Here I am

I am no longer going to be treating this blog as a journalistic endeavour, but as a method of personal expression. As a person very interested in societal and economic collapse, this blog should still provide some of that information. However, to me, it is not up for discussion.

Peak oil is real. The death of the dollar is real.

I am not interested in debate or trying to prove my point with evidence. This blog is now a place that my family, my friends, and my well wishers can find me on the internet, as I do not regularly use a telephone. I am leaving some of my earlier posts, because I still believe they hold true. Beyond that, I am no longer trying to save or help anyone. Follow my example or don't, that is your choice, your business, your life. If you want to stake yourself on Business As Usual, so be it. For me, leaving the grid in my dust is all that matters, after and along with family, friends, and shredding.

I currently live in Austin, TX, where I garden the fuck out of my yard and skate ditches in my free time, and work on documentary film projects for a living. Check it:

That's me and my awesome dog, Hawley.

That's where I grow food.

That's my closet full of home brewed hobo wine

And shred photos are soon to come.

Prepare for decline my friends. Inevitability needs no invitation.

Tend to our gardens...

I have been moving as well as working seven day work weeks for the past month, so my posting fell off a cliff.  I apologize.

Also falling off a cliff, is any hope I may have had for the United States as a nation.  The picture of its corruption is becoming so clear to me now, that I have really nothing but disdain for it.  I'm thinking of compiling a small packet of writings that can convince people of this in short order, so it won't take them years of slow weaning to realize what a racket this "country" is.

Immediately, I would suggest picking up a copy of the most recent Rolling Stone Magazine (I know, it has the Jonas Brothers on the cover, but still...) and reading the article about Goldman Sachs by Matt Taibbi.  If you don't yet understand the correlations between Wall Street and the CIA/Fed government, then this may look like another story about a bad corporation and a weak regulatory system.  However, if you realize that the banking industry and the government are one and the same, passing employees and "public servants" back and forth like trading cards, this article will leave you fuming, and waiting for the day the hubris of these gangsters brings the whole system crashing down around them.

(you can read the story Here if you don't want to run to the newsstand.)

I promise Ill be back with more posts soon.

Statement of Principles...

H.L. Menken once wrote that "Any man who inflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood." Well, not only must activists be ready to be misunderstood, they must be able to withstand the barrages of criticism that will inevitably come their way. Read about any revolutionary figure, any great thinker, any advocate for social change who has ever existed, from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx to Thomas Jefferson to Abby Hoffman, and you will find that there are people who are highly critical of them. In what is a marvelous "Catch 22," when people who out of love or frustration or pure need to revolt decide to speak truth to power, they must be prepared to be called either a hypocrite or an extremist.

Any person who lays out a set of principles by which they think people should live, by which a society should function, or government operate, will do one of two things: They will adhere completely and unwaveringly to their ideas in a perfect demonstration of "practicing what they preach," OR they will at some point slip in word or action, whether by accident or intention. Those who do the former will be called extremists by their critics, unwilling to bend, to compromise, or acknowledge that life does not consist of only black and white but many shades of gray. Those who do the latter will be called hypocrites, incapable of abiding by their own standards and logic, malcontents who wanted us to do as they said, not as they did.

Damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

In actuality, most critiques of revolutionary people are the result of the laziness or fear of the critic. Social and political change take effort. Revolutionary personalities spend their time not only pointing out the flaws of a contemporary system, but asking others to join in an attempt to fix them. Upon hearing that there is a problem that needs fixing or an injustice that needs rectifying, most people out of laziness reject the call, not wanting to leave their personal comfort zone to struggle and to possibly fail. Where this is the case, all the state has to do is make sure the majority of people are just comfortable enough to keep them complacent. Sure, over fifty percent of their income is confiscated by one tax or another, but they still have access to entertainment, alcohol, and forty flavors of potato chip, so they do not rise up. Or else the case is that whereupon someone is called to action, they fear the consequences of revolt feeling that they have too much to lose. Using the tax example again, most people pay the immoral income tax because they fear the confiscation of their property or their incarceration at the hands of the state.

This causes an internal conflict in a person's mind. They can clearly identify now the injustices they've been made aware of by revolutionary persons, but are unwilling to assist in righting them. Rather than deal with the guilt of remaining "part of the problem," people then decide to critique harshly the individual or group who has made them aware of the problem in the first place. If that individual can be demonstrated a "hypocrite" or an "extremist," their call to action can be easily dismissed and all concern for the problem itself ignored guilt free. Of course though, all people will be included under this two sided umbrella.

I myself have probably been judged as one or the other by now, and will continue to have such admonishments laid upon me as I ceaselessly call on people to resist the usurption of their individual sovereignty by the state and by the moneyed power structure that wields it. Thus I would like to lay out a basic statment of principles which clearly define what I am standing against/fighting for. People can then decide whether or not they agree and whether or not they'd like to join me. Followed by that will be general concerns, social more than political, that may or may not have overlap with the principles. Finally, a methodology that at least currently makes sense to me as a path towards realizing not only an assumption of the political principles, but also the social concerns.

Political Principles:

1. Individuals are sovereign. No one has greater claim over your life than you do. No one has authority over you, and you over no one else. This is ultimate freedom, ultimate self responsibility.

2. While some forms of government are more lenient than others in how much force they exert upon their citizen class, all forms of government violate the sovereignty of individuals. My personal preference will always be to live where I have the most liberty, so while in theory I do agree with "libertarians" that a return to our constitutional republic would be better than the current governmental system, it is still seeking a state authority, and thus not what I am fighting for.

3. The only rule people need is the golden rule. Survival is the ultimate goal of all living things including humans, and survival for humans has proven easier when attempted communally. People who try to steal and kill their way through life won't survive long, and thus the vast majority of people will not choose this as a lifestyle if all government is abandoned. Yes, there will always be people who try to survive by standing on the throats of others, but it is of great importance to realize that this exists now, even with an enormous state apparatus and huge sums of money being stolen from the productive economy to use for "law enforcement."

People will have a better chance of combating violent individuals when the state gets out of their way. Not only that, state regulations are often the cause of violence, and thus people will be safer without them.

That's it for politics. Everything else is an over complication, an appeal to force, and a path away from individual freedom towards subjugation to the state. On any political topic, ask, are you trying to increase individual liberty or decrease it? If you realize your political viewpoint is in favor of decreasing individual liberty, ask yourself why? Likely, the answer is for fear of other people. If this is the case, you have to really examine whether or not other people are a threat to you, and if so, is there a way you can alleviate that threat in your own life without resorting to asking the government to use force?

This is a very important point, because every time you ask the government to use force to protect you from what you are afraid of, you are giving them a precedent to use force against you at a later time. Also remember, political winds change, and even if politicians you like are currently in power, that is bound to change, and with it will change the interpretation of how to use new avenues of force.

Call this overall political philosophy libertarian, anarchistic, whatever you want. I don't label how I feel, other than to say I am for total freedom, or that no one has authority over me.

You are sovereign.

Social concerns:

1. The Usury/Slavery Complex - We will change nothing vital about how our society functions until we change how money works. As it stands now, currency is loaned into existence, and thus represents debt. This only works (temporarily as it is) because with each new "creation" of money, interest is demanded and the loan recipient promises to pay back more than they borrowed. This requires an ever expanding money supply to service the interest on loans made yesterday and today, which means the future must hold an ever increasing amount of natural resources to be converted into real wealth to make good on existing debt. This is an obvious impossibility when viewed so simply, because the planet is finite.

For the last hundred years that this has been the system of money creation in the United States, the value of the currency has plummeted and people have had to work more and more in order to achieve the average standard of living. This is so for multiple reasons, but the major one being that an ever increasing money supply is in fact, inflation. When inflation is constantly on the rise, the value of currency constantly drops -- that is each dollar can buy less and less. This is theft by the state and the banking class of the people of the nation, plain and simple. And since people are forced to use the Federal Reserve Notes as their currency, they can't escape this subtle whittling away of their earnings.

Less obvious than chattel slavery, this debt slavery is completely pervasive in our society. When currency devaluation is combined with all the taxes that people are forced to pay, the financial burden of the state upon individuals is beyond enormous.

2. Consumerism - The vast majority of human desire is manufactured by other humans for profit. I have nothing against people trying to earn a profit, but it has been my personal experience that when people free themselves from manufactured desire, they become happier individuals. By requiring less, people also free themselves from the grip of the current state apparatus by being able to work less, pay fewer taxes, etc. Furthermore, these "Madison Avenue" desires are what drive most people deep into personal debt, which subjugates them to the banking class that has basically co-opted the current government.

When people drop out of consumer society and begin working communally to produce the majority of goods they need in their lives, they free themselves not only from a need for debt based Federal Reserve Notes and a requirement to pay taxes on their transactions, they also prepare themselves for the onslaught of further economic calamity.

3. Resource Scarcity - Having been aware of the concept of peak oil for many years now, the current "economic crisis" probably looks different to me than it does to most people. Above, I mentioned that our debt based currency requires an endlessly growing supply of natural resources. Unfortunately, the resource we use the most is oil, which has now had its global production peak, and it will never again be on the rise. Suffice it to say, the health of the economy is completely dependent on greater and greater access to petroleum in order to fuel the engine of industry worldwide which is what pays the interest on our currency. Without increasing supplies of energy, the current economic model will collapse -- and indeed now is. For more information on this, visit Lifeaftertheoilcrash.net.

All of these issues are really intertwined, in that driving consumerist desire drove demand for loans and credit, which kept people working for the state, and all of this was dependent upon a resource that will now be found in ever greater scarcity.

While "how money works" can be seen as a political point, at the end of the day, individual groups don't need one federal government to issue them a currency and then force them to accept it. As we see now, the government will inevitably end up manipulating that currency for its own benefit. Local gold and silver warehouses can compete with one and other and offer receipts for deposits. These can act as a local currency for those who choose to use it. If these institutions become corrupt, offering more receipts than they have metals on hand, their failure will not cause nation or world wide financial disaster. Also, recognizing that they will not be "bailed out" should be an incentive to act responsibly for those who run small banks.

Consumerism is often attacked by people on the far left, and thus embraced by libertarians, as if consumerism and free markets are interchangeable. Libertarians forget that some companies, products, and social trends can actually be bad, and that people should resist them when they have made this judgement. I am in no way advocating that state force be used to limit how a product is advertised or how much access people have to it. In my personal life, I have however seen the destructive ends that the consumer mindset can take people to, and all for nothing.

Methods:

1. Agorism - Political change in America is impossible if attempted via the accepted channels. That is to say, we can't vote our way out of this. Writing your "representatives" won't help either. As long as we continually feed the beast economically, it will continue to thrive. Economic revolution seems to be the only way to overhaul the political culture of America, and Agorism seems to me to be the most viable method of economic revolution. Read up on Agorism here.

2. Opt Out - Beyond counter-economic strategies such as working in gray market activities, you can also fight back at the system by becoming less and less a part of it. Learn to provide for yourself food, clothing, medical care, and protection. You don't necessarily have to be poor, but realize that a lot of advantages come from living with a little money as possible. For instance, you are less of a target to the government as far as tax collection is concerned. Also, you avoid having to deal with bureaucracy as much, resulting in less time wasted and less hassle. And every person who lives successfully outside the mainstream is an example for the next person who is fed up with the state, with financial institutions, and with the low quality lifestyle provided by over-consumption driven corporations (Think food).

3. Boycott - This falls under both of the above to an extent, and can apply not only to companies but to the state as well. By using less currency, you are essentially boycotting it. If people do this en masse, they will slowly free themselves from the grip of the state while simultaneously filling the gap with free markets to meet their needs. Personally, I also do not have a bank account, because for one, I know that any money I keep in one will be used as a reserve base to create more loans and thus trap people further under debt.

Obviously, people are free to look at this list and to accept and/or reject individual points as they see fit. I just wanted a clear statement of what I stood for so there would be no confusion at a later date. Proceed to call me an extremist or a hypocrite.

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This list is an early draft, and I'm sure I will edit it for clarity at a later point.

Credit Crisis Visualized

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

This animation explains a lot about what is happening in the economy, but it doesn't explain everything (of course, it would be hard to do so.)

What it does mention, is the Fed's role in creating the situation by dropping the interest rate to near zero. A further in depth look at that action would reveal that by lowering the interest rate, what happens is the money supply increases drastically. Furthermore, the money supply is actually just loans, as in, the banks made a lot more loans to homeowners.

The problem is (in part anyway), by so rapidly increasing the amount of loans, also increased is the amount of interest needing to be repaid, which requires an ever increasing money supply. Remember, when a loan is given, the amount of that loan is created instantaneously out of thin air, but the interest is not. By exponentially increasing the amount of loans, the banks exponentially increased the amount of interest due, which requires new money to service. Essentially, this is the pyramid scheme of our economy, which like any Martingale betting system, seems stable for a while, but eventually kicks into high gear and is impossible to continue.

(NOTE: A Martingale system of gambling is when you double down on every loss hoping that when you win, you cover all previous losses. For example, betting a dollar on black on a roulette wheel. When it comes up red, you bet two dollars, then if you lose again betting four, then eight. At first, this is servicable, but eventually gets out of hand when you are betting $256 or $512, etc.)

By substantially increasing how many loans were made, in order to profit by selling the loans, the amount of money necessary to pay off the interest would have to be created as well, which can only occur when new loans are made, which increases how much debt and interest exists, which requires new loans, ad nauseum.

See the flaw here? Debt creates a viscious cycle of repayment that requires more and more resources be expended paying and collateralizing. Of course, the major bankers win out every time because it costs them nothing to create capital, and they get to vacuum up all of the collateral posted on loans.

As the animation shows above, banks begin refusing to lend. That means no new loans, which means no new money, which means there isn't enough to service interest on old loans, which means defaults. Massive defaults means even less lending, etc, etc.

The question seems to be, by allowing mortgages to be chopped up and sold as investments during a low interest period, thus creating a demand for more mortgages and allowing riskier mortgages to be made, the money masters must have realized this was going to push their economic Martingale scheme into high gear (Imagine instead of one bet on a roulette wheel, now you have several, all doubling upon losses). Why would they allow this to happen? Of course, "they" in the upper echelons don't lose out, but they must have realized a depression would be inevitable.

So was this economic depression planned? It seems it was inevtiable. Why now? Why did the "they" choose this period to lay out such a timebomb? Could it be because of resource scarcity? Could it be a controlled collapse, and final looting of US assets?

Are you prepared?

Last year, in the late spring, I began to say that the markets would begin crashing by fall.  I based this prediction on nothing more than the news I read.  The housing bubble was widely reported on for years, the mortgage backed securities that were based on subprime, Alt A, option arm, and other strange loans were widely reported on, and the price of oil was getting too damn high and required demand destruction.

Now, reading the news of the day, I would like to venture another guess, and say that phase two of this crash will kick into high gear before the year is out.  Late summer might be more accurate, but definitely before 2010.  If I am wrong, I will be glad to admit so.

This phase is of the crash will cement in people's minds that this is for real, and not some passing recession.  What should you be doing right now?  Stocking up on goods. 

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, have a three month food supply in your house.  Right now, while there is product availability, you should be stocking up on canned foods, rice, fuel, batteries, salt, pain killers/cold medicine and even toilet paper.  If you have enough money, you should also buy things you can use or trade, such as chocolate, coffee, liquor, tobacco, seeds, grain, water filters, etc.

None of this is useless, and can always be used even if no emergency occurs.  Better to have and not need, than to need and not have, correct?

Die Dollar Die!!!

The economic crisis the world has been suffering since last fall was in no way a surprise to people who paid attention to economic news, and indeed, many people predicted it. Of course, the cheerleaders in the main stream media always laughed at anyone who suggested that surging house prices represented a bubble, or that the extreme and bizarre mortgages offered to homeowners were going to turn around and cause a wave of foreclosures that would throw the bond and stock markets into disarray.

What exactly the bursting bubble and the decline that followed actually represented varies wildly in the minds of economists and talking heads on TV. For the most part, we are told that greed and deregulation led to the crisis, and those nasty bankers who are still receiving bonuses need to have their heads separated from their bodies. Of course, there is little logic behind these explanations, and the few sacrificial lambs who have been thrown to the public for dismembering are just that, a distraction to allow the real bandits time to escape with their loot.

Never mentioned in the mainstream media are the facts concerning the Federal Reserve's artificially low interest rates that fueled the housing bubble, or its fiat currency whose issuance creates a debt spiral that can't be escaped, or the worldwide depletion of petroleum that is vital in ever increasing amounts to not only the maintenance of the US economy, but of the whole nasty business of globalization.

In my ever so humble opinion, I believe what we are witnessing is an attempt at a controlled collapse of the world economy, including a specific attempt to undermine the US economy, and perhaps even a power struggle at the highest levels of international finance. In short, a very messy financial coup d'Etat.

On the upper right corner of my blog, there is a link to a long discussion on this topic that is continually evolving on the LATOC forum. It is full of links to articles as well as poignant insight. Beyond that, I would like to share with you a few recent news items:

UN Suggests ditching the dollar

The US dollar has been a reserve currency for the nations of the world for over half a century. The American people have benefited from this position to an extent that most of them couldn't fathom. If the world stops seeing the dollar as a safe way to store their wealth, and the dollar loses its reserve status, its value will drop like a stone. (This is why so many people suggest owning gold)

There were predictions that the world would drop the US dollar when the economy tanked, but as of late, the dollar has rallied and despite minor dips, not begun its death rattle. This may have been a very unpredictable outcome even in the minds of the banking powers that be. Which leads to the next news item:

The Mother of all Bells

Peter Schiff wrote this piece, and he is one of the now famous prognosticators of last fall's crash. In this editorial he outlines that the Federal Reserve is turning on the printing press in order to finance the purchasing of US Treasury bills.

I see this maneuver by the Fed (which of course, we all known is owned by member banks, so when we say "Fed," think "International Banking Elite.") as a way to shock the world economy into fully moving to drop the dollar. This is where I'm going to really walk out on a limb, so hold on to your tin-foil hats.

President Obama's campaign was financed heavily by banking and Wall Street elites. He is wondrously popular, and very much a believer in the need for government to finance everything from education, to health care, to environmental initiatives. If the current economic crash is in fact a controlled collapse, with the added tick that the US economy must have it's knees shot out from under it in order to get it's stubborn citizens to accept subjugation on a global stage, then a major deficit spending administration is key. Of course, McCain would have played ball to an extent as well, and I'm not harping on about parties or even calling Obama a willing participant. He is as much of a pawn in the coup as George Bush probably was with the 9-11 attacks. But alas, he is likely the bigger spender of the two, and thus was crowned.

Obama wholeheartedly supported the first financial bailout, probably because advisers told him to do so. The men whispering in his ears keep telling him to be like FDR and to continually throw more money on the flaming pile. He, believing his formal Keynesian education probably does not question the logic of solving the problem of a burst bubble by inflating a larger one. Thus, he continues pushing for more bailout money (which now totals $11.6 TRILLION in total promises). Where Obama really pulls the coup together is in his populist desire to not lose sight of social initiatives, and thus his budget has a giant deficit attached to it, and even in times such as these where the nation is piling on debt, it is in his mind justifiable.

Also, as the moneyed powers on a world stage call for a global financial regulatory body or even a global currency, they know the US citizens will not want to willingly go along with such a strike at their sovereignty. So the two pronged attack on America involves blowing out it's currency's reserve status by inflating it to a point of unviability, and giving them a leader that they will follow into a new world financial order, clapping and smiling the whole way.

(NOTE: The phrase "New World Order" has a whack job stigma attached to it, and I wouldn't use it if it weren't so spot on apropos.)

Furthermore, the aforementioned inflation of the money supply by the fed of $1.5 trillion dollars is like an electric jolt from a car battery to a torture victim's testicles. The world hasn't dropped the dollar yet? China and Japan are still buying T-Bills? How about another dose of [ZAAAAAAP!]

The money that has so far been handed out or promised has largely been a wealth transfer from the public at large to major financial players. The fact that Henry Paulson worked for Goldman Sachs and Timothy Geithner worked at the New York Fed should demonstrate plenty that this is the case, as they hand out money to their partners in crime with no oversight, accounting, or strings attached.

So what are we to do then, as our economy is torn apart by derivative time bombs and Federal Reserve shelling?

Personally, as my regular readers will note, I am more interested in assisting with the personal survival of individuals than grand revolution as a whole. So in that vein, I suggest stocking up on food BIG TIME. Having a minimum of a three month supply is probably smart. Other prep items including toilet paper, batteries, water, necessary medicines, wouldn't hurt to have either. Hell, if you can, it might also be smart to get a firearm if you don't yet own one. None of these things are a waste of money, as they can all be used if somehow everything goes back to business as usual.

However, if one does feel inclined to revolt against this coup, I believe the best way to do that is to boycott the currency. I have said so for a long time, and I ardently try to live in a way that practices this belief. See now that the war against us is a financial one, and its success depends on us depending on their fraudulent currency. If we can provide for ourselves the necessities of life with little need for bankers and their out of thin air credit, then they hold no power over us.

In fact, perhaps this crisis can be an opportunity. If I am right to suspect that there is now an international (and of course, domestic) effort to kill the dollar, we should welcome it! What we need to oppose is the dollar's replacement that we will be pushed into from a global position. We shouldn't feel possessive of the dollar or weep for it's death. The dollar has been used as a tool to enslave us for almost a century now, and when it falls from grace we need to replace it with a sustainable, commodity backed currency (or currencies) of our own devising and approval.

Collapse of our debt based economy was inevitable. The economy can't remain in a state of perpetual growth on a planet of finite resources. The powers that be must have known this for a long time, because hell, many of us little John Q. Six-packs have been preparing for it for years now, and lets face it, it's not exactly rocket science. Would then, the elites in finance and politics around the world allow power to slip from their fingers when the financial systems of the world pulled apart at the seams, or would they likely plan for, attempt to control, and even try to gain from such an unwinding? I think we can all venture an educated guess and assume the latter.


Read up on Agorism to learn more about counter-economic revolutionary strategies.

Agorism! Fight the Fed's Coup d'etat!

How many sparks do we need for the powder keg to blow? Is the Federal Reserve coup d'etat not incendiary enough, or are we as a population more a powder puff than powder keg?

Trillions of dollars are being funneled to banking elites with zero oversight, zero transparency, and zero accountability -- hell, with zero accounting!

This is text from Section 8 of the $700 billion bailout bill, referring to Hank Paulson:

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Beyond that, the Federal Reserve has loaned out now upwards of Two TRILLION dollars SECRETLY, and they refuse to divulge any information concerning who received the money, claiming they don't have to reveal trade secrets. Trade secrets? The Federal Reserve? I guess that ends the "Is the Fed a government entity or not," debate.

The more one looks into the whole financial collapse, the more one is inclined to almost believe that it was pre-planned. And why not? Wall Street is a casino, complete with mafia connections, dubious political ties, and house odds that make sure money comes in but never goes out. Let's be honest, with that many billions upon billions of dollars at stake, can you reasonably believe the whole system wouldn't be crooked as hell?

The real tragedy is how much exposure the average citizen has to market fluctuations. High income tax and inflation rates pushed people into 401k's and pension plans that are on the fast track to worthlessness.

If mobsters, politicians, bankers, insiders, and other worthless white collared old men who have never known a callous or sprained muscle want to play games, push papers, and basically make a living selling shit and calling it chardonnay, then so let them.

But the rest of us need a separate economy that is not affected by these swindles and alchemic attempts at wealth creation. We need a currency backed by a finite commodity such as gold or silver, NOT DEBT. We need to abolish Fractional Reserve Banking and the Income tax, the twin snakes of the modern economy that bleed the populace dry.

After a day of honest labor, one's earnings should not be forcibly seized by mis-managers of empire. Workers should not feel pressed into the rigged markets by immoral taxation. Furthermore, savers should not be punished by a Ponzi Scheme financial paradigm that requires constant inflation, and thus devalues all existing currency to the point of making standard savings accounts inviable. And finally, banks should not be able to whisk money into existence with only a keystroke, offering no consideration on loans made, and again devaluing existing currency.

The reign of the Federal Reserve and it's methods of Modern Money Mechanics must come to an end. The IRS and it's strong arm buttressing of the Federal Reserve system must be abolished. We must rise up and throw off the shackles of debt and usury, propaganda and violence, protectionism and cronyism that the current monetary paradigm has us all yoked beneath.

The New American Revolution starts today, and it starts with you. This revolution will be fought on two fronts: The Economic and the Information.

Your opening salvo should include:

1. Take all of your money out of banking institution hands.

Every dollar a bank has on reserve allows that institution to loan out upwards of nine times as much. This flies in the face of reason and the ideas of property, while giving banks "house odds" on wealth confiscation, as well causing misallocation of resources in society at large. Beyond that, on the investment side, banking institutions support imperialism by investing in the defense industry as well as other carpet bagging industries.

2. Spend/Require Less.

Don't slave for shit you don't need, it's just that simple. By boycotting the currency of decree, you boycott its creation methods and the money masters who stand to gain from it's fraudulent existence.

3. Create Local Economy.

Trade service for service, favor for favor, good for good with your friends and neighbors. This robs the tax man while again, decreasing the demand for the currency. If you must work for cash, do as much under the table as possible. Find like minded individuals in your community and find innovative ways to begin providing yourselves the necessities of life with as little Federal Reserve Note usage as possible.


Of course, these things have to happen en-masse in order to have a major effect on the pyramid scheme financial model, so an information war needs to be waged, and it needs to be loud, proud, and educated. You must:

1. Pass this open letter on, and encourage those you pass it to to do the same.

2. Speak to this issue with family, friends, co-workers, strangers, everybody! And you must do it often and confidently, so read up!

3. Curry public attention and favor by using art, song, humor and dialog in a positive fashion with no suggestion of violence. This movement needs national attention to succeed, and cannot be stifled by criticisms of extremism which the main stream media will use to debase it.

4. Turn communities and states against the Federal "authority." Right now many states are drafting legislation to reassert their sovereignty. This needs to be supported. Some communities are creating their own currencies. This needs to be supported.  Some states have even proposed their own currencies.  This should be supported.

The federal government at the behest of the financial elite is going to be making moves towards a global financial regulatory system in the coming year. The new president's popularity will help grease the skids for this maneuver, so we need a full court press to not only shout down any of these proposed measures, but to encourage the opposite. Instead of scaling up the neo-liberal financial order, we need a return to common sense and economic fairness.

Get pissed, get creative, and get going!

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Draft One: March 7th, 2009 - By Sovereign

Declare Your Sovereignty; Sever Your Ties with Bureaucracy...

The new American revolution will not be won with force of arms. For too long we've been forced to fund the government's acquisition of arms with far wider range and breadth of damage than the ones we allowed ourselves to keep, and thus any attempt to run up against an M1-A1 Abrams with twenty-two caliber deer hunting rifles or Commanche gunships with a shotgun purchased at the local Wal-Mart will not end well for would-be-revolutionaries.

The new American revolution will not be won in a voting booth. Campaign finance laws will bury any and all attempts at wiping the congressional plate clean, and let's face it, no matter how slick the haircut or shiny the veneers, no presidential candidate considered viable enough to be mentioned even with neutrality by the mainstream media will be free of the connections to banking, defense, or energy that have prevented previous executives from squashing the national security and welfare states.

The beast of empire that is the United States of America has been doomed from inception, as history portends and economics verifies, all empires are. However, America's death throes have already been violent, and the thrashings no doubt will grow in their ferocity as the coming decline in access to cheap energy smashes headlong into the unwinding of our ill-fated economic model founded on perpetual growth and buttressed by the regular injection of fiduciary steroids in the way of imaginary capital.

To speed along the demise of our hideous empire, and to ready our minds and resolve, I think there are many actions that can and should be taken up by all of us who welcome a return to true freedom:

1. Refuse any government service possible - Don't cash stimulus checks sent to you, and don't utilize any other form of Federal aid if it can be avoided. The first step towards freeing ourselves from an endless, mindless bureaucracy is to sever any dependence we may have on it.

Furthermore, whenever possible, refuse to patronize the services of companies that accept Federal subsidies. This includes airlines, Amtrak, GM, Ford, many food producers, etc. This obviously requires some homework as well as personal sacrifice, as all worthy causes do. The message must be sent out far and wide that companies either serve the state, or serve we the people. Owners and managers can then decide if they want to go down with the ship.

2. Refuse to serve the Federal government - If you're in the armed service, do not re-enlist. You are a sovereign human being, do not waste the one life you have murdering other humans for Wall Street, who the government sends soldiers out on errands to serve. If you wish to defend your family and loved ones, wait until our nation is invaded by another, and then take up the fight. Until that day, know that more damage has been done to the American Constitution and Bill of Rights by men in Washington in the last two years than by people in all other countries, ever. Submitting to them power of attorney over your conscience is how the republic was torn down and empire installed in its place.

Refusing to serve the Federal Government should also include working for the Post Office, Coast Guard, FBI, or any other alphabet bureaucracy.

3. Refuse to pay the tax man - Whenever and to whatever extent possible and safe, refuse to fund the insanity of Washington D.C. This can be difficult for the obvious reason that we are expected to turn over an un-apportioned amount of our earnings, and failure to do so results in arrest, imprisonment, and asset forfeiture. These heavy-handed consequences should be enough for all men to see the mafia-like nature of our no longer servant government.

If possible, do work under the table. Trade service for service or good for good. Patronize the services of those who offer their labor tax free. Avoid using products that carry Federal tariffs, find every deduction, and by all means do what you can to dispel the disgusting notion that paying taxes is patriotic (or even that one should want to be patriotic or loyal to empire.)

4. Refuse to vote - Why even humor the idea that someone will ride into town on money donated by the elite just to rewrite how money works? Beyond that, voting gives people a false sense of importance as well as strengthens the idea in their mind that they are a citizen of some existing nation. The good old "U.S. of A" would roll over you with a Bradley, and then switch into reverse to make sure you were dead, the second you stood in the way of Wackenhut, Halliburton, Exxon, Citi, or Lockheed's profits.

As Mencken said: "Finally, there comes out of [Democracy] a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy."

Beyond that, those who profess to accept the idea that all men are created equal and that no man has claim over another, should also cast off the idea that a show of hands by the majority is just cause to coerce in any way the minority.

5. Refuse to be silent - The mass consciousness of the people is under a twenty-four seven barrage of manufactured opinion fired at them from television screens and radios, movie theaters and newspapers. I don't think myself baseless in fearing that the hand of tyranny will hammer down a tight fist upon the heads of the American people as the masters in their boardrooms and their bunkers push all of their chips to the center in a feeble and final attempt to maintain the wealth and the influence that they spent a century killing and conniving for. When this happens, we need as many minds possible ready to cast aside snake oil promises of safety, passionate about the idea of liberty.

The Difference Between Chairs and Thrones...

What is the difference between a chair and a throne? The man who sits atop? A man is just a man, and a chair no more than a place to rest a weary ass.

There are a lot of celebrations being planned for the inauguration of Mr. Obama. I find this idea patently absurd. For one, he is a politician being sworn into office, and what that has to do with anyone else, I can't really determine. I guess many people will actually be celebrating his predecessor's leaving office, which I could get behind, if he weren't being immediately replaced by another man that we will call a president.

A man is just a man, and a president is a fiction that only exists in our minds. For that matter, America is no more real than Camelot, and maps are merely illustrations of the fantasies of kings.

The real and the imagined are separated by a jinx in our sanity. The donning of these amorphous concepts as tangible reality is a demonstration of the fealty of our adult minds, corrupted in youth by once corrupted parents and overzealous state employees. Told as children that the man in the shiny hat is king, and that only he may sit on the shiny chair, the disease of slavery over takes our undeveloped objectivity and leaves us incapable of differentiating between that which we can know, and that which we have been told.

Regulation and policy are decreed and accepted as law in the sluggish minds of men, and thus it is that a false equality is drawn between the way an apple always falls towards the Earth, and that every "April 15th" all "Americans" must pay in "Federal Reserve Notes" an apportion of their "income" to the "Internal Revenue Service." The former is a law, unbreakable, and written long before we ever were. The latter, a regulation, written by long dead mean that no one ever elected, enforced upon a people without their consent.

Because the man in the shiny hat said it must be so, it was so. And because the man with the shiny gun believed the man in the shiny hat, the confused unbelievers were carried off in the night. And because the population believed the man in the shiny hat, they agreed that the man with the shiny gun was just, and that the confused unbelievers belonged locked in a cage of shiny bars. And the man in the shiny hat wondered what he could get away with next.

So celebrate power if you must. Raise a glass to fiction. Just know the power you are toasting was rightfully yours, and that the fiction only exists to subjugate you.


I don't believe in ghost stories, I don't believe in gods. I don't believe in companies, any more than Santa Clause. I don't believe in governments, I don't believe in states. We're meandering through a construct, like blind actors on a stage.