[Peace-discuss] larry flynt on freedom and monetary policy

[E. Wayne Johnson]

I am not much of a fan of Larry Flynt's Sade-esque libertine approach to 
immorality
nor his adversary Falwell's truncated and perverted treatment of the 
Good News,
but I would even quote Barack H. Obama if I caught Barry telling the truth.

Flynt accurately attacks the entrenched oligarchy and calls for a 
National Strike.

Larry Flynt
(Publisher of Hustler magazine and free speech advocate)
Posted: August 20, 2009 08:15 PM
Common Sense 2009

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-flynt/common-sense-2009_b_264706.html

The American government -- which we once called our government -- has 
been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the 
super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of 
powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called 
"economic royalists," who choose our elected officials -- indeed, our 
very form of government. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the 
tune of their corporate masters. In America, corporations do not control 
the government. In America, corporations/ are/ the government.

This was never more obvious than with the Wall Street bailout, whereby 
the very corporations that caused the collapse of our economy were 
rewarded with taxpayer dollars. So arrogant, so smug were they that, 
without a moment's hesitation, they took our money -- yours and mine -- 
to pay their executives multimillion-dollar bonuses, something they 
continue doing to this very day. They have no shame. They don't care 
what you and I think about them. Henry Kissinger refers to us as 
"useless eaters."

But, you say, we have elected a candidate of change. To which I respond: 
Do these words of President Obama sound like change?

"A culture of irresponsibility took root, from Wall Street to Washington 
to Main Street."
There it is. Right there. We are Main Street. We must, according to our 
president, share the blame. He went on to say: "And a regulatory regime 
basically crafted in the wake of a 20th-century economic crisis -- the 
Great Depression -- was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and 
sophistication of a 21st-century global economy."

This is nonsense.

The reason Wall Street was able to game the system the way it did -- 
knowing that they would become rich at the expense of the American 
people (oh, yes, they most certainly knew that) -- was because the 
financial elite had bribed our legislators to roll back the protections 
enacted after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Congress gutted the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial 
lending banks from investment banks, and passed the Commodity Futures 
Modernization Act, which allowed for self-regulation with no oversight. 
The Securities and Exchange Commission subsequently revised its rules to 
allow for even less oversight -- and we've all seen how well that worked 
out. To date, no serious legislation has been offered by the Obama 
administration to correct these problems.

Instead, Obama wants to increase the oversight power of the Federal 
Reserve. Never mind that it already had significant oversight power 
before our most recent economic meltdown, yet failed to take action. 
Never mind that the Fed is not a government agency but a cartel of 
private bankers that cannot be held accountable by Washington. Whatever 
the Fed does with these supposed new oversight powers will be behind 
closed doors.

Obama's failure to act sends one message loud and clear: He cannot stand 
up to the powerful Wall Street interests that supplied the bulk of his 
campaign money for the 2008 election. Nor, for that matter, can 
Congress, for much the same reason.

Consider what multibillionaire banker David Rockefeller wrote in his 
2002 memoirs:

    "Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the
    best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me
    as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the
    world to build a more integrated global political and economic
    structure -- one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand
    guilty, and I am proud of it."


Read Rockefeller's words again. He actually admits to working against 
the "best interests of the United States."


Need more? Here's what Rockefeller said in 1994 at a U.N. dinner: "We 
are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right 
major crisis, and the nations will accept the New World Order." They're 
gaming us. Our country has been stolen from us.

Journalist Matt Taibbi, writing in /Rolling Stone/, notes that esteemed 
economist John Kenneth Galbraith laid the 1929 crash at the feet of 
banking giant Goldman Sachs. Taibbi goes on to say that Goldman Sachs 
has been behind every other economic downturn as well, including the 
most recent one. As if that wasn't enough, Goldman Sachs even had a hand 
in pushing gas prices up to $4 a gallon.

The problem with bankers is longstanding. Here's what one of our 
Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, had to say about them:

    "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the
    issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by
    deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around
    them will deprive the people of all property until their children
    wake up homeless on the continent their father's conquered."


We all know that the first American Revolution officially began in 1776, 
with the Declaration of Independence. Less well known is that the single 
strongest motivating factor for revolution was the colonists' attempt to 
free themselves from the Bank of England. But how many of you know about 
the second revolution, referred to by historians as Shays' Rebellion? It 
took place in 1786-87, and once again the banks were the cause. This 
time they were putting the screws to America's farmers.

Daniel Shays was a farmer in western Massachusetts. Like many other 
farmers of the day, he was being driven into bankruptcy by the banks' 
predatory lending practices. (Sound familiar?) Rallying other farmers to 
his side, Shays led his rebels in an attack on the courts and the local 
armory. The rebellion itself failed, but a message had been sent: The 
bankers (and the politicians who supported them) ultimately backed off. 
As Thomas Jefferson famously quipped in regard to the insurrection: "A 
little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must 
be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Perhaps it's time to consider that option once again.

I'm calling for a national strike, one designed to close the country 
down for a day. The intent? Real campaign-finance reform and strong 
restrictions on lobbying. Because nothing will change until we take 
corporate money out of politics. Nothing will improve until our 
politicians are once again answerable to their constituents, not the 
rich and powerful.

Let's set a date. No one goes to work. No one buys anything. And if that 
isn't effective -- if the politicians ignore us -- we do it again. And 
again. And again.

The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the 
average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this 
single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It's time we took 
back our government from those who would make us their slaves.

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