TURMEL: Jubilee 2001? #2
John Turmel
JCT: Last month, I wrote a letter to Jubilee 2000 founder Martin
Dent urging him to focus in on cancelling the interest portion of the
debt for everyone rather than the whole debt for the poorest. It
received some commentary:
>Date: Thu Oct 28 15:29:06 1999
>From: ci...@azstarnet.com ("Thomas H. Greco, Jr.")
>Dear john,
>I agree. The Jubilee 2000 people have good intentions but their focus
>is too narrow. We MUST eliminate usury from the money and banking
>system. What you propose is tantamount to a universal declaration of
>bankruptcy.
JCT: I'd rather call it a universal declaration of repudiation of
debt for interest, not bankruptcy.
>I'm all for it. Let's recognize the situation as it exists
>-- cease the accrual of interest, freeze ALL outstanding debts at
>their present levels, shift to a monetary system in which everyone is
>empowered to issue money (like LETS), and allow everyone to pay off
>outstanding debt balances with such "mutual credit" money.
JCT: Nicely put. Yes, there's no reason to even consider
discussions of the past fraudulent debts. I've often suggested that we
park the old accounting books to be opened and discussed in 20 or 30
years if anyone wishes to do so while switching and operating to the
ideal system right now.
>Perhaps some progressive corporate leader will take the initiative to
>champion this kind of revolutionary shift. Who will it be? Bill
>Gates, George Soros, Ray Anderson?
JCT: Sure, someone is eventually going to take the initiative and
champion the better system but who better for the World's Richest
Pauper to approach than the World's Richest Man? I have no doubt
historians will be fascinated by the chance we now have whether Bill
lives up to his potential to save us from debt or not.
>For more of my ideas on this see my website and my article from
>Perspectives on "New Money: A Creative Opportunity for Business."
>Regards, Tom Greco, Thomas H. Greco, Jr., Director
>Community Information Resource Center, ci...@azstarnet.com
>Please check our website.
>It contains plenty of useful information on sustainable economics and
>community currency systems, plus links to other excellent sources
>dealing with a wide range of economic, social, and political issues:
>http://azstarnet.com/~circ
JCT: Since you agree with the potential offered by some high-
powered support from some of the world's billionaires, please write to
Bill at ask...@microsoft.com endorsing L.E.T.S. and urging him to
lead the bandwagon.
---
>Date: Sun Oct 28 18:15:37 1999
>From: ke...@kevdon.demon.co.uk (Kevin Donnelly)
>Subject: Re: TURMEL: Jubilee 2001?
>John Turmel <TUR...@freenet.carleton.ca> writes
>>L.E.T.S. supporters around the world:
>> While the goal of a debt cancellation Jubilee for the 42 poorest
>>nations is laudable, it is no Jubilee for the rest of us. As the
>>Ecuadorian speaker at the 50 YEARS conference pointed out, "we spend
>>over 50% of our government budget on the interest to service the
>>debt but we're not poor enough to qualify for Jubilee this year."
>The UK-based Christian Council for Monetary Justice, of which I'm
>Press Secretary, has campaigned for thirty years on the basis that
>the present monetary system impedes the production of wealth, and
>that the banking system's monopoly of credit creation is
>essentially fraudulent.
JCT: Though I don't find the banking system's monopoly of credit
fraudulent, I do think it's abusive and inappropriate. It's another
good reason for a L.E.T.S. where no one has a monopoly on the creation
of credit to abuse.
>When we meet up with Jubilee 2000 people we have to keep it simple.
JCT: You can't get more simple than to have a working L.E.T.S.
model to demonstrate.
>Many J2000 people cannot see that both the UK (and other countries)
>are linked to the Third World by the same debt-based money system.
>That SAPs are effectively being applied here as in the Third World is
>clear to me and my CCMJ colleagues but not to the rest of the parish.
JCT: It's the reason I pointed out that the goal of cancelling
all debt when only the interest portion is objectionable is a
strategic error. I chose to approach them with the strategic solution
to financial oppression because of all the groups in the world, these
are the people who are aiming closest to the hole.
>Besides J2000 is a coalition with simple but limited aims, as you
>have said. If we go beyond these we can be attacked. I'm no fan of
>Fabianism, but at this point when many supporters of J2000 are not
>linked to churches we have to keep them on board.
JCT: Many Jubilee 2000 members belong to L.E.T.S. so it should
help quite a lot to have members within their own ranks who can vouch
for L.E.T.S. as a moral money system. And with the imminent failure to
achieve Jubilee by 2000, and with the only way to succeed by 2000 to
change the goal from cancellation of debt to cancellation of debt
growth by using L.E.T.S., perhaps the attraction of success might be a
factor to change their strategic thinking. Add to it the fact that the
technology to replace the oppressive banking system with a benign
model is already in existence, tested and successful, and it should
make for a compelling argument.
>Where appropriate I do present a Biblical basis for CCMJ's views. I
>can and do argue that the first Clean Slate debt remission
>programmes, in Babylon c.3000 BCE, were not divine commandments but
>arose from self-interest when those ancient rulers discovered a law
>of society, that the unrestricted private acquisition of land,
>property and wealth, led to debt, slavery and social breakdown, as
>Michael Hudson has so ably shown.
JCT: I too have provided every instance in the Bible where the
growth of debt, interest, is condemned and even pointed out where the
legitimacy of debt itself is accepted in my Biblical analysis at
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/pombible.htm
>Later Judaism gave these ideas a divine sanction, but getting this
>across to J2000 people cannot be done with a bulldozer! KD
JCT: Evidently, we wouldn't need a bulldozer with those many
members who already belong to L.E.T.S. and appreciate its potential.
All we need to do is to get those L.E.T.S. Jubilee 2000 members
motivated to become more vocal within their organizations. After all,
it's a lot easier to accept coming from within than from without.
>Martin Dent is an example of the difficulty CCMJ faces as narrated
>in my other post today. At a South Manchester J2000 meeting he was
>horrified at the suggestion that we can dump the debt-based
>monetary system.
JCT: The problem is not that the money system is debt-based. It's
that it's interest-based. L.E.T.S. is a debt-based money system which
exhibits none of the oppressive characteristics of the interest-
bearing debt-based money system. It's this characterization of the
flaw as being debt-based that confuses and I cannot accept that Mr.
Dent would necessarily be horrified at the suggestion of a L.E.T.S.
You know that I've criticized this "Social Credit"
characterization of the flaw in the banking system as its being debt-
based when it's the interest positive feedback that's the instability.
So if Mr. Dent has rejected this approach, I can't say that I'm
necessarily surprised and would be wiling to give him the benefit of
the doubt as to whether he would be horrified at an interest-free
money system. As I pointed out, debt is necessary to balance assets in
any fair economic system and I might be horrified at the thought of
attempting to run such a system without it.
>We insisted that no other solution is in sight. Likable and radical
>as Martin is, our proposal was outside his field of vision. At the
>moment, that is. KD, Kevin Donnelly
JCT: As I've stated above, if you presented the problem of the
system that it is debt-based, then it would also be outside of field
of vision too. And other than those of us who realize that the problem
with the debt system is with its unnatural growth, he is the leader of
the movement aiming closest to the same hole we are. So let's hope
that with the actual working model to consider, he soon accepts that
Jubilee from debt growth by 2000 is the realistic goal and adjusts his
aim accordingly. If not, no matter how likable and radical he may be,
his movement will go down in history as a failure when it was so close
to success.
So I urge all Jubilee 2000 members who also belong to L.E.T.S. to
write to Martin (and Bill Gates) urging him to set his aim on the
growth of debt rather than the debt itself by endorsing a world-wide
L.E.T.S. for all that we may have Jubilee for all.
Jubilee 2000's tactics are fine but must change strategy for any
hope of Jubilee in 2000.
---
>Date: Fri Oct 29 15:18:38 1999
>From: 10166...@compuserve.com (Peter Challen)
>Subject: TURMEL: Jubilee 2001? Letter to Martin Dent
>Many thanks for your fine letter and its wide distribution. The
>struggle intensifies and more move over to our side. Your lead is
>warmly appreciated. Peter Challen informally speaking for CCMJ
>The Forum for Stable Currencies (House of Lords group)
>The Global Cafe focus, The Campaign for Interest Free Money
>and The Bromsgrove Group, who have just finished their
>two day rallying, with William Khrem as our welcome visitor.
JCT: I was a member of William Khrem's COMER (Committee on
Monetary and Economic Reform) over 10 years ago. What does he think of
a One-World L.E.T.S. And please be one of the first in Britain to
encourage Bill Gates at ask...@microsoft.com to support an Internet
L.E.T.S.
---
>Date: Fri Oct 29 20:49:24 1999
>From: Ho...@erols.com
>Subject: Re: TURMEL: Jubilee 2001?
>>urge L.E.T.S. supporters around the world to write Bill Gates
>Asking the devil to give you the keys to heaven is the same as asking
>Bill Gates to give you money to reform the global economic system, of
>which gives him his power. There is an answer out there but you need
>to keep looking... Hosel Jurme
JCT: I'm not asking Bill Gates to give me money to reform the
global system. I'm asking him to simply start accepting Email L.E.T.S.
currency at Microsoft. He should make quite a pile of Hours.
JUBILEE 2000 IN SEATTLE
There is virtually no one left in the Jubilee 2000 movement who
believes that the stated goals will be achieved by 2000. It looks like
I'm the only one saying there's still one new move to pull it off by
2000. We need new strategy. I belong to the Jubilee 2000 movement
though I think debt cancellation for only the poorest nations is just
another form of charity which has never helped much in the past.
Jubilee 2000's last hope for Jubilee in 2000 is to change to a global
strategy and refocus on debt growth, not on debt.
But we anti-poverty forces will be in Seattle at the end of
November to conference and march in protest against the World Trade
Organization whose policies have proven murderous to the poor around
the world. The anti-debt forces are out there working at their chains
with their chain-cutters and I'm working on the switch inside the
banks computers. But since they are only paper chains, they're more in
our minds and account books than on our bodies. They can be turned
off, not lifted or broken off. There's a hard way and an easy way and
the easy way is reprogramming the system, not going for cancellation
of its greater abuses but living with the system.
But they are so close to the goal though specifying the interest
portion of the debt is a moral engineering principle many seem
incapable to accepting. They're asking those in financial authority
for relief and alms. That's the point. Jubilee 2000 supporters have
restricted their moves to charitable channels and further biasing the
odds by only trying for the poorest and not all. But there is still
one last move they can still make so that their movement is not just a
date that's "come and gone" with nothing won.
The Jubilee 2000 team is in the ninth inning of the game. Whether
Jubilee 2000 goes down in history as a winner or a loser will soon be
determined. But it doesn't look good. Almost nothing's changing. My
problem is that I've become prominently associated with a goal I
thought was feasible. And I'd rather the team not go down a loser if
we've still got one long shot left.
OBJECTIONABLE DEBT
The debt is made up of two parts, one part I called the social
credit portion of the debt, the value received, and the other the
anti-social credit portion of the debt, the interest for which nothing
was received. The second portion of that pile of debt everyone is
bemoaning is the hard-crusted tumor of the debt service. They want to
cut it all away but only from the 42 worst cases while I want cut all
the tumor away, switch it off rather, from all cases leaving behind
only the honorable debt.
God gave us the shoulders to carry out debts. But when our debts
have cancerous growths which consume almost all our payments, paying
becomes a hopeless cause. We must stabilize the debt then chip off the
cancerous usury on the legitimate debt.
I often wonder if Rothschild and Rockefeller are up in their
penthouses looking down at the marchers against debt laughing, knowing
that even if we achieved the cancellation of some debts, debts would
soon grow out of control again due to the interest we ignored. And
they're not going to even give us what they know won't help.
So to all Jubilee 2000 supporters who have given up hope, all is
not lost. There is one last move the bankers won't like that we can
play before calling our movement a losing move. We can still get a new
millennium free of growing debts. We still have time.
And we only have to convince one man, the world's richest man.
We are now at least 5 people who have written Bill Gates urging
him to support the cancellation of interest rates by the installation
of an interest-free L.E.T.S. Imagine if five were enough. But it
saddens me to think there are those who would rather see the Jubilee
2000 movement go down in history as a failure than switch strategies
at this late date.
--
John C. "The Engineer" Turmel, Founder, Abolitionist Party of Canada
915-2045 Carling Ave., Ottawa, K2A 1G5, Tel/Fax: 613-728-2196
LETS Abolish Interest Rates http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel
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