Overthrow the Speculators
          Chris Hedges,  December 2014                   

Money, as Karl Marx lamented, plays the largest part in determining the course of history. Once speculators are able to concentrate wealth into their hands they have, throughout history, emasculated government, turned the press into lap dogs and courtiers, corrupted the courts and hollowed out public institutions, including universities, to justify their looting and greed. Today's speculators have created grotesque financial mechanisms, from usurious interest rates on loans to legalized accounting fraud, to plunge the masses into crippling forms of debt peonage. They steal staggering sum…

Vivienne Orgel and Jeffrey Smedberg for the Santa Cruz for Bernie Team

Every time you spend money, it is a political act: Make conscious choices about where you deposit, borrow, spend, and invest your money so as to support social and economic justice.

Whether we each have very limited funds or ample amounts, we can spend, bank, and boycott in support of our values. Many Americans put too much emphasis on financial wealth at a cost to societal and individual health, happiness, and harmony; we need enough to live on but why do some seem to need billions at others' expense? Choose to avoid the corporate grabs and put your money where your values are: in community credit unions and banks, socially responsible IRAs and CDs, and shopping for local and sustainable produ…

Infrastructure that Doesn't Cost Taxpayers a Dime

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is the nation's second largest civilian employer after Walmart. Although successfully self-funded throughout its long history, it is currently struggling to stay afloat. This is not, as sometimes asserted, because it has been made obsolete by the Internet. In fact the post office has gotten more business from Internet orders than it has lost to electronic email.

What has pushed the USPS into insolvency is an oppressive 2006 congressional mandate that it prefund healthcare for its workers 75 years into the future. No other entity, public or private, has the burden of funding multiple generations of employees who have no…

Step 1: Open your new bank account with a small deposit.

Step 2: Make a list of all the automatic payments and deposits that are scheduled to go in and out of your old account each month.

Step 3: If you have direct deposit, ask your employer to reroute your paychecks to your new account. Find out what date the first deposit will occur.

Step 4: Once you know the date, reschedule each automatic payment or debit to come out of your new account. Make sure to ask what date the change will apply.

Step 5: Leave a small amount of cash in your old checking account for at least one more month.

Step 6: Once you're sure all automatic payments and all direct deposits are coming and going f…

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you are …

 
Discussion Topic:  Divestment as Resistance
   Public banking, Move your Money

Faz Fazilat described the background and structure of a public bank as it might be established in California. Such a bank could take the form of a state, regional or municipal entitiy. (scroll down for articles on public banking)  He described the work of Divest and Build, a committee formed to research, educate, and develop legislation for public banking, led by Marc Armstrong founder of Commonomics.  http://commonomicssusa.org/    

He also called on the expertise of many WILPF members in the audience who worked on public banking in 2012 and others who have joined the phone-ins facilitated by Divest and Build in the past few weeks.

Jeffrey Smedberg talked…

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