Other Countries Bailout Bankers, Iceland Jails Them

When we grow up we want to be Icelanders!

– one of the slogans of the Spanish M-15 Movement

Iceland is one of the most beautiful and strange looking places on Earth. Its scenery and natural phenomena like volcanoes and aurora borealis confer upon it an otherworldly aura and it’s no wonder most Icelanders still believe in elves and in little magical people. But the fairy-tale magic of Iceland was abruptly suspended in recent years when Icelanders felt the asfixiating effects of the banking crisis.

In other countries, high-end banker criminals walk the street with impunity and are in every way treated as royalty, as Matt Taibbi in his admirably honest Rolling Stones article Too Crooked to Fail attests. But not in Iceland: the small country has jailed some of the main bankers responsible for their current state of international debt.

Bloomberg.com reports that “Byr Savings Bank former Chairman Jon Thorsteinn Jonsson and the lender’s ex-Chief Executive Officer Ragnar Zophonias Gudjonsson were today found guilty of fraud and sentenced to four and half years in prison by Iceland’s Supreme Court.”

Icelandic journalists are even blaming the right culprits and have begun to speak of ‘inappropriate loans’ that were taken by their bankers! Haukur Holm, of AFP, reports:

… the publication last month of a parliamentary inquiry into the island nation’s profound financial and economic crisis signaled a turning of the tide, laying much of the blame for the downfall on the former bank heads who had taken “inappropriate loans from the banks” they worked for.

Imagine if we lived in a world where most journalists refered to IMF and World Bank loans as ‘inappropriate‘, accurately explaining how a small, corrupt elite of central bankers tend to lend huge sums of money to a small, corrupt elite of politicians and bankers in vulnerable countries … who profit from these transactions and then transfer the debt to their constituencies! This has happened for generations, time and time again, both in developed and in third world countries. But some small countries, like Iceland, are not built to, or willing to, endure this scheme.

In the midst of what had, for the most part, been mainstream media’s blackout of the events going on in Iceland, we have been getting mixed messages: some say an all-out revolution is taking place there, others refute it. October2011.org explains why Iceland has not been in the news:

An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world.
Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
- Iceland’s On-going Revolution

The article then goes on to explain Iceland’s crisis in terms that the layman can understand, even claiming that the Icelandic people went through the process of rewriting their constitution online in a popular act of decentralized, participatory democracy never before seen in history.

To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet. The constituent’s meetings are streamed on-line, and citizens can send their comments and suggestions, witnessing the document as it takes shape. The constitution that eventually emerges from this participatory democratic process will be submitted to parliament for approval after the next elections.

However many of the assertions of this article have been refuted. An Icelandic contributor to Dailykos.com said:

It’s true; we had a referendum to elect a Constitutional Assembly—a group of twenty-five people tasked with writing a new Constitution. But there were 500 plus candidates to choose from, and the results were nullified because proper election procedures weren’t followed.
Rather than hold another referendum, those individuals were ‘appointed’ to a Constitutional Committee. They have now submitted a ‘proposal’ for draft of our new Constitution, but we by no means have a new Constitution yet! This is definitely jumping the gun. Our old one still reigns supreme.

Having been asked to assume the responsibility to pay the debts of corrupt bankers and politicians, the people of Iceland opted against enslavement through debt at the mercy of the international bankers and even went as far as crafting a new constitution to guarantee their sovereignty in these dangerous globalized times we’re living through.

The reports may not be entirely clear on what’s going on in Iceland but whatever the case, we know that Iceland is jailing its corrupt bankers, popularly rejecting an immoral and unjust burden of debt that they did not in the first place assume, and ensuring the future preservation of their sovereignty through a constitutional process … and showing everyone else how it’s done.

The Epiphany

And during the days of the fall of the Great Empire, a story was told of the cult of a Swami Ayn Rand. It is believed that her spirit summoned her followers on a night of a dark moon as the wolves were howling. Haunted by their Guru and by the persistent wailing of the wolves, they traveled in packs to a sacred rock near the tomb of Swami Ayn Rand and they called her forth to ask her bidding. In an angry Russian accent, she immediately uttered:

"I am Ayn Rand, your beloved Master. Go unto the Great Mount and seek a vision from me there on the night of the next dark moon, but not without bringing with you my book on the Virtue of Selfishness. Mommie loves you all." (tender smile)

And just as the transmission finished beaming, the vision began to sink in. They were her chosen! They had to build her a church! And they did, and then they parted to the holy mount. Four Days and Five Nights they journeyed. They brought their Camels, their Horses, their Hundays, their Porsches, their aircars.  At the assigned time, they all met at the Great Mount.

There are four dead kings that rule this sacred mount. Their national cult is known as the Cult of the Presidents. The cult gathers in the vecinity of this sacred mountain to discuss cultish matters. After brief, friendly exchanges with the local cult, the AynRandites went up to the sacred mount and once again summoned their Guru. She simply appeared on their holyvision screen, which was generously provided by Spiritronics, Inc. and which contained an artificial brain that had been uploaded with the entirety of Ayn Rand's ideas and discussions.  She wore a head covering and tunic which should remind us of either Ghandi or Emperor Palpatine.  She looked about her age were she still alive.  Wide eyed, she uttered:

"And?"

"And we are here, as you requested."

Trying a bit not to be condescending, the swami said: "Did you all finish reading my book?"

The group hadn't thought about that one. They brought the book along, but they believed they were called to summon her, not to read her book.

"You're just like the Christians!", she replied in anger. "Read it and summon me then!"

This vision made the ardent followers into teachers of her Gospel. And so they spent nine days and ten nights reading and pondering the Virtue of Selfishness on the holy mount, and then they summoned her again and discussed philosophical matters for another ten days and nights. They recount these dialogues in one of their sacred texts, the Discussions of the AynRandites.

Near the place of her death, a stone church was built for her with the following message at the entrance:

Do not let the fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the net yet and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Ayn Rand

The Boycott: A Brief History of the Non Violent Resistance Movement

During the 1940′s, India was being exploited by its colonial overlord, Britain, and was fed up. Tired of being servants in their own land, they chose a pious Hindu as their revolutionary leader but he did not take up arms. He believed in Ahimsa, the doctrine of non violence, a pillar of Hindu ethics. Ahimsa teaches that one should not knowingly generate any kind of unnecessary suffering to other living beings, one should not harm them or kill them for food and one should be kind to all.

Before Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, hostile groups were used to solving their conflicts through submission or conquest, including genocide, but Ghandi exhibited moral superiority. He would not fight the British and he would also not submit to them: he would instead use the boycott as a non-violent tactic to bring his enemy to its knees.

The British empire was based on economic exploitation. With no participation by the wage slaves, there was no incentive, no production and it was indeed costly to keep the empire.

This way independence was won, not without internal violence – in spite of Ghandi – but much bloodshed was spared. He encouraged peaceful relations between Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians by inviting them to occupy the streets and pray together for independence and freedom following the tradition of Kabir, of Shirdi Sai Baba and others. He later created a secular state and abolished the caste system, believing only through secularism could sectarian violence be curbed.

Today, India is the largest democracy on Earth and the title Mahatma, or great soul, is reverently added to Ghandi’s name because he liberated India and inspired millions by exemplifying the doctrine of non-violence.

A generation later, the whole world knew of his feats and he was celebrated even on the other side of the globe. In Bahia, Brasil, a Ghandi brotherhood was created to promote peace and tolerance, and in the sixties another non-violent resistance movement spread: that led by Martin Luther King Jr. whose personal hero happened to be Ghandi. He fought segregation and racism through the exact same non violent tactics: there was a major boycott of all institutions and businesses that engaged in dehumanizing and racist practices.

Again, there was violence (and these two particular leaders were killed) but we must make note of a couple of things as we assess the history of the boycott as a revolutionary tactic for social change:

1. that these revolutions could have been much more violent,
2. and that both peaceful revolutions achieved their ultimate purpose: India got its independence and the U.S. got its Civil Rights Law enacted and was able to turn the page on an embarrassing chapter of its history.

All of this proves that the doctrine of non-violence can and has been efficiently applied to change an entire society and bring freedom to vast groups of people and that this has historically been accomplished via the tactic of boycotting the perpetrators, usually with the assistance of religious and community organizations that have the ability to mobilize a large number of consumers and workers.

We stand on the shoulders of those that came before us. - a Yoruba proverb

Anyone that considers the huge amount of unnecessary human suffering that was avoided through this proud tradition, inevitably ends up agreeing that supporting the boycott was a moral imperative of those generations.

But what about today? Is it not time to reactivate our army of non-violent non-consumers? We should carefully study the theory and practice of non-violent resistance. What we’re facing today in the world is a financial crisis whose perpetrators are also vulnerable to the same tactic. It should be applied intelligently so that it affects those in power and give the poor, middle class, and working class a stronger standing in the economy and more control of our fiscal lives.

Since we have seen that the charismatic leaders of past boycotts have been martyred, it can also be said that Occupy provides an ideal platform for a boycott due to it being a leaderless movement. We all share the sacrifices that must be made, and no one leader is targeted. We are a legion, each one a minor leader of a leaderless global campaign of conscious consumers.

Having said that, we should not underestimate how difficult it would be to implement an efficient boycott. In A Month Without Monsanto, April Dávila demonstrates how difficult it is to avoid Monsanto’s genetically modified crops and provides some guidelines on how to facilitate a lifestyle that does not support cancer, monocultures, obesity, destruction of biodiversity and of local farms, suicide by Indian farmers, genetically modified and interspecies foods and the many other evils that plague our planet due to companies like Monsanto.

Like the banking industry, Monsanto has its tentacles almost everywhere and it’s truly intimidating how much control they already exert over all of our lives. We should produce our own food whenever practical and possible, or at least buy them locally and organically. Most localities have food coops where local farmers may easily sell their goods to local consumers. We should support these initiatives.

For many years I’ve been critical of the Dalai Lama, who preaches ahimsa also, but has never tried to implement a boycott against China in order to liberate Tibet. He probably fears for his people, who are defenseless against China’s huge military.

Recent news about pills made in China from human fetuses, plus stories about lead and other toxic substances that have been found in Chinese-made toys that American children play with, should have raised awareness of the many, very serious problems associated with products made in foreign countries. There are many reasons to support products made in the USA.

Would it be possible to organize a decentralized boycott efficiently through social media and alternative media outlets? Maybe, maybe not. We’re creatures of habit and new patterns of consumption take time to develop but there does seem to be a massive awakening happening and a long journey always begins with one step.

In 21^st century America, most of us don’t expect to meet our maker in certain arcane ways: arrow wounds, say, or Viking maurauders. Or the Black Death. And yet a man in Oregon has contracted the most feared disease of medieval Europe and is in critical condition.

The unidentified Oregonian, in his 50s, fell ill from the disease on June 2 when he tried to grab a mouse away from a cat. It is unclear which of those two animals bit his hand.

The disease — technically, an infection by a strain of bacterium known as Yersinia pestis – is the same plague from the Middle Ages that you read about in high school. The Black Death spread through Europe from 1347 to 1351, killing an estimated 25 million people. It is still carried by fleas, and humans can contract the disease either through flea bites or contact with an animal infested with diseased fleas (such as a rodent). Four other people have been diagnosed with the plague in Oregon since 1995, all of whom people survived.

-Time.com article The Black Death Returns: Oregon Man in Critical Condition with the Plague

Zombies and Snakes and Entheogens! Oh My!

For years we’ve said that 2012 was going to be a great paradigm shift, but every day we see stranger things happening. Zombie folklore used to be part of our Halloween tradition. Interesting how culture and art become life.

First, a naked man is found eating 75% of the face of a homeless man. He growls like a beast when the cops find him and they have to shoot and kill him. His victim remains in critical condition.
Now, a 21 year old student from Baltimore confesses that he ate the heart and brain of a man whose dismembered body was found in his apartment.

The first attack is being credited to a new synthetic drug known as “bath salts,” which produces psychosis and extreme paranoia and whose side effects are being compared to zombification. The phenomenon is more widespread than originally thought. This video mentions several places in the US and elsewhere where zombie attacks have been documented.

Before the recent attacks, the zombie phenomenon was attributed to tetrodoxin (aka the zombie powder), a venom that was developed by Haitian voodoo priests. It induces a temporary death-like trance.

With zombie powder, after family members bury their relative, thinking he or she is dead, the voodoo priest comes back and digs the grave. The victim is then used as a slave for the rest of his or her life.

Some victims of zombification in Haiti have been found by family members years later, but the brain damage induced by zombie powder is such that the victims are speechless and dysfunctional.

Whoever created this new synthetic drug is the modern version of a voodoo witch. Science, when used for evil purposes, would have been black magic to our ancestors … and the process of experimenting with these drugs can be understood as a modern attempt at shamanic trance, except that it’s generally completely void of any spirituality.

The fact that our drug policies are anything, but pragmatic and have created an underground market where substances cannot be tested by any official or trusted agency to determine how dangerous they are makes things worse. Legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol generate many more deaths than illicit ones, but at least when people consume them, they are educated about what they’re doing and they are generally making educated choices, even if bad ones. Labels are placed on cigarette boxes and alcohol bottles.

In our modern urban shamanism, we have none of that. It’s impossible for consumers to assess their risks and to make fully educated choices. They have to rely on the word of their illegal drug provider.

No less sinister is the news about Mack Wolford, a West Virginia pastor who was bit by a snake during a snake handling ceremony. The evangelical preacher wanted to demonstrate that, as per the Gospel, he would not be affected by the venom.

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. – Mark 16:17-18

Although he was bit at two in the afternoon, he was not taken to the hospital until ten in the evening, shortly after which he was declared dead. His family hoped that his faith would save him, in spite of the fact that his own father, who was also a snake-handling preacher, had died a similar death.

I wish to share an interesting note on snake handling. The side effects of the venom include pain and delirium, at times ecstasy. It affects the nervous system and produces altered states of consciousness.

Religious people might be particularly susceptible to these types of experience. It’s possible that people who get bit often by snakes and survive several bites may develop some level of resistance to the venom and might begin to enjoy these experiences of altered-state of consciousness. This is just one hypothesis.

Perhaps part of what our civilization needs are healthier and less dangerous ways of experiencing a natural high. Perhaps this need to escape ordinary reality is part of what makes us human and we should embrace it, recognize it, and then find wholesome outlets for it. People, I think, might be much happier. These experiences were always tied to the realm of the sacred.

entheogen
any substance, such as a plant or drug, taken to bring on a spiritual experience
etymology: lit. ‘generating the divine within’
- dictionary.com

Native Americans in huge numbers degenerated due to alcoholism after the denial of their culture and spirituality for several generations under the colonial policies of previous generations. A similar phenomenon took place with Siberian aboriginals when the Russians converted them to Christianity.

It’s possible that the imposition of sobriety and the repression of their particular cultural expression of the numenic and magical created a type of cultural anxiety whose only expression was alcoholism.

I’m not saying that the shamanic practices of these tribes and nations had been entirely safe, but they did take place within a sacred context, under the guidance of an experienced mentor, and were not habitual practices. There was a time and place for them, and there were clear boundaries between ordinary and extraordinary awareness.

Smoking was also not a habitual practice to Native Americans: tradition dictated that the use of sacred tobacco was only for praying. Today, Native Americans also suffer from high rates of lung disease due to habitual smoking.

Perhaps we should go back to creating spaces and traditions where people are able to experiment with their awareness in a less hazardous way than what’s available now, using healthy, natural entheogens like kava kava instead of toxic, dangerous legal and illegal drugs and venoms.

Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland ruled May 24 that the law legalized bigotry by withholding more than 1,000 federal benefits -- such as joint tax filing, Social Security survivor payments and immigration sponsorship -- from gays and lesbians legally married under state law.

Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco also declared DoMA unconstitutional and ordered the government to provide family insurance coverage to the wife of a lesbian court employee. White's ruling has been appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear the case in September.

- Appeals court: Denying federal benefits to same-sex couples is unconstitutional

Religion and Manonism

I will be writing a series of articles on money and religion.  The first one I'm offering deals with the nature of money and how various religious cultures, for our Heathen ancestors to Christianity and Islam, have treated money throughout history.

The Sacred Cow

In Luke 16:13, Jesus said One can't serve God and Manon (Money) at the same time.  Manonism, acting in service of money, being a banker where we work for the interests of money and against the interests of the fellow man, is considered immoral according to the Gospels.  The worship of money is arguably one of the main moral problems that humanity faces today. 

The first issue of the Occupy Wall Street Journal tapped into Biblical imagery of decadence when it refered to Wall Street as America's financial Gomorrah, and the worship of the golden calf was actually evoked when it was brought theatrically by Christian groups into the Occupy movement as a way of mocking the bull on Wall Street.

But the value, the dignity and the virtue of cattle is recognized even in the Bible.

Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase comes by the strength of the ox.

- Proverbs 14:4

Hinduism encourages Hindus to fulfil their duties, work hard and earn money to support themselves and their family.  Outside of that, it does not prescribe specific fiscal regulations but it does revere the cow, and as we will see cattle have always been considered currency and items of great value.

Jonah 4:11 concludes by mentioning that the city of Ninveh was saved, in part, by God's love for its cattle.  Later in Isaiah 66:3, this other prophet mentions that He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man.

Somewhere in history, cattle ceased to be considered sacred in spite of many traditions that revered cattle in many parts of the world. 

I have had many Hare Krishna acquaintances and am personally fond of cows.  Their explanation for why the cow is considered virtuous has to do with the fact that they're vegetarian, and have a natural tendency to practice non-violence.  They are also generous and magnanimous with anyone, including humans, who wishes to drink their milk, and are happy to feed everyone.

Their copious amounts of milk can be used to produce yoghurt, cream, butter and every kind of cheese that we can think of. Oxen also have been used for brute labor, and some theories of value and currency are based exclusively on how only labor produces value and how, without labor, value cannot be extracted from mines or from the land. In this sense, oxen have added value to human society during many periods in history through their enslavement, or donation of labor.

For all these reasons, there was esentially no difference between cattle and currency to our European ancestors, and in fact the English word fee originates in fehu, which means cattle.

I am not calling for a return to the fehu currency, however, as this implies commodification of a living entity and raises some modern ethical concerns.  But I do think we should ponder the qualities that cattle had that made it useful as a currency and what might replace cattle today.

A modern alternative to cattle might be any device that may exist now or may be invented in the future to produce ENERGY, perhaps a convenient, portable generator. In fact, energy (where the currency unit would be kilowatts per hour) has been discussed as a potential alternative currency.

The reason why I say that an energy generator might be the sacred cow of the future is because the products that are derived from cow are

1. always in demand and almost universally consumed
2. non-seasonal, that is, crops may come and go throughout the year but milk and its byproducts are always available wherever there are cows and it's possible that our ancestors survived the Ice Age thanks to them, at the very least cattle helped them to survived harsh winters

This explains why it was convenient for our ancestors to monetize cattle. In the same way, energy will always be in demand and its supply in turn generates other goods, services and products, regardless of the season.  Unlike crops, energy's value would not fluctuate with the seasons and, in a sense, the ability to generate our own energy would function as the sacred cow did in the past in terms of the consistent ability to produce value.

In his article Towards a Perfect Currency, environmentalist John Erik Meyer made the case for an energy-based currency and said:

There is only one commodity which is universally produced and consumed with both the scale and resolution to represent the full scope of any human endeavour. We already measure it in tremendous detail and it is central to every economy and process.

Energy based currency would represent real wealth creation potential and would not be subject to the shifting valuation issues to which every national currency is prone. Energy represents the value of work already done as well as the potential of work which can be done.

Some 800 years ago, the Mongols avoided inflationary pressures on their currency by performing inventories of their assets and matching the money supply to it. The Mongol empire did not suffer from the boom and bust cycle generated by the currency inflation which has plagued other monetary economies. Energy based currency would eliminate this cycle by representing constant real product and illuminating actual input costs.

Energy underwrites all commercial and environmental activity. It is the most widely measured, consumed and produced commodity on the planet. In contrast to the gold producing club, every nation produces energy from a wide variety of sources.

... No matter who champions it, no one nation will own energy based money. It will be the first truly international, non-political currency base. No nation will be able to manipulate it to avoid the consequences of its own economic mis-steps or to beggar its neighbours.

He then goes on to share various examples of units for an energy-based currency and reminds us of the stability and universality of the value of energy.

Notice that our current energy infrastructure depends heavily on oil, which has been called the devil's gold for the many evils and wars it has brought. Oil and its monopoly, the fight over its control, has to a great extent vilified humanity. If our communities enjoyed self-sufficiency in our ability to create our own energy, these wars and monopolies would cease to exist, as there would be less of an incentive to send our troops to infest the armpit of the world in a fight over resources that are available locally. Energy currencies would add pressure to the imperative of local energy self-sufficiency wherever they are implemented.

Energy is already a type of currency and currently foreign nations control much of the oil and energy that we consume, and we are in many ways at their mercy.

The importance of energy self-sufficiency will continue to become increasingly obvious as the years go by. Oil is already such a prevalent power in our modern global economy that Chris Cook in his article Banking on Energy argues that oil is not priced in dollars: dollars are priced in oil.  We can't escape the fiscal side effects of our energy policies.

Do the Gospels Call for Popularly-Controlled Currencies?

The film The Secret of Oz makes the case that it's not so much whether a currency is backed by gold or silver, but WHO CONTROLS THE QUANTITY that matters.

The documentary also argues that one of the few instances of Jesus acting violently in the Gospels was when he ranted against the money changers in the temple and turned their tables over. This, it is argued, was due to the private control by these lenders of the only currency which was allowed to be used for payment of the temple tax: a silver shekel. Animals to be sacrificed daily by the pilgrims had to be purchased also. The temple was a major center of commercial activity in Israel. Due to the scarcity of this currency, the lenders were able to charge whatever the market would allow. This was extremely profitable for the lenders and disastrous for the average poor Jew.

In the parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16), in addition to praising the shrewdness of a corrupt manager who forgives debts in order to save his reputation, Jesus mentions the use of gallons of olive oil and bushels of wheat as currency. His choice of a non-silver currency, where granaries and pantries might serve as banks, may or may not be another instance of criticism against, even a boycott of, the currency that the money lenders controlled in those days. At the very least, it points to debt forgiveness as a virtue and as a matter of common sense, and serves as an endorsement of complementary currencies in the Gospel.

Shari'a on Non-fiat Interest-free Currency

One of the aspects of shari'a law that is increasingly being praised in the West amid our current crisis is the monetary system where fiat currency is illicit. Money in Islam must have tangible value. The standard currencies, the dirham and dinar, are silver and gold based.

One of the criticisms of the gold and silver standard is that there is only so much gold and silver on Earth and that these two precious metals may not provide us with enough capital to finance a growing economy: that there is an inherent limit to economic growth. Another criticism is that most of the gold and silver might still be in the hands of a few, who may then control the amount available in the economy and create crisis that they can then profit from.

But just as in the Gospels, in Islam there are complementary currencies mentioned by Muhammad, who was quoted as saying: Gold for gold, silver for silver, wheat for wheat, barley for barley, dates for dates, and salt for salt. (When a transaction is) like for like, payment being made on the spot, then if anyone gives more or asks for more, he has dealt in Riba, the receiver and the giver being equally guilty.

Riba is charging of interest, which is illicit in Islam since it is considered an unequal exchange of similar goods. Here, we see that wheat, barley, dates and salt can be used as currency or means of exchange within Islam. In other words, in Islam gold and silver can function as a major component of a diversified currency system, where various crops and commodities are also used as currency just as we saw in Luke 16.

I will continue exploring the subject of Manonism, and issues of hoarding and of debt forgiveness, in future articles.