Waiting for the Revolution
09 29 06

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about? - Morpheus in “The Matrix”

How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? - V in “V for Vendetta”

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This site exists because of the growing awareness that there is a crisis in America. This crippling condition has come about because our nation's politics have very subtly, but very fundamentally, changed. America's course is no longer the healthy consequence of opposing political parties weighing the issues and responding to the needs of its citizens. Our nation now suffers a new adversity:  the “Federal” Government vs We The People.

Pat Buchanan pretty much summed it up when he said, Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey.  This site is dedicated to my dear Aunt Bertha, who, despite all her reading and watching of current events, still believes that Republican presidents, no matter who they are or were, can never ever be shown to be wrong about anything. Ever.

I'm sure there are other aunts out there who believe the same about all the presidents who were Democrats. And all the aunts and most of their generation have a big flaw in their belief system:  They believe their collective government officials will prevent their president from going too far astray. They believe their collective officials will prevent things from getting out of hand. The problem is, the presidents and most all of Congress are on the same team. And it's not the We The People team.

Of course, this site is really just a means for me to complain about the “state” we’re in. Nothing will ever come of what is written here, few will ever take notice. But hey, that’s one of the things we malcontents do on the Net.

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What is written here will be noted as FACT, OPINION, THEORY, and HEARSAY. In the THEORY category I will stay away from ideas that are labeled with the dreaded CONSPIRACY THEORY attribute by the mainstream media. Relative to FACT, we have Ben Franklin to thank for these words: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

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► So, on to the problems of today beginning with one of the most basic, which is MONEY. Money is said to be the root of all evil. If you are willing to consider that money and evil are related, I think that it’s generally more likely that the lack of money is the root of all evil. But no matter who you are, money is a concern for one reason or another, and although that is my OPINION, there is nonetheless the following ...

... FACT:  Currency, or paper “money” can no longer be redeemed for gold or silver of the same face value at a bank or the United States Treasury.

You don't have to investigate too much to discover that most young pups don't know that there used to be gold coins in circulation. The only gold they might know about is in treasure chests in the movies. But the fact of the matter is that gold has been used just about forever as a medium of exchange. That's because it is universally recognized as having intrinsic value. So what happened to our gold (and silver) coins and just what are the “Federal Reserve Notes” in our pockets? To begin, consider this ...

... FACT:  “Money” is defined in the 1852 edition of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary as:

  • 1. Coin; stamped metal; any piece of metal, usually gold, silver or copper, stamped by public authority, and used as the medium of commerce. We sometimes give the name of money to other coined metals, and to any other material which rude nations use as a medium of trade. But, among modern commercial nations, gold, silver, platinum, and copper, are the only metals used for this purpose. Gold, platinum, and silver, containing great value in a small compass, and being, therefore, of easy conveyance, and being, also, durable, and little liable to diminution by use, are the most convenient metals for coin or money, which is the representative of commodities of all kinds, of lands, and of everything that is capable of being transferred in commerce.
  • 2. Bank notes or bills of credit issued by authority, and exchangeable for coin, or redeemable, are also called money: as such notes, in modern times, represent coin, and are used as a substitute for it. If a man pays in hand for goods in bank notes which are current, he is said to pay in ready money.
  • 3. Wealth; affluence.
  • 4. This fourth item was not included in the Webster's definition of money but I am including it here because it's important. “Specie” was defined by Webster in 1852 as: Coin; copper, silver, or gold coined, and used as a circulating medium of commerce.

If you go to Dictionary.com and look up the definition of money you get what is shown below and some peripheral stuff. Definitions #2 and #6 were shown on Dictionary.com as links so I showed the linked definitions as indented lists within the primary list.

  • 1. any circulating medium of exchange, including coins, paper money, and demand deposits.
  • 2. paper money.
    • currency in paper form, such as government and bank notes, as distinguished from metal currency.
    • currency in the form of government notes and bank notes.
    • currency issued by a government or central bank and consisting of printed paper that can circulate as a substitute for specie.
  • 3. gold, silver, or other metal in pieces of convenient form stamped by public authority and issued as a medium of exchange and measure of value.
  • 4. any article or substance used as a medium of exchange, measure of wealth, or means of payment, as checks on demand deposit or cowrie.
  • 5. a particular form or denomination of currency.
  • 6. money of account.
    • a monetary denomination used in reckoning, esp. one not issued as a coin, as the U.S. mill.
    • a monetary unit in which accounts are kept and that may or may not correspond to actual current denominations.

So things have changed over the last 150 years. MONEY used to be only coins or pieces of paper that could be exchanged for coins at a bank while you stood there before the teller. But today, although the #3 modern definition refers to gold and silver, there are no coins in circulation in this country that are made of precious metals. (There may be a few silver coins struck prior to 1965 still floating around out there, but these are harder and harder to find.) Somebody might argue that today's pennies are copper, and with the Chinese sucking all the copper out of this country that copper is becoming a precious metal too. Well, two things: Pennies is not the proper word for those coins. The proper word is cents. Also, prior to 1982 cents weighed 3.11 grams and were 95% copper and 5% zinc. Today's cents are 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, or basically, junk. The other coins are all made of varying percentages of copper and nickel.

Going back to the all of the definitions of money both young and old, notice that prior to the Civil War, MONEY was described primarily as metals struck into coins. Secondarily, MONEY was Bank notes or bills of credit issued by authority, and exchangeable for coin, or redeemable...in coin.

Now however, at least according to the definitions on Dictionary.com, MONEY is more broadly defined as currency or paper money. (I was always told that you aren't supposed to use a word in the definition of the same word, but hey, standards are slipping all over.) Paper money as in the present definition is clearly not coin but is a “substitute” for coin. Observe that nowhere in the new definition of MONEY is anything written about paper money being redeemable for coin. It is implied that our Federal Reserve Notes are redeemable for coin (of actual intrinsic value) because the word “notes” is used. But the fact of the matter is that Federal Reserve Notes are only redeemable for more Federal Reserve Notes. The reason for that is because Federal Reserve Notes are not backed by anything, and if you don't believe me you can read it for yourself at the bottom of the second answer at this page in the United States Treasury web site. And because it’s important and you probably won't believe it unless you see it, I have quoted that paragraph verbatim except I added a period where the feds left one out: Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything. This has been the case since 1933. The notes have no value for themselves, but for what they will buy. In another sense, because they are legal tender, Federal Reserve Notes are "backed" by all the goods and services in the economy.

Here's the thing: MONEY is supposed to be a tangible asset and generally inviolate, that’s why people want it. Many of the goods in our economy are rusting away in landfills and the services performed weren't necessarily tangible in the first place and their results often can't be seen anymore. Goods and services clearly aren't always worth something and therefore can hardly be backing for MONEY. As far as being “legal tender,” that sounds impressive and everything, but it’s just another bogus government pronouncement.

A “legal tender” is something that you are by law allowed to offer a prospective seller for something that you want to purchase from them. So what? You can offer anything you want to someone for an item that they may have that you want. Lima beans, old bones, and ping pong balls are legal tenders. The heart of the legal tender matter is the question of what is someone willing to accept. Generally people are willing to accept Federal Reserve Notes in exchange for whatever goods you desire, but that’s not always the case either. In fact, a seller of something does not have to accept Federal Reserve Notes at all and you can read about that in the answer to the first question on the same page on the Treasury site.

So in the end, the management of the United States Treasury itself has taken the position that Federal Reserve Notes can't be redeemed for anything of universally recognizable value, they are in themselves worthless, and neither sellers nor buyers are legally required to use them. (I didn't even mention that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing just prints out billions of them when Congress needs money for something.)  Does that sound like MONEY to you?

Question:  Have you ever noticed that the majority of advertising all over the big Internet sites is for mortgage companies, credit card companies, and insurance companies, all of which are financial institutions? Why is that? Is that because they're the only ones with enough MONEY (whatever it may be) available to them to be able to pay for all that?

While you're at it: HERE is an excellent explanation of the Federal Reserve System that some people call CONSPIRACY THEORY but you should decide for yourself.

► “Those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” - John F. Kennedy

► “Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government, when it deserves it.” - Mark Twain

► “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.” - Frank Zappa

► “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” - Denis Diderot

► Anyway, if you want to correspond with me, send an electronic communication to sonsofliberty at this web site. (I wrote it that way to hopefully deter the web-searching spam-creating spiders.)

Please excuse me while I am working on my site!