Nationalize = or Federalize = the National Debt

[Iolchan]

This Amendment came out of the Aether & I received it:

AMENDMENT XXVIII

Money and Credit – Congress Asserts Power To Coin Money, and Emit Bills of Credit

[SECTION 1.] The Congress hereby asserts the power, granted in this Constitution, to coin money, and to regulate the value thereof. - And further, to emit non-interest-bearing bills of credit directly through the Treasury Department [on the Credit, and in the Name of the People.]

[SECTION 2.] The U.S. Congress hereby authorizes the Treasury to issue a sufficient quantity of Fiat “dollars” to purchase back the capital stock of the Federal Reserve Bank from the private owners, by eminent domain.

[SECTION 3.] The U.S. Congress does also hereby authorize the U.S.Treasury to recall, by eminent domain, all domestically held, outstanding U.S. Treasury Bonds, constituting the “National Debt,” and, upon receiving, to Convert them, by Fiat, into a new species of dollar-denominated, and non-interest-bearing, credit instrument, to be termed "National Credit Receipts." - Hereby creating a revolving fund within the U.S Treasury Department, to be known from henceforth, as the “Common-Wealth of America;” thus transforming the national debt into a National Blessing; said National Blessing, to become the Common property of all of the Common People of the United States of America.

[SECTION 4.] The Federal Reserve Bank shall henceforth be subsumed into the Treasury, and function as a Sub-Treasury Central Bank of issue. Henceforth, these two shall be one institution, and be called, formally, the Treasury of the Common-Wealth of the United States of America, or commonly, “The Treasury of Common-Wealth.”

[SECTION 5.] The Treasury of Common-Wealth [ as the fountainhead of Credit Creation in the nation ] shall henceforth issue as Money only non-interest-bearing Notes, and Mint coins of pure Specie, stamped with their weight and fineness. The books, accounts and records of the Treasury shall continually be open to public scrutiny. The Congress, in order to promote the General Welfare, shall find creative ways to invest and spread the new national wealth.

[SECTION 6.] The Treasury of Common-Wealth shall honor, and continue to pay (by means of credit-exchanges) the interest on all the U. S. Treasury Securities currently held by foreign holders - under the condition that they Federalize their own Central Banks. There shall be no further issues of Treasury Securities, or Bonds.

[SECTION 7.] Each of the State Treasury departments, of each of the fifty States, are also hereby empowered, by the same creative principle [formerly given by charter to banks] to create Credit within their own jurisdictions, in the form of checks, signed by the State comptrollers, in accordance with appropriations made by the State legislatures, for the purpose of maintaining State institutions, infrastructure, and salaries.

[SECTION 8.] In accordance with the provisions of this Article, all banks and financial institutions in America shall receive new charters from the Treasury. The U.S. Treasury {and the State Treasuries} shall henceforth have the unique and sole power within the nation to create Credit – a function formerly granted by the government [ and thus erroneously delegated ] only to Banks. Henceforth private banks may charge interest, to service accounts.

[SECTION 9.] In Sum, this Article defines, and enhances the powers granted to Congress and the Treasury, under Article I, Section 8, clause 5, of this Constitution. Furthermore, this Article amends and modifies Article II, Section 10, clause 1, to empower State Treasuries to create [a limited amount of] non-inflationary Credit, in the form of check-book money in order to meet the pressing needs of the States.

[Speak2Truth]

No amendment is necessary. The US Constitution already describes the lawful creation of currency and it has not been obeyed for a very long time, resulting in the current mess.

When Abraham Lincoln restored lawful production of currency, it alarmed enemies of this nation. This is why:

"If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." - London Times

I believe Lincoln was killed because of this.

John F. Kennedy stated an intention to eradicate the Federal Reserve and restore lawful control of US currency. He got dead too.

It is very important to SOMEBODY that the wisdom of our nation's Founders be thwarted so that they can keep their hands in our pockets, so that they can force us to labor and deliver real wealth to them in exchange for their merely printing some paper to circulate around. They enslave the American People illegally.

[Iolchan]

Why We Need Amendment XVIII, Now

Amendment XVIII does several things that are timely:

Amendment XXVIII Re-Asserts the Constitutional principle that Congress – the Representatives of We, the People - should control, and be the ultimate Arbiter over the Creation of Money and Credit.

Amendment XXVIII Nationalizes the private ownership of the Federal Reserve Bank, and subsumes the creative functions of that institution into the Treasury Department, creating one new entity, “The Treasury of Commonwealth” - to be established and dedicated to the Interest of the People – not Wall Street.

Amendment XXVIII furthermore, Nationalizes the National Debt, and transforms, by Congressional Fiat, the old, fictional, fraudulent “National Debt,” held by prime banks, and in the form of U.S. Treasury Securities, into an actual National Blessing {Alexander Hamilton’s words} in the form of trillions of Dollars of “Common-Wealth” to be deposited in the New “Treasury of Common-Wealth,” by recalling, and transforming the U.S. Treasury Bonds, by Fiat, into a new, dollar-denominated credit instrument: the “National Credit-Receipt.” – Henceforth to be the Common property of all United States Citizens.

Amendment XXVIII offers a gradual approach, whereby Treasury Bonds held by foreign Banks shall still be paid off as they come due - provided that the Central Banks of the other nations shall re-organize themselves after this new, Federalized, American model. And - this is critical - Amendment XXVIII also asserts that “…there shall be no further issues of Treasury Securities, or Bonds.”

Amendment XXVIII opens, once again, the Treasury Mints to the free coinage of silver and gold. The new Commodity Money coins shall be stamped with their weight and fineness, not denominated in terms of “Dollars.”

Borrowing a page from the Articles of Confederation, Amendment XXVIII grants, once again, the State Governments the power to create Credit within their own jurisdictions. This will be of great help to the infrastructure and to Health, Education, and Welfare within the fifty states. It will serve the Interest of the People, but displease the banking elites and their minions.

Since State governments are empowered to grant charters to State Banks, which enable these Banks to create Credit, States also should be empowered to Create, with the stroke of a pen, sufficient Credit within their own jurisdictions to assist Human needs.

If Amendment XXVIII intended only to restore a lawful system of Constitutional money - with Fiat Treasury Bills replacing the interest-bearing debts known as "Federal Reserve Notes," then indeed, no Amendment would be necessary. The Constitution already provides Congress with the power to issue such notes as interest-free money. And the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision in the 1880's, ruled that the issuance of such notes comes within the Powers of Congress as writ in of Article I, Section 8, clause 5, of the Constitution.

However, Amendment XVIII is more ambitious than to do just that. An elegant solution, Amendment XVIII, also nationalizes the National Debt; transforms the Treasury Department into The Treasury of Common-wealth; fills the coffers of this new institution with trillions of "dollars" of Credit; and establishes a new specie of credit-instrument, a dollar-denominated "nation credit receipt" the aggregate sum of which shall be the Common property of all American citizens - not just the small elite who are fortunate to inherit the right stock in the right {Wall Street money-market } banks.

Amendment XXVIII merges the Federal Reserve Bank into the Treasury Department, and Subsumes the creative, credit-creation function of the Fed into the new "Common-Wealth" Treasury. Henceforth, the Treasury shall not be compelled to issue interest-bearing Treasury Securities to "back" all of the paper "dollars" that the Fed currently issues. Instead, the Treasury shall issue non-interest-bearing Treasury notes, as Abraham Lincoln and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were able, for a short time, to do.

Amendment XXVIII also grants the fifty States the power to create credit within their own sovereign jurisdictions, to meet their crushing deficit burdens, instead of having to float endless bond issues and borrow more "money" at interest from banks and investors of the bond-holding class. The Articles of Confederation, drafted by the Revolutionary Continental Convention of 1777, allowed the States this power - and it should be restored to the several States, in order for there to be a healthy society in North America.

Thus, Clause 9 reads: "Furthermore, it amends and modifies Article II, Section 10, clause 1, to empower State Treasuries to create [ a limited amount of ] non-inflationary Credit, in the form of check-book money in order to meet the pressing needs of the States."

Sincerely,

Mark Walter Evans,
Sleepy Hollow,
Hood Mountain,
New, New Caledonia

[Peace Voyager]

Why We Need Amendment XVIII, Now

Amendment XVIII does several things that are timely:

Amendment XXVIII Re-Asserts the Constitutional principle that Congress – the Representatives of We, the People - should control, and be the ultimate Arbiter over the Creation of Money and Credit.

Amendment XXVIII Nationalizes the private ownership of the Federal Reserve Bank, and subsumes the creative functions of that institution into the Treasury Department, creating one new entity, “The Treasury of Commonwealth” - to be established and dedicated to the Interest of the People – not Wall Street.

Amendment XXVIII furthermore, Nationalizes the National Debt, and transforms, by Congressional Fiat, the old, fictional, fraudulent “National Debt,” held by prime banks, and in the form of U.S. Treasury Securities, into an actual National Blessing {Alexander Hamilton’s words} in the form of trillions of Dollars of “Common-Wealth” to be deposited in the New “Treasury of Common-Wealth,” by recalling, and transforming the U.S. Treasury Bonds, by Fiat, into a new, dollar-denominated credit instrument: the “National Credit-Receipt.” – Henceforth to be the Common property of all United States Citizens.

Amendment XXVIII offers a gradual approach, whereby Treasury Bonds held by foreign Banks shall still be paid off as they come due - provided that the Central Banks of the other nations shall re-organize themselves after this new, Federalized, American model. And - this is critical - Amendment XXVIII also asserts that “…there shall be no further issues of Treasury Securities, or Bonds.”

Amendment XXVIII opens, once again, the Treasury Mints to the free coinage of silver and gold. The new Commodity Money coins shall be stamped with their weight and fineness, not denominated in terms of “Dollars.”

Borrowing a page from the Articles of Confederation, Amendment XXVIII grants, once again, the State Governments the power to create Credit within their own jurisdictions. This will be of great help to the infrastructure and to Health, Education, and Welfare within the fifty states. It will serve the Interest of the People, but displease the banking elites and their minions.

Since State governments are empowered to grant charters to State Banks, which enable these Banks to create Credit, States also should be empowered to Create, with the stroke of a pen, sufficient Credit within their own jurisdictions to assist Human needs.

If Amendment XXVIII intended only to restore a lawful system of Constitutional money - with Fiat Treasury Bills replacing the interest-bearing debts known as "Federal Reserve Notes," then indeed, no Amendment would be necessary. The Constitution already provides Congress with the power to issue such notes as interest-free money. And the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision in the 1880's, ruled that the issuance of such notes comes within the Powers of Congress as writ in of Article I, Section 8, clause 5, of the Constitution.

However, Amendment XVIII is more ambitious than to do just that. An elegant solution, Amendment XVIII, also nationalizes the National Debt; transforms the Treasury Department into The Treasury of Common-wealth; fills the coffers of this new institution with trillions of "dollars" of Credit; and establishes a new specie of credit-instrument, a dollar-denominated "nation credit receipt" the aggregate sum of which shall be the Common property of all American citizens - not just the small elite who are fortunate to inherit the right stock in the right {Wall Street money-market } banks.

Amendment XXVIII merges the Federal Reserve Bank into the Treasury Department, and Subsumes the creative, credit-creation function of the Fed into the new "Common-Wealth" Treasury. Henceforth, the Treasury shall not be compelled to issue interest-bearing Treasury Securities to "back" all of the paper "dollars" that the Fed currently issues. Instead, the Treasury shall issue non-interest-bearing Treasury notes, as Abraham Lincoln and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were able, for a short time, to do.

Amendment XXVIII also grants the fifty States the power to create credit within their own sovereign jurisdictions, to meet their crushing deficit burdens, instead of having to float endless bond issues and borrow more "money" at interest from banks and investors of the bond-holding class. The Articles of Confederation, drafted by the Revolutionary Continental Convention of 1777, allowed the States this power - and it should be restored to the several States, in order for there to be a healthy society in North America.

Thus, Clause 9 reads: "Furthermore, it amends and modifies Article II, Section 10, clause 1, to empower State Treasuries to create [ a limited amount of ] non-inflationary Credit, in the form of check-book money in order to meet the pressing needs of the States."

Sincerely,

Mark Walter Evans,
Sleepy Hollow,
Hood Mountain,
New, New Caledonia

I like this idea; what do the rest of you think?

Patriotically,

Colleen Fernald

[Speak2Truth]

I'm unsure of the consequences of parts of it. However, restoring lawful production of currency to Congress has been proven. I'm all for it.

I noted with pleasure that North Dakota elected a Republican former CEO from the oil and banking industries some years back and with a cooperative legislature he fixed the State's economic problems. Furthermore, North Dakota created its own bank to get its people free from the Federal scheming and manipulations. That too solved a lot of problems.

This pleased me because there are at least some people who believe it's a good idea to create a sustainable, working economic system and they correctly identified the type of person who can build such a system. Hint: It's not a left-wing ideologue who HATES "corporations" and HATES "the rich". It's the other guys.

If people actually want to solve the problems that are the focus of all this fuss and turmoil, there really IS A SOLUTION.

The States have the power to free themselves, in large part, from the mischief of the Democrat Party. However, it may not go easily. Look how hard Democrats are fighting in Wisconsin to STOP the elected representatives of The People from fixing the mess in that State. They are busing in people from around the nation to create havoc in that State, to disrupt and intimidate.

Evil is as Evil does.

[Iolchan]

Speak2Truth wrote:
I noted with pleasure that North Dakota elected a Republican former CEO from the oil and banking industries some years back and with a cooperative legislature he fixed the State's economic problems. Furthermore, North Dakota created its own bank to get its people free from the Federal scheming and manipulations. That too solved a lot of problems.

Actually, the Bank of North Dakota is a fairly old Institution, created back in 1916, by the Non-Partisan League, when it came to power in North Dakota that year. I know a bit about this, since my grandfather, Walter W. Liggett, was the originator of the Federated News Service of the Non-Partisan League, and for several years, its managing editor, micro-managing 56 Non-Partisan League newspapers throughout the Dakotas and into Minnesota, when the movement jumped the State line, in 1918, and became known, in Minnesota, as the Farmer-Labor movement.

It was a left-wing, Populist-Socialist phenomenon that created the Bank of North Dakota in 1916. It was a Radical movement, when it started; that grew out of the Republicanism of the frontier, mingled with imported Social-Democracy from Scandinavia; and it took over the Republican Party in North Dakota in 1916. It was another kettle of fish altogether, than the "Republicanism" of the Wall Street party bosses, who then, as now, controlled the East Coast head-quarters of the Republican Party.

In 1918, the newspaper, "The Organized Farmer" of the Farmer-Labor campaign for the gubernatorial run of the elder Lindbergh, { Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Sr., the father of the aviator} ran a series of advertisements for John Reed's book, "Ten Days That Shook the World."

You are right about one thing, Speak2Truth - all this was not done by the Democrat party. Back in 1916, the Democrat Party was the party of the Ku Klux Klan. It still is, by the way. The Democrat Party is a Party with a big tent.

You are also right about the Bank of North Dakota having solved a lot of problems. It is somewhat ironic that a "socialist institution" initiated as a "Reform" by a bund of radicalized Scandinavian farmers in 1916, should prove so successful, and such an engine of prosperity for all the people of the State {providing 2% refinancing for property-owners in North Dakota, since 1916} that the beneficiaries of the policies of the bank as a consequence should have become so forgetful of the roots & the primary causes of their own prosperity.

In this particular case, the State has not withered away, but the memory that the Bank of North Dakota was originally a Socialist Institution has almost faded away, since the farmers of North Dakota, as a whole, have become so prosperous, and so wealthy.

Here is a write-up of the Non-partisan League movement, known as the "Political Prairie-Fire," as I wrote it up back in 1992, in the North Coast Xpress: https://www.paleoprogressives.org/po...socialism.html

- Mark

[Speak2Truth]

Thanks for the history on the Bank of North Dakota. I mentioned it because it is an existing power that States have to get free of the meddling of the Federal Government in banking institutions - and it works. Now, if only the States could free themselves from being taxed for the screwups of the Federal Government...

:)

[Iolchan]

Towards A New Definition of Progressive

An analysis of what is missing from the program of the current progressive movement - in the hope that, by re-examining the past, we may rise up and seize the future. I [Mark Walter Evans,] wrote this in 1993, and it was published in the North Coast Xpress.] I am posting it now, because it’s still goin’ on, Denny


The United States today is in the throes of severe institutional crisis. Budget shortfalls at every level have gutted many necessary social services. Our civic, county, and state governments must raise property taxes, excise taxes, fees, and fines.

The federal government also is in hock and has been running an annual deficit in excess of three hundred billion dollars. The people also, for the most part, are mortgaged for life. Meanwhile, millions of homeless people - no one knows the actual number -- wander the streets of cities, sleeping in alleys, doorways and under bridges.

Massive layoffs at domestic plants of General Motors, IBM, Texas Instruments, Sears, and many other corporations, impel hundreds of thousands of high skilled blue and white-collar workers close to the same fate, while these same corporations shift their operations to Mexico and other Third World nations. At the same time, prisons — the new "growth industry" — are being built at a phenomenal rate.

Prisons, however, are black holes in space, incredibly expensive to build and run, and add substantially to the state and federal debt. Even after jobbing the prisoners out to work as slave-labor for corporations (involuntary servitude and highly illegal under the Constitution), prisons still run in the red. The only people besides the staff and guards who benefit are the bond-holding class who own the debt.

What is the problem? We are told that capitalism is synonymous with democracy. We are told that the system we live under is "free enterprise" when in fact it is a form of usury-finance, monopoly capitalism. We are told that the "free market economy" (read stock market) is the greatest system ever devised by the mind of man. We are told that the proof of this is that communism and socialism have been "proven" to not work.

Yet the fabric of our society continues to unravel. The final phase — the Reagan phase of the Cold War, an enormous scam and boondoggle — may or may not have been the straw that broke the back of the Soviet Union, but it most assuredly bankrupted the American economy. We are now the greatest debtor nation on earth.

Where are the Progressives?

In the midst of this fundamental institutional crisis in capitalism, what is the progressive movement doing to make this country a better country, this world a better world? Does the current "progressive movement" even have an agenda, a plan, or any clue as to what to do to address the serious systemic flaws in our social and financial institutions?

In Berkeley, California, the supposedly radical Berkeley Citizens Action -- a collection of old Stalinists and fellow-travellers -- which ran the city for years, was at the vanguard of instituting creative new ways of exploiting the people in order to raise moneys for the civic bureaucracy.

Berkeley was one of the first cities in the country to divide the city into lettered zones which require mandatory residential parking registration of vehicles. In order to obtain a designated letter-sticker to be able to park for more than two hours in any zone, one must be able to prove residency in that zone.

Accidental "offenders" under this system must pay an exorbitant price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apart from the highly questionable constitutionality of such devices -- which clearly infringe on the freedom of the people (especially those among the homeless who still possess vehicles) -- this is a very predatory situation, falling hardest upon the poor, and is just one more sign of the institutional crisis of capitalism.

Usury is a Form of Class War

Few people realize that the cities, counties, and states are experiencing their budget shortfalls precisely because the Federal and state government(s) under the current system are not allowed to create fiat moneys (checkbook money, for starters) in the name of the People.

Instead, they must issue interest-bearing bonds and borrow "money" from banks. The State, then becomes the instrument by which the bond-holding class — the owners of the banks — extort and oppress the people in order to receive back their pound of flesh, the interest on their bonds, payable either in taxes, fines, fees, levees, or bail.

The contemporary "progressive movement," unlike the Farmer-Labor movement, and the Progressive Party of Robert LaFollette in 1924, is not addressing this fundamental issue. We must get back to the root of the problem if we are ever to achieve an egalitarian society and eliminate the systemic means that perpetuate class oppression. We must learn the basic realities (not the academic establishment version) of economics.

It should be apparent that the obvious place to begin, is with the Federal Reserve Bank, the institution that functionally oversees the process of creating Money.

This mysterious, mystical Process -- the how of Money Creation -- was very simply and clearly de-mystified and explained in a manner that any school kid could understand in a book by Elsa Peters Morse, a wonderful woman and a famous Old Leftie who lived for years in the Richmond District of San Francisco. Her book was called "The Key to World Peace -- and Plenty" (1960) Her book is just one more thing that needs to be found, scanned, digitized, and put on-line.

What Is Money? - In the words of Elsa Peters Morse :

"Money is defined as the sum total of currency and demand deposits. Money as such is a social instrument — a basic utility. It is the medium for easily exchanging goods and services and storing the value of wealth.

"Therefore, to have a sound economy, money must be issued, and its value controlled, by the government for the general welfare of the nation and its people. Money should not, as now, be issued as debt against the collateral of private and public wealth by private business institutions at interest — for their private profits.

"Few people understand how a dollar bill is issued into circulation — as debt. Nor have they been informed how the billions of dollars of the national debt are set up on the books of the private banks under capitalism as a loan to the nation -- at no financial cost to the banks - and yet drawing interest...

"The money of modern capitalist civilization is created as debt-credit on the books of the institutions that have the concession of issue. In the Process, debt is created — credit is created, and checks and paper bills are put into circulation as money.

"The system of pump-priming the economy through debt, otherwise known as credit expansion, is technically called deficit-financing.

"Deficit-financing through government spending or borrowing by increasing the public debt is now necessary to subsidize the whole profit-system economy-the economy of the entire capitalist world...

"The servicing of the public debt, or the paying of the interest charge (profit to the banks or other bond holders) on the capitalist nation's state, city, or country bonds, is reflected in higher and higher tax rates as the debt load deepens. The injections of debt-credit money are steadily increasing through the entire capitalist world.

"All money should be issued directly by the nation — by the government — and not run through the books of the banks — as a dole to the bankers and a debt to the people, thus throttling the overall economy through the toll of interest in the debt-profit system of issuing money.

"As long as Capitalism exists, it is obvious the debt can never be paid off, for then there would be no money in circulation. And any attempt to reduce it will bring a corresponding drop in the national prosperity. To get rid of the debt the people must get rid of the profit system." - end quote.

The Fed operates beyond public scrutiny and enjoys a mystical reputation for positively controlling the American economy. The Fed can and does create and destroy "credit money" at will. The myth that "inflation" is caused merely by the overproduction of printing-press money is a fatal misunderstanding.

At the present time [1993- auth] cash is actually being gradually taken out of the system. The real problem is the manipulation, i.e., the periodic inflation and subsequent restriction of "credit money" by the Federal Reserve and the banking system as a whole.

A distinction must be made between "inflation," defined as an expansion of cash money in the system, and "inflation," defined as the artificial creation and manipulation of "credit money" by banks. The one is good for the middle-class, the small business people, and the working poor. The other is good only for the bankers.

Thirty-five to forty percent of the federal budget (government agencies "cook the books" and the figures are highly nebulous) is currently channeled just to service the interest on the debt. Consider what this enormous expenditure could do for the nation and the body politic if it were channeled in other, more productive directions!

For example, homelessness could be eliminated, and millions of presently unemployed people could be put to useful work. The Democratic Party, however, is just as committed as the Republican Party to the principle that government spending should return a tidy profit in interest to the banks and the bond-holding class.

The Progressive Alternative

To really eliminate first the deficit, and then the debt altogether, the government should cease the practice of borrowing money at interest from the private banking system. This was the thrust of the Farmer-Labor Party platform in the twenties and thirties, and of Robert LaFollette Sr.'s Progressive Party of 1924.

To do this, the federal government would have to purchase back the capital stock of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank and cease issuing interest-bearing bonds, notes, and securities, as Jerry Voorhis, the radical Congressman from Whittier ( who was Richard Nixon's first prey on his rise to power) suggested in his wonderful book, "Beyond Victory," (1944).

The 1932 Farmer-Labor platform began with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution and called for legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve Banking System-private ownership of the currency system-by repealing the present unconstitutional banking laws and then placing the currency system in the hands of federal, state, and local governments, so that the profits, if any, would accrue to them, thereby preventing panics, depressions and crises and private control of money.

That Platform called for non-interest-bearing U.S. notes to be issued as Fiat money by the government in the name of the people and for the mints to be opened to the free coinage of gold and silver. The coins, however, were not to be stamped in dollar denominations, but rather according to their weight and the fineness of the metal (e.g., one ounce, .999 fine), circulating as commodity money alongside the Fiat paper money.

Historically, former progressives knew these things and had an agenda to address the issue. In the 1920s, the entire spectrum of the American left addressed the issue of nationalizing the Federal Reserve, the Central Bank, and eliminating usury. Their chief differences were of a tactical nature.

The Farmer-Labor, Progressive, and Socialist Parties believed that it could be done through the electoral process, by the ballot, while the Communist and Socialist-Labor Parties advocated revolution. Today, even most of the "revolutionary" elements no longer address this issue, at least not to a degree proportionate to its importance.

The process by which the American left was co-opted and decimated to the point that it abandoned the struggle to reform the government along the lines of nationalizing Credit is easily the subject of several long articles, if not a book.

In a nutshell, the left has had to give up on this issue because it has become dependent upon money from the tax-exempt foundations. The problem, however, has not gone away; it has only increased. The words of the Minnesota Farmer-labor platform of 1934, which advocated nationalization of credit and of the Central Bank, still ring true:

"...the United States has the most wonderful resources, great factories, machinery of production, steam power and electric power and the millions of capable workers and farmers ready and able to produce food, clothing and shelter in great abundance for all.

"At this time when all of us could live in prosperity and happiness we find that there are millions of working men and women in poverty, want, and degradation and that there are also hundreds of thousands of farmers, business and professional people who have become poverty-stricken and bankrupt and millions of people in all walks of life are compelled to eat the bread of charity. Palliative measures will continue to fail.

"Only a complete reorganization of our social structure into a cooperative commonwealth will bring economic security and prevent a prolonged period of further suffering among the people.

"We, therefore, declare that Capitalism has failed and immediate steps must be taken by the people to abolish Capitalism in a peaceful and lawful manner, and that a new sane and just society must be established: a system where all the natural resources, machinery of production, transportation and communication shall be owned by the government and operated democratically for the benefit of all the people and not for the benefit of the few."
- [Farmer-Labor Platform, 1934]

Unless the current "Progressive" movement moves to address the issue of money and credit and to present and advocate genuinely progressive solutions to the current crisis in capitalism, it will continue to find itself as a disengaged wheel, spinning in space, and the American people, the workers and the middle class, will continue to be easy prey to right-wing charlatans, demagogues and "friendly fascists.”

- Mark Walter Evans
Written in ’93, and still true.
What are we going to do?

[Speak2Truth]

Predatory confiscation of wealth by public servants, using creative techniques such as zone parking permits and exhorbitant fines, is NOT "just one more sign of the institutional crisis of capitalism. " Somebody is pulling a dirty trick here.

That is not capitalism at all.

It's the OPPOSITE of the game.

Capitalism:
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

[Iolchan]

Latest Draft:

AMENDMENT XXVIII


Money and Credit – Congress Asserts Power To Coin Money, and Emit Bills of Credit

[SECTION 1.] The Congress hereby asserts the power, granted in this Constitution, to coin money, and to regulate the value thereof. - And further, to emit non-interest-bearing bills of credit directly through the Treasury Department [on the Credit, and in the Name of the People.]

[SECTION 2.] The U.S. Congress hereby authorizes the Treasury to issue a sufficient quantity of Fiat “dollars” to purchase back the capital stock of the Federal Reserve Bank from the private owners, by eminent domain.

[SECTION 3.] The Federal Reserve Bank shall henceforth cease to exist as a private institution. All of the records, and the creative function of Credit-creation that were formerly vested in and granted to the Federal Reserve Bank, by the United States Congress, shall be transferred to the U.S. Congress, and the Augean Stables of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank shall be cleaned out, and Subjected to the most minute Public Examination. A New Institution, the “Common-Wealth Central Bank” of the United States of America, shall henceforth function as a Sub-Treasury Central Bank of issue.

[SECTION 4.] The U.S. Congress does also hereby authorize the U.S. Treasury to recall, by eminent domain, all outstanding U.S. Treasury Securities, constituting the “National Debt,” and to Convert them by Fiat, into a new species of dollar-denominated, and non-interest-bearing credit instrument, to be termed "National Credit Receipts." All U.S Securities owned by individual persons shall be redeemed, at face value, in credit, on the books of the Common-Wealth Central Bank. However; all outstanding U.S. Treasury Securities originally purchased from the Federal Open Market Committee by Banking Corporations at bond-auctions, shall be discounted to seven percent of their “value” and be accounted as balances on the Books, and by the Credit, of the Common-Wealth Central Bank of the United States of America.

[SECTION 5.] The U.S. Treasury, and the Common-Wealth Central Bank of the United States of America [as the fountainhead of Credit Creation in the nation] shall henceforth Issue as Money only non-interest-bearing, fiat Treasury Notes, and Mint Coins of pure Specie, stamped with their weight and fineness. The books, accounts and records of the Treasury shall continually be open to public scrutiny. The Congress, in order to promote the General Welfare, shall find creative – and equitable - ways to invest and spread the new National Wealth. There shall be no further issues of Treasury Securities, or Bonds.

[SECTION 6.] Each of the State Treasury departments, of each of the fifty States, are also hereby empowered, by the same creative principle [formerly given by charter to banks] to create Credit within their own jurisdictions, in the form of checks, signed by the State comptrollers, in accordance with appropriations made by the State legislatures, for the purpose of maintaining State institutions, infrastructure, and salaries.

[SECTION 7.] In accordance with the provisions of this Article, all banks and financial institutions in America shall receive new charters from the Treasury. The U.S. Treasury and the Sub-Treasury Common-Wealth Central Bank {and the State Treasuries} shall henceforth have the unique and sole power within the nation to create Credit – a function formerly granted by the government [ and thus erroneously delegated ] only to Banks. Henceforth private banks may charge interest, to service accounts.

[SECTION 8.] In Sum, this Article defines, and enhances the powers granted to Congress and the Treasury, under Article I, Section 8, Clause 5, of this Constitution. Furthermore, it amends and modifies Article II, Section 10, Clause 1, to empower State Treasuries to create [ a limited amount of ] non-inflationary Credit, in the form of check-book money in order to meet the pressing needs of the States.