Greenville Millennium Gazette   Issue No. 3, Vol. 1; publisher and editor, Joel A. Wendt   "...government in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one..."   Thomas Paine: Common Sense, published January 10th, 1776     NEWS ANALYSIS   Youth Violence   The recent tragedy in Littleton Colorado reminds us that something is amis among our young.  The central question, the question most difficult to answer is: Why?

We need to answer this question, because in our hearts we want to change things so that this does not happen again.  Unfortunately, why is not simple and the cure quite difficult.  The simplest answer to "why?" is the word "ignorance".  For complicated reasons we are ignorant of the real processes involved in creating this situation.  We are also ignorant of how to see another human being, so as to anticipate the emergence of violence.  Parents live in a culture that does not prepare them (or teachers, or psychologists) to look into the heart of another, such that we can see what we need to see.

One of the talking heads who responded to this crisis with a book and much conversation on television, spoke of "spiritual emptyness" within the child.  This is true, but the fact is the emptyness is within the culture, which then can only pass it on to the young.  In reality it is the culture which is sick and the individual acts of confusion are merely the symptoms of this illness.

When our political leaders are acting like war criminals and bombing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, how can our children make anything but a choice to retaliate against those who have bullied them for years, and so-sorry about the collateral damage.

The young men in Littleton were outcasts.  But who cast them out?  Their peers cast them out, and in our culture, which makes young gods of the athelete and the popular, how can we expect those golden children to think other then that they are better than others.  So they bully and abuse and exclude, while the adults look the other way.  Small wonder then that as some of these abused children come into their own thinking, and see how adults solve problems, resort themselves to violence.
 
Only a deep renewal of culture, of the forms of civilization, will bring the needed changes.  No law can touch these problems, for their roots are in the soul, in the realm where only the individual spirit can be master.  From the outside the problems cannot be touched.  Only the individual can reach into their own soul and master its dangerous impulses.  And, only a community with a spiritual understanding of human nature can teach an individual how to proceed.

Littleton is the consequence of cultural ignorance, scientific arrogance, and the selfishness of the elites of concentrated wealth.  Our children will continue and deepen their violence until we either understand, or until our communites are destroyed.  We should be thankful for their refusal to Consent to our cultural idiocy, in spite of the costs.  (an expanded essay on this problem can be found here: Beyond Columbine: appreciating the patterns of social meaning hidden in the Columbine tragedy)
 

EDITORIAL

Dear Readers,

As promised, here is the Truth about the World of Finance . (Because of the length of this Editorial, the novel, American Phoenix , and the Philosopher's Page, Beneath the Surface, will have to be continued over into GMG # 4, and not appear in this issue at all.)

When the French and America revolutions were over, the reigning aristocracies of the West went into decline. As these hereditary aristocracies more and more surrendered their powers, most of those powers began to accumulate among the holders of large wealth - the new mercantile classes and the older banking classes. (Other powers became the rights of the People, under the U.S. Constitution, but these powers will be lost if not exercised.)

By power in this instance, I mean the ability to effect the nature of the legal structure to the advantage of one's class. In America this originally took place during our Constitutional Convention, with the result that certain compromises where made, such that the owners of property obtained the protection of certain rights at the expense of the common man.

Today we live in the world fashioned by these compromises and the gradual accumulation of more and more power to concentrated wealth. Let's look at what that means in terms of modern financial realities, starting with the structure and nature of banking .

Most of us use banks. We have checking and savings accounts and perhaps, certificates of deposit (which is just savings with special rules). We also have home and auto loans, and credit cards. How does all this work in reality?

We give the bank the money we earn and they charge us for this privilege. They loan the money back to us and charge us some more. For these so-called services they make a lot of money, which mostly goes to shareholders (banks more and more are tending to be very large corporations) and upper level management. We don't need to do this. We could have the same services at about 5% of the cost, if the institution providing the service wasn't intended to make a profit (profit means riding on the backs of our work and labor).

[The next bit of material, written about four years ago now, contains what well might be errors.  I was relying on secondary sources, and when I began my 2004 campaign I sought to look to primary sources for the material in this essay in particular.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to confirm at this point some elements.  For example, I am having difficulty getting precise information on the true relationship between assests, reserves,  and loan potential in general in banking.  Most of what I read in primary sources is obscure, perhaps for a reason.  The idea of the multiplier below could be wrong.  Even so, while the details remain unclear, I remain convinced that the banking industry (as part of the tyranny of concentrated wealth) has been able over the years to conform legal systems all over the world to its advantage (and the disadvantage of the consumer of banking services).  Banking essentially functions as a kind of toll booth, wherein the individual wealth of the common people is charged an unreasonable fee in proportion to the services rendered, which services in many cases only exist as a further means of taking an unconscionable share of what we produce.  Just consider the real dynamics of a modern consumer society driven mainly by selling people debt positions (easy credit), and at the same time insisting that they spend this money for all manner of items not really needed.  The money (credit) moves through the consumer as if we were merely a pipeline by which the banks provided money to the shareholders and officers of large businesses.  When all is said and done, the consumer ends up even more a wage slave, having become increasingly indebted to the banks, and unable to find any real commercial freedom, needing to work for the same corporations, who also exploit that work for the benefit of the shareholders and officers.  In a consumer society we are not human beings, be merely workers and consumers from who wealth is generated only to end up with those who sit on the top of the system.  Until we reclaim our polticial life from the corrupting influences of concentrated wealth, we will not be able to insist, as is our right, that people are more important than profits.  Joel A. Wendt: Dec. 21st, 2002]  

It gets even better, folks. If I wanted to lend my cousin Harry some money, I would have to have the money in order to lead it, yes? Not so for a bank. The bank gets to lend far in excess of its actual deposits, because of something called the "multiplier". This means that the bank can lend 5, or 7 or 10 times its actual deposits (all this varies according to the type of institution etc.). Why? Because its a bank and the bankers have been making the rules for their own advantage for many many years.

Now during the 1980's and the Savings and Loan crisis, what happened was that this kind of banking (S and L) looked so cool that a lot of sharks got in the business, took in a lot of deposits, and loaned out greatly in excess of those deposits to other sharks playing the financial game in real estate. A lot of bad judgments were made, the government under the Republicans shut done the regulatory oversight, and whoops, when the market in real estate crashed (as it always does folks, always), so down the tubes went the S and Ls (and of course a lot of companies in related fields - construction etc.).

The result of this fun and games was that thousands lost their jobs and went onto the dole (or became homeless), the S and L sharks went on the dole too (it was called a bailout), and the government (that's us folks) picked up the tab in continuing high taxes. Why? Because its the rules and the bankers make the rules.

Lets look at the stock market.

It is gambling, plain and simple. That's it. Only a new stock issue raises capital. The ongoing trading, which is the great majority of the market's activity, is all just bets placed on the possible rise and fall of stock prices.

Most of the confusion we have about this comes from how language is used by those who sell the stock market as an investment. Basically two different kinds of activity are happening on these markets, and most ordinary investors don't know the difference.

Capital is raised when new stock is issued. All other purchases and sales of stock on these markets, and the resulting fluctuations, only effect the status of the managers of the company and the workers. Rumors can and do drive stock prices down, which then is experienced by managers as a pressure to restructure the company's balance sheet, because of the legal (laws made by bankers) obligation of managers to protect stockholder values.

The problem with this is that nothing is factually wrong with the company. The movement of a companies stock in the markets basically reflects the psychology of the market and not the health of the company. Its the cart pushing the horse kind of thing. Nothing wrong with the horse, and the cart's behavior effect's adversely the horses ablility to work. So the market is a fundamentally artificial push against management (and indirectly against workers), driven by the gambling psychology which rules the market.

People invest in the market, and play the market. People who actually invest hold stock for long terms and make money from dividends, because it is the real performance of the company that is crucial. People who play the market gamble against a rise and fall of certain stock prices from moment to moment. Most of the activity in the market is of the latter kind. In a way the stock markets are schizophrenic, because quite contrary financial impulses are active there.

Of course most of this country's retirement funds are into the market, and most of the banks too. This so-called investing is only good in a bull market, like we have been for an unnaturally long time. Yes, stock do pay dividends, as do bonds, but that wealth is basically stolen from the workers and lower level managers whose labor creates it. There is not much reality here, so basically everyone's savings is at risk, because it is being used to play a gambling game. The market is really all psychology, there is no science to it at all. If someone says there is, they are either lying or totally clueless.

The market exists for the house, just like the casinos in Vegas. Stock brokers make money and the companies they work for - lots of money, tons of money. When there is a long bull market like in recent years, everybody looks real good. Anybody really think this isn't a totally ripe for the crash situation? Its not if, just when. Guaranteed to happen. It used to be called a panic when a market crashed, but the spin doctors knew that would keep the small players out, so they changed all the names so it looks better in print. "Today the Dow Jones fell 1000 points on heavy trading". Sure. The reality is that a lot of folks betting on a rise in stock prices panicked when a slide started, so they had to dump their (our) holdings in order to lessen the amount of their (our) losses. We'll never hear that on the news though.

How about corporations? They are really neat, if you like getting away with things.

If you want to engage in business activity for which you have no personal civil or criminal liability, do it through a corporation. Now there are a few exceptions to this, but there used to be a lot more, a lot. But again, the bankers and the merchant princes make the rules and they didn't want to be personally liable if the companies they formed crashed and burned, so they used their corrupting influences in the halls of our lawmakers and made the rules to their advantage.

Of course, this system, which is idolized as "free" enterprise, but which can only really be played if you already are rich, always attracts creative and innovative players. So we end up with "junk bonds", which is a way to finance the purchase of a large corporation without having any tangible assets at all. All that really needs to happen is for enough of the players to agree - a couple of banks, some brokerage houses, and voila, a guy in a suit with no income and no capital now can spend 18 billion dollars buying up another company.

There is a catch of course but it is not the players who pay. Some where some tangible assets need to appear. And guess what? The company that was just bought gets savaged, ripped up and destroyed. Thousands loose their jobs, others their benefits, as parts of the just bought company get eaten by the need to satisfy the same banks that agreed to the "junk bond" financing in the first place. Its a kind of smoke and mirrors thing. Everybody pretends there are no real assets needed, until the new company is acquired and then all of a sudden the new company gets devoured in order to provide the assets everyone pretended weren't needed. Its like that three shells and a pea game the slight of hands folks do, only this time it is with money and the names bankers, brokerage houses, lawyers, and leveraged buyout consultants etc. call things. Since they get to make the rules, and they get to make all the money, whose to complain?

Derivatives. Now these are real cute. Again some very powerful creativity went into these little babies, very creative.

A derivative is a made up financial instrument. It wasn't enough for people to gamble with stock certificates, they had to make up totally new things to gamble with. There were just a few in the beginning, and now there are a lot. There is not even a company that exists that a derivative represents some ownership of, like a stock certificate does. Its all just hot air. But since all the players agree, and the banks will loan money to play, then why not go for it.

Basically this works okay is if the markets in derivatives are not too volatile. Then players play, bankers loan, little guys throw their money in the pot just like in Vegas, and some people get rich, and some people lose their shirts and kill themselves. Now once in a while, the supervision at a bank is not too close, and some guy loses a billion or two of the banks money gambling in the derivative markets, and that bank gets eaten by other banks. But basically, if you can get into this game and are lucky, you can get rich. That's, of course, what draws the suckers in.

Currency markets. Now this is not a money market fund, but it is the super bowl of the financial world - investing on the minute changes in the relationship of various currencies to each other. Trillions of dollars move electronically around the globe every day now, all at play in the big game. Not too bad if you can play, unless its your country's currency being played with. Then, better watch out (think about Russia).

Let's check this out a little closer. Everyone has heard about the economic crisis in Asia and its effects on Japan, and perhaps the United States. The fact is that the productive capacities of Asian peoples did not lessen. Rather what happened is that the growth there, as these economies became more modern, was very accelerated, and this lead to attracting the interest of speculators to both the relevant capital markets and the currency markets. It is the speculators whose betting habits ruined the Asia economies. The amounts of money the speculators can concentrate in certain bond and stock markets (capital markets), and on certain currency trades is way in excess of any amount of money actually needed by these economies. This vast speculative force only comes to play a game, in which the health of the individual economies is irrelevant and private profits are everything.

Okay, enough of these more or less insane rules. Lets try to weave it all together, because that's were the real kickers come in.

There are special kinds of banks, called Central Banks, of which the Federal Reserve system in America is one. Bankers love central banking because then they get to really hold a country's economy by the short hairs. When central banking came to be in America, Charles Lindberg's father, who understood what was at stake, published (or tried to) a couple of books so people could know what was really going down. However, he was arrested for sedition and the books and plates were destroyed. Can't let the truth out, can we (this is getting too much like the X-Files).

A nation, through its elected officials, basically has two economic control dials, the power to tax and spend, and the power to make currency. With the creation of the Federal Reserve system, we gave away our Government's power to make currency to the bankers (in the books this is called the monetary power). Now it is in the bankers' interests to keep the economy healthy, but they didn't like the politicians mucking it up all the time, so central banks have come into being all over the world.

If a country doesn't have a central bank, but needs money from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (by the way, the WB and IMF are just tools of the bankers, using our tax money, to extort rule changes in third world and developing economies), they only get money if they institute central banking and other so-called reforms (i.e. the bankers say: "put our rules in place or else down the tubes you go".)

Okay, how does a central bank work? It expands and contracts the money supply (mostly expands). It contracts it by raising interest rates (the prime rate) and expands by printing more money. (it can expand by lowering interest rates, but not with the same immediate power - printing money is a lot more interesting and faster.

Now this actually doesn't increase any real wealth at all, its just more hot air; so the thing has to be watched, otherwise it contributes to too much inflation (it is always inflationary, the question is just how much). What happens in practice goes like this. The governing board of the central bank decides to print more money and tells the treasury to do it (the taxpayer pays this cost). The money goes to the seven member Federal Reserve Banks (remember - Federal doesn't mean government, its just another name for a private bank with special legal powers), which can then loan out 7 times the amount printed to other banks (which of course have then increased their assets so they can loan out more according to their multiplier.) Bingo, the banks, having done nothing but taken a vote in their little smoke filled back room, now have increased their assets and can loan more money, for which we will pay the interest (where do you think all the money for our current credit card economy has come from?) and the cost of printing. Anyone want to be in banking now. It is the coolest game in town.

Didn't we used to have a gold standard or something? Didn't money used to have to be backed up by something real?

Now we get to the real neat stuff.

There is something which is called the real economy and something which is called the false economy. Obviously the real economy is wealth created by growing something or manufacturing something. In the real economy, labor and intelligence are added to tangible, material things, and products are produced which then can be consumed or used. In the false economy money is created out of nothing and then used to bet on stock markets and derivative markets and currency markets, so that the rich players get richer and the poor get to starve.

According to the folks that understand this stuff, the real economy is about 2% or less of the total reported national economies of the world (and getting smaller all the time), while the false economy is about 98% (and growing). In other words, those who corrupted our legal systems made the rules so that they get all this illusory wealth which they then use to dominate the rest of us by corrupting our political processes. Just makes you feel proud, doesn't it?

Let's go a little further, and look at an example, of sorts. Bill Gates, major billionaire, who, according to the most recent Time Magazine that I read at the library (there's one of the few real bargains in the world - the public library), is supposedly worth 65 Billion US dollars. Now that is figured by multiplying the amount of Microsoft stock he holds times the current market price. So, from our point of view, how much of this is real and how much hot air?

Its hard to say. Stock certificates supposedly represent a piece of "ownership" in a stock company or corporation. According to the rules the bankers have set up, this piece of ownership has rights superior to those who actually work for the company and create the wealth. Upper management gets stock ownership rights as compensation, but the grunt workers usually get none. If a company is sold in a leveraged buyout, stockholders make money (including upper management), banks make money, consultants make money, lawyers make money, but the workers, whose labor makes the wealth, lose jobs and benefits while the company is reconstituted after the fact to make the buyout work financially.

So Bill Gates gets to be an owner, one of the players, and go to Davro in Switzerland and hang out with the other players, while they discuss (using their indirect language, which enables them to avoid mentioning all the real moral issues at the basis of the game) how to run the world. Lots of people want to be the next Bill Gates. Get real folks.  Only a few get to be the super rich, and the rest of us have to be peons.

Now for the topper. Didn't think there was more, did you?

Since Bill Clinton came into office, showing us there really was no longer any difference between the Democrats and the Republicans (except on the surface), the leaders of the Western democracies, and a few other elected (and dictatorial) idiots, have managed to give away huge amounts of national sovereignty to the transnational corporations.

This has all been done under the name of free trade. I guess if you can stick the word free in there somewhere people will believe it involves everyone's freedom, rather then just the continuation of the freedom of the rich to get richer. Boy have we been suckered.

There now exists something called the WTO, or World Trade Organization, which performs certain functions with regard to GATT (general agreement on tariffs and trade) and NAFTA (north American free trade agreement). At present the bankers are trying to shove through various law making bodies approval for the final piece of their latest and most advanced great game structure, the MAI, or the multinational agreement on investments (if you hear someplace this has been blocked, don't believe it, it will just get shoved through under some other name).

What these agreements do is to allow multinational corporations to complain to the world trade organization (which is not a government body, but just another private club like the Federal Reserve board), that certain locally created laws are in restraint of trade. If the WTO finds this to be true, then either the local law making body rescinds the law (such as an environmental regulation), or the country involved gets punished (fines and other trade consequences).

What this means for the little guy, for us, is that there is coming into being a power superior to national sovereignty, a "trade" club, which has sole rights to free abuse of workers, free destruction of the environment, and free access to illusory wealth in order to play the game. This club cannot any longer be inhibited by any nation state. That's right folks, the semi-conscious tyranny of concentrated wealth, now can say: "screw you" to local laws and regulations, (that's assuming the final piece gets laid on the board - the MAI). Personally I don't doubt that it will.

Any questions? Okay, I know, what the heck to we do about this?

Burning the banks down, while maybe emotionally satisfying, won't change anything. Some folks, mostly confused progressive and pseudo populists, think we can fix this by getting the corrupt government to act (campaign reform and so forth). Fat chance.

What's worse, is that if the year 2000 computer bug is real (that is if it causes major problems in our computer networks, not just minor ones), that big piece of air, the 98% false economy is going to start to deflate pretty rapidly, maybe even go boom! If you aren't scared now, you haven't been paying attention. Got back to the top and read it all over again.

You see the game players, having gotten rich, and all that goes with that, don't have any motivation to make things better. Like I said in GMG #1, they are riding a very wild horse, and we are that horse. And, if we don't wake up and start to pay attention, just a little bit, there is going to be blood everywhere.

Things to notice. Its the rules. The bankers and merchant princes used their power that they inherited from the aristocracies, to make the rules they wanted. The really cool thing is that we don't have to play. Remember the school yard, when the bully tried to dominate the ball game, and everyone just picked up their stuff and walked off. Same situation.

Lots of folks already understand this a little. A credit union is a financial services organization which doesn't play by all the rules. It could be a lot better, but its a start. If you get on the Internet you can find out about local currencies. Yes, folks, make your own money! There has been a lot of work on this, in theory and practice, it just doesn't go far enough yet.

In GMG #2 I talked about dialogue. We need to be talking to each other, to have open lines of communication, in order to weather the storms. Cooperatives work.

Now a big collapse, where food distribution and power systems fail, that is going to be nasty and there isn't a lot we can do. Tom Clancy wrote a neat book called Debt of Honor, in which Clancy explains that in a financial panic, or stock market crash, the producing element of the economy is still healthy, so what people need to do is to not get in a snit. Farmers can still farm. Truckers can still truck. Manufactures can still make stuff. Workers can still work. We just have to keep producing and find creative ways to get around the obstacles.

The main obstacle is going to be those people who want to insist that we have to follow the rules, the rules the owners and bankers want us to follow, because if we do then they still will end up on top. This will not be necessary if we are talking to each other, if we are awake instead of asleep.

The main thing is to see that problems are not obstacles, but just inspirations to creativity (necessity is the mother of invention). Solve the problem . Don't complain, don't run around and try to find someone to blame. That's all wasted energy. Get together with others, cooperate and solve the problem. Oh, and yea, screw the rules.

We know how to be moral, how to do what is right in a given situation. We know how to share the burden, and to share the wealth. We don't need a lawyer for some property owner, backed up by a sheriff who can't see he is supposed to protect the people and not the banks, making obstacles for solving the problem. Sounds like a little anarchy? Sure. But use common sense, communicate and work together instead of being like a million separate chickens running around saying the sky is falling.

You see, since we are the wild horse, if we just tame ourselves a little, then its cool. No harm done, no offense taken, because we're talking and working together.

Lets go into this not playing by the rules bit a little more. This is crucial, and it would be easy to think this is some kind of license to do anything you want.

In America, at any rate, among most of us there is an unwritten social contract, with very specific rules (these are people rules, not bank rules). Don't bother me, I won't bother you. Talk nice to me, I'll talk nice to you. You have your opinion, I'll have mine. Don't mess with my sister, and don't call my mom names. Say please and thank you. Don't interrupt when another person is talking.

These are good rules. They come from what we might call: social common sense. As long as we stick with that, in the immediate situation, working together instead of against each other, then the social temperature stays down and problems can be solved. Of course there will be disagrements. Can't avoid them. But there are lots of ways to solve disagreements - mediation by an outsider; invoking some form of vote process; puting somone in charge and trusting them to make reasonably good decisions, even if everyone wouldn't do it that way.

Remember, a disagreement is just another problem - solve it, don't fall to the floor and whine about it.

important addendum

Okay, the banks and money people have made the rules for a long time, have corrupted our public life, and don't give a hoot about the rest of us. But please realize that its us that do all the clerical and janitorial work at banks, and stock brokerage houses, and law firms and corporate headquarters, so please don't just burn things down - we'd just be hurting our friends.

Maybe it will help to think about it this way.

Human nature is noble and nasty, all at the same time. Some people's nobility is huge, Gandi and Lincoln and King, for example. But even the noble ones remain human. Some people's nasty is huge - Hitler etc. Most of us are just a bit noble and a bit selfish. But nothing works without us. We're the glue that hold everything together. And in America, we're the ones who get to Consent to the Nature of Government, and if we don't like it, we get to change it.

The world got to be that way it is now, through a long process in which noble and nasty keep fighting with each other in the human soul. At some points in history it looks pretty sad for the noble, but if you wait awhile, the nasty always gets its due. So what is this about?

Now is the time for the profit worshipping tryanny of concentrated wealth to get its due. But we have to do it with out burning our own houses down at the same time. This means no talk of revolution, only talk of evolution.

Banks don't have to be destroyed in order for the nature of banking to be altered in a healthy way that keeps society balanced and free of anarchy. Anarchy is the worst kind of process for change. Sometimes necessary, but even when necessary, still the worst. If there is a kicker, it is this.

If we wake up and start to demand change, the people holding the reins might just drop them, jump off the now out of control economic stagecoach, and let the rest of us ride right off the cliff. They really don't care all that much. Or, because of the way the rules have been set, any real demand for change will undo the necessary psychology which holds the markets together, and panics will happen.; and, it will look like the economy has gone in the toilet.

We end up on our own. With apparently not enough food, and not enough whatever. So we get stuck with a major choice. Circle our local wagons and keep all interlopers out (death to strangers), or try to make something work together in spite of the chaos that has just appeared as if out of nowhere.

There is no answer to this problem. Just choices, excruciating choices. That's why we have to start talking now, building links among groups now, thinking together now about how to solve problems. If we are sleeping when the alarm goes off, heaven won't be able to help us.

Its like knowing a flood crest is coming, so we get together, fill the sandbags, wait it out together, and when it is all over, we help each other pick up the pieces. Its something we already do well. It is just that this flood is going to be different. It is going to be a "social" flood.

Now what the heck does he mean by that!?!?!

Societies are social organisms. They are held together by agreed to rules -- for example, one rule is called the rule of law. Everyone agrees to follow the laws (more or less). If there is a great deal of lawlessness, then the social organism itself gets sick, and doesn't work anymore. Think about the old Western movies, where the railroad guy and the banker and the sheriff are in cahoots. Except this time no stranger is going to ride into town on a white horse and save the town's people.

The town's people themselves have to do something, that is, we have to do something, together.

Our society has a great deal or organized lawlessness going on, involving politicians, financial folks, and so forth. A lot of huge shell games being played. If we join in the lawlessness, then, everything is up for grabs and there will be a lot of violence. Now since most of us are parents etc, we would rather things didn't get so out of hand. The thing to remember is that even if they seem to be getting out of hand, we still have a choice as to whether to join in the dance or not.

Do we choose order or disorder? If we choose order, what order? The old order, or do we invent new kinds of order?

Not everyone is going to agree or cooperate, especially if we choose to invent new kinds of order. It will not be easy, even if the evolution to the new unfolds quietly. The only advantage we have is to be talking to each other. To have wise councils meeting.

If we have that, then we can do what needs to be done. In a sense we begin to act as the real ground of government, because whatever happens is going to take our Consent.

Think about it. If we have a new social contact, a kind of renewal of America meeting happening, then everywhere that is happening this power of Consent becomes deeper, stronger and more self aware. It's all local. Just meeting and talking and thinking and sharing. If that is happening, then everything happens as a natural course. Renewal Meetings will want to be in contact with other Renewal Meetings. It all just grows, if only we begin to talk together.

Think about this: We're Americans. We're pragmatic (practical) and have romantic ideals (we believe problems are solvable and the certain things are right for everyone). We can do this, however hard it gets. Now in case we can avoid a collapse, and change the rules without bloodshed, how would we do that? In the Next Issue: How to Run a Political Campaign on Next to Nothing.

*

New Hampshire Constitution, Article 10 [right of revolution]: Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of the government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression , is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. (June 2, 1784)

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