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

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Savings Pools: Opting Out of the Banskters’ Money System

Click here to access article by Stuart Jeanne Bramhall from her blog The Most Revolutionary Act.

Bramhall is a political refugee who fled from Seattle to New Zealand after extensive FBI harassment. Her "crimes" stemmed from her support of local African-American projects and, probably most decisively, intimate relations with African-Americans. This was red-meat to the racist FBI especially back in the 1980s.

It's nice to offer some constructive ideas to wean ourselves off services provided by ruling class institutions. She provides a brief description of a banking and lending arrangement that exists in New Zealand, her new home.
One way I’m opting out out of the debt-based Wall Street banking system, is by joining a local interest-free savings pool. A group of neighbors is investing their savings in a savings pool – rather than a bank – and to use the savings pool to loan money to one another. We’re using a model designed by the (New Zealand-based) Living Economies Trust.