Tragedy and Hope 101 The Illusion of Justice, Freedom, and Democracy Joseph Plummer: CHAPTER 5 The Main Problem—The Main Solution

 

Tragedy and Hope 101 The Illusion of Justice, Freedom, and Democracy Joseph Plummer: CHAPTER 5 The Main Problem—The Main Solution

 

CHAPTER 5
The Main Problem—The Main Solution

So far we’ve covered how the Network uses money to control governments, businesses, and trusted institutions. We’ve touched on how it developed ingenious ways to control other people’s financial resources—their savings accounts, their insurance payments, and even their income. We’ve also gone over its greatest swindle of all: granting itself the legal authority to create money out of thin air.

With all of these monetary tools at its disposal, the Network has secretly and systematically consolidated its power over global policies that affect the lives of billions of human beings. Unelected, its members operate beyond the reach of voters. Unaccountable, they violate national and international laws with impunity. Obviously, if we intend to unseat them, we cannot continue playing by the rules of the system that they have created. We must be prepared to think and act in unapproved ways, and that begins with striking the root of their power...money.

In short, our adversary is using our own purchasing power against us. The money that we place in its institutions, the money we allow it to confiscate, and the money we allow it to create— these revenue streams provide the Network trillions of dollars each year to direct as it likes. Until we cut this funding, we are only wasting our time. On the other side of the equation, these trillions of dollars represent the Network’s Achilles’ heel. Without access to this money, it cannot continue to purchase the people and resources necessary to defend its dominant position. (Their system is completely dependent upon the purchasing power that we provide.)

Knowing this, the answer to our dilemma seems very simple:

reclaim our purchasing power and destroy their illegitimate system in the process. And truthfully, it really is that simple. But before getting into the obvious ways in which we can take back what is ours, there is one final twist in this story of monetary power. First, we must dig a little deeper into the story of money itself.

Few realize that money comes in many different forms. A basic list would include commodity money, receipt money, fractional money, fiat money, and debt money. (This isn’t as complicated as it sounds; each form will be explained shortly.) Some of these forms of money are far easier to abuse than others, with the last one on the list (debt money) being the worst. Debt money is actually designed to enslave those who use it. No surprise then that debt money is what the Network has chosen to create and spread to all corners of the globe.

Although slavery was abolished...many of the poor were reduced to peonage by contracting debts...binding themselves and their heirs to work for their creditors until the debt was paid. Such debt could never be paid in many cases, because the rate at which it was reduced was left to the creditor and could rarely be questioned by the illiterate debtor.1

This quote reveals that there is more than one way to reduce human beings to servitude. Though Quigley is referencing a tactic that was used in mid-nineteenth century India, he perfectly captures the spirit of the financial system we live under today. It is a system that creates debt that “can never be paid,” is “binding” on future generations, and is serviced by a global population of “illiterate” debtors.

Today, the term “illiterate debtor” has nothing to do with an individual’s ability to read, write, or perform basic math. A person can possess all of these skills and still remain completely illiterate when it comes to understanding the Network’s debt-based

1 Tragedy and Hope, page 157

monetary system. Also, the indignities of “peonage” are no longer reserved exclusively for the poor. A person (or nation) can be poor or they can be rich; it makes little difference. Those who create and control the debt-money supply can manipulate the system and extract wealth from everyone who uses their currency. Not even those who are debt-free are safe. To the extent a person’s income, savings, and assets are debt-money denominated, their purchasing power and accumulated wealth are at risk.

Since most people dislike being ripped off and exploited, it’s reasonable to assume that the only reason the masses tolerate this debt-money system is because they do not understand how it works. That being the case, this chapter will attempt (in just a handful of pages) to end the financial illiteracy that the Network absolutely depends on. Consider this a super-abbreviated crash course on the topic, excerpted mainly from Dishonest Money: Financing the Road to Ruin.

What Is Money?

To accurately define what money is, we can’t simply hold up a US dollar or a Russian ruble or a Mexican peso and say “This is money.” We’re better off to start by defining the overall purpose of money. What does money do?

In the simplest terms, money enables us to purchase products and services from other people. Using this basic description, we might go on to say money can be anything that is widely accepted as payment for products and services. Having defined money in this way, it will be easier to explain the different forms of money and why some are far more honest than others. But first, let’s quickly touch on what existed before money—barter.

Barter

Prior to the creation of money, individuals used barter to trade with one another. This simply means that they would “purchase”

what they wanted with products or services rather than paying for it with money. As an example, assume your neighbor grows corn, has one hundred extra pounds of it, and you would like some. If you grow tomatoes, it’s possible that your neighbor will allow you to “buy” some of his corn using your tomatoes instead of money. Or, maybe he’ll allow you to provide a service of some sort in exchange for his corn. (Perhaps you’re good at building storage sheds, and he needs help building one.)

If the two of you are able to come to a barter agreement, then each of you will gain value from the exchange. (Your neighbor turns his surplus corn into something he’d rather have; you turn your surplus tomatoes or a couple days’ work into something you’d rather have.) However, if your neighbor isn’t interested in your tomatoes, and if he doesn’t need a new storage shed, then both of you lose out. Both of you will have to find another trading partner.

Though limited, barter at least provided an opportunity for individuals (and society as a whole), to enjoy the benefits of trade. Rather than just having really good tomatoes and some nice storage sheds, you could also have some really good corn, really good wheat, clothes, furniture, or anything else that others had to offer. But again, you could only obtain these things if others wanted what you had to offer in exchange. This was the big limitation of barter, and it was overcome with the creation of commodity money.

Commodity Money

While trading with each other, people eventually realized that certain commodities were always in high demand. For instance, they discovered corn was so high in demand that it could consistently be traded for nearly anything. From that point forward, corn took on a value that exceeded its consumption value. In other words, even though your neighbor already had all the corn he needed, he would continue to grow (or acquire) more because he knew the corn would be accepted as payment for the products and services of others. The more corn he had, the more purchasing

power he had. In this way, many different commodities (corn, wheat, cows, sheep, etc.) eventually evolved into reliable forms of commodity money. But just as barter had its limitations, so too did early forms of commodity money. These problems were eventually overcome when metal was discovered.

Unlike livestock, metal didn’t need to be fed, watered, and cleaned up after. Unlike wheat and corn, you didn’t have to worry about metal going bad, becoming contaminated with bugs, growing mold in storage, and so on. Also, metal was easily divisible. Assuming a milk cow was equal in value to one hundred pounds of iron, and the sale price of an item was twenty-five pounds of iron (or one-fourth of a milk cow), the individual buying with iron had a distinct advantage: he could easily produce the exact amount of money needed. For these reasons, metal eventually became the commodity money of choice, and though many different types of metal were used (iron, copper, and tin to name a few), gold and silver coins became the standard around the world.

Summary of Barter and Commodity Money

Both commodity money and barter share a couple of desirable attributes. The first attribute is transparency. If I want to trade my goat for some of your corn, I’ll have to bring my goat and you’ll have to bring some corn. The odds of either of us walking away with something else in our pocket, like a cricket, are pretty slim. Likewise, if I offer to buy something from you with a Gold Eagle (US gold coin), I must hand over a Gold Eagle. There is little chance that you will be duped into accepting a far less valuable Silver Eagle as payment for your item.

The second desirable attribute is the intrinsic value of the items traded. There are significant natural barriers that limit the production of commodities and, as such, their intrinsic value is transferred to anyone who acquires them. The person who acquires corn does not have to grow and harvest the corn himself; the person who earns a gold coin does not have to dig the gold out of the ground, fashion it into a coin, and convince others of its

authenticity. Nobody can simply create gold, corn, or a goat with the flick of a pen. For this reason, these items will always possess the intrinsic value of the labor and the other costs that produced them.

These two attributes (transparency and intrinsic value) made it reasonably difficult to defraud people in trade because it isn’t easy to convince somebody that you’ve paid them with a goat when, in fact, you’ve handed them a cricket. But just as barter led to the invention of commodity money, and commodity money eventually evolved into metal coins made from gold and silver, the inconveniences of gold and silver coins eventually led to the creation of a new form of money. And with it, the ability to easily defraud people (the ability to create money with “the flick of a pen”) was born.

Receipt Money

Gold and silver coins were a much improved form of commodity money, but they still had some drawbacks. For instance, if you were even moderately wealthy, finding a place to safely store your coins was difficult. Also, if you wanted to make a large purchase or simply wanted to move a significant amount of money from one place to another, the weight of gold and silver coins made it challenging and nearly impossible to conceal. (Just sixteen hundred dollars in a silver-coin economy would have weighed approximately one hundred pounds!)2 As before, these two problems were eventually solved. This time, the solution came from goldsmiths.

Goldsmiths already handled large stockpiles of gold and silver in their trade and had built very strong and well-guarded vaults to protect those stockpiles. This made solving the first problem (safe

2 The term dollar used to have a very specific meaning. For a dollar to be a dollar, it had to be a coin that contained nearly one ounce of fine silver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar#United_States). The Network has nearly destroyed that definition. Today, we all believe we have “dollars,” when, in truth, all we’ve got is pieces of paper with the word “dollar” printed on them.

storage of gold and silver coins) a no-brainer. Goldsmiths began renting unused space in their vaults to citizens who wanted to keep their coins safe until they were needed. The goldsmith was happy to collect a fee from each depositor, and the depositors were happy to know that their money was in good hands. Interestingly enough, the safe-storage solution ended up solving the weight problem of using coins in trade as well.

When a citizen came in to deposit their coins for storage, the goldsmith would hand the depositor a paper receipt as proof of their deposit. So, if a customer deposited $1,000 in gold coins, they were given a receipt (or receipts) valued at $1,000 worth of gold. These receipts were marked “payable on demand,” meaning anyone, at any time, could come in and exchange the receipts for gold. Because the receipts were literally as “good as gold,” citizens began accepting them as payment for products and services. From that point forward, the receipts became a new form of money: receipt money. Though the receipts were only made of paper, each one was 100 percent backed by gold (or sometimes silver) and, therefore, each receipt was a legitimate form of paper money.

However, as time passed it became increasingly rare for individuals to cash in their receipts and withdraw coins from the goldsmith’s vault. Assuming their coins were safe and always available, depositors had no reason to remove them. (They’d just have to find another safe place to store them if they did.) Besides, it was much easier to use the receipt money in commerce. Nearly all citizens preferred to carry a pocket full of the goldsmith’s receipts to a pocket full of heavy coins.

Now, put yourself in the goldsmith’s shoes. The receipts that you create are trusted by all. They’re literally considered as “good as gold” and are accepted as payment for products and services, just the same as if a person paid with a gold or silver coin. Although you do not possess the power to create gold and silver coins “with the flick of a pen,” you do possess the power to create receipts that are every bit as valuable in trade. What do you do?

Fractional Money

It wasn’t long before goldsmiths realized that they could simply print up additional receipts for their own benefit. This, of course, was an act of pure fraud. Each ounce of depositors’ gold held in the goldsmith’s vault had a corresponding receipt that was issued to the gold’s rightful owner. Issuing additional receipts constituted a theft of purchasing power, and worse, it set into motion the inevitable loss of the depositor’s coins.

To illustrate, say a man walks into the goldsmith’s shop, deposits $1,000 worth of gold, and receives $1,000 worth of receipts in exchange. No problem there. An hour later, another man comes into the goldsmith’s shop, but he doesn’t want to make a deposit; he wants to borrow $1,000. The goldsmith agrees to the loan and issues the borrower $1,000 worth of new receipts, which are created on the spot. There is now $2,000 worth of receipts, but only $1,000 worth of gold in the vault.

Now imagine that the borrower takes his newly created $1,000 worth of receipts to a local store and spends them. And say the store owner decides he’d rather have the actual gold coins instead of the paper. So, he takes the receipts to the goldsmith, cashes them in for coins, and goes on his way. Everyone is happy to this point. But what happens if an hour later the man who made the original $1,000 gold-coin deposit shows up to withdraw his coins? Too bad for him. His gold walked out the door an hour earlier when the loaned receipts (created without a corresponding deposit) were cashed in.

This is a highly simplified example, but it illustrates the problem that emerged with the creation of paper-receipt money: it opened the door to fraud. What began as a legitimate form of paper money, backed 100 percent by coins held in reserve, eventually turned into fractional money. And as the goldsmith printed more and more receipts, the fraction of coins backing those receipts became less and less.

Before long, citizens were unknowingly accepting receipts backed by only half of the receipt’s printed value, a quarter of its printed value, a tenth of its printed value. When people finally figured out what was going on, they rushed to exchange their

receipts for the coins that rightfully belonged to them. Of course, only the first few in line were able to withdraw their gold and silver. All the rest were left holding worthless paper.

Fiat Money

In the previous example, people accepted paper receipts in exchange for their products and services for one reason: they thought that they could cash in their receipts for gold or silver coins whenever they wanted. None of them knew that they were essentially selling their goods for inadequately backed pieces of paper. If they had known the receipts were fraudulent, they wouldn’t have accepted them; they would have demanded actual coins instead. Clearly, they were ripped off.

Again, in an economy that uses only commodity money (as opposed to paper money), it is very difficult to rip people off because the actual commodity must be surrendered at the time of purchase. The trade is transparent. But in the aforementioned receipt-money economy, only the assumption of transparency exists. Yes, the receipt might actually be legitimate; it might represent an underlying commodity that physically exists and does not belong to anyone else. However, it might also be illegitimate. You might sell an ounce of gold for a more-convenient receipt that’s marked “one ounce of gold,” only to find out later that your receipt can’t be redeemed for anything. If this happens, it’s very clear who won and who lost in the exchange. (What thief wouldn’t want to trade worthless receipts for as many ounces of gold as he could get? Printing paper receipts is very easy...Printing gold is impossible.)

This reminds us of what money is supposed to be: something that enables us to purchase the products and services of others. The only reason we are willing to work for money is because we believe the money we earn will serve this purpose. Nobody interested in earning money would exchange their time and effort for pieces of paper that they knew to be worthless. Therefore if somebody wants to use paper money to steal from others, the most

obvious way is to mislead them into believing that the money has value. However, fiat money provides another way to steal: good old-fashioned government force.

Encarta defines fiat money as: “paper money that a government declares to be legal tender although it is not based on or convertible into coins.”

Another way to put that would be: fiat money is paper money, backed by nothing, and the government forces people to accept it via legal tender laws. It’s basically the goldsmith’s counterfeit receipts on steroids. Whereas the goldsmith had to conceal the fact that he was fraudulently printing money to enrich and empower himself, fiat money enables a group like the Network to openly print money and force it down people’s throats. They simply use their law-making ability to legalize the scam.

Whether by fraud or by fiat, the power to print money is the power to steal whatever money can buy. Fiat money is more egregious because, unlike fraud, it is backed by force and can be used to openly confiscate purchasing power on an enormous scale. (There is no doubt that the Network advanced its position significantly when it moved the United States from a gold- and silver-backed money supply to a purely fiat model.) But believe it or not, there is actually something worse than fiat paper money. And this brings us to the final form of money we’ll be discussing in this “crash course,” the form of money we use today—debt money.

Debt Money

Take the inherently fraudulent characteristics of the goldsmith’s fractional money system, add in the greater fraud and force of pure fiat, top it off with a mechanism designed to generate inescapable debt, and presto: you’ve got the most sophisticated monetary-enslavement system ever devised by man. And, wouldn’t you know, you also have all the components that make up our current monetary system.

Unlike a normal fiat money system (where the ruling class

simply creates its own worthless paper money, spends it into the economy, and demands that everyone accept it), our ruling class has devised something much more powerful. Rather than spend money into our economy, they loan money into our economy. This enables the Network to steal purchasing power from us twice: once when they create new money, and again as they collect interest on the entire money supply.

Worst of all, by creating money and putting it into circulation only when a loan is made, and then destroying that same money (removing it from circulation) when the loan is repaid, the Network has designed the perfect debt trap. Any meaningful attempt to escape this debt trap, by paying down debt, will trigger an automatic “correction mechanism” that guarantees failure. The chain of events is perfectly predictable: as the nation repays its banking debts (and refuses to take out new loans), the economy’s debt-based money supply will shrink. This will cause disruptions in the economy; initially the disruptions will be minor, but they will inevitably become intolerable if new money isn’t injected via new loans. (Imagine the consequences of a 10 percent reduction in the nation’s money supply...now imagine a 40 percent reduction, a 60 percent reduction, or an 80 percent reduction.)

Theoretically, if new loans are not issued to reverse the automatic “correction mechanism” that the Network has built into the system, and if all available funds continue to be applied toward extinguishing Network-created debt, then the debt-based money supply must eventually fall to zero.

Robert Hemphill was the credit manager of the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. In the foreword to a book by Irving Fisher, entitled 100% Money, Hemphill said this:

If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have...If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve.

We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible—but there it is.3

Needless to say, the economic and political power that flows from this system is nothing short of obscene. Therefore, it’s easy to understand why the Network built this system like a prison. Playing by their rules, we cannot escape; we can never repay the debt that is owed. And just like the debt slaves of nineteenth- century India, this inescapable debt is binding on our children, and our children’s children, and so on...forever.

Of all the Network’s monetary powers, this particular power is the most destructive. In nation after nation, politicians who are happy to bury their citizens in debt are supported by the Network and placed into positions of power. Some of the politicians are well intentioned; others are not. In the end it really doesn’t matter. As politically motivated spending programs (from warfare to welfare) spiral out of control, it isn’t long before massive monthly loans are needed just to cover the day-to-day operating costs of government. The noose is then tightened further with a never-ending slate of new spending programs that are added year after year, decade after decade. Out of the crushing debt that ensues, and the subsequent need for an endless supply of new loans to keep the bankrupt system afloat, the Network secures its dominant position over everything and everyone that depends on its money.

In the meantime, the illiterate debtors of the world slave away with no idea that the money they “owe” was created out of thin air; it was never earned by the lender. They have no idea that the system itself was designed to create an ever-expanding black hole of debt, a system of financial servitude that is literally inescapable.

Those conspiring to bring us a “world government” ruled by an “intellectual elite and world bankers” are not playing

3 The Creature From Jekyll Island, page 188

games. They’ve worked hard to perfect and implement their strategy of economic conquest. They’ve proven their ability to seize control of nations large and small (even far-flung empires). They certainly haven’t come all this way for nothing.4

How Many Are Willing to Fight?

There isn’t enough room here to cover how inflation, deflation, booms, busts, and bailouts all provide additional ways for the Network to transfer wealth and power into its own hands. For now, it’s enough to reiterate the opening claim of this chapter: money is the root of the Network’s power. For them to dominate “all the habitable portions of the world,”5 they absolutely must maintain their ability to confiscate, create, and control the money that we earn. And since they will never surrender these monetary weapons willingly, our only choice is to forcibly disarm them.

“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made...have been born of earnest struggle...This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”— Frederick Douglass6

The Network is literally composed of criminals who hide behind the “legitimacy” of government to force their will on us all.

4 Dishonest Money, page 65
5 Tragedy and Hope, page 131
6 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

Their power over our debt-money system, their power to tax our incomes and wage war on national sovereignty, their relentless expansion of the government that they control—all of this power has been taken by force and fraud. They’re not going to turn the “government power” they have created against themselves (any more than an armed robber would turn his own gun against himself in defense of his victims). No, to reclaim what is rightfully ours, we are going to have to fight...and this leads to one final problem.

Time and time again, history has shown that the predator class will do whatever is necessary to gain and keep the reins of power. In fact, those who subscribe to the concept of “survival of the fittest” would almost certainly argue in the Network’s defense. Its members have studied rulers of the past, improved upon ancient techniques of propaganda and mass manipulation, and have thus earned their right to rule. Following this logic, the same survival- of-the-fittest crowd would argue that the masses belong exactly where they are: beneath the ruling class. Without the willful ignorance, indifference, and timidity of the subjugated, our rulers simply could not exist. It is a symbiotic relationship, one of parasite and host. Society’s refusal to even acknowledge (let alone remove) the bulging tick that’s stuck to its forehead is akin to consent. This being the case, why shouldn’t the Network continue gorging itself?

Does this position blame the victims? Perhaps...but sometimes the victims deserve a little blame.

The typical voter has chosen to accept a fairly obvious lie: that the government is an instrument of the people, that it is subject to the will of the governed, and nobody (inside or outside of government) is above the law. To these voters, the idea of a highly organized shadow government, operating at the direct expense of the governed, is laughed off without investigation. They might passionately believe that Republicans are corrupt and only the Democrats can save them, or that Democrats are corrupt and only Republicans can save them, but they have yet to recognize the deeper truth: neither Republicans nor Democrats are ever going to save them. Both sides are funded and maintained by the same

ruling class to create the illusion of choice.
To really drive this point home, let’s revisit a few earlier

quotes. First from Quigley:

It is increasingly clear that, in the twentieth century, the expert will replace...the democratic voter in control of the political system...Hopefully, the elements of choice and freedom may survive for the ordinary individual in that he may be free to make a choice between two opposing political groups (even if these groups have little policy choice within the parameters of policy established by the experts)...in general, his freedom and choice will be controlled within very narrow alternatives.7

And again, our “expert” on scientific manipulation, Bertrand Russell, takes the concept of hidden power a step further: the experts will not only target the electorate for manipulation, they will target the elected as well:

The government, being an oligarchy...may invent ingenious ways of concealing its own power, leaving the forms of democracy intact, and allowing the plutocrats or politicians to imagine that they are cleverly controlling these forms...whatever the outward forms may be, all real power will come to be concentrated in the hands of those who understand the art of scientific manipulation.8

Finally, from the father of propaganda himself, Edward Bernays:

The conscious manipulation of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this

7 Tragedy and Hope, page 866
8 The Scientific Outlook, page 175

unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

To summarize the substance of this problem: the majority of the population does not understand how they’re being manipulated, nor do they see a bulging tick stuck to society’s forehead. They see only the image of government that the “true ruling power” wants them to see. And if they continue turning exclusively to the same ruling power for all of their information, their perception will never change. That’s why, if we want as many fighters as possible, we’re going to have to speak up. We’re going to have to counter the “conscious manipulation of the masses.”

Solutions—Where to Begin

This short section of the book will be the easiest to write. That’s because there isn’t anything particularly complicated about how to free ourselves from financial and political servitude.9 In a nutshell, it boils down to this: the Network’s empire is built entirely on stolen financial power and manufactured consent. Our objective is to undermine both of these, one mind and one dollar at a time, until the Network can no longer defend itself in any meaningful way. That’s it.

Now, the question becomes: What are the steps we should take to achieve this objective? Although there are many options, implementation of the following will absolutely devastate the Network’s power.

1. Raise Awareness: Expose Their Illegitimacy

This is not only the easiest step; it is arguably the most important. Reach out to new people regularly and share

9 I wish I could say the same about preventing the recurrence of the exact same problem under a new group of ruling elite, but that’s another story for a later time.

information that exposes what the Network is and how it operates. When you encounter individuals who either refuse to look at the facts, or who minimize the significance of what’s presented, do not take it personally. If they attack you, do not take it personally. In most cases, they are simply defending their world view...It has nothing to do with you. Simply move on and know that every single person that is exposed to this information, even those who initially resist, could become an ally down the road. The same cannot be said of those who are never exposed to the truth.

2. Competing Currencies: Stop Using the Network’s Money

“End the Fed!” is the rallying cry of millions who have learned how the Network’s “Federal Reserve System” was created and how it operates. This privately owned and controlled money machine has been rightfully identified as the heart of the enemy’s power. To truly disarm the Network, we first must end its ability to create and control our money supply. This can be done, but it won’t be easy.

The good news is that anti-Fed sentiment is growing every day. The bad news is that the Network is already manipulating this sentiment, steering well-intentioned critics toward nationalizing the Fed. But nationalizing the Fed will not end its ability to create and control our money supply. In fact, this is the same tactic the Network used with the Central Bank of England when demands to end its private ownership reached a fevered pitch. Though nationalization did end outright private ownership of the bank, it did little to affect the Network’s control.10

For an idea of how nationalization of the Fed would unfold in the United States, flash back to how the Federal Reserve System was created in the first place (in response to public demands for

10 Even Quigley noted, upon the nationalization of the Bank of England, that the same powers that dominated the bank prior to nationalization “strangely enough, still have retained some of this, despite the nationalization of the Bank by the Labour government in 1946.” Tragedy and Hope, page 500

financial reform, covered in chapter 4). The visible US government will spring into action to “protect the people” from out-of-control bankers, and it will accomplish the exact opposite in the process.11

Our best move against the Network’s control of our money supply is to begin developing and using competing currencies— money that literally competes with the Network’s fraudulent debt money that circulates in the economy. This move accomplishes two important functions: (1) it cuts the Network out of the equation when we buy and sell from one another, and (2) it protects us in the event of a Network-initiated run on the dollar.12

Gold and silver are the two most obvious forms of money that we could begin using, and some states, aware of the dangers of the current monetary system, have begun pushing legislation that will make gold and silver legal tender again. But gold and silver aren’t the only options. Digital currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and even Dogecoin13 are gaining traction among millions of citizens around the world, without any sanction from government whatsoever.14 In addition to these digital currencies, there is also the option of competing private currencies, community currencies, time-based currencies, and so on.

The key point is to remember why the Network created central banks in the first place: to control “the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.”15 The sooner we develop effective ways to trade outside of their system, the

11 For additional arguments against nationalizing the Federal Reserve System, there is a short article available here: JoePlummer.com/let-government-print-the-money.html

12 The Network wants to eventually replace the dollar with a one-world currency. To force the United States, and other nations who depend on the dollar, into the new currency, it will likely cause a dollar panic and then put the new currency forward as a “temporary/emergency solution to get trade moving again.” The greater the financial and social chaos, the less likely any nation will have the power to resist. However, if there are already other viable currencies in place that can facilitate trade without major disruptions to the economy, there will be no need for the citizens of the world to

accept an expanded debt-denominated, slave-money system.
13 Dogecoin, though it actually began as a joke, established a strong community of users by March 2014.
14 For a short article and video on Bitcoin, visit: http://joeplummer.com/bitcoin-vs-federal-reserve- notes.html
15 Tragedy and Hope, page 324

sooner their system will become irrelevant and we can ignore it into oblivion.

3. Attack the Income Tax

In chapter 4, we went over how the Network, approximately one hundred years ago, began stealing massive amounts of money for its global-domination project. It called the theft “income tax” and has glorified the annual expropriation as a citizen’s “moral duty” ever since.

It’s beyond the scope of this text to delve into how the Network, acting through its tax-exempt foundations, has used education to build public support for this previously illegal confiscation of wages.16 Suffice to say, using government as its instrument, the Network can now funnel trillions of dollars each year into furthering its own interests. From multitrillion-dollar banker bailouts, to the approximately one hundred million dollars per hour gushing into the military industrial complex,17 the Network can legally accomplish things with “government taxation” and “government policy” that it could never accomplish privately.

Of course, private power disguised as government power is hardly a new phenomenon, and those who founded the United States federal government did everything they could to protect us from this problem. They knew that the more powerful the government became, the sooner it would be corrupted for private use. That is why our Constitution was written to limit government

16 The topic of how the Network has used education to “pull the strings of the public mind” is enormous and well worth looking into. If you want a short introduction, I recommend Ed Griffin’s interview of Norman Dodd. The transcript is available here: http://www.realityzone.com/hiddenagenda2.html

17 This is a term made popular by President Eisenhower in his farewell address. He stated, in part: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower’s_farewell_address

power. Our Bill of Rights was written to limit government power. The Founders’ opposition to standing armies, their stance against fiat paper money, their aversion to taxation—all of these served to limit government power and, by extension, the inevitable private abuse of that power. Unfortunately, the Network has relentlessly undermined or outright destroyed all of the aforementioned limits, one by one, since 1913.

This perfectly illustrates why we must sever, or severely disrupt, their so-called “income-tax” funding mechanism. Forget the fact that it was foisted on the nation via fraud and manipulation. Forget the fact that the revenue is being used to destroy (rather than protect) the substance of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Instead, view the argument against a compulsory income tax purely from the angle of a power relationship. View it the way the Network views it: if the citizenry can force the “government” to obey its wishes (by cutting off access to money), then the citizens have the final say on whether or not a policy decision will survive. However, if men with power can simply confiscate whatever amount of money they want (via taxes or via the printing press), then the citizens have lost their most effective nonviolent method of control. Yes, they can still express massive disapproval, as they did in the case of the most recent banker bailouts, but this means nothing. As long as the complaints are submitted with payment in full, and all of the outrage over the government’s refusal to listen falls on easily replaceable representatives, the Network’s power remains undisturbed.

Ultimately, each individual must decide how to attack the income-tax issue. I myself decided to cut my income drastically, eventually reducing the amount of money I “owed” to zero.18 This

18 By 2003, I was painfully aware of the illegitimate nature of our federal government. Due to the amount of money I was making at the time (roughly $500,000 per year), my so-called income taxes, even after deductions, were running in excess of $100,000 annually. There is no way I can express how compromised I felt each time I wrote one of those checks, knowing full well that I was empowering individuals who were actively engaged in the destruction of my country. So, I resolved to sell my business and do everything I could to expose their crimes, living mostly off of savings and revenue from whatever assets I could sell. Ten years later, I’ve finally run out of savings and assets, but I don’t regret my decision. It feels good to know, at the very least, I saved myself the angst of

is probably too radical for most people, and there are certainly other options. Some find legal ways to reduce their income taxes; others engage in not-so-legal ways. Some continue “paying with complaint” (which is at least better than paying without complaint), while others flatly refuse to pay at all. Last but not least, competing currencies also provide an option because they enable citizens to conduct trade outside of the Network’s financial system. Whether it’s with gold and silver coins, or semianonymous digital currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Dogecoin, the inability of the Network to easily track these transactions makes it difficult for its members to calculate what is “owed.” 19 It’s then up to the citizens to decide what duty they have to disclose their private financial affairs to men who are openly trying to enslave them.

It goes without saying that the founding fathers would have considered the income tax an unconstitutional abomination. It goes without saying that the Network used its illegitimate influence to foist this tax on the American people. It should have never existed. It ought to be repealed and replaced with, preferably, nothing. (The Federal government carried out its intended role in our society, without an income tax, for more than a century. It can do so again.)

4. Nullification: Refuse to Comply, Refuse to Convict

Practically forgotten, the extremely powerful weapon of nullification has recently been dusted off and is being put to good use. The concept behind nullification is very simple: the people determine what the government has the power to do, not the other way around. When policy makers in Washington grant themselves “legal authority” to do things that violate the legal restrictions on their power, the people have the right and the duty to restrain them.

Two dozen American states nullified the REAL ID Act of

handing over another $1 million or more in “taxes” to a gang of liars, thieves, and tyrants. Regretfully, now that I must start earning money again, I will have to face this conflict again. 19 Of course, “the government” is already working to create a regulatory environment that will destroy this advantage.

2005. More than a dozen states have successfully defied the federal government over medical marijuana. Nullification initiatives of all kinds, involving the recent health care legislation, cap and trade, and the Second Amendment are popping up everywhere.

The indispensable source for developments connected to nullification [can be found at] TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Its Legislative Tracking page covers a variety of nullification initiatives and tracks their progress in state legislatures across the country.20

State nullification, even the threat of state nullification, is a tool that has been used effectively for hundreds of years in this country. From the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to the unconstitutional searches and seizures of 1807–1809, from resistance to conscription in 1812 to the northern states’ obstruction of the fugitive-slave laws, nullification has provided a nonviolent way for citizens to push back against federal overreach.21 But state nullification isn’t our only option. Another form is jury nullification, and it has the potential to be even more powerful.

Jury nullification occurs when a jury concludes that a defendant is technically guilty, but fails to convict the defendant on the grounds that the law in question is unjust. While jury nullification is legal, judges frequently do not inform juries of this power...22

In the United States, jury nullification first appeared in the pre-Civil War era when juries sometimes refused to convict for violations of the Fugitive Slave Act. Later, during Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws, possibly as often as 60% of the time. This resistance

20 For a quick introduction to nullification, visit: http://www.libertyclassroom.com/nullification/ 21 http://www.libertyclassroom.com/objections/
22 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/doug-darrell-marijuana-jury- nullification_n_1890824.html

may have contributed to the adoption of the Twenty-first amendment repealing Prohibition...23

To demonstrate the enormity of this direct power we were given over our government, imagine the following hypothetical scenario: I am a juror, and you have been dragged into court for refusing to pay your taxes to the Network’s collection instrument (the IRS.) Unrepentant, you stand and state the following: “I will no longer voluntarily fund an institution that violates the law with impunity and engages in morally reprehensible behavior. I will no longer be complicit in crime. I would rather be punished for obeying my conscience than be rewarded for ignoring it.”

It’s very unlikely that your defense attorney would support this approach, but remember that this is just a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate the power we still possess as citizens. If I’m a juror in this case, you better believe that I am going to argue for nullification. If that fails, I am going to ensure a hung jury. There will be no conviction this time around. Now, multiply that same scenario a couple dozen times, then a couple hundred times, and then a couple thousand times...the power over our incomes, stolen by the Network in 1913, will be rightfully returned to the people. (Laws that cannot be successfully prosecuted cannot survive. Nullification is our final nonviolent check on the abuse of government power.)

5. Disruptive Technologies

Over the past 100 years, the Network has worked very hard to monopolize our money, media, medicine, manufacturing, education, energy, agriculture, and government. But all of this top- down centralized power is currently under attack. It’s being destroyed; not by armies, but by innovation.

As of now, the most obvious and widespread example of this monopoly-destroying power is the internet. Although the Network

23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

can still use its legacy-media empire to spread lies, the internet has dramatically cut the lifecycle of those lies. Also, thanks to the internet, the Network has lost its ability to stop whistleblowers, hackers, and ordinary citizens from exposing its crimes. (Before, it could simply refuse to distribute the evidence against it. Today, we can distribute the evidence ourselves; we can reach around the world instantly, at nearly zero cost.) In all of human history, rulers have never faced a threat of this magnitude, and it’s only just beginning.

We are now entering an era of technological development that many believe will lead to “exponential disruption.” All of the aforementioned choke points of control (from energy to education, medicine to manufacturing, agriculture to government) will change dramatically in the next 20 – 30 years. The most beneficial characteristic of these technology-driven changes is that they, like the internet, will decentralize and redistribute power. They will weaken, and then replace, the immoral and inadequate centralized systems that our rulers have created.

Simply stated, to disrupt the elite, we must continue decentralizing everything they have monopolized. We must build the competing / parallel systems that will eventually render their current systems irrelevant. And here is where the issue of "raising awareness" really shows its importance. For every 1 million people that “wake up,” there will be a very small number who fully apply their talents (in their areas of expertise) toward creating solutions. As more join the fight, more solutions will emerge. Equally important are the millions who are “awake” but aren’t actively developing solutions. Why? Because they will provide the vital base of early adopters; they will be the ones who support the emerging alternatives.

By the time 10 to 15 percent of the adult population begins to support and apply the tactics outlined in this chapter, the Network’s continued illegitimate control will become unmanageable. But this army of informed and engaged citizens isn’t going to magically appear. We have to make it happen. And as we’re making it happen, those who currently hold power will

attack our efforts with every lie and dirty trick in the book; but that doesn’t matter. If we intend to take back what “false and designing men”24 have stolen, we must be prepared to demand it. If we hope to achieve our ends via nonviolent means, the time to act is now...and if a violent confrontation proves unavoidable, we can rest assured that the nonviolent work we have done will provide the foundation for our success.

To clarify the importance of resistance, I will cover the incredible lawlessness and immorality of those we’re up against in the final chapters. Rather than focus on how they might abuse their power, I’ll focus on how they already have.

24 This is a reference to a famous quote by Samuel Adams. It reads, in part: “The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks...It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present...” http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams