We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

A journey into the vice-ridden world of banking

Click here to access article by Éric Toussaint from Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt

This is part 4 of a six-part series. I have not posted the previous parts because he tends to provide a heavy load of details in long paragraphs which I feel are not conducive to online reading. This article does not depart from that practice, but it has sufficient other merits: especially by explicating the games major banksters play with the aid of governments they control. I admit that I only scanned some parts, omitted others, and read some sections rather closely. If you read nothing else here, I suggest reading the last section entitled "Epilogue: a purely imaginary story".

The author and the website's objective is a limited radical reform of the capitalist system: it is to declare most sovereign debts to banks as illegitimate and put banking institutions under public ownership and control. This would be helpful, but it "ain't gonna happen" with banksters in control of the government. 

Banking scams are integral to the capitalist system and feeds enormous rewards to its major players. It would be like doing surgery to remove a major tumor in a body where the cancer has spread to all parts. The disease of capitalism must be totally eliminated. Only a revolution can make the necessary changes. Such changes must bring about a whole new economic system that prevents the growth of any class of people having advantages which sets them apart and over the rest of us which has occurred with the present ruling class who derive enormous advantages from their "ownership" of socially produced wealth.