Every
now and then, another piece of literature gains wider attention and
has something to say with relevance to this blog's proposal, though
of course that wasn't the author's original purpose. We'll get to
that too. Ayn
Rand's John Galt speech, was similarly critiqued, so that
everyone interested in this blog's proposal and our perspective could
review it, as this was another piece of literature that had something
to say to us about our enemies (yes, we certainly have THEM, every
bit as much as every predator has its prey) as well as something to
say about ourselves. Anyone who has bothered to read our take on
Rand would certainly be surprised how we see it, I promise. Go
ahead, it's part of your continuing real education.
So,
since this is a spoiler piece; if you don't want to know what this
short piece of historical literature is about, I suggest you take the
time to read it first. After all, it's under 50 pages. We'll
describe the action of this piece and how and why it is relevant to
our proposal. This is the first episode, so expect a few more to get
this piece covered.
1900
or The Last President was a 48 page pamphlet that was copyright
1906 by Ingersoll Lockwood, of the New York Bar (he was a lawyer) and
was printed by the American News Company in New York in a slim red
cloth bound volume that sold for ten cents. It consists of ten
chapters spanning its 48 pages.
 |
| Garret A Hobart |
Before
the action begins, there is a quote by Garret A Hobart. Hobart was
the 24th vice president of the United States, serving from 1897 until
his death in 1899. The President was William McKinley, the 25th
under the Constitution of 1787 [2/26/21: under the corporation of 1871]. It ran as follows:
“The
Chicago Platform assumes, in fact, the form of a revolutionary
propaganda. It embodies a menace of national disintegration and
destruction.”
Hobart
is saying that the Chicago Platform = revolutionary propaganda.
Revolutionary
propaganda = going round and round with deliberate lies to the
general public, bamboozling while going round and round. Believe me
folks, there is no political solution to what this blog's
proposal addresses.
 |
| William Jennings Bryan |
The
Chicago Platform turns out to be the planks adopted in 1896 in
Chicago by the Democratic Party, who ran William Jennings Bryan for
President against Hobart's Republican President, William McKinley,
who six months into his second term was assassinated. That was in
1901. By then, Hobart himself had died in office (in 1899) and been
replaced by Theodore Roosevelt, who would become the 26th
President. So William Jennings Bryan is the pivotal character in
Lockwood's short fiction; in it, he is elected President of the
United States in 1900, from whence the title derives. So it's easy
to see this piece as a political tract clearly featuring the hated
Bryan as the country's last president.
There
were many proposals in this Chicago platform that would seem
ridiculously socialist to most of us, like nationalization of all
railroads. But further research into the political movement Bryan
represented reveals this from Britanica, which of course will suffer
my usual cautions:
“Throughout
the 1880s local political action groups known as Farmers’
Alliances sprang up among Middle Westerners and Southerners, who
were discontented because of crop failures, falling prices,
and poor marketing and credit facilities. Although it [sic]
[they] won some significant regional victories, the alliances
generally proved politically ineffective on a national scale. Thus in
1892 their leaders organized the Populist, or People’s Party,
and the Farmers’ Alliances melted away. While trying to broaden
their base to include labour and other groups, the Populists remained
almost entirely agrarian-oriented. They demanded an increase in
the circulating currency (to be achieved by the unlimited coinage of
silver), a graduated income tax, government ownership
of the railroads, a tariff for revenue only, the direct
election of U.S. senators, and other measures designed to
strengthen political democracy and give farmers economic
parity with business and industry.
In
1892 the Populist presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, polled 22
electoral votes and more than 1,000,000 popular votes. By fusing with
the Democrats in certain states, the party elected several members to
Congress, three governors, and hundreds of minor officials and
legislators, nearly all in the northern Middle West. In the South,
however, most farmers refused to endanger white supremacy by
voting against the Democratic Party. Additional victories were
won in the 1894 midterm election, but in 1896 the Populists allowed
themselves to be swept into the Democratic cause by their mutual
preoccupation with the Free Silver Movement. The subsequent defeat of
Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan signaled the
collapse of one of the most challenging protest movements in
the U.S. since the Civil War. Some of the Populist causes were later
embraced by the Progressive Party.”
OK,
so you notice the things that caught my attention. We have heard the
term populism of late. We said recently that populism is
essentially that the average person should not be held down or
prevented from exercising his/her natural right to free PRIVATE
enterprise by some elite with special interests above the average
person. Our argument with respect to this and THEIR money is
that precisely due to how it is issued, it represents a STOLEN FIAT
from those regular folks like us, by a group of long time organized
criminals, call them what you will, the Deep State perhaps, or as we
have identified THEM, as Mystery Babylon, yes, the last Beast empire
before Shiloh comes.
Yes.
But to continue, clearly Garret Hobart was not a populist in the
sense the framers of the Chicago platform had outlined it, in terms
of promises of government policy. We consider that the author,
Ingersoll Lockwood, wasn't one either. Both men and others were
aware of what the Farmers’ Alliances wanted; affordable insurance
against crop failures, some control over farm prices, and better
marketing and credit facilities. Transportation costs figured into
it too, which is why farmers went to other forms of transport as soon
as they became available. Getting free of rail transport meant that
farmers usually got better prices and greater control over the timing
of delivery geared to the exigencies of the harvest rather than to
railroad schedules.
Many
of these changes developed over the years, so that large enough
farmers could become more productive over the long haul. It has
traditionally been production unpredictability associated with
agriculture that has been the basis of a natural friction between
farmers and financiers. Finance likes stability and predictability
and anything that makes the unknowns of agriculture easier to predict
has driven standardization, hybridization, GMO's, etc. ultimately by
those specializing in financing farmers.
The
goal of these financiers has been to predict what the prices of
agricultural commodities would be out into the future based on
projected crop yields. The farmer's insurance in part is covered by
his participation in the buying and selling of futures contracts or
derivatives on them. Prices are determined based on product yield
and market size. Supposedly, the wider the market, the fewer price
fluctuations over the widest area.
As
usual, we'd prefer to take the small farmer's side of things; to
produce what one can and offer it for sale locally, but use our own
money rather than THEIRS to do it and only collect in THEIR money
what is required in taxes, where relevant. One would get relatively
anonymous transactions using our V-Checks and the sources would all
be local and redundant so that variety and freshness are promoted.
Always organic, of course and heirloom seeds and their gathering
would be encouraged. All we need do is set up every small producer
as a series of accounts within the locally owned and truly
democratically run Valun exchange system and perhaps a few would
purchase ads that would be seen on the backs of our V-Checks.
Countless
other branches of ordinary human activity can be facilitated in
organized to operate this way. But notice, our proposal does not
require any state action or responsibilities, nor does it require any
bank. None of our exchanges will ever loan anyone money so they
aren't banks. Rental fees for the rent of money over the usual terms
of bills, notes and bonds always paid up front from existing money
are determined by those finance businesses organized outside the
local exchanges to carry on such businesses all as private enterprise
capitalist concerns, which cannot engage in any share selling as that
creates limited liability and absentee ownership, both to be
eliminated from our monetary system. Likewise, absolutely none of
them may ever rent out any money that they do not have. Call it a
100% reserve system if you like. We will not tolerate special
privileges for those who may be able to make money on their money
without work, which is capitalism, over the rights of the rest of us
who are actively engaged in providing actual goods and services to
the general public through our free and PRIVATE enterprise.
If
we are advocating a parallel monetary system to THEIRS, and we are,
every bit as much of a natural right as some people seem to think
access to healthcare is, then we are aware of the very structurally
fluid nature of labor is at the moment. There are plenty of
freelancers out there, all of whom should look into and champion
drives to enroll as many of their own members as possible.
This
is about moving away from THEM (usual suspects) and THEIR systems of
manipulation, control and predatory consumption and accepting another
system that one uses as well as THEIRS until THEIRS in all its varied
brands, is discredited and fails. While we're at it, we develop our
own networks of supply and detail that do not use the internet, or
rely on it, do not use cell phones, and renew what we are always on
the point of losing; that meaningful face to face human contact.
Here's something else we're gong to have to face; there is s limit to
digitalization and that limit is fast approaching. More people want
OUT of THEIR system and have nowhere to imagine themselves but in
some kind of perpetual nomad existence or perhaps end up homeless in
some disease infested inner city. Only the return of sensible “brick
and mortar” arrangements is going to matter long term and after
THEY and THEIRS are gone. Say what one will, one can only defy
Nature so long and most every “too big to fail” organization is
already running out of balance with the “diminishing returns to
scale” law that proportions every activity to its optimal sizes.
Until next time. Best.
David
Burton
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