critique of loon theories around banking/money creation/the federal reserve

[frogwoman]

It's got nothing to do with America. Communism was constructed as Jewish throughout the world.

By anti-semites maybe, the Stalinist states weren't above using anti-semitism for their own purposes though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Polish_political_crisis

Poland wasn't the only one, there was Ceaucescu's Romania and of course Stalin himself.

 

[frogwoman]

You can't see that's what I'm saying here? Really?

Where does the employer/the class who own/control the "means of production" come in to what you said?

 

[J Ed]

Which "class-based forces" are these? The bourgeoisie who took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran? Because I don't see any other "class-based forces" at work in the Islamic world. The bitter experience of the Turkish urban/intellectual Left in the 70s, when they sent their cadres into the villages to lecture the peasants on materialism and class struggle, with the entirely predictable results we see today, should be a warning.

What on earth are you talking about? Leftist groups played a key role in the Iranian revolution, albeit militarily they were eventually outmaneuvered by Islamists, left-wing groups and trade unions are still pretty active amongst the opposition and the Iranian regime continues to fear and persecute them.

Do you know anything about the history of Indonesia? Just why do you think that the US pushed Suharto to be as repressive as he was?

 

[sihhi]

Yes. The truth will set you free! Let's stop wasting our time with this "fact" that money is regarded as natural, after all disaster has never resulted from when money is taken to be abnormal and unnatural like present day relations in tribal regions of Iran working by corvee, barter in early modern Europe, Ottoman Empire before the domination of financiers, Bhutan, Jonestown, rural programmes of the Great Leap Forward and beyond, serfdom in Tsarist Russia... oh wait.
What is more important is to stop the disaster resulting from having regarded love and parternship as natural. In fact yes, why not: end all intimate human relationships now!

 

[phildwyer]

One interesting thing about True is that one of his early associates was Edward F. Sullivan - also a strong supporter of the German-American Bund. He becomes the first Chief Investigator of the House Committee for the Investigation of Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1938 - and begins using reports and compilations of such lists - Jew, not Jew, Jew - as part of the basis of the investigations into Communism in Hollywood and the Federal Writers Project - particularly heavily examining the "foreign-born".

Well, yes and no. The second Red Scare (of the '50s rather than the '20s) made any criticism of capitalism taboo in the USA, largely by connecting such criticism with all manner of unconventional identities--effeminate men and masculine women were as conspicuously singled out as Jews were.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes. The truth will set you free! Let's stop wasting our time with this "fact" that money is regarded as natural, after all disaster has never resulted from when money is taken to be abnormal and unnatural like present day relations in tribal regions of Iran working by corvee, barter in early modern Europe, Ottoman Empire before the domination of financiers, Bhutan, Jonestown, rural programmes of the Great Leap Forward and beyond, serfdom in Tsarist Russia... oh wait.
What is more important is to stop the disaster resulting from having regarded love and parternship as natural. In fact yes, why not: end all intimate human relationships now!

One more push to pre-capitalism comrades!

 

[phildwyer]

Yes. The truth will set you free! Let's stop wasting our time with this "fact" that money is regarded as natural, after all disaster has never resulted from when money is taken to be abnormal and unnatural like present day relations in tribal regions of Iran working by corvee, barter in early modern Europe, Ottoman Empire before the domination of financiers, Bhutan, Jonestown, rural programmes of the Great Leap Forward and beyond, serfdom in Tsarist Russia... oh wait.

Of course evil and oppression can take many forms. But I trust no-one will deny that, of all human activities save perhaps murder alone (with which it was equated by Cicero among others), usury has everywhere, and at all times, universally been regarded with the greatest possible hatred and contempt by the people, and condemned on ethical grounds by every major religion (Judaism very much included), and condemned on rational grounds by every major philosopher up to and of course including K. Marx. There are excellent reasons for that, as we are now learning.

What is more important is to stop the disaster resulting from having regarded love and parternship as natural. In fact yes, why not: end all intimate human relationships now!

Let's not regard love as natural, because this leads to homophobia and other unpleasantnesses. Let's regard it as cultural, which is what it is.

 

[J Ed]

Yes. The truth will set you free! Let's stop wasting our time with this "fact" that money is regarded as natural, after all disaster has never resulted from when money is taken to be abnormal and unnatural like present day relations in tribal regions of Iran working by corvee, barter in early modern Europe, Ottoman Empire before the domination of financiers, Bhutan, Jonestown, rural programmes of the Great Leap Forward and beyond, serfdom in Tsarist Russia... oh wait.
What is more important is to stop the disaster resulting from having regarded love and parternship as natural. In fact yes, why not: end all intimate human relationships now!

Given that Phildwyer seems to be lauding the economic policies of countries in the Middle-East where migrant workers are effectively treated as slaves I can see why Serfdom might hold some appeal for him.

 

[sihhi]

"The bourgeoisie who took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran?"


There were have it. The bourgeoisie took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran.
The mullahs in Iran are not the bourgeoisie! Get it right, people!

On Turkey, class-based movements have existed in Ottoman Muslim territories since the 1860s, the account of the 1970s sounds clever but is, again, an empty falsification.

 

[sihhi]

Honest, moral Cicero: "The result of the war against Britain is eagerly awaited, for the approaches to the island are known to be 'warded with wondrous massy walls.' It is also now ascertained that there isn't a grain of silver on the island nor any prospect of booty apart from captives, and I fancy you won't expect any of them to have been taught to read or play!"

Has anyone wondered why 'usury' and 'money changers' and 'financiers' have for so long been condemned by religious structures, but not the lords and ladies above? Stop wondering this, it doesn't matter.
Everyone has hated 'usury' forever, and still hates it above anything else - this is true and has mind-blowing importance. Karl Marx is anti-usury this is what makes him important - the fact that he's saying something thousands of others at the same time were also saying - or something.

 

[sihhi]

The Manifesto: Up with cultural love! Down with cultural money!

 

[phildwyer]

Where does the employer/the class who own/control the "means of production" come in to what you said?

I think the enemy is money (or rather usury) itself, not any group of human beings, whether defined by class, race or gender.

I think money controls the actions of the people who claim to "own" it, not vice versa.

 

[frogwoman]

I think the enemy is money (or rather usury) itself, not any group of human beings, whether defined by class, race or gender.

I think money controls the actions of the people who claim to "own" it, not vice versa.

ok what about the employers of the workers if we're not going to mention class? Where do they come in?

 

[phildwyer]

Honest, moral Cicero: "The result of the war against Britain is eagerly awaited, for the approaches to the island are known to be 'warded with wondrous massy walls.' It is also now ascertained that there isn't a grain of silver on the island nor any prospect of booty apart from captives, and I fancy you won't expect any of them to have been taught to read or play!"

What, against Cicero now is it? My word, you like the big game.

When asked what he thought of usury, Cicero replied: "What do you think of murder?"

 

[Delroy Booth]

ok what about the employers of the workers if we're not going to mention class? Where do they come in?

Didn't you get the memo, wage slavery was abolished, ages ago.

 

[phildwyer]

ok what about the employers of the workers if we're not going to mention class? Where do they come in?

I think we are fast approaching the stage prophecized by Marx, when the proletariat becomes the universal class. I think humanity and money are confronting each other in stark, open opposition.

 

[frogwoman]

I think the enemy is money (or rather usury) itself, not any group of human beings, whether defined by class, race or gender.

I think money controls the actions of the people who claim to "own" it, not vice versa.

so money, capitalism and usury are the same thing now?

 

[sihhi]

Didn't you get the memo, wage slavery was abolished, ages ago.

Really? I didn't know that. Did you know that Charles II tried to stop usury but was thwarted?

 

[frogwoman]

I think we are fast approaching the stage prophecized by Marx, when the proletariat becomes the universal class. I think humanity and money are confronting each other in stark, open opposition.

Money isn't a living thing though and according to you it doesn't even exist!

 

[J Ed]

So how are we going to abolish money then? Sounds about as doable as banning people from thinking about sex tbh.

 

[phildwyer]

"The bourgeoisie who took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran?"


There were have it. The bourgeoisie took to the streets against the mullahs in Iran.
The mullahs in Iran are not the bourgeoisie! Get it right, people!

That is right. Like it or not (and I don't particularly), the bourgeoisie tend to be secular in the Islamic world, and the workers and peasants tend to be religious. You might want to ask yourself why that should be.

On Turkey, class-based movements have existed in Ottoman Muslim territories since the 1860s, the account of the 1970s sounds clever but is, again, an empty falsification.

In what is now Turkey, at least Anatolian Turkey, class-based movements were and are vanishingly rare outside the PKK-run areas. In Istanbul and environs they basically lost a civil war in the 70s, largely because of their secularism. As in Latin America, those socialist radicals who returned into mainstream politics after exile or prison were forced to accept the neo-classical economic model as a precondition. Pretty much a disaster all round.

 

[frogwoman]

That is right. Like it or not (and I don't particularly), the bourgeoisie tend to be secular in the Islamic world, and the workers and peasants tend to be religious. You might want to ask yourself why that should be.



In what is now Turkey, at least Anatolian Turkey, class-based movements were and are vanishingly rare outside the PKK-run areas. In Istanbul and environs they basically lost a civil war in the 70s, largely because of their secularism.

So the rulers of iran and the section of society that holds all the economic and political power aren't the bourgeoisie despite it being a capitalist state?

how does that work?

 

[sihhi]

Money isn't a living thing though and according to you it doesn't even exist!

Precisely why it's much more important for humanity and love as partnership to confront each other in stark, open opposition. Love leads to homophobia!

 

[J Ed]

In what is now Turkey, at least Anatolian Turkey, class-based movements were and are vanishingly rare outside the PKK-run areas. In Istanbul and environs they basically lost a civil war in the 70s, largely because of their secularism.

Do you think that it might also have something to do with the fact that in Turkey the US backed a series of anti-Communist military dictatorships which ruthlessly repressed leftist groups? This backtracking is a far cry from your claim that there are no class based forces in Turkey.

 

[phildwyer]

Money isn't a living thing though and according to you it doesn't even exist!

And yet it seems extremely powerful nonetheless. Things that don't exist can often be very powerful.

 

[phildwyer]

Do you think that it might also have something to do with the fact that in Turkey the US backed a series of anti-Communist military dictatorships which ruthlessly repressed leftist groups?

Oh God yes. Not to mention paramilitaries like the Grey Wolves. My point is that the Right was able to crush the Left by force (at a time when social forces in Istanbul actually should have favored socialism) because the Left abandoned the support of most of their natural constituency because of their patronizing, secularist attitude towards religion.

 

[phildwyer]

Precisely why it's much more important for humanity and love as partnership to confront each other in stark, open opposition. Love leads to homophobia!

I'm driving you mad here aren't I?

 

[phildwyer]

So how are we going to abolish money then?

It's a tricky one isn't it?

But I reckon the best and easiest approach is to use calm reason and logic to demonstrate that, since it does not actually exist, its powers need not be feared. As I am doing here.

Anyway, we don't have to abolish money, just usury. Which since usury is so counter-intuitive and weird to most people, ought to be relatively easy. It's only been generally tolerated for a couple of centuries.

 

[fractionMan]

lol

 

[frogwoman]

Anyway, we don't have to abolish money, just usury. Which since usury is so counter-intuitive and weird to most people, ought to be relatively easy. It's only been generally tolerated for a couple of centuries.

wrong.