MLK, Occupy and End The Fed [article + videos]

By Kim M.
FreeSLO.com
January 15, 2012

The big difference I see between Martin Luther King Jr. (at the beginning of his career as an activist) and Occupy Wall Street (at the beginning of their collective “career”) is that everyone knew what MLK wanted, but nobody seems to know what Occupy wants.

The people who drive by screaming, “Get a job!” are a testament to this.

The infamous “OccupySLO Pwns Hecklers” video is a testament to this.

Everyone seems to think Occupy wants a handout.

And maybe some do, but the ones I’ve talked to don’t. In fact, most of the ones I’ve talked to at Occupy SLO are more interested in getting America back on Constitutional track and don’t necessarily 100% endorse the 99% mandates handed down by Occupy Wall Street.

Quite frankly, we here in America now find ourselves in a situation so dire and with so many urgent issues that need to be addressed that it’s almost impossible to decide where to begin.

At the end of his life, MLK became more like Occupy is now in that he began to tackle the giant, amorphous issue of “poverty.” Admirable, but how do you tackle an abstract intangible? It’s like the hazy “war on drugs” and the fuzzy “war on terrorism,” where there is no real, defined enemy and no real, defined goal. How is it possible to win a “war” when nobody knows who they are fighting and when there is no tangible “territory” to take?

This is also a good place to stop and deal with the whole “positive” and “negative” nonsense. Apparently, if you point out a problem (“the emperor has no clothes”), then you’re being negative. But if you ignore the problem (“let’s have a concert and party!”), then you’re being positive and everybody knows it’s better to be positive (gack).

I defy anyone to drive a car without the positive and negative cables properly attached to the battery. Or try using any battery-operated device with all the positive ends facing the same direction. Or, hey, let’s think really big and try to stop planet earth from having positive and negative poles. Ridiculous, huh? Positive and negative are flip sides of the same coin. Night/day. Warm/cold. Problem/solution.

So can we finally knock off the “Let’s be positive” cr@p? Recognize the problem. Propose the solution. See how nicely that works? Positive and negative poles working together in harmony.

The real mandate is to identify real, tangible problems and then identify real, reachable goals.

Everyone (in their right mind) wants to end poverty. Unfortunately, few people want to make the effort to peek and see just exactly what creepy crawly things are under the poverty rock. Against the advice of the founders, we currently have a centrally-planned economy. We have hired a private entity (the Federal Reserve) to lend us our own money at interest.

How can you pay interest on a dollar when all you have is a dollar? Worse, how can you pay back the dollar plus interest when the value of the dollar in your hand keeps going down due to the fact that the dollar-issuer (the Federal Reserve) keeps printing more and more dollars that each have to be paid back with interest?

The tragedy is that very few people understand how our economy really works.

I asked one of the young men in the “Pwn” video what money is and he said, “I don’t know; I’m not an economist.” I asked him why we have inflation and he said, “I don’t know; I’m not an economist.” Wow. These are very basic questions and yet the average college grad can’t answer them.

Our economy is broken. Most people can agree on that.

If the car stops running, no doubt it’s broke. If the economy stops running, no doubt it’s broke. But not everyone knows how to fix a car, just as not everyone knows how to fix an economy.

Most of us would take a broken car to an expert to have it fixed, but where do you take a broken economy? And what do you do if you find out that the mechanic is the same person who broke the car in the first place? Likewise, what would you do if you discover that the same entity that we’ve given the economy over to is the self-same entity which broke the economy?

This is precisely the situation we find ourselves in now.

We’ve identified the problem: The car is broken. We’ve identified the cause: The mechanic did it. The solution is obviously to fire the mechanic and hire an honest one. A mechanic who respects humanity and the rule of law.

This is the same direction that Occupy needs to go:

1) Identify the problem.
2) Identify the culprit (i.e. get to the root of the problem).
3) Identify the solution.

Simple as 1-2-3.

1) The economy is broken.
2) The Fed did it.
3) Fire the Fed and get back to Constitutional basics.

“The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

And especially when that scale is constructed of fiat, inflated dollars, issued by banksters and backed by nothing.

End The Fed.