Friday, April 22, 2016

Twenty Bucks & Barter


Real Goods

assets.libertyellisfoundation.org

Power structures, whether governmental, military or religious, surround themselves with symbols meant to evoke awe and loyalty, taxes and tithes.

The US government is messing with symbolism on the twenty dollar bill. 

In the shadow-world of replacing a president with a politically correct black female slave, lies a symbol-tweak.

The former President given the stage hook off the currency is Andrew Jackson. Yes, he was responsible for the Trail of Tears, but that may not be the reason he's being "disappeared."

When 18th century superpower Britain lost the American colonies in the War of Independence, the imperial British lion still quivered with Plan B's.


freewebs.com

Enter the Bank of England, which tried repeatedly to take over the wealth of the vast American continent through imposition of a central bank, which would "help" the new nation with its debts. 

The moneymongers managed to get a toehold pretty quickly, in the administration of the first US President, George Washington!

Other Founding Fathers were outraged in their opposition, e.g. Thomas Jefferson: 

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. 

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. 

"The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
 
Nonetheless the Bank of the US began its depredations, and when the bank charter came up for renewal, then President Andrew Jackson refused to sign it, calling the bank a many-headed monster.


neh.gov

Jackson, aka Old Hickory, shot down the central bank.

Not till Christmas holidays 1913 via European banker/congressional sleight-of-hand, was the US indentured to the central bank known as the Federal Reserve.

The greenback has since been debauched to four cents of its original hundred cents in value. 

Pay no attention to the predator behind the curtain.

That's why the symbol of Andrew Jackson's mug on the twenty dollar bill had to go. He threw out the so-and-so's.

They've long since crawled up out of the Potomac swamp. "Washington City" is now the home of lobbyist creepy-crawlies and mega-buck-fraudsters.

And we'll live the Ponzi ending.

Meanwhile, among neighbors, another economy is brewing, involving skills and real goods of value. It's the oldest economy, barter.

In my small world, for example, a thicket of  productive wild plums was slated to be bulldozed. It tore at my heart. A gardener friend, alerted, arrived with a truck and together we dug up fifteen small trees to transplant to her place.

Gardeners live in a world of adundance, though they may not drive Ferraris.

Saving fruiful trees was enough for me, but my friend next arrived with strawberry plants, starts of parsley, lemon balm, a dozen organic eggs and an offer to help me with some heavy work!

That was a surprise barter, and a reminder of balance in giving and receiving. 

She and I have another barter going. The eggs were fab, with bright orange yolks. We're now trading her eggs for my pint of fresh Jersey milk yoghurt. 

One of the churches in this small town:
1) Hosts a weekly Food Pantry, which last week distributed dry goods, canned goods and fresh food to over six hundred families.
2) Maintains a Discretionary Fund to assist those throughout the community in need of help with utilities, rent or firewood. 

Many of these folks are hungry and financially desperate, a demographic whose "recession" experience is spelled with a capital D.

The church doesn't have that money. The community supports church rummage sales and other fundraisers. The monies raised provide for assistance, both food and bills. It's a sort of barter.

Back when I had an organic farm, a man brought me a cord of oak and hickory firewood. I had expected he'd just toss it out of the truck and I'd wheelbarrow loads of it to the wood pile.

Instead, he stacked it in an act of unexpected gallantry. I came out with a big bowl of hearty soup and a wedge of fresh-ground skillet cornbread, lathered with homemade Jersey butter and sorghum molasses, surprising him.

We found balance, and somehow as societies, many unique global ones, we're on a journey to find economic balance.

How? I don't know, but events are accelerating.

Perhaps when communities pull together, and the bell finally tolls for the many-headed monster of power gone rogue... Imagine the transition from Armanis to orange jumpsuits!  

One day soon we'll weigh fraud in the balance, and find it wanting.

pixabay.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

You are welcome to comment.