracy or
other false motives. Without a powerful corporate banking cartel and other
industry giants that feed on the human misery they create, there would be less
of a reason to pursue any. Try to imagine that kind of world and a government
working for the public welfare instead of harming it as it now must do in
service to capital. That world is possible, and responsible people need to work
for it as the one we now have has failed and must be changed before it's too
late.
A View of the World Created by the Interests of Capital and
Our Government That Supports It
It's the ugly,
corrupted world of neoliberal "free market" capitalism controlled by giant
corporations; that benefits the privileged few alone causing great human misery
and despair; a despotic world that can't endure nor must we allow it to much
longer; one with endless wars for power and profit; where people are commodities
to be used as needed and discarded like trash when they're not; with no concern
for preserving an ecology able to sustain us and won't much longer because we're
destroying it and ourselves for profit; where essential human needs don't matter
under an economic model only valuing private gain; where democracy is
incompatible with predatory capitalism; one no one should want to live in or
ever have to; one we must change or perish. In the language of capital, that's
the bottom line. Only a mass movement of committed people can change that world.
It must or we all will.
Unless we can
move from our failed economic model to a better alternative, it will end on its
own one day by one means or other. But it may be a denouement no one would wish
for - it's own self-destruction taking all else with it either by nuclear
holocaust or an environment so inhospitable it won't support our ability to live
in it. Our only chance is to work for change while there's still time.
A Vision of A Different Kind of World
History proves
a better world is possible when committed people work hard enough for it. It's
how slavery was ended; workers won the right to organize and bargain
collectively; women gained equal suffrage to men, control of their own bodies,
and more rights and status in the work force; blacks and other minorities won
important civil rights; and politicians once enacted important social
legislation if only out of fear of what might happen if they didn't.
Thomas
Jefferson explained the "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." It's also
the price to keep our hard won social gains. For the past generation those gains
have eroded while we weren't paying attention and only mass people action can
regain them. The goal should be for a world of caring and sharing; where
peoples' lives improve because we all work together for it; one at peace and not
with endless wars to benefit the rich and powerful at our expense; where all
essential human needs are met because governments work for the common good to
assure it; with real participatory democracy where the public and elected
officials work together to keep it strong and vibrant; with no oppressive
corporate giants or banking cartels because the law won't allow any; where
ecological nurturing and preservation are central; with clean air, water and
soil and food that's fit and safe to eat; a much simpler world, more locally
based than today's where notions like globalization aren't even in the
vocabulary; one based on social equity and justice for all with government, law
enforcement and the courts working to assure it stays that way; one we all want
to live in and hope some day we can; one we want to pass on to future
generations; one we can't afford not to have because the alternative may be no
world at all.
We may now be
at a key watershed moment where our fate hangs in the balance. We can either
work together for a better, sustainable world or likely become the first species
in it ever to destroy itself. If it happens, we'll likely take most others with
us and not leave much behind for the few hearty ones that remain. We no longer
have the luxury of debate for the kind of world we need to survive. The giant
banks and corporations won't give it to us nor will a hostile government allied
with them. It's up to us to go for it or likely perish if we fail. A good
beginning would be by driving the Federal Reserve "money changers" out of our
temple and the corporate giants with them. A better world is possible if we
remember and live by political theorist Antonio Gramsci's inspirational words
about "the optimism of the will." With it, organized people can find a way to
beat organized money.
Stephen
Lendman lives in
