OpEdNews - Diary: The Public Banking Movement Comes of Age

The Public Banking Movement Comes of Age.

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The public banking movement is becoming mainstream thanks to great work done by thoughtful and dedicated researchers like Ellen Brown, author of "Web of Debt."

In May, Brown reported on the growing list of states that are following the example of North Dakota and establishing public banks to facilitate economic growth. Brown:

California joins eleven other states that have introduced bills to form state-owned banks or to study their feasibility. Eight of these bills were introduced just since January, including in Oregon, Washington State, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maryland, New Mexico, Maine and California. Illinois, Virginia, Hawaii and Louisiana introduced similar bills in 2010. For links, dates and text, see here.

Stephen Lendman highlighted the significance of the rising popularity of public banking in his article "Public Banking: An Idea Whose Time Has Come," writing:

Overall, public banks differ from private ones by being mandated to serve the public interest, not shareholders or corporate executives seeking maximum profits for personal gain. Moreover, by returning profits generated, lower taxes and interest rates are possible. In addition, by not needing to pay themselves interest, state project costs can, on average, be reduced by 50%.

In short, public banks work, serving people responsibly, not greedy bankers, ripping them off for personal gain. The time for change is now. The way forward: public banks serving all Americans equitably and fairly for sustainable long-term growth and prosperity.

The question of who controls the money supply and distributes credit is central to understanding American history and the American experiment in self-government. One of the chief causes of the American revolution was the widespread anger across the colonies against the financial tyranny of the Bank of England. All classes of American society were exploited by the private banking establishment in the late 18th century, including the founding fathers. They successfully defeated the private bankers, but they never went away.

The fact that America established a national banking system to protect the public good angered the private banking parasites. They did not want a nation as rich as America to have financial independence because the example that would set for the rest of the world would mean the end of their power which is based on monumental fraud and epic deception.

Monetary reform remained high on the public agenda in America throughout the early nineteenth century, and resurfaced periodically during times of financial turmoil. The American people were aware of the threat posed to their independence and economic security by the private bankers and their political agents such as August Belmont. But over time public understanding of the machinations of private bankers decreased as the press was bought and brought under the control of the private banking monopoly and their fellow travelers.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the struggle was essentially over, and the private bankers won. The 1913 Federal Reserve Act represented the death knell for America's constitutional republic and made possible the modern age of mass exploitation and high treason.

The poet Ezra Pound used his poetic genius and deep knowledge to shine a light on the private banking fraud and the takeover of America through the Federal Reserve Bank by depraved usurers and usurpers. In his 1944 essay "An Introduction to the Economic Nature of the United States," Pound wrote:

The trap of the banking system has always worked in the same way--some case of abundance is used to create optimism. This optimism is exaggerated, usually with the help of propaganda. Sales increase; prices of land, or of shares, rise beyond the possibility of material revenue. The banks had favored exaggerated loans, in order to manoeuvre the increase, restrict, recall their loans, and presently panic overtakes the people. (1).

In the era of global financial panics there is a great need for public understanding about how the global banking system works to exploit the people of all lands and trick nations into paying unnecessary debt and interest.

The power to create money is literally the power of life and death. Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers came to the conclusion that the power to create money laid in the people's hands and should serve the public good. Barack Obama, George Bush, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and Tim Geithner believe usurious parasites should control the credit of America for the private interests of a tiny establishment, themselves included.

"The usurers, naturally," said Pound, "oppose any control on the part of the public or of a state that pretends to represent the public's interest. The usurers want the control to remain entirely in their hands." A constant war between productive and free humanity and tyrannical usurers that has been waged for millennia. The creation of the American republic was a blow against the private banking thieves. Pound:

The whole history of the United States oscillates between these two groups. The people rebelled against the London usurers and instituted a government in America. This government fell prey to the resident usurers who kept in touch with the arch-usurers in the mother country.
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The usurers act through fraud, falsehood and by taking advantage of habits and superstitions of accounting, and, when these methods do not function, they let loose a war. Everything hinges on monopoly, and the particular monopolies hinge on the great delusive monopoly of money. (2).

We learn about the trivial aspects and slogans of the American revolution like "no taxation without representation," but there was so much more to it than that. The issue at stake was the right to control the credit of the nation. When the British monarchy lost the physical war in 1783 they fought a financial war to reconquer America and repossess its banking system. As Pound wrote:

The struggle between the Producers and the Falsifiers of Bookkeeping was clearly seen and understood by the Fathers of the Republic. Their wisdom was recorded in pungent phrases: 'The safest place of deposit is in the pants of the people.' 'Every Bank of Discount is down right iniquity, robbing the public for individuals' gain.' An insurance agent once asked a banker why the railroad companies, which are privately owned, must run to him, a banker, in order to sell their bonds. The banker, with ironic sadness, whispered: 'Hush.'(3).

It is not America and mankind's fate to suffer at the hands of greedy private bankers. There is a better way. Democratizing the banking system in every nation is not a radical proposition, but a common sense solution to the global economic crisis. Public banking is a no-brainer.

Iceland, Greece, and other European nations facing tough economic challenges can show the way. Cities, states, and provinces in America, Canada, and other nations can also become independent and thrive economically by establishing public banks. States do not have to rely on the federal government, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve to fund infrastructure projects, pay public employees, and provide loans to small businesses.

II. Releasing The Shackles of Debt Slavery And Breaking Up The Monopoly of Money

We can look back to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln for inspiration in the current struggle against the private banking wizards who have captured entire nations and want to implement a global authoritarian government to consolidate their control over humanity and world markets. By ending their illegal, private monopoly of credit we can free mankind from financial slavery and begin a new golden age.

There is no reason to accept a new dark age when we have the knowledge, means, and resources to put a stop to mass slavery and private banking tyranny.

Here is another history lesson from Pound:

American money had not been democratic for eighty years, as Lincoln had democratised it temporarily, and as Jackson had democratised it, even succeeding in extirpating the national debt.

The American people as late as 1939 had not yet learned the lesson taught by American history and, much less, by world history.

It is idiotic to leave the pocket-book of the nation in the hands of private and, perhaps foreign, irresponsible individuals.

It is idiotic to leave the nation's sources of information in the hands of irresponsible individuals and, sometimes, in foreign hands.

This ruin has its roots in the greed for lucre, a greed which abandons all common-sense and every sense of proportion, and blindly creates its own undoing. (4).

We must keep in mind that mass slavery and theft of public money is not an inevitable fact of history. Change for the good is always possible. But first we must admit the full truth that America was usurped by cold-blooded oligarchs who are using the government to defend their ill-gained wealth and power. They have betrayed and robbed the American people in the name of "economic modernization" and "human progress."

When the Glass-Steagall Act was overturned in 1999, the traitors Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and other leaders of both parties promised economic prosperity with the full knowledge that they were actually screwing the American people and destroying America's economy in order to make a clean slate for a new world government to come into being. They did not want to tell the American people that America is being sacrificed on the altar of a dictatorial global government.

Political leaders who betray the people and act treacherously against the common good like Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Harper need to be reminded that they are servants of the public, not an unelected aristocracy of usury. As Pound said: "All it comes to is that everyone must observe constant vigilance; knowing that the official is paid 'by the people', that he is definitely their employee, they must insist on his behaving with the same sort of servicibility that a waiter shows when bringing their dinner." (5).

The apathy of the people is a big reason why public leaders are acting more like predators than servants. They treat the people like sleeping prey because they can get away with it .

Public apathy must end. We have to wake up and gain a whole new understanding of modern reality to defend our individual rights and reclaim lost freedoms.

Sources:
1. Ezra Pound. Selected Prose 1909-1965. 1973. Pg. 177.
2. Pound. Pg. 182.
3. Pound. Pg. 172.
4. Pound. Pg. 178.
5. Pound. Pg. 221.