Fab Lab Tulsa: City 5.0: The Economics of Personal Fabrication

This is a nice article by Matt Norris, Board President of Fab Lab, Tulsa.  He presents some of the philosphy behind Fab Labs and Makers etc. and how they will fit into our evolving economy, environment and social systems.  Very exciting.
Fab Lab Tulsa: City 5.0: The Economics of Personal Fabrication: We are encountering a rapidly changing social and economic world. When dealing with change I like to quote a recent comment from the Execut...

The 99%'s Deficit Proposal

Here is the Deficit Proposal put together by a "Super Committee," coming out of the October 2011 demonstration on Freedom Plaza in Washington DC.  The idea was to come together to discuss, think, research, collaborate on a realistic, workable Deficit Proposal to counteract and compare to the Congressional Deficit Proposal which will assuredly benefit the 1% as apposed to the 99%.  Especially since the 12 members of the Congressional Super Committee have received $41 million from the financial sector since being in Congress.  This report gives references and sources for all information.

This will be especially important as a tool to compare what will benefit the people to what coming out of Congress will benefit the1%.  It should be easy to see the difference.  Please take the time to read this.  I know it is long.  But it is the responsibility of each of us to study, read and understand what is being done to us.  You need to be armed with knowledge when you are in a position to explain these things to you fellow citizens.  If you find it hard to follow, get some friends together and take a small section at a time to talk about and help each other get the information.  We are homo sapiens, the most verbal and intelligent of the planet's creatures in this kind of thinking.  Take your time.  It is doable.  And the world depends on each of us.

http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-s-deficit-proposal-how-create-jobs-reduce-wealth-divide-and-control-spending 

"This Is What Hope Looks Like" — Tim DeChristopher's Sentencing Statement

This speech by the activist who bid in a public land auction is a beautiful explanation of the relationship between civil disobedience and the rule of law. This should be read by everyone who is concerned about what is happening across the country as citizens establish "occupations" to support Occupy Wall Street in New York City. The large majority of American citizens no longer have any say in how their government is run because a small group of citizens, have accumulated huge amounts of the total value (money) in our country and use that power to buy the political system. Those with power are able to pay for special treatment under the law even though one of our most important ideals in this country is that we all should be equal under our laws.

This is the reason no one can find any one demand or list of demands from the demonstrators. We are many and varied in our concerns. What we demand is equality under the law which is one of the major factors in the founding of this country and which we no longer have. When the King of England needed to be told why we in the colonies were causing so much trouble, the "founding fathers" spent a good amount of time talking, writing, arguing, discussing and giving serious thought to exactly what we thought should be the rights of a citizen and equality under the law was a defining necessity. We have been refining that concept ever since, adding people that had originally been left out and later including all races, all genders, all abilities etc. Up until these last 30 years or so, we avoided removing citizens from that equality.

We the people are finding that we are no longer equal to the small number of citizens and corporation that have slowly taken almost all power and influence for themselves. The laws of the country openly treat us differently than those with money and power and we cannot stop this inequality through the normal procedures of the laws of the land which are now in the hands of the powerful. We don't mind some people achieving wealth through hard work, creativity, innovation or even luck. Most of us have better things to do than focus on accumulating large amounts of money beyond a good and decent living. We thought that because we were equal in power by law, we could safely go on about our lives, protected by our constitution. I'm sorry to say we took it for granted. But now that we are becoming aware of what has happened through the actions of civil disobedience by "activists" like Tim DeChristopher, we find we will not tolerate the loss of an equal voice in the government of this country, a voice that will dictate our future and the future of our children, our neighborhoods, communities, our country and the planet we all depend on for life. And because we now know we have no voice, we the people must and will resort to civil disobedience over an oppressive rule of law, which is now the only voice we have to force our laws to apply equally again.

Please take the time to read DeChristopher's speech below.

"This Is What Hope Looks Like" — Tim DeChristopher's Sentencing Statement

A Quote for the Day

Here is a quote from an activist that spoke as one of the opening speakers at the beginning of October2011 in DC.  She was inspiring.

“So when people ask you your one demand say “Democracy.” And when they ask you why you’re here, say, “To be here”. And they’re not going to get that because they never get that. They think that democracy is a monument or an institution or a dead document, but it ain’t. Democracy is what people do. And so we’re here to do democracy, right? And we’re not going to leave until we’ve got it. And we’re going to leave and keep on doing it. Because this isn’t just an occupation, this is a decolonization. We’re here to take back everything they’ve taken from us. We’re here to get them out of our minds, out of our public spaces. We’re here to get our voice back, we’re here to get our homes back, we’re here to get our dignity back, and we’re not going to leave. I want that to happen. I want to one day be able to . . . say I like myself because I like my world. So let’s get started everyone.” —Ashley Sanders

Where I've Been and Where Should We Go Next?

I haven't been posting much since getting ready to go to my daughter's wedding in Phoenix as well as immediately after, going to the October2011 demonstration in Washington DC for a couple of days and then back home to Oklahoma, with a few days rest on a farm in Cynthianna KY where I breathed deeply and watched the leaves turn.  Ahhhhhhhhh.....

Since getting back, I have been trying to get back into the regular scheme of  things while keeping track of OccupyWallStreet and Occupy everything or anything else or where ever.  That sounds funny but it really isn't.
This whole movement is organic and seemingly unorganized.  It is unorganized.  Why?

The way I see it, we have a planet full of the 99% of the population that actually has very little power over their lives.  On top of that, we are beginning to understand that even in developed countries where we thought we were working to create justice and equality for all our fellow citizens, something is not working the way we told ourselves it was.  We are finding out what those in the undeveloped countries have know since humans first started living together in permanent communities, the system is rigged and has been rigged by a few of us to their own advantage.

There have always been those who are driven to seek power over their fellow humans because they find it   frightening to realize they are dependent on others for safety, existence, food, shelter, and a place in a community, a community of individuals they feel they have no control over.  This is a truth that a healthy person comes to terms with over their lifetime.  We are a creature that seeks to manipulate it's environment in order to optimize its survival.  But no matter how much we accomplish, most of us accept the fact that individually we cannot have complete or even much control, so we will die.  Being a conscious animal makes life a very scary proposition.  Your pet dog doesn't worry about it.  Humans invented religion, art, history, government, all to try and come to terms with death and control.

Most other animals slowly evolve new genes to deal with changes and threats from their surroundings. Humans evolved the ability to change their surroundings.  It is faster. We have an innate drive to make our surroundings work for us.  This allowed us in the past to move beyond any specific environmental system.  We go everywhere and anywhere!  Even the moon for short periods.  But being conscious and scared, some small percentage of us are compelled to seek and accumulate the most power over everything they can, including their fellows, their community, their environment.  We will call them the "Power Hungry."  They are too scared to play fair.  The Power Hungry have no trust that existing in a community of humans is the safest we can be.  They get no feeling of security when they look at the living systems of this planet and how they provide the optimum environment for the most efficient use of all resources here.  The Power Hungry are pretty sure they can do better, especially for themselves.

The Power Hungry choose to work behind the scenes.  They like the dark.  They keep secrets.  One journalist calls them Cockroaches which I believe is giving cockroaches a bad name.  Cockroaches have their place.  They do their job and do it well.  The Power Hungry on the other hand don't truly know what they are doing.  They are some of the less functional of us.  When we all lived in tribes or small villages, we could keep an eye on them.  They may possibly have a use in a community of varied individuals.  But the Elders could spot them a mile away as they developed through puberty.  And I bet the community knew how to keep them in their place. Now they are not obvious or out in the open.  They are harder to find and train when young.  I'm sure past elders, when they noticed Power Hungry young had to work extra hard to teach them what the rest of us managed to learn at our mother's knee.

We are as safe as we can be.  Our security comes from our community.  We care for each because every one has something to offer, something we need.  As a social animal with a conscious brain, we created a concept of "justice" that is built into our genes.  We care for our own.  But there is more about justice we also figured out.  First of all, we can increase our vision to include larger communities.  We organized into towns and cities, areas of cultural similarity, groups with similar looks or similar beliefs.  These became our larger communities.  Eventually these became countries and nations.  Homosapiens even began to see our species as a group to which we all belonged and increased our concept of "justice" to include the whole human race, deriving a sense of security from the idea that if we could assure justice for all, if we cared for all, we would be even safer.

  Our communities are also embedded in a living system that has a kind of justice of its' own.  Each cosmic ray, each element, each cell, each creature, each unique environment takes part in a bottom to top system of relationships, existing in time to organize the parts into a whole, into a working system that optimizes the functioning of the whole.  Everything happens because it works or it wouldn't be happening.  We as individuals, are part of a much larger system optimizing the workings of the whole.  There are no guarantees for the individual or even each community except that each relationship is just exactly as important as any other.  This is as good as it gets.  This is as fair as is possible.  Most of us can live with this and do so everyday, hoping our progeny survive, or our community, our country, our species, our knowledge.  We know any of these may disappear or be changed or replaced.  Life is worth it.  Being a part of a larger, responsive, self sustaining biological system is worth the risk.  Ultimately we rest our hopes on the planet itself continuing though even that is a risky  proposition when considered over eons of time.

Now we are learning that the Power Hungry, frightened individuals who cannot live with the truth of reality have worked to make our community systems work against the whole to their advantage.  The risk of living is frightening enough without others unbalancing the systems we thought we had put in place to keep everything fair and balanced.  Granted, none of us have been perfect.  We all tend to take more than we need when feeling insecure.  The species as a whole has been terribly hard on the living systems of the planet and my possibly have taken the pressure beyond what the planet can handle.  It looks like we may have lived ourselves out of a place here and our loss will prove to be just another somewhat larger adjustment in the  relationships that make up the total biosphere.  But the problems have been made worse by the Power Hungry down through civilized time.

Most all of us accept our risky place in reality which is not to say that we don't bitch and moan and try our hand at occasionally wresting just a bit more for ourselves or our children.  We are usually too busy living everyday doing what homosapiens do to spend much time on power accumulation. We believe we are a just society which provides some security and our living environment is as fair as can be.  But there are those who become obsessed with a desire to accumulate power and/or possessions in order to have better odds than everyone else.  They aren't concerned with fairness or justice because they are cowards and cannot face what the rest of us live with everyday. We face the fact that living is risky, it is a gamble that each will loose in the end. The harder certain individuals work to make themselves safer than the rest, the harder they rig the system so that it becomes unfair and the balance is disturbed, the less secure we all are, including themselves.

Now many of us are compelled to try and take power back for the community as a whole where it belongs.  We want life to be just and fair as it is possible to make it.  We want a level playing field where we care for one another and the planet in order to optimize the living possibilities within the system of life that mediates, balances and optimizes the resources of the planet.  We believe there is enough for all.  We believe we can figure out a way to protect a sustainable living system on the planet that will keep us and all life forms, large and small as safe and secure as can be since it appears diversity is the best indication of resiliency and sustainability in all living systems.  So besides demonstrating, occupying, and letting the world know that we see what is happening, what can we do?

If the individuals in the demonstrations cannot voice a demand, it is because there is nothing we can demand from the Power Hungry that is theirs to give.  Can and would they take us back 30 years, 65 years, 100 years,  or 200 until we found a point where we let them go wrong?  Did anyone back then, know we were not going in the right direction?  Were our choices always dictated by the Power Hungry?  How long have they been accumulating power?  Or did the social systems we put into place just naturally tend to take us in the wrong direction?  Much good has been accomplished and we don't want to give up our discoveries and inventions.

It seems the #OWS activists have something else in mind.  I think they are teaching and learning, passing on knowledge that some have discovered and practicing a different way of running things.  They are leaving things open so that we don't jump on the first idea that comes along.  We can't know what will work because we haven't done it yet.  Or maybe we have but we forgot.  So we are trying to remember.  Everyone needs to remember.  And we need to tell each other what we have found.  We need to question everything and we need to discuss the latest discoveries in life and social sciences which don't agree with what we have been told.  Economics is not a science for one thing.  

Here is a quote I really identify with by  Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy when he spoke at the 2003 World Social Forum:

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness -- and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling -- their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability."

I would add, "question authority," a bumper sticker from my day and one of my favorites.  You don't necessarily have to be disrespectful, you just need to examine it until you determine if it does or does not agree with what you know from experience.  Remember this example,  the Inuit have words for dozens of types of snowfall that we can't even see because everyone around us, never mentioned it, ignored it.  It wasn't important like it was to an Inuit native.  Our brains work in such a way that we don't notice what is not important.  That would be too much information.  We take our cues first from our parents and the adults we are around when we are children, then from other people in authority.  At some point in our development,  it is good to reexamine many of the assumptions we acquired early in our lives.  

We should use our own experience to inform us what is important to attend to.  Every moment, you can discover what you are doing that you thought was inevitable.  Examine their stories, their history, their truths.  Every action you take can be conscious, chosen, on purpose.  Nothing you do needs to be done thoughtlessly.  Your life can be chosen for you or you can make your own choices.  The only way you can be truly powerless is continue to be asleep, a zombie, a puppet.  All the knowledge you acquire and compare to your experience, the ideas you question, the actions you choose to take are power you retain for yourself in a life that is essentially uncontrollable.  You have already proven yourself to be braver than the Power Hungry, what else can you do?

What organizers and You Can Do For Effective Change

This article gives some concrete steps we can all do to stop supporting Big Money and to keep our money in our own communities instead of letting it be spent to influence our politicians, pay big bonuses to CEOs  or be stashed out of the country.
http://endtheillusion.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/what-organizers-and-you-can-do-for-effective-change/

Capitalism Is the Crisis: watch the full movie

This is a documentary film directed by Michael Truscello.  It pretty much lays it on the line calling "austerity" another word for "class warefare."  The film also shows video from demonstrations in Europe and the the Americas which are actually given very little coverage by our news media.  As the man at the end of the movie pointed out, those in power do not want the working man or woman to know that they can actually run the world if they choose to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYFw3O--2R0&feature=player_embedded

The Box

This will get to you.  Watch carefully.  Read by John Denver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpy75Sg2g1E&feature=player_embedded

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule by David Korten

A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group,  How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule is the product of extended discussions among representatives of a diverse group of organizations committed to deepening and reframing the conversation on financial reform to focus attention on the serious financial system restructuring required to build a strong new American economy adequate to the social and environmental challenges of the 21st century. It may be freely shared, reproduced and distributed with appropriate citations.  To see or download full report, click below.


http://www.yesmagazine.org/pdf/liberateamericadownload.pdf

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.

1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.

This is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned.  We need to get this done!

VIDEO: Rob Hopkins Recipes for Resilience : Chelsea Green

VIDEO: Rob Hopkins Recipes for Resilience : Chelsea Green

ALEC Exposed: Now Tell the IRS to Investigate - Common Cause

ALEC Exposed: Now Tell the IRS to Investigate - Common Cause

Anonymous

WE DO NOT FORGET.  WE DO NOT FORGIVE.

"THE PLAN"

One Year.  Three Phases.  A World of Change.

http://www.whatis-theplan.org

Where Has All the Bounty Gone?

Today I read the following important bit of information.  By exploring and relating all the collected numbers about the US economy since the last world war, studies are showing that this recession as well as the one in 2001 were both announced to be over after 18 months.   In the recessions previous to the two in this century, by this time the number of jobs had increased significantly from the lowest point during the recession.  However in the two recessions since 2001, we have NOT recovered lost jobs while those who are working are making the same amount of money in wages or salary as before the recession.

Funny thing though.  According to all recorded figures, our GDP has gone back up and is now essentially back where it had been.  This too happened in 2001.  The amount of money floating around in our economy is back to normal but it is not going to the people doing the work!  So just where is it going?  Well guess what?  Large corporation's profits have gone up quite a bit!  And Wall St. is back to normal too.  So, the end result is that with fewer workers, we are getting the same amount of work/production done for less money!  (Have you by chance noticed that you were working harder?)

So the "powers-that-be" lay off a bunch of workers and also make a big deal of the fact that there are not enough job openings for the people who are trying to find work.  This in turn makes you very careful not to lose you job!  Then your boss comes along and says that there is work to be done and since the economy is improving there is a chunk of work to get done but there aren't as many employees so could you work just a bit harder and try to get it all done.  And weren't you promised that all that extra work would cause everything to get better.  The economy would become more prosperous which would benefit everyone and create more jobs?

But they haven't hired anyone to help you yet have they?  You are doing more work and you are not getting a raise.  But you are going work harder because you don't want your boss to let you go in order to hire a desparate jobless person for even less money.  So you stay and you don't complain.  You probably won't or can't join a union or bargain for better conditions either.  You are afraid.  The end result is that the corporation makes the same amount of money and doesn't have to pay as many employees!  The corporation retains more profit.  SCORE!  For the other team.  Not your team.  We workers are "one more point down..."

Of course this is business, good business.  The "owners" have figured out a way to make even more profit.  Meanwhile, your neighbor has gone on unemployment and is getting food stamps now to feed his kids and medicaid to take them to the doctor.  You will continue to pay your taxes that will go to help pay for these "entitlements."  Only there aren't as many people working now which causes the total tax base to decrease. The government, state or national has a deficit of money coming in.  You and the rest of the middle and working class is trying to cover the necessities your neighbor must have, as well as needed firemen, teachers, cops and other state and local government employees.  Oh yes, and the local community college and public libraries, park departments, health departments, college agricultural extension centers water quality testing, trash pickup etc.  Since fuel costs are increasing the cost of food and your income is not going up even though you are working harder, you may need to get foodstamps too.  Your cheesy little workplace health insurance isn't covering much if you have it at all, so you avoid going to the doctor and pray nothing bad will happen.  You can't insist that your employer pay for better insurance because you can't afford to pay more yourself since medical costs are going up even faster than the cost of groceries AND you don't want to get fired for being demanding.

You pay your income taxes though most of it goes to for medicare and social security which the deficit government is threatening to take away.  There is still plenty of money in that fund but the government can use that stash of money to pay for things like lots of wars which the government is trying to pay for with  loans to be repaid by future taxes paid in by fewer workers!  (Because you are working harder than ever, there are fewer tax paying jobs.)  

But all those corporations that are making more money, your money that you should be getting for working harder, those corporations don't have to use very much of their own profit to pay taxes since they still have those wonderful tax cuts AND all the usual loop holes their accountants know about and of course they are getting lots of subsidies as well to help cover any remaining taxes they are responsible for.  I guess they have to be subsidized to force them to do certain things.  For example to force oil companies to make huge profits on producing petroleum products since because you are working so hard and making them so much extra money, they don't really have any pressure to do anything they don't feel like doing  Such as sharing their extra profits by creating jobs so they can broaden the tax base.  

Corporations don't really care whether the government functions or not.  They have their own firemen, security forces, private schools, their own libraries, wildernesses, water sources, private jets, and yachts.  The can afford the best of anything they want, even medical care.  Their explanation is that if their profits increase, it will develop our country, improve the economy and create jobs.  But that is ONLY IF the owners of said corporations put their money back into improving and enlarging businesses that actually employ more people and produce products or services that small businesses and workers need and could afford to buy.  But why would they do that?  That sounds like work!  And they don't have to work that hard.  They don't feel a sense of accomplishment from that sort of thing.  

Instead, the rich can spend it on outlandish items like overpriced mansions, planes, yachts, islands, parties, gadgets, art, jewelry, recreation, vacations and other pleasures.  Or they can make more money by playing the Wall St. Casino game.  They don't actually work, or make anything, or do anything.  They often use their money to make more money by investing it in Big Banks which don't actually produce anything either except debt for the rest of us.  The rich also make investments of the type that bet on other country's or companies' success or lack thereof.  Those kinds of investment don't actually produce anything of value either, such as jobs.  If a person has enough money they never lose.  But we are scared to tax them or they threaten to take what jobs we have left and move to another country.  Then where would we be?

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that in all the recessions BEFORE 2001, we the workers came out OK in the end. We got our jobs back as the GNP went back up.  We benefited from the increase in GNP.  The big corporations and Wall St. went back to normal.  They did NOT suck up all the additional money as the GDP increased when economy got revved up again.  When people were buying and production needed to go up, they hired more people to do the increasing work load.  AND big money makers paid higher taxes at the same time!  Our country, up to that point, wasn't spending to fight multiple wars either.

So basically, we are working harder for the same amount of money while prices go up and the number of jobs go down.  WE are dying in wars that no one wants to pay taxes to pay for, even the corporations that profit from war.  Instead the rich got and are keeping tax cuts while WE the workers, have our financial safety net ripped away and our government services cut because our incomes are buying less, our medical bills are higher and fewer of us are working.  Our hard paid taxes won't cover the deficit and someone has to make up the difference! The middle and working classes lost huge chunks of  401k's and other investments made for their retirement thanks to the failing banks and real estate bubbles and now find the government, which is bought and paid for by those very same banks and rich corporations, wants to cut our Medicare and Social Security on top of causing us to lose the money we saved.   Meanwhile the rich have made back their money or at least could afford to lose it in the first place.  

We would be willing to work until we die but there are no jobs for older American's or younger Americans.  We'll be lucky to go live with our kids and grandkids.  They might as well take us in since they can't pay college tuition for themselves or their kids and don't want to be saddled with back breaking college tuition debt.  Only one or two in such a family will be able to find jobs which means someone will be home to care for us we become infirm in our old age.  We hopefully won't linger too long without medical care.  Between three generations in one house we should just be able to pay for some kind of housing we will all fit in.  We have no way to protect ourselves from shouldering these burdens because we cannot unionize, bargain or strike.  Not to mention our courts and elected officials are bought and paid for by the very ones who are ripping us off.  We the people WERE the government, now Big Money is.  The ultimate BIG GOVERNMENT!

I would also like to mention that when I say, "WE THE WORKERS," I'm not just talking about wage-an-hour people or blue collar workers.  Oh no!  I'm talking blue, pink, white, grey, tweed, silk, or medical white.  I just read today that one of the big investment banks/companies.  (You would recognize the name from the bailouts though I seem to have blocked it from my consciousness.)   One of THOSE financial/investment type companies, is outsourcing 100 Investment Banker jobs to Saigon or some such city.  I'm not kidding!  The developing country's skilled/educated workers accept smaller salaries just as their less skilled workers accept lower wages, allowing large multi-national corporations to pay less for high end employees than they must pay them in the US.  And we know they will do it in a minute, given the chance.  So you workers with MBA's, you financiers, entrepreneurs, designers, researchers and scholars, you Doctors and Lawyers and such.  You may think you are more like "them" than you are like the rest of us but you are not.  And "the-powers-that-be" have no loyalty to country or person.  Only to people just like themselves who live beyond national boundaries, who identify only with their own kind in what-ever country.  They are loyal only to other people in their Mutual Reciprocity system, people who have some value to offer beyond loyalty.  Power, money to acquire power, and connections to use and manipulate power.  They don't believe the rest of us have anything to offer worth the money we are payed. 

Trouble With Google and Getting Online

Over a week ago, I lose track quickly, maybe two or three weeks ago, after a thunderstorm, I found that I could not get or stay online.  I get to my blog through "googlechrome" and found it impossible to use.  My MSN through my cable company also was giving me trouble.  I really was cut off from the internet!  It was bad!  Over time I found that other family members were getting on their computer on the same cable system....  I messed with cords and routers and that other piece of electronics where the cable comes in and goes to the computer.  The weirdest things kept happening.  The cable company said I must have a virus but I have programs for that.

But I also remember Steven Colbert announcing that Google had been hacked, that very day or maybe within a few days of my problems.  I managed to get on MSN for a minute though it kept bumping me but it also sometimes said I could run diagnostics and sometimes it wanted me to send error reports.  Sometimes it indicated that it had updated....  My virus protection managed to down load some stuff.  I would try at least once a day or so and slowly I was able to stay online longer and longer.  At first I was unable to email replies or go to other websites from my email.  Such actions would cause my computer to drop out of the internet.  Sometimes I could delete email but then it wouldn't show new ones.  (I was bumped again.)  I really don't know much about how all this stuff works.  I rely on the kindness of anyone who will help me, friends, relatives, strangers, whoever.  Today I got on Googlechrome and then went to my blog.  So far so good.  I am taking the opportunity to let everyone know that I haven't deserted my blog.  I am able to read articles and other material again and will soon be up to my neck in information and opinions I want to share, some of which I will pass on.

I would like to add that more and more people are starting to understand the things I am posting about here in Oklahoma.  I actually find I am not as scared to open my mouth in public.  Something I tended to avoid because the weird looks and sudden quiet were a bit hard to put myself through.  I would like to suggest that if you are having the same problem, try to find some like minded people to hang out with.  It helps.  I joined the Tulsa Master Recyclers.  These people, from all ages and backgrounds, share a distaste for wasting resources and range in type and interest from teachers, hospital workers, house wives from comfortable neighborhoods, back-to-the-landers, old hippies, entrepreneurs with green businesses, a motorcycle loving ex-military person,  artists to activists of various concerns.  They have connections with the local sustainable group, Master Gardeners, urban farming, community gardens, campaigning for local government positions, volunteering in local non-profits, saving our water, transition culture etc.  I also went to a meeting of Anarchists with strong interests in International Labor Unions.  I just met a few but again, they were computer savy, interested in the "maker" movement and our local FabLab, growing food, community and co-ops, transition culture, organizing and linking with other like minded individuals.  You can say almost anything around these people except maybe that you DON'T believe in Climate Change.  Some I found through the City, on facebook, and other websites oriented to concern for what is happening in the world today.

Another important insight I got from my "disconnection" to the internet was how dependent I had become for information and social connection coming through my computer.  What if, we were cut off from this method of finding each other, networking, passing on new ideas and important facts that the regular media don't cover?  All the more reason to connect face to face.  Because I know the people and the groups I am involved with, I am never completely cut off.  Through these amazing and varied individuals, I am able to connect to all the local groups that I mentioned and they in turn often are affiliated with larger versions of themselves.  I can go from Sustainable Tulsa to Sustainable Oklahoma to the National organization and then back to other states and towns.  Within any local group there are connections to just about any other type of organization you might be interested in.  These are all real people with telephones and snail mail.  It has only been a couple of decades since many of us functioned the "old" way.

You can't beat our newer electronic social connections.  I communicate often with like minded people across the world.  However, I would advise everyone to keep your fleshy contacts handy.  Meet real people.  Write down names, locations and phone numbers of people and organizations you share connections with.  Don't rely only on information that is stored digitally.  The time may come when our internet is commandeered or our electric grid wavers.  So far, paper can still travel from place to place through various routes.  Humans, being the way they are, may even in the worst case scenario, still be within six degrees of anyone.  This could be true even if messages are bicycled from neighborhood to neighborhood.  Hard to imagine, but when our country began they were using horses.  So keep track of networks and pathways of communication.  Write stuff down and disseminate copies of your networks as well as important facts.  Do I sound over cautious?  I'm just saying......  Better safe than sorry.  Even if being cut off turns out to be temporary as it was in my case, there can always be information you are used to having at your fingertips that suddenly can disappear.  Our connections should not be taken for granted. 

"Stop The Machine!" October2011.org

October2011.org

Check out this website.  I'm going to try to go to Washington DC October 6th and stay as long as possible which won't be too long but maybe more people will come and take over for those of us who can't stay.  And maybe we can get back and relieve other people who have to go home.  Maybe we can keep a large presence in the capitol until they have to listen to us!
We the People, don't want our country fighting three wars.  We think there are better ways to spend our money.  We could spend our money to provide the healthcare every other civilized country provides its citizens.  Or how about a decent college or technical school education for anyone who wants one.  We could develop energy systems that did not cause climate change.  We went to the moon once.  We could create a high speed rail and reduce fuel emissions.  We could do all that and more if we just quit going to war so the rich can make even more money.
Something is very wrong.  America has become the Big Bully on the playground that thinks she can push everyone around and get her way.  The United States can and does clear a pathway for any and every large corporation and bank to go into any weaker country and buy up and control all resources including workers so the very rich can keep getting richer by polluting, enslaving, controlling, raping, wasting and confiscating land from the foreign citizens who need it to grow their own food instead of producing various commodities such as Palm nuts to export for oil to be used in junk food.
Look and see who is going to be in Washington on Oct. 6th.  Several of my Heroes will be there.  Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges for example.  Maybe I'll see you there.

There Comes a Time

I love this speech from the late 50's, early 60's.  Is this about the war, civil rights?  I'm not sure.  I better find that information for you.  But meanwhile give it a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udcTudOjy6o&feature=player_embedded

Chris Hedges: Talk on Utube

This is inspiring!  This is what I wish we heard more of.  Here is a man who speaks truth.  Please watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0_umUq_-40&feature=related

The Rich Don't "Create Jobs," We Do

This is a nicely expressed article from Truthout by Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future.  The first comment advocates respect for labor and the worker, bringing tears to my eyes.
http://www.truthout.org/actually-rich-dont-create-jobs-we-do/1305380742 
  

I can't emphasize enough that no one became rich on a deserted island.  The Rich become rich because they utilize all the advantages of our country which our citizens have created and accumulated through historical time.

  

The role each citizen takes ranges from farmer, teacher, student, laborer, builder, designer, homemaker, government worker, contractor, manufacturer, factory worker, healer, nurse, nurturer, educator, student, inventor, investor, entrepreneur, dreamer, artist, pastor, councilor, advocate, seamstress, garbage collector, janitor, tradesman, architect, entertainer, statesman, volunteer, academic, writer, journalist, lawyer, to activist, among many more.  WE DID THIS!

We originally came to a rich, rich continent which our ancestors took advantage of.  (And one would have to admit, stole from the original inhabitants.)  None the less, we were a hard working, ingenious, caring and creative people including the additional refugees, homeless and disadvantaged  of the world who joined us through the decades.  Once upon a time we believed we could create a perfect, fair, democratic nation that would be able to grant a decent life, health, education and growth to even the least of us.

There were originally more than enough resources here to do just that.  We built an abundance that could have rewarded all citizens with the basics for a simple, secure, healthy, abundant life in the midst of communities of decent, hardworking, ingenious, caring and generous people.  But instead, the harder we worked and the more we labored, invented and created and produced wealth which should have benefitted everyone, the more profit was skimmed off and accumulated by an unscrupulous few who encouraged us to consume more and more short term pleasures while we waited to be allowed equal citizenship in a country we had worked to build.

No, now our role is to buy, buy buy.  And by doing so we cover the costs that those who claim to be the creators of wealth have managed to avoid so that their profits can be larger.  We bare the cost of pollution on the planet and resultant poor health for those who cannot afford healthcare. We pay for the costs of huge numbers of young adults with no education and few jobs and the children who do not get adequate nutrition or education to develop into the best citizens they can be.

  

We will pay for loss of biodiversity and ecosystems when the health of the planet deteriorates including the costs on civilization for global warming.  We the majority will bare the cost of squandered resources such as fossil fuels, water, and healthy soil.  We the people pay for failing infrastructure, for the loss of new technologies that might have provided renewable energy but were never developed.  We pay by living in communities built for petroleum based transportation that will not last and loss of sustainable family farms that could not compete with factory farms which are dependent on huge inputs of petroleum and provide less nutritious food than we had been able to produce ourselves locally.

No concern for tomorrow was evident in those who accumulated our wealth for themselves.  No thought was given to designing a nation that could provide for all its citizens far into the future.  So why is it that the rich should not be taxed?  Have they served us well with their privileged accumulation of the fruits of our labor while avoiding any of the true costs of their activity?  Did they help create the country we envisioned in the beginning or have they hindered what we might have accomplished if they had paid back to the nation, the true costs of their activities to the nation's people?  They claim they have done everything for us.  I find they have done little.  

WE DID THIS!  "We the People" could provide the necessary capital as well as pay all the true costs.  There is still enough abundance to do this although time is growing short.  Stop working for them and start creating the world we need.

Owning Your Own Job Is a Beautiful Thing

I'm going to try to embed a video.....Let's see....
If this works, it is a TED Talk which I will provide a link to if it doesn't work.  Prepared to be inspired.

Darn!  I do not know what I am doing apparently.  So, here is the link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlm0WFglgA8

Income Inequality Worse in US Than Ivory Coast, Pakistan and Ethiopia

I got this off of Truthout who got it off of ThinkProgress.  

AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!  We are a "third world" country!

Income Inequality Worse in US Than Ivory Coast, Pakistan and Ethiopia

ThinkProgress reports that income inequality in the United States equals that of Uganda, and is worse than in countries like Pakistan, Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast. Statistics from the CIA Factbook show that income inequality is also higher in the US today than at any other time since the Great Depression; meanwhile, the American Human Development Index recently reported that, partially due to income inequality and the decline of unionization in America, there is now a 30-year gap in life expectancy between the deep South and New England.

Does the Employer Own a Worker's Job?

Here is a great article about "jobs."  I found it on Truthout, written by: Ellen Dannin, with the American Constitution Society called, "Democracy's Work - Work in a Democratic Society."
http://www.truth-out.org/democracys-work-work-democratic-society/1303841302

Here is a section that I liked especially because it brings up the issue of what "We the People,"acting as the U.S. Government or as U. S. Citizens, have contributed to the ability of individuals and corporations to accumulate wealth.  Even more to the point, what aspects of this country and it's resources can we claim part ownership in.  Who has some level of ownership through the role of citizen, of the water, the soil, the ecosystem the legal system, the infrastructure, the mountains, the coal and maybe even our JOBS.  Here is an excerpt from Dannin's article:
"A common starting point assumes that a job is the employer’s property and that workplace laws are a trespass on that property. However, this view fails to take into account all of the resources and investments that create and maintain jobs. No job exists without joint investments by employers, employees, and society.

Society’s investments in current and future workers include creating and supporting infrastructure that directly benefits employers and companies that operate in the United States. Among public investments that support and subsidize employers are monitoring and controlling diseases and dangers to public health; ensuring we have safe water, air, and food; monitoring and responding to weather and environmental threats; and investing in and directly building public infrastructure, including transportation, scientific discoveries, and education.

One of the most important investments that makes the United States an attractive place to do business is the stability of our system of laws and legal procedures. They ensure that agreements are enforced and disputes are settled peacefully. In addition, employers large and small receive public support through many forms of tax breaks, grants, and other financial aid and supports. Employers are also assisted by state and federal departments and agencies that provide stability, technical advice, and grants. Even more important are laws that allow employers to incorporate. These laws free companies from various sorts of liability that apply to people and allow them to exist in perpetuity. Indeed, were we to account for the dollar value of all types of public support provided to create and support jobs, it would be obvious that all jobs in this country are public sector jobs.  (My emphasis.)

Employees’ work is an investment of their time, thought, education, training, abilities, effort, and commitment to the success of the enterprise. Without these investments, no employer can succeed. The value of these resources, provided by employees, is far greater than the cost of their pay, and their contribution and investments need to be acknowledged and protected.  (Again my emphasis.)

Each job, then, has multiple investors who can make justifiable claims to joint ownership of those jobs. These property rights deserve to be recognized and protected."

********************************

Give this some serious thought.  I believe it is important to re-own what We The People have accomplished and created in this country.  This discussion about jobs is related to the ideas presented in the book, "Unjust Deserts: Wealth and Inequality in the Knowledge Economy," by Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly which I have listed in my Suggested Reading List.  The "Powers-that-be" would love for us to feel that nothing would have ever happened in this country or will ever happen without their god-like leadership and investment.  Apparently we are supposed to buy into the idea that we were just sitting around watching in amazement as this country was founded and developed by special wise, wealthy, brilliant, generous, caring  individuals just for the benefit of the huge unwashed mass of dumb, lazy, ignorant, uninspired citizens.  In other words, we the majority.

Now we each know this is not true.  In our guts we have a suspicion that we and our friends and family are the ones who make things work.  Each individual person has their area of knowledge, interest and expertise.  It may be small and it may seem strange or unimportant, but together we make this country's most important enterprises function.  First, we make the food and the shelters.  We also solve the problems in our cities, communities and workplaces.  We help each other, we educate, we negotiate, we create and recreate, we celebrate, we work, we build, we heal, we learn, we nurture, we invent, we make art and we make fun.  And we do these things best when we don't have a lot of material possessions and when we are needed the most.  

Look around.  We made all this happen.  And we can un-make the parts we don't like.  We can do things differently if we want.  We can figure out solutions to the problems facing our country and our planet.  We certainly don't have to wait around for the "Powers-that-be" to do it since we can see that that isn't going to happen, EVER!  So, give it some thought! 

The Great Turning!

I love that phrase!  It is the title of one of  David Korten's books, "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community."
Korten himself explains, "The term The Great Turning has come into widespread use to describe the awakening of a higher level of human consciousness and a human turn from an era of violence against people and nature to a new era of peace, justice and environmental restoration. Most people are not aware that this awakening is underway, because positive change rarely reaches the level of front page - or even back-page - news!YES! magazine is one of the few publications that is in the business of bringing these stories to public attention."
On Korten's website, Living Economies Forum, there is a simple chart comparing the ideas and beliefs of our current American Empire to a new kind of social organization Korten calls Earth Community.  Go to this link:  http://livingeconomiesforum.org/story-matrix to see a clear comparison of these two "stories."  Find out if we are accepting certain beliefs as truths because we have learned the story of "Empire."  See what the possibilities are and the reasons why the new "story" is based on better, testable "truths."  There are also other links to other sites full of thought, discussion, information that can help us understand the vision, the new story.  There are no "leaders" and no organization to belong to and follow.  No one is going to tell any of us what to do or what to believe.  Each person has to work those things out for themselves.  There is only each individual and their relationships, their connections, embedded in a local community, economy and ecology.
Soon I would like to start some thought and discussion on this blog, some mental "what if," scenarios.  We might actually help each other build the reality of a new story in our own hearts and minds.  We have forgotten much that we in community, used to know.  So I want to use the best and most unique qualities in human nature, our creativity, our playfulness and pleasure in invention, to begin solving problems and creating answers for our a new earth future.  I hope to find others that might want to join in.  Please let me know of other links that we might want to share here.  Bring your thoughts, worries, knowledge, and insights to share with the rest of us.

The Earth Charter (2000)

"We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace."

"Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations."

An Orchard for A Third Street Community Foundation

      One of the blogs I follow is listed in my blog list.  The organization is located out in North Tulsa along Peoria, in a community called Turley between Tulsa proper and Skiatook.  My dad lived out there and my sister still does.  It is mixed race, semi-rural, working class and low income.  Rev. Ron Robinson and Bonnie Ashing are creating with the community, a community kitchen garden park and community center.  This is where I believe the future of the citizens of our country lies, with "we the people" working and organizing from the ground up.  So groups like A Third Street Community in Turley may be way ahead of the rest of us.  Here is a way you can help.  I'll let them explain in their own words:


    "Hi all. Here is an update on our work on the community kitchengardenpark at 6005 N. Johnstown Ave. There should be a Tulsa World article coming out soon about our efforts to mobilize people to vote for us in an online national contest going on right now by the National Fruit Tree Foundation. We hope you can help us by voting and spreading the news to other networks. We are the only site in Oklahoma in the competition. 120 sites were chosen and of them, five orchards per month will be given away to the top vote getters.
   Send this email or link to all you can: http://www.communitiestakeroot.com/Plant/Index. There you can register easily to vote, takes just a few minutes to register so you can then vote daily. You don't have to choose to receive any of their mailings unless you want to. Remember to bookmark the link above and go vote easily in just a few clicks every day. Go to the list of states and scroll down to Oklahoma and there you will find the link to go read about us and vote for us. If you have any problems let us know. So many people in our community here do not have computers or internet access so we are relying on the compassion and dedication of so many others who do."


        A Third Street Community Foundation is definitely in the top ten in the competition to qualify for their very own orchard. So lets try to keep them at the top! I have a deep seated feeling that food independence is vitally important for citizens to sense their power and central role in creating the kind of world they want to live and work in. We should support the pioneers who may end up showing the rest of us how this is done. Thanks, G. G.

Why ‘Transition Culture’? » Transition Culture

Why ‘Transition Culture’? » Transition Culture

What Is Going On Here?

OK you all!  If you have read, "Shock Doctrine," by Naomi Klein you will know what this article is talking about.  The whole Libya thing sort of had a funny feel to it.  And why did we jump in to help the rebels there but not in other countries.  Granted, their leader is strange, funny looking and weird.  He looks like a bad guy but the US did support him at one time.....
Anyway, check out this article.  I intend to read the author's book.  There is more to all this and I want to know what it means.  Get the facts and think for yourself!  Oh yes, here is a link to Ellen Brown's blog:
http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/

Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?

Wednesday 13 April 2011

by: Ellen Brown, Truthout

A line of rebel trucks wait at the western entrance to Ajdabiya, Libya, on April 11, 2011. (Photo: Bryan Denton / The New York Times)

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank - this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:

I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

Alex Newman wrote in the New American:

In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the "[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."

Newman quoted CNBC Senior Editor John Carney, who asked, "Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era."

Another anomaly involves the official justification for taking up arms against Libya. Supposedly it's about human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory. According to an article on the Fox News web site on February 28:

As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record.

The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens - who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.

Whatever might be said of Qaddafi's personal crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving. A delegation of medical professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in an appeal to Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin that after becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few nations did people live in such comfort:

[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 US dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink and are very religious.

They maintained that the international community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime. "Tell us," they said, "who would not like such a regime?"

Even if that is just propaganda, there is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to thedesert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the $33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya. The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya's vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north. The Libyan government has done at least some things right.

Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is "all about oil," but that theory, too, is problematic. As noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2 percent of the world's oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market. And if it's all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?

Another provocative bit of data circulating on the net is a 2007 Democracy Now! interview of US Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.). In it he says that about ten days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. "I don't know!" was the response. "I guess they don't know what else to do!" Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.

What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.

The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr., writing on Examiner.com, noted, "[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept Euros instead of dollars for oil and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency and its dominion as the petrodollar."

According to a Russian article titled "Bombing of Lybia - Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar," Qaddaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Qaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Qaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.

As right-wing attacks on our basic rights and services are growing louder than ever, it's essential to keep independent journalism strong. Support Truthout by clicking here.

And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned.... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold, in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?

All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies. An article on the BIS web site states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective "to preserve price stability." They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don't interfere with this mandate. "Price stability" means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.

In a 2002 article in Asia Times titled "The BIS vs National Banks," Henry Liu maintained:

BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests.

... FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies.

He added, "Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation." The "state theory of money" refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.

The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government's own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly owned or privately owned. Most new money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government's own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50 percent.

And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include "issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya" and "managing and issuing all state loans." Libya's wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes.

That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the GMMR project. Libyans are worried that NATO-led airstrikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.

So, is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both - and water as well. With energy, water and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible. Most countries don't have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation's own publicly-owned bank. Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans.

If the Qaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors and whether education and health care continue to be free.