The Creature from Jekyll Island

The Creature from Jekyll Island
(Transcript of YouTube Video) By: G. Edward Griffin
Commentary by: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
July 15, 2009

GEG: The Federal Reserve System is a strange creature; it is easier to say what it is not than what it is.  Most people think it is a government agency, it is not.  Those who have studied it, say this is a private banking corporation.  You almost get half credit for that.  It is not really a private corporation either – it is a hybrid.  To make it more complicated, we can say that it is a cartel.  This is the amazing thing.  The Federal Reserve System is a banking cartel.  It is no different than a banana cartel or an oil cartel, or a sugar cartel.  It just happens to be a banking cartel.  It is a group of very large and powerful private banking interests who have gotten together in a cartel arrangement, and they have brought the federal government into it as a partner in order to use the force of law to enforce the cartel agreement.   You see, with most cartels, if a member of the cartel wants to break out or violate the agreement, if they fixed prices for example, and one of the members of cartel wants to raise prices, contrary to the agreement, there is no way to discipline a member of the cartel and force him to stick with the agreements, but, if you bring the government into the arrangement, and convert the agreement into law, now all members are required by law to keep the agreement, or they go to jail.  So this is why cartels always throughout history have always tried to form a partnership with the government, whatever government is in the locale where they operate.  So, we come to the amazing conclusion that the Federal Reserve System is basically a cartel, a banking cartel that has gone into partnership with the federal government of the United States so that the federal laws can be used to enforce the cartel agreement.

That was a real shock, it was to me, because you know when I started in this process of research, I thought like most people that the federal reserve was an agency of the government, and that it was formed to protect the people, to protect you and to stabilize the economy, and to make sure that we didn’t have much inflation or unemployment or all these bad things and you know when the chairmen of the Federal Reserve comes before congress or the television cameras and he is asked to explain why they raised the interest rates this month or why they lowered them or whatever they did, the chairman always says, we did it for you folks.  We did it to cool down the economy or stimulate the economy or create more jobs, or whatever.  It is always expressed in terms, of “we did it for you folks.”  It wouldn’t go too well if they said, “We really did it because it helped the banks.”  People would say, “What did he say?”  But you can imagine the head of the banana cartel saying, “Why did you raise the price of bananas this month?”  “Well we did it for you folks, to make sure there would be enough stimulus in the economy so that we would always have bananas.”

Anyway, back to the question, what is the Federal Reserve System?  It is a cartel, and it a hybrid organization.  There are very few like it in existence.  It seems to have some of the characteristics of a Government agency, because the government is involved, and some characteristics of a private corporation, because it is actually owned by private banks.  But it is neither of the two.  It is a hybrid.  When it comes to ownership, the member banks actually own the Federal Reserve System, but those certificates of ownership, do not carry the usual prerogatives of ownership.  For example, the banks can’t sell the shares.  If you can’t sell something, you don’t really own it.  And, they can’t even vote for their board of directors.  So, what is this ownership business?  It is kind of a façade.  It’s a name, it is a word they give to it — well it’s owned by the banks.  But in reality it is really a hybrid, it’s a cartel that operates under the protection of the federal government, and the government has given it a monopoly, a virtual monopoly, to create the nation’s money supply.

Now, I have no doubt that the members of the Federal Reserve System that the banking cartel wants to see the economy as strong as possible.  They don’t want to kill the goose that killed the golden egg.  But you can be sure that when there is a conflict between the advantage of the cartel or the purposes of the nation at large, there has to be no choice, they always go to the purpose of the cartel, because that is who they are.  That is who employs them, that is where their money comes from.  That’s their reason for being.

Now, the purpose of the Federal Reserve System really is to protect the large member banks from competition and to preserve their profit margins.  And, as we have seen in late, when some of the banks begin to get in trouble, the purpose of the Federal Reserve System comes to the fore, which is to pass on the losses of the banks to the taxpayers.  They do this through congress generally.  Remember Congress is a partner with the Federal Reserve System.  They go to Congress and say, well the banks are in trouble, now we don’t want the banks to fold, because that would be bad for economy right?  That would be bad for you folks, and so since it is for you folks we are doing this, the congress kick in the extra money to bail out the banks, to guarantee the loans, to guarantee the interest payments from the countries that are going bankrupt and can’t make their interest payments to the bank and so forth.  Whether Russia or Mexico or China, or some country in Africa or Asia, they cannot pay, so they come to congress, and they say, “We’ll pay for them.”  And it seems like a humanitarian thing, when the reality is, all they are doing is transferring tax dollars from you and me to these countries so they can continue to make interest payments to the banks so the banks don’t have to write off these loans as bad loans.  So that is another purpose of the Federal Reserve System, is to pass off the losses of the cartel members to the taxpayers.  Most people don’t realize that, but when you see how it is operated over the years, it is very clear, the purpose of the Federal Reserve System, is to promote the best interests of the banking members of the cartel.

So what we have here is a banking cartel, which has gone into partnership with the federal government.  And they have used this cozy relationship so that the government has given the banks the power to create the nation’s money supply.  These private banks have the monopoly over the nation’s money supply, and that’s not too shabby a deal.

When I first became interested in the topic of the Federal Reserve System, I was aware that the Fed was formed, not in Washington DC, not in the halls of Congress, or some meeting room, but it was formed on a private island, off the coast of Georgia, called Jekyll Island.  That is why I called my book, the creature from Jekyll Island.  Because here it was, a strange thing that something as important as the Federal Reserve System was created on a private island off the coast of Georgia that aroused my curiosity.  I didn’t think too much about it until I got into the details of the history.  And, what I found was absolutely amazing.  First of all, this island in those days was privately owned, it was a resort island, it was a club, it was called the Jekyll Island club.  And, its members were relatively small group of billionaires from New York, people like JP Morgan, William Rockefeller, and their business associates, and their families.  They went there during the cold winter months because they wanted to get away from the ice and snow from New York.  And so, Jekyll Island in those days was a private resort, and they had a beautiful clubhouse there, in fact it is still standing for anyone who wants to go there and visit it.  The island has been preserved, and many of these cottages, which they called them in those days, which were the summer resort homes of the very wealthy, are still there and you can visit them and it is quite an example of the elegance and opulence of the turn of the century.  But, the key feature is the clubhouse.  The clubhouse is where this meeting took place, and isn’t that strange, I got into it and I discovered, not only did they go to this island for the meeting, they went under conditions of great secrecy.  I can assure you that very few wars of history have ever been plotted under conditions of greater secrecy than that.

For example, when they went to the island, they all traveled aboard the private railroad car of senator Nelson Aldridge.  He sent his railroad car to the New Jersey railroad station.  This was November of 1910, and he and 6 other men, whom I will describe in a moment, arrived under conditions that they were told that they mustn’t be seen together, they couldn’t come together, they couldn’t dine together on that evening, and they must avoid newspaper reporters at all costs.  Because, in those days, newspaper reporters used to hang out at the New Jersey railroad station because it was a way to catch photographs or interviews of famous people coming in and out of New York.  And, they were told to avoid newspaper reporters.  One of them carried a shotgun in a big black case, just in case he was confronted by a reporter, he was prepared to tell them that he was going on a duck hunting trip.  The funny thing about that is that we learned later from his children and his biographers, that this man never owned a gun.  He had borrowed that shotgun as a decoy, as part of a deception.  When they got on board this railroad car, they were told, even in the privacy of this car not to address each other by last names.  First names only, and two of them even went further and refused to address each other by first names, they adopted code names.  That seems strange, even in the privacy of senator Aldridge’s car.  Well it turned out, that one of the men wrote about it in later years, and he said the reason for that, that they were concerned that the identities of all of these seven men might be known to the servants on board the car, and that the servants might talk about.  In that fashion the word would get out.  And, then the purpose of the meeting would have been defeated in their opinions.  And so this is the kind of secrecy that surrounded them.  Even when they got to the Island, and when they got off the train, and took the fair across the inland straits there, and went to the clubhouse, they had replaced all of the normal servants with new servants who didn’t know any of these people.  This is the kind of precautions that went on.

And, they created the Federal Reserve under those kinds of conditions of secrecy.  And then when they came back to New York and disappeared back into the environs of Wall Street, for quite a while thereafter, these men denied that such a meeting ever took place, and said, “Oh no, that’s just pure rumor, that’s nonsense.”  Later it began to leak out, and they that yes, we went to the meeting, but we just went to do some hunting, play some poker, and drink some good whiskey, that kind of thing you know.  Finally, after the Federal Reserve System was firmly established, and became accepted and almost revered as a great American institution, then they finally began to talk about this meeting, who was there, how they went, and why the secrecy.  Most of this is now written in their memoirs, or in their biographies or interviews they gave with newspaper reporters, and that sort of thing.  So, that if you go to any well stocked library today, you can learn in minute detail exactly what happened in Jekyll Island, why they went, who these people were, and especially why the secrecy.

And, what is reason for the secrecy?  In those days there was a great deal of concern among the American people about the concentration of financial power in the hands of a few very wealthy and powerful financial interests in Wall Street.  They called this the money trust in those days.  If you look into the editorials of the time, you will often find editorials condemning the money trust, and the cry in those days was to break the grip of the money trust, and one of the primary purposes of the Federal Reserve Act as it was promoted to the American people was just that, to break the grip of the money trust.  They were going to write a law to take the power away from these people, and put it in the hands of their trustworthy politicians.  Put it in the hands of the people through the electoral process.  That was the propaganda behind the Federal Reserve System.

So, what is the purpose of the secrecy?  It is because when you look at the list of these people who went, they were the money trust.  They were the representatives of the banks, JP Morgan, Rockerfellers, they represented Kuhn Lobe and Company.  They had business connections with the Warburgs in Germany and the Netherlands, and the Rothchilds in England; this was the money trust, not only of the United States, but also of the world.  These are the people who created the Federal Reserve System, supposedly to break the grip of their own power.  So, now had that fact been known, who these people were that were drafting the Federal Reserve System, the trick would have been exposed, and the public would have never adopted the Federal Reserve Act, as in fact they did.

Money is created through a process that I call the Mandrake Mechanism.  That goes back to the 1940’s when there was a popular comic book character by the name of Mandrake the Magician, he was quite a guy, had this big black cape, and he could wave it around and things would disappear, and then wave it again and they would reappear, he was quite a magician.  And, I got to thinking about how money comes into being, and how it is extinguished in the United States, and much of the rest of the world for that matter, and I thought aha, that is the Mandrake Mechanism.  It is magic that is what it is.  And it really is, it is accounting magic.

Here is how it works, I’m going to make this very simple, but technically it is totally accurate.  It starts with Congress.  Remember a moment ago I said the Federal Reserve System was a partnership between a cartel and the Federal government.  Well, if there is a partnership, there is a reason for both of the partners to be in it, or they wouldn’t be.  The question, why is the banking fraternity in this partnership, and why are the politicians in it?  That is answered by understanding how money comes into being.   So, it starts with congress, or the government side of the partnership, Congress needs more money, they always need more money.  They like to spend money that gets them elected.  They don’t like to raise taxes, because that gets them unelected.  So congressmen and senators are always balancing this choice between how to give more benefits, how do we buy more votes with the taxpayer’s money without raising their taxes.  And it has been a perennial problem, and the politicians get pretty good at this mechanism.  The answer is that of course they borrow it.  If you are not going to tax it from somebody you can borrow it from somebody else, that sounds well and good and that is why we have government bonds, and notes, and Treasury Bills and so forth.  And we have the national debt, because they borrowed money to pay for current expenses, that they don’t want to pay for through taxes because that would be unpopular.  Well, fine as far as it goes, but when you borrow money eventually you have to pay it back.  So, 30 days after they borrowed a billion dollars, or 60 days, whatever the term of the loan is, or a year, they have to pay that money back.  Lo and behold, the congressmen and senators are still not taking in as much money in taxes as they are spending in benefits, so they don’t have the money to repay the loan.  So, what do they do?  Easy, borrow some more.  Borrow enough to pay back the original loan, plus a little bit more to keep them in office, keep them with the image of the big spenders.  So, this process goes on and on, and that is why we have the national debt growing and growing.  So far, so good.  If you borrow money, from somebody who has the money, you don’t really increase the money supply, all you are doing is taking it from one person and promising to pay back interest on it.  But, the money supply does not increase.  The Federal Reserve enters the picture at this stage, because they can never borrow enough from the private sector.  There is never enough existing money out there for the politicians to borrow, without having to raise the interest rate very high to attractive to attract it, which is also politically unpopular.  So, they don’t want to do that either.  So, what do the do?  They go to the Federal Reserve System and by agreement, remember this is their partner now in this agreement, the Federal Reserve System agrees to create the money that they are going to lend to the government.  It is really not lending at all as you can see.  But, they used the old traditional words of lending it to the government when in fact all they are doing is just printing it for the government, they are creating it for the government, and they call it a loan.  Of course, they don’t print it all because most of it is checkbook money.  But nevertheless the process is the same as if they had just turned on the printing presses and just printed all this money and gave it to the Federal government.  And, so they were going to loan it to the Federal government, and charge the government an interest on it, and that is a misnomer either way.

What they should really say is that we have created it for the Federal government, and now we want a service charge.  That is an accurate understanding of what is really going on.  But, instead they confuse it by saying it is a loan and interest.

Now, once the Federal Reserve system creates this money out of nothing, literally, it is fresh money into the society and economy, and that is how the money supply keeps growing and growing.

That is just the beginning though.  Most people are alarmed by the fact that the Fed can create money out of nothing and charge interest on it, but that is just the beginning of the story.  Let’s follow that money and see where it goes.  Remember there is another partner in this thing.  We have only looked at the government partner.  What about the banking partner?  What’s in it for them?  So, let’s follow the money and find out.

Let’s say for example that our postal delivery guy gets a $1000 check from the federal government.  Now that is money that was created out of nothing by the Federal Reserve System.  He doesn’t know that, to him it is perfectly good, it is a check, it is a government check, he can spend it, so he takes it down to his private bank, his commercial bank, and he deposits it into his private checking account.  Now, the money is suddenly out of the government side of this, and into the commercial banking side of it.  This is where the action really heats up.  If I were a banker, and you were the postal delivery man, and you came into my bank, and you deposited it into my bank into your account, I could go to the front of the bank and address everyone in the room there and say, attention everyone, this fine gentleman has deposited a $1000 into our venerable bank, and now we have money to loan, and everyone would be happy because they know that many of them are there to borrow money, and they know that the more money there is to loan, the lower the interest rates are.  So, they are happy, so some fellow over here says, how much did he deposit?  I said, well, $1000.  And he says, that is not enough; I want to borrow $9000, because I’m looking at this used car over here, and I need to borrow $9000 and you only have $1000.  I would then say, don’t worry about it sir.  I can lend you $9000.  He then says, where did the other $8000 come from?  And, I’d have to say, don’t worry about it sir, these things are more complicated than you can imagine and you don’t need to know these things.  I can lend you the $9000, and in fact I can if I’m a bank.  For every billion dollars that is put into the banks through this circle that we talked about, I as a commercial banker can create an additional 9 billion dollars and push them out into the economy as loans.  That 9 billion dollars, based on the one billion, which itself was created out of nothing, that is the foundation, that was the one they gave to the government, that billion, now that 9 billion comes into the commercial banks, and the banks can now create an additional an additional 9 billion on top of the one billion.  All of it is just fiat money, it is created out of nothing, but the commercial banks get the bigger end of the deal as you can see.  They can create 9 billion for the private sector, called loans, and these are genuine loans, and that is where our money comes from.  That is how money is created; every bit of it is created in this fashion.  If we were to take away all of the loans, if all of the loans in the world were to be repaid, there would not be one red penny in circulation in the United States of America.  It would all disappear back into the computer chips and into the vaults, there would be no money in circulation, every bit of it is based upon debt, and that debt creates money that literally has nothing behind it, at all.

Now this is how money is created in the western world, and it is an amazing story and only a few people even within the banking industry really understand it.  I’ve talked to many people who work in the banks, and they read his book, and say gee I didn’t know that.  All they know is how to keep the numbers balanced in the columns, and how to fill out the application for loans, and they have a job to do.  Only a few people at the top know how money really comes into existence.

The creation of money out of nothing has had a devastating impact on the purchasing power of the American dollar.  I might add, this process is happening to all currencies in the world that adopt this process, and that is most of them in the western world.  So, what I’m saying about the American dollar also applies to most currencies in the world, which have the ability to create money out of nothing, which they have given to their central banks.  When you give men the power to create money out of nothing, you shouldn’t be surprised when they create money out of nothing, because that is what they are supposed to do.

The underlying philosophy is that we’ll be very conservative about it.  We won’t run rampant; we won’t abuse this power for our own personal gain, or our political advantage.  Heaven’s no, we are wise and wonderful people and you can trust us they say.  So, we give them blindly this power to create money out of nothing because we trust them to use this power wisely.  Nowhere in history has this ever been a justified trust.  Every time man has had that power, and it started back in antiquity, those with the power have abused it, and they have created more and more and more money, at a rate much faster than the expansion of goods and services which are being produced by the productive side of the economy.

Now if the goods and services were growing at a rate which is exactly the same as the money supply then the purchasing power of the monetary unit would remain constant, and in fact it has remained that way where men have not had the power to create money out of nothing.  For example, when money was based on monetary units like gold or silver, it is interesting to know that in ancient Rome, if you had a 1 ounce gold coin, that would be the cost of a nice toga, a handcrafted belt, and a pair of sandals.  Today, 1000’s of years later, if you have a 1 ounce gold coin, with no numismatic or collector’s value to it, just a Krugerrand or bullion coin of some kind, and you convert that into Federal Reserve notes, you can walk into a store and buy a nice suit, a handcrafted belt, and a pair of shoes.  The real price of those items, and all items for that matter throughout history does not change when measured in terms of something of intrinsic value such as gold or silver, because those things take human effort to produce as well as the toga, the belt, and the sandals.  Both of them take human effort to produce, and that is why they maintain value with each other.  But, once you break that away, and give men the power to expand the money supply without that discipline, they will expand the money supply faster than the increase in goods and services and going to have this difference in purchasing power.  We call it inflation.

Inflation is a bad word because we think of inflation as rising prices.  But, in reality, prices are not going up, the value of the dollar or the monetary unit is going down, that is what is really happening if we understand the process.  It is a tax therefor.  Our lost purchasing power, we have to pay more for a bag of groceries today than we did 5 years ago comes out of our pocket, out of our earning capacity.  That is the value which we should have, but has been taken from us through a process we call inflation, but in reality, it is a hidden tax.  It is a tax that is more vicious than any other tax you can imagine.  There are no exemptions, no deductions.  Those with the least amount of money pay it to the highest degree.  It is the most unfair, most unjust tax you can imagine, and that is what inflation is.  Inflation is the result of being able to create money out of nothing.  And, that is the power we have give to the power that we have given to the Federal Reserve System.  Therefore, we can say that the Federal Reserve System is the agency of a hidden tax called inflation.

I feel that our paper currency must eventually be backed by gold or silver if we are to have an economy that will protect the purchasing power of the common man.  We must have it furthermore to protect our freedoms, because if we lose our economy, if we become totally dependent economically upon the state then we have lost our freedom.  We become vassals of the state.  And, all of this can be traced back to the fact that our monetary unit is completely valueless, or should we say, it is valued only at the whim of our leaders.  And, that is a very precarious position to be in.  I don’t think anybody if they thought it through would ever say that is the system I want.  And yet, that is the system we have.

Congress receives its funding from various sources.  Obviously we think of taxes right away, and there is a no question that taxes are a major source of funding, however, we know that Congress does not need income taxes at all or any other kind of taxes for that matter to fund its operation, as long as it has the ability to collect this hidden tax called inflation.  If it were to stop all taxes, it could still continue to spend exactly as it is doing simply by inflating the currency than it has been in the past.  Isn’t that an amazing thing, congress does not need taxes, and yet they talk constantly about taxes.  They want us to focus on the taxes because this we can measure.  We fill out the form at the end of each year.  Gee I was at 30 or 40 or 50% bite, and we can see the tax bill on our sales receipt, that we pay to the state, and we can look at those numbers and complain about them, but the bigger menace is this hidden tax called inflation, but we never see those numbers, but somehow at the end of the year, we work like dogs, and we got a little bit of a raise, but our standard of living went down.  That is the tax I’m talking about.  This is where Congress gets a great deal of its money, if not most of it.  And, where it plans to get most of it in the future.

The solution to the problem of fiat money is to stop it, to eliminate it.  We must get rid of it, we must phase out the Federal Reserve Notes, the Federal Reserve System, and I’m talking now about the United States, all countries in the world face this same problem.  We must phase out fiat money.  We can’t just tolerate it, we can’t just say well, if it’s only 3% or 4% we could live with that, but people don’t stay at 3 or 4%, historically, political leaders and bankers never stay at 3 or 4% if they can go to 4.5%.  And once they hit 4,5% they can go to 5%, and so forth.  So, we must get rid of the fiat money system.

How do you do that?
The first step, of course, the biggest step, the biggest imaginable step is for people to realize that they even have one.  I mean, how many people walking up and down the street that go into the polls each year and elect their leaders, how many people know that we have a fiat money system.  How are we going to change that unless we have an understanding, an educational foundation at the electoral level?  So this is where we have to start.  Then having done that, assuming that we have created an understanding of the problems, and assuming we have created some kind of political will on the part of the people to bring about reform, then how do you do it?  Well, you can’t do it all at once; it has to be eased out.  We didn’t get it all at once, it came to us in little steps over 50 60 70 years.  That, in my opinion, is how we have to ease out of it.  If you were to cut the system right now, just completely cut the tree down, we would have the biggest economic collapse the world has ever seen.  So, they have got us somewhat.  We are kind of like the drug addict that is so deeply involved that cold turkey would probably result in death.  I’m sorry to have to say that, but I think that is the realistic appraisal.  We must ease out of the system we are in, and we have to start as soon as possible.  We have to anticipate that it is going to take 30 or 40 years to make it happen.

The bankers and the politicians get away with this arrangement if you want to be kind and call it that, mainly because people don’t understand what they are doing.  We have been told in our textbooks, and by our leaders, that what is happening in the banking system is really quite marvelous.  We are told that it is a wonderful creation of the new way.  And, that if we didn’t have this system, and oh yes, there are a few problems here, yeah, there are a few inequities and yes, we have a little inflation, we admit all these things, but if we didn’t have this, we are told, we would still be living in caves eating raw meat, or something like that.  So, we are given a bill of goods, we are told don’t get too informed on this, just trust that we are taking this under advisement, we are doing a good job, don’t rock the boat, you don’t want to mess things up do you?  That line usually goes over pretty well, and people buy it and they don’t understand it so they don’t want to touch it.

It is easy to see where we are headed.  We don’t have to be a rocket scientist, if you follow the graph, and you can see the points are going constantly in one direction, and they have been doing this for 50 years, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see where it is headed, where this graph is headed is for total destruction of our monetary system.  Our money will be totally worthless and it will probably be reissued in the form of some international currency which will be equally worthless, but the value to these people is that once it is on an international basis, there is nowhere else to go.   Right now, if you don’t like American dollars, you can buy Japanese yen, if you don’t like that you can buy Swiss francs if you don’t like that you can move to whatever currency seems to be having a little bit better track record.  Once there is an international monetary system in place, modeled completely after the Federal Reserve System, then there is no place else to go, folks, you have had it.  That is where it is headed.  If we don’t turn this thing around, we are going to be living in a kind of modern serfdom, and we will be serving masters.  They won’t be living in the big castles that we can see at least, and say that is where the master lives up there, and we are tilling his field.  Our masters will be the bankers and the politicians, and they will live in big houses, but they won’t be castles.  But, we will be serving masters nevertheless, and we will be thinking they are wonderful people without realizing that they are our masters.  I think we are headed to modern serfdom if we don’t turn this around.

If the United States went back to Constitutional money it would be an amazingly wonderful event, because it wouldn’t be just going back to Constitutional money.  In order for that to happen, that means you would have to assume a groundswell of awakening on the part of the electorate, and they would understand not only what is happening on the monetary system, but also what is happening across the board in our political system.  So, that reform would not happen just by itself.  If it happened just by itself, we would have a great resurgence of prosperity and tranquility, but unless we get rid of some of these other problems as well, we could still be involved in foreign wars and forced medication, and so many things we could talk about.  Those would not be touched just because we went back to a constitutional monetary system.  If we went back to Constitutional money there are a lot of things that are left open as to other aspects to the reform, for example, we could still have horrendous taxes, and we would be paying it in real money instead of fiat money.  But, taxes could still be so high because we are still demanding of our politicians that we have all these benefits, all these freebee things, and all these welfare programs, and exchange of wealth, and movement of wealth from one class to another, we could still be demanding those things if we are not wise, and even though we had constitutional money, we would still have tremendous problems in society.  So, I look at it from a point of view that everything has to happen at once for it to be meaningful, and it has to happen at once before it will happen at all.

But, if we did go back to a constitutional monetary system, that means that the electorate would have to be questioning a lot of other things in our society as well.  And, I think we would have to see an improvement across the board, and I look forward to that day.

Concerned citizens can do a lot to help.  First of all, they need to find out the details of this story.  Then, they need to speak up about it, and not be intimidated.  Not worry too much about someone saying, oh you are just a worry wart.  Or, you’re just a conspiracy theorist, or something, because a lot of people would like to classify this as a conspiracy.  But they have to have a little backbone, say, well, you can call it what you will, but these are the facts and they need reform.  And, then they need to join forces with other people so they can have the power to do this.

I have created an organization just for that purpose; it’s called Freedom Force International.  It is based on the assumption that any one person or small group of people can’t do anything, even if we have great knowledge.  You have to join forces with other people.  And, then having joined forces, you have to have a plan of action, you have to know what to do, it is not just enough to complain about it, or to read another book about it, or to hold a seminar on it, or hold up a placard and demonstrate.  Our people are always on the outside of the halls of power looking in.  We are petitioning our leaders, saying, oh won’t you please be good guys, won’t you please follow the constitution, won’t you please not do this, and won’t you please listen to us?  And they are not interested because they have the power, and we don’t.  And nothing is going to change unless concerned citizens join together with a plan of action to reach out and capture control of those power centers of society, and by that I’m talking about the political unit, talking about all groups and organizations through which people work, and think, and form public policy, political groups, church organizations, labor unions, civic clubs, everything, we have to be active in all organizations and supply the kind of leadership and direction to replace the leadership and direction they now have, which is pushing us in the other direction.  Unless we have the vision of reaching for this kind of power, we that will be always and be on the outside petitioning and complaining and saying my goodness isn’t it terrible the way the world is going?  So, what does the concerned citizen do?  Joins forces with others, he has a plan of action, and he comes to power.

The above was a transcript of a YouTube video on the Creature From Jekyll Island, by the Author, G. Edward Griffin.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6507136891691870450

The Keynesian ‘Economist’ Interviews Ron Paul
Posted by Lew Rockwell on July 16, 2009 07:37 AM
You can tell the regime is worried when an establishment organ like the Keynesian ‘Economist’ magazine deigns to notice Ron’s fight against the Fed. Why are they doing that? Because he is actually changing the climate of opinion, with the assistance of the Fed’s boom and bust, on the central bank. Never, since 1913, have regular Americans been interested in the Fed. We are supposed to be bored by it. Yet the Fed is the biggest rip-off operation in the history of mankind, and the enabler of world wars, the garrison state, the welfare state, and a far lower standard of living than would otherwise be the case. How great to have the best-known back-bencher in American history alerting people, young people, especially, to the evils of central banking, fiat money, and inflation, and to the importance of Austrian economics. Hear the interview and the interviewer’s disdain at the end. Ron Paul is, of course, The Man. (Thanks to Travis)

Link to audio: http://audiovideo.economist.com/?fr_story=78d8c6ec44f78962754fcbbe3124cfccea02eb95&rf=bm