Introducing Mark Batten-Carew
Mark Batten-Carew
Hi, as Richard suggested, I'm introducing myself. I'm Mark Batten-Carew, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I'm very interesting in money reform in general and have been promoting the idea for over 10 years.
My favourite book on the topic is "The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery, and Destructive Economics" by Michael Rowbotham. It is the best all-round description of both the problem with modern money, and how it is the basis for most other major issues, that I know of.
With the goal of promoting monetary reform from the top down, I got involved in Federal Canadian politics about 6 years ago in order to gain access to the highest levels of the Liberal Party of Canada (the party then in power). From there I was able to talk to the sitting Prime Minister of Canada, the sitting Finance Minister, two former Finance Ministers, and the prime Liberal Party policy strategist. Of each person, I asked, "Since the Canadian Government is the 100% shareholder of the Bank of Canada (as opposed to the US Federal Reserve, which is privately owned), why doesn't the Canadian Government borrow whatever money it needs from the Bank of Canada, rather than borrowing from the private banks? That way we would have $35B per year in interest payments, about 20% of our total annual budget." From all of those people, except the sitting Finance Minister, I got brush-off answers such as "the Bank of Canada doesn't have any money", or "the Bank of Canada doesn't have the collateral necessary to issue the loaned money". The only thoughtful answer I got was from the sitting Finance Minister, who was very reluctant to answer the question, but would just say "That would require a change of policy." I consider that an extremely honest answer. There is no political will to change current monetary policy because a) the public doesn't even understand the issue and so is not pushing for it, and b) if the government did try to fix monetary policy in Canada, independent of the other countries in the world, our currency would immediately be attacked by the other world-wide private central banks, to force us to stop fixing the monetary policy. Hugo Chavez and Venezuala are the closest country to attempt this, and even they didn't touch their central bank as far as I understand - they set up a parallel banking system.
Anyway, that all led to my coming to believe that money will never be fixed from the top down. Instead it must be fixed from the bottom up. To whatever extent a community can substitute a local currency for the national currency in their local economy, they will be protected from all the problems of debt-based currencies.
So I am now a very strong community currency supporter, but like Richard, I have not found a community currency I can actually participate in. So far, no community currency has had a scope large enough that there was anything I could buy, other than a portion of my food supplies.
This is why I am extremely interested in Richard's proposal. It looks to be the first proposal I've seen that might actually work to make vibrant and replicable success for a community currency.
Mark
Sue Skidmore
Greetings from Sue of Springfield, Missouri. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintances.
I became interested in this as an activist, meeting Richard Moore through an email exchange after sending out the Obama Deception to Janaia Donaldson of Peak Moment TV. She in turn sent me a post from RKM which after posting on my list became an email interchange. I have been concerned with globalization for many years through my activism at a local level—especially with regards to keeping lead mining out of the Ozarks Scenic Rivers here in Missouri. Then realizing that something else was going on at another level I became involved in studying globalization to a degree through the Alliance for Democracy and via the WILPF globalization course. Eventually, I organized a globalization course here in a local church. Also during the Bush era, I organized showings through the Peace Network of films at the local libraries on what was really happening in our government and that war for oil is not a good foreign policy. I have organized the appearance of speakers here in the area to also raise awareness of related issues, such as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and global media expert Professor Stuart Loory.
Now due to the continued erosion of our rights and liberties – I am concerned as to how to make change. What has been done here in the past has not made enough change. My interest is especially in the Dynamic Facilitation in order to empower community conscious to enable the diverse participants to arrive at a dynamic consensual idea for the purpose of making democratic change.
I also realize that in the event of economic collapse in the USA we will need an alternate system and if no system is in place then we will suffer. We need to establish a locally sustainable economy. My hope is to start a study group here of Escaping the Matrix and to use RKM’s list information to provide information on Dynamic Facilitation and Alternate Money System.
Along with the afore mentioned, plus educating key people about the downward spiral of our government towards One World Order....is important. Apparently, most people are not aware of all the hazards of One World Order and are in denial about the whole scenario.
To do nothing would be self-defeating. Keep HOPE Alive. Put HOPE into Action.
~Sue