Saturday, February 24, 2024

Who we are and the lessons we learned


Libertarian Party History

The Old Timers Series


More than a full generation has passed since that small but determined band of mostly young people came together to form what we all hoped would become the right political tool for renewing the battle for individual freedom.

We all know it started in David Nolan's living room. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, as the saying goes. Some who were there then to witness what happened are now dead. Others are still in there working for freedom either in the LP or in related fields.

I started out in West Los Angeles where I had been born and raised and where I met my first mentor on the ideas of Liberty, James Dean. Where did you start out? Where are you now? What happened in the middle?

This is about the past we share and about reconnecting to each other.

The Old Timer's Series will feature short biographical sketches of Old Timers to appear on these pages and on a blog we will set up for that purpose. If you are an Old Timer I have not yet found, get in touch. It will be great to reconnect even if we didn't talk back then. We will have a lot in common, no doubt.

As I am contacting Old Timers I am also compiling a list of contact information and each Old Timer will have the option of getting in touch with other Old Timers, if they wish to be contacted. I'm hoping everyone does. Think about other Old Timers and about those Old Timers who are not with us any more. I will be doing sketches for Roger MacBride, William Hunscher, Mike Hall, Bob Lehman, and others who can't be interviewed. I know there are more.

These individual stories will help us all understand the past we share. Eventually, it would be lovely to have a get together so we can see each other again.

Consider what kind of reunion we could have. Cruises are fun but there are endless possibilities. In the meanwhile, start rifling through those dusty mementos and through your mind. It is amazing how much you remember when you start thinking about it.

Look forward to chatting. Melinda 

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Conversion of America from Individual Freedom to Wage Slavery

 Bruce died some years ago, but sent me this article that reviewed, still holds many truths about America's direction.  Understanding these facts is important for our needed change of paradigm for freedom.  Others have also fought the battle against the IRS and other government frauds on us, including the Social Security 'Trust'.   But Bruce's words remain crystalline and true today, as they were more than a decade ago.  MP-F


By Bruce Barton

 

In 1895 the Supreme Court (Pollack vs. Farmers Loan & Trust Co., 158 US 601) ruled that the income tax as a direct tax was prohibited by Article I, Section IX of the U.S. Constitution.  How times have changed, your employer has become their tax collector.

 

Taxes as a Percent of Federal Revenue[1]



As you can see, America has become a corporate work-state.  The present administration has only consolidated the power of the new Caesar and his Senate achieved after nearly 100 years of efforts.  Why do you think King George the Second welcomes all immigrants legal and otherwise?  

The Republic of the United States had resisted the influence of the global bankers since the drafting of the Bill of Rights.  The War of 1812, as was the Civil War it can be argued, were engineered by world banking interests in Europe.  They were only successful following the massive wave of immigration (cheap labor) in the early 20th Century, the Industrial Revolution, and the dawn of the Progressive Era just prior to the Wilson administration. 

 

This is a generational subversion[2] of a people from productivity in the individual pursuit of life, liberty and happiness – to productivity in the pursuit of corporate profits and the security of the socialist collective.  Here are some highlights:

 

In 1913 the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was, [fraudulently], declared to have been ratified by the required number of states.  [This issue is subject to question and debate, but we present a federal judges opinion on the subject at the end of this history lesson.]

 

In 1914 the Federal Reserve Bank was legislated into being.  The Bank is neither ‘federal’ nor has ‘reserves’ [other than the paper they print Federal Reserve Notes on].  The fact is the Bank is a private corporation.  Look it up in the San Francisco phone book; it’s not in the government phone listing section – it’s in the white pages.

 

So the stage was set.  Although the Constitution strictly forbids peonage and slavery, the government of the United States has now become dependent upon the forced labor of every working man, woman and child in America to pay for nearly everything it does – and they have gone deeply in debt on the backs of future unborn Americans! 

 

We are consumers.  We are no longer producers.  Individual debt is out of control and the government just put the squeeze on the bankruptcy laws.  What once took a single income can now only be purchased with two wage earners.  The government is raising our children, and the Ninth Circuit Court has decreed that parental authority ends at the schoolroom doors.  We’ve been locked out.

 

Due to declining birth rates and abortion, massive numbers of “immigrants” must be imported to continue the program.  Additionally, public schools have been transformed from the business of educating your children, into government schools specializing in conditioning the drone worker bees of the global collective.

 

It has been observed recently by one senior Chinese government official that as China moves towards more freedom and democracy the United States is moving towards less.  Consider the massive Department of Homeland Security – while our borders remain open to potential terrorists. 

 

Which brings us to the Patriot Act under which a lowly line supervisor in the FBI can initiate a “Person of Interest” file on you or I without our ever knowing of it’s creation.  That is, until it’s too late to legally defend ourselves and we become an “Enemy of the State” (A potential legal definition of a person of interest under provisions of the Patriot Act). 

 

Think I’m kidding?  Since 9/11 the Department of Justice and the FBI have sent out an average of 30,000 letters per year requesting background information on individuals under the new provisions of the Patriot Act.  But Vice President Cheney insists that no violations of privacy under the Patriot Act have occurred to date.  Believe him?  I don’t.

 

Lastly, discrimination by the majority has been replaced with discrimination of the majority.  Hate laws now protect some individuals more than other individuals.  Call it what you please discrimination is still discrimination.  Islam may be taught in the classroom but the teacher can’t wish her students “Merry Christmas!”  Some freedom.

 

You have heard it said, a people get the government they deserve.  Thomas Jefferson put it well when he said, “A nation that expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects what never has been nor ever will be.”

 Comments on the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution

Senior United States District Court Judge James C. Fox, March 21, 2003 (court transcript)[3]

 

“I think that it [violation of the war powers act by both Congress and the Executive branch of the government] has occurred over a long period of time, and consequently, there is less hesitancy on the executive branch to preserve [the Constitution].  It’s just like kids who break a rule the first 200 times and, after a while they don’t care; they don’t acknowledge that the rule even exists…”

 

“If you were to go back and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th Amendment … you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment … And nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that it is part of the constitution of the United States, and I don’t think any court would ever set it aside.”

 

I leave you with this final quote from the German writer, humanist, and philosopher Goethe: “No people are so hopelessly enslaved as those who think themselves free.”

 



[1] Sources:  White House OMB 2005 Budget; 1913 Annual Commissioner’s Report.

·         1913 Corp. Income tax was an excise tax

·         1913, (Misc.) primarily alcohol, tobacco, etc.

·         Estate tax started in 1916, Gift tax in 1924

·         2005 federal revenue is 5,962 times higher than in 1913

[2]  President GW Bush’s great-grandfather was a steel magnate and contemporary of the likes of E.H. Harriman, Joseph Kennedy, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, architects of the Federal Reserve Bank.

[3]  Donald Sullivan, Jeffrey Sullivan vs. United States (to prevent the un-lawful use of American forces in Iraq in keeping with the War Powers clauses of the Constitution. 

 

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Finally, the facts about the 1992 Presidential Election

 By Melinda Pillsbury-Foster


 In 1992, George H. W. Bush, seen above top left, was trounced by a down-at-the-heels Southern Governor who into March 1992 was faltering in the polls.

Clinton began his downward trend immediately after Gennifer Flowers went public on TV about her long-term affair with Bill. Bill and Hill immediately denied the affair had taken place, this on live TV. Hillary was nominated for an Oscar. (No, but she should have been.)

Bill Clinton’s numbers began to climb in the first half of April. Donations began pouring into his campaign coffers. In late March, his campaign account had been down to $50,000.

Bill and Hillary were planning to return home to Arkansas in mid-March.  Then, their Media Consultant read a Fax which had come in. A free consultation was offered by the sender. 

The consultation was set up.

Now, you can find out how Bill and Hillary were elected and realize how much money and work went into hiding the outcome of the election in 1992 by both the GOP and Democrat Parties.

The Background – An early innovation:

What today you know as QVC and Home Shopping Channel, or “So You Think You Can Dance”, technology, was used after 1992 so people could interact with what they saw on TV.  This produces sales of lots of stuff and produces billions for them.

“So You Think You Can Dance” and a small number of other shows used the same technologies and also prospered with many times the number of viewers as traditional TV shows.  94 million phone votes, still a record, were cast by text votes, phone votes, and online votes in a three-hour period.

The price of TV advertising hinges on how many viewers the show has.   

In early 1992, a very different show was offered by fax to potential participants.  The fax arrived in the campaign offices of each of the 65 presidential candidates then running for president.  Free satellite time was offered if they participated by recording an unedited speech to a live audience, no editing allowed, nor would PhoneVoter TV Network (PVN).  The speeches were sent to 1,200 news directors across America and 20 million Americans via satellite TV.  Those watching, could also participate, calling in their agree/disagree reaction tallied on screen.

This made great TV news.  News shows are always looking to drive up their own ratings, of course.  And those hearing the candidate had the chance to respond to what the presidential candidate said. Live. How many of us would love to have that chance?  

The faxes were received, but only four candidates responded, this by phone. This was free satellite time, free advertising.  But one of the candidates pumped their consultant, the founder of PhoneVoter, Brock d’Avignon, for information on how this all worked.  That candidate was Bill, “I feel Your Pain” Clinton, using a pseudonym, Marcus.

After the stunning November Election Night, political savants scratched their heads about how Clinton beat the most popular sitting president in history; President George H. W. Bush’s popularity was at an all-time high for any president, 89% just months before. Therefore, grasping at straws, they opined, “Perot Phenomenon”.

Naturally, no one in power wanted the apple cart upset, but it had been. The cover-up began.  Real, and feverish, cooperation between Republicans and Democrats began.

On January 21, 1992, PhoneVoter TV Network had been launched by the young tech-oriented TV producer named Brock d’Avignon, who added satellite TV, telepolls with tallies, and live phone-in tallies.  Thus, American history was changed.  And this next time, 2024, no cover-up.

Visit  Phone Voter’s HomePage, which includes lots of links to the fascinating back story, of what happened in 1992 all on the PhoneVoter site!

They didn’t want you to know - but now you will!

And, starting now, Debate Tourney is ready. 

The age of the 20 clowns on the stage has ended! 

Here is what happened in 2020. 


And here are the Libertarians who carried out this astonishing move for Freedom and, most especially, the Free Market!


And their fearless leader, Brock d'Avignon!



Thursday, September 1, 2022

Picturing Miracles of Plant and Animal Life - by Arthur C. Pillsbury, 1937 A Review by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

 

By Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

Written for publication in 1937, Picturing Miracles of Plant and Animal Life, extended human vision, enlarging our scope for understanding in all directions. The book includes Pillsbury's inventions of cameras that made the world as it was into the world we know today in all areas of science and also in our general views of how we see ourselves in relationship to the natural world.

The book begins with lapse-time photography, recording the entire life cycle of plants, beginning with the delicate species of wildflowers that filled the floor of Yosemite when he first entered the Valley in 1895, still a student at Stanford University. From there, he takes you into the process of pollination and then begins to explain the steps he took before building the first microscopic motion picture camera in 1925.

From there, using his camera, he journeys into the very different world of cactus and succulents, explaining how he brings them to life before your eyes and examines the leaf, the tool that converts light to life, again using these tools.

Bread mold is also explored, its powers so elemental to all human cultures on Earth.

In 1929, as America was descending into the Depression, he invented the X-Ray Motion Picture Camera. Again, a world which the human eye could not see or understand. And in 1930 Pillsbury invented the first truly underwater motion picture camera, opening up a world still alien to human eyes.

In Chapter XI, Marine Life, he begins with, “Of all subjects for research work, the ocean contains the greatest number and forms. Hardly a drop of water but contains some form of life, many of them most beautiful and interesting.”  He goes on to describe these in beautiful prose, awakening your curiosity.

His love and awe of the natural world comes through to the reader over and over again.

In Chapter XIII, he explores the life of a fly in its natural habitats, describing this with dispassionate sympathy for the pig plagued with flies and the fly’s laying of eggs, which are, he reports, “are about twice as long as their diameter, shining white. They hatch in eight to twelve hours, depending on the temperature.”  This is the beginning of the entire life cycle, described in Crystals forming in a drop of water as the water evaporates and viewed with the compassion in just a few lines.

Then, he explains technicolor film, the varieties then just coming into the market and provides advice on using these and also what he has discovered. “One short picture I made last summer showed definitely that protoplasm does pass from one cell to another, which is still a disputed question with biologists.  Crystals forming in a drop of water as the water evaporates and viewed with polarized light as the most beautiful objects I have ever seen. All the colors of the spectrum shoot from the drop.”

After reviewing previous theories horticulture, he begins to discuss the elements which must be present for plants to achieve optimal growth. These plants were grown in water with the nutrients for optimizing needed their health always available.

The book is filled with photos from his studies and experiments from the course of his career.  You will also notice that the book precisely describes how each of these inventions was made, making it impossible for anyone to claim a patent on his work.  He referred to this as placing work in the Knowledge Commons, a different path into the future which focuses on enabling human progress over profits. 

In 1937 Pillsbury knew what we would need so desperately today. He was a man who loved humanity and wanted the best for us.     Download a free PDF of the book from 

                                                                         Biodiversity Heritage Library


                                                                                                  Extending Human Vision


                       Visit the AC Pillsbury Foundation Website at ACPillsburyfoundation.com

Monday, August 8, 2022

Thoughts to Renee Pittman Mitchell from Facebook

 




The non-initiation of force or its capability was wise. However, no distinction was made for intent in the inclusion of prohibiting mere explosives or deflectors in Space. This was sophomoric and was moronic from the asteroid defense point of view of point defense and zone defense for deflection of more solid ones.  High school sophomore students noticed his deficient thinking in 2001 of more than war. 

At the time, Admiral Cebrowski, in charge of Military Transformation, was building a global satellite & separate  Internet for controlling recon and attack “drones”.  There was never a debate about these as a provocation for war or other blowback except by Congressman Ron Paul and his son Senator Paul who called for a moratorium on their use at least until they can be technologically able to not kill 9 nearby people to every target person. Such targets should be subjected to Constitutional Article One Marque & Reprisal and privateering. Paul twice introduced a privateering resolution against Osama Bin Laden but was asked to stand down because of Bin Laden’s CIA connections; and later it was used as a challenge to Senator John McCain to be serious about going after him. 

The primary programmer of these death drones is Green Hills Software, today 2nd rate compared to auto-guided

cars by Elon Musk’s Tesla, but still has 18 of 20 carmakers using Dan O’Dowd. Autopiloted planes and palm pilot controlled autopilots of airliners were advanced or used by O’Dowd and Craig Franklin, and suspected in alliance with John Fund, and Dick Cheney on 9/11/01.  See HowTheNeoConsStoleFreedom.com

Trusting governments to protect you is foolish. Death from Above is by commission or omission is something that can be coped with by the free-market. See EarthPathDefense.com for subscription defense, and STARCO.info to collateralize the Solar System in parcels as a birthright for every human or sentient being born for the next 200 years. 

I put together the 1st A-team for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1978 because too many ICBMs and the high ground were vulnerable to fascist business-government partnerships and socialists. It’s the capitalist Volitional tool-provider that are for peace, freedom, prosperity, and non-initiation of force. When aggressors position offensive tools in Space, then you can counter them. This can be done by subscription defense using Percentage As You Earn Finance and Finansurance for the 4% that care to defend cities.  See PAYEhome.org/tool-kit for how ladies with gold pieces successfully created a 792 ship defense against the East India Tea Company  and British Royal Navy, by capturing 3,100 of them, twice. 

Everything Georgie Washington had to fight with, was captured. Others were sunk. In modern times see Frances Brake Heisler HeislerPeaceAcademy.com   promotion of genuine defense, Ronnie Reagan against MAD, General Graham of the High Frontier Foundation and his adjutant, and speechwriter Dana Rohrabacher, and myself Brock d’Avignon. 

Other ladies are concerned, see Women Leading Interactive Television Network (WLIT), as a 2-way iTV nationwide way to discuss solutions. Invite yourself and Kucinich to say hello to host/produce an iTV series. 

Thank You for recycling a good idea to pull back from war machines on high, or artificial intelligence having other ideas Colossus or SkyNet. There is no censorship and you will have to engage with all opinions. ChiComs and Putin have their own deadly agenda to thwart. We chewed up 20,000 of 40,000 warheads with the Nunn-Thompson Megatons for Megawatts Treaty in French & German reactors before Putin abrogated it in 2015 after 20 years. Half, not bad, and warheads can be placed far enough out to be useful for asteroid defense and not a threat by a hijacker. Otherwise nuclear explosives are good for mining making Humanity wealthy with Rare Earth Elements. These are all areas Kucinich did not address and could have. His governmentality as the only agenda setter was also a handicap, but at least he tried. He can try again older and wiser. 

If you’d like to lead, I will assist your efforts. Brock@Freedomi.tv


Thursday, August 4, 2022

How Clinton Won in 1992 - The Untold Story

 


No. The Founder of PhoneVoter knew Clinton had not won the election fairly, but by fooling voters. 


The Clinton Story - Stealing America




Read everything I wrote, which included PhoneVoter (PVN).  Also, look at Stealing America

The PVN site is the history of the impact of any Interactive options made available to the audience. We still do not have effective, non-censored mass 2-Way Interaction.  See the program used by PhoneVoter in 1992. The Unedited Presidential Candidate Speeches alternated every 15 minutes 16 hours a day with cumulate phone tallies.  

Here is a clip from the PhoneVoter’s  Unedited Presidential Candidate Speeches. 

It is now generally forgotten that in January of 1992, then President George H. W. Bush initiated the first CBS phone poll.   CBS contracted with ATT for 300,000 touch-tone phone telepoll calls for AGREE(1) DISAGREE (2) during the State of the Union Address on January 20, 1992. The results were to be posted live.

On January 21, 1992, Phone Voter TV Network was founded by Brock d’Avignon. He immediately saw what was possible.  In one month, he had arranged for $500,000 of satellite time, as a lost leader with Keystone Communications, Inc.  The company was number 4 for the 20 million Cu Band satellite dish receiver customers.  All 20 million could pick up their feed, if they chose.  Keystone dedicated 4 of their satellite transponders 16 hours a day.  They were advertised on “Satellite TV Weekly” and “One Sat Guide”.

Brock understood the significance of broadcasting television. The telephone routers being unable to keep up with microwave broadcast television. Therefore, to launch PVN he needed a smaller audience, cable or satellite, both on the rise.  

CBS’s exciting touch-tone voting innovation caused a massive kluge which focused attention on the out-of-date lazy monopoly  ATT wanted CBS to pay for all 29 million calls made and the damages done to their infrastructure. 

One million got through; 7 million got a busy signal; 21 Million phone callers heard their phones go dead, as 14 Bell monopoly routing systems collapsed, crashing the phone companies, these being regional and all part of the Bell System.  This was a monopoly authorized by Congress in 1936. The CBS response to ATT was, “We only contracted for 300,000 Touch-Tone responses.  We can’t help it if your out-of-date lazy monopoly can’t keep up with television that was invented 50 years ago!”

Now, everybody knew ATT was old and sloppy and not up to the new wave of technologies which had been around for 50 years.

 

Earlier History for Electronic Communications

In 1977 a young college student called Microwave Communications Incorporated (MCI). They had mobile radio telephones.  This was outside the control of the Bell monopoly.  The owner of the company had announced publicly he wanted to break up the Bell Monopoly. 

Calling MCI, the young student got through the switch board and was routed to MANs secretary.  Explaining what he was calling about, once more, the young man was put through to William McGowan CEO of Microwave Communications Inc.  

Introducing himself to McGowan, Brock d’Avignon at BYU.  “I am a communications student, and the Communications Director for the Society for Individual Liberty at BYU with 125 members. We would like to encourage you to make the fight to bust up the Bell Monopoly.”

McGowan said, “I’ve been a little bit  ambivalent about going ahead with this battle.” The young man said, “For every principle of freedom you can think of I encourage you to go ahead, whether it is couched in Constitutional terms, or not.  Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There are now 70 Federal Volumes of law books on communications, I would encourage you to go ahead  in competitive free enterprise that will create better technology than what we have now.  We will also have liberty.  If there is anything we can do to help you, please let us know.

McGowan responded, “Like I said, I was not sure I wanted to get into this fight or not, but kid, you have convinced me.  I’m going ahead. Thank you.”

The young man gave McGowan his phone number.”  McGowan said again,  “Thank you.”

In 1936 all other existing companies had been ordered to sell to Bell, this including their all their equipment, a forced liquidation.  Service suffered across the country.

The owner of one company, who developed and owned the patent to the touch-tone phone, refused to cooperate.  Determined to retain the patent the owner inventor sold off all his equipment to a company in Argentina for 10 cents on the dollar but retained ownership of the patent.  All the money the owner made was dedicated to defending his patent, which he did for the next 30 years.  After he had died in the late 1970s, his heirs sold the patent to the Western Electric System/Bell Labs/Bell (Monopoly) System, most of these in the Mid-West. 

 There had been a long train of inventions from the private sector starting with the invention of the telephone in 1876.  The Federal Communications Commission was started in 1912 at the demand of the U.S. Navy, who viewed this as essential to their military mission. The Progressives also supported the establishment of the FCC.  

After the end of WWII innovations resulting from advances in technology were introduced from small companies entering the growing market for phone and other communication services if they could persuade the Federal Communications Commission the company would be serving a new or underserved market.  

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Break Your Chains

 


by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

Worried about inflation?  Stockpiling food?  If so, you have lots of company.   Interested in ensuring  you and your family are safe?  

While pondering the question, remember all problems have causes. This article takes you to the real causes, the ones no one mentioned, no matter how long you were in school or how many degrees you earned.  Here, we show you the enormous  over-riding problem everyone ignored.  You know about foreclosure, repossession, and more ominous terms; there are 47 of these.  You have seen what can happen in your own communities.  All of these are forms of Debt-Bondage, the inability to pay your debts.  Today,  81% of us have erratic incomes, which is a big part of the problem.  If you don’t know how much you will have to spend, how can you depend on anything?

As Dr. Milton Friedman said, "If the only thing Certain in business, is Uncertainty, then we must base our fiscal systems on Uncertainty." 

Uncertainty – Scary thought.  Milton knew it was the source of dramatic swings in our economy; he did not know what to do about it until 1976 when an enthusiastic young man called him, providing the solution based in part on one paragraph from Friedman’s bookCapitalism and Freedom”.

If the young man had not taken 30 years to exhaustively confirm his own idea, we would not now be facing an economic meltdown of monumental proportions.  The good news is this; a sustainable economy is possible for all of us, and he is sorry about that.  Better late than never.  The book will be out soon, titled, Human Investments (HI)

The problem exists around the world in such seemingly different places as Carbon County, UT, USA and Kolhi Villages, Sindh, Pakistan, two communities joined in scary uncertainty.  

Very different in many ways, these two places have a lot of history in common: each needs solutions to put things right.  Life grows increasingly hard for the families in Kolhi Villages and life in East Carbon has been economically challenging since the coal mines closed.

Both areas have historically been plagued by Debt Bondage.

Our Towns, the 2-Way InterActivist TV show series, focusing on East Carbon, UT and Kolhi Villages, Pakistan, each encountered this problems at different times in their histories.  Debt Bondage is an ancient, and current form of slavery.  Kolhi has always had subsistence farmers in their past and still, today; few now exist in Carbon County.  These died off or turned to different ways to make a living.

Tom McCourt, a Carbon County native, noted this in his book, “The Split Sky”, his narrative of life from the time he was 16 and working for the summer on the Nutter Ranch in Utah’s Nine-Mile Canyon,  included the problems faced by small farmers, driven to work for others to maintain their spreads.   

The incomes of small farmers remain erratic today; big operations evade the impact of erratic incomes, explaining the corporatization of food production and the reasons family farms have been disappearing.  Only smaller farms or employees face the harsh reality of not being able to pay their debts; this is known across time and throughout human cultures as Debt Bondage.  As McCourt noticed, small farmers and ranchers were forced to work on larger commercial operations to pay their expenses or obtain seed money, tools or needed food. 

For miners, Debt Bondage was also being limited to a company store and having no other options for feeding their families.  In a similar scenario, early Carbon County miners working for themselves was displaced as miners were forced to accept an hourly paycheck, greatly reducing their pay. 

Subsistence farming, with its erratic nature, depending on the weather and other factors, made people vulnerable to having their labor taken out of their control, a form of slavery.  

The mining companies realized they could squeeze out more profits by starting company stores and housing in remote locations, making miners dependent on the company for credit.  This resulted first in objections, and then in union organizing.  People died violent deaths struggling for economic survival when they sang uncheerfully, I owe my soul to the company store.

For Carbon County further education for careers in other fields largely alleviated the problem in its original form.   Former miners found other professions.

The problem is far older for Kolhi Villages by thousands of years.  The mothers and grandmothers are still making patterns found in the archaeological digs close by.  The lack of any educational resource has largely left them with no exit until now that education is becoming a possibility.  

Slavery is a gradient with  multiple forms, controlling the lives of people. Debt Bondage is one of the steps of control that imposes a valuation on life, and the time of individual whose choices are  gravely limited because erratic an incomes leaves them vulnerable to manipulation.  Having an accident, death, the vagaries of weather, the demand for coal, and more are hazards which can force an individual to cede control over their time and choices. 

Debt Bondage and Slavery, only two of the forms this strategy takes, depend on impelling or compelling terms on one party by another in a quasi-contract which gives the weight of the benefit to the more powerful party requiring a Lump Sum and or Rigid Installment Payments.  One party takes the risk: the other the benefits, pushing those struggling ever closer to disaster.  

Reprise:  Remember what Milton said earlier?  "If the only thing Certain in business, is Uncertainty, then we must base our fiscal systems on Uncertainty."   

Debt Bondage and Slavery - A Long History

As you see at the link, the fathers of the students already attending Kolhi School and those who want to attend, have been working hard to build the school with materials locally available, most of this free, with only their unpaid labor added for the shell of the building.   

Their leader in this is a local man who got an education.  Leela Ran Kolhi holds both a bachelor’s degree in Commerce and is finishing his Master’s in Sociology.  Leela’s father, himself a rice farmer, donated the land for Kolhi School which will be the only school of any kind for 75 miles in any direction.  Children attending now are walking as far as 5 miles to get there.

Most of the families with children attending Kolhi School are subsistence farmers. and societies in transition from early, subsistence farming are extremely vulnerable to manipulation by those using debt as a tool to own people and their labor. Many have struggled with debt bondage for generations.

In Carbon County, which includes East Carbon, schooling for children has been available since at least 1900.  Carbon County’s population, growing rapidly over a century ago, was diverse, many people coming from southern Europe for jobs and opportunity.  The many of the descendants of those original pioneers remain here. Most of their ancestors were literate in their own languages as soon learned to speak English as well. 

However, schooling has never been available, or affordable, for the families in Kolhi Villages.  Until now, and they are making this happen themselves.  

Education makes an enormous difference, providing alternatives – but all of us, no matter how much education we acquire, are vulnerable to Debt Bondage.  Remember all the tuition loans out there.  Those are creating a new, modern form of  Debt Bondage.

Debt Bondage is recorded first in ancient Mesopotamia, cited in "DEBT:  The First 5,000 Years"  by David Graeber.   Graeber goes on to cite passages in the Bible which appear to refer to the practice, citing the words, 'padah' and 'goal' both, Graeber says, referring to redemption, buying back something being held by another party. The practice included not only pledging property for a debt but pledging relatives, wives, children, and others, as part time or full-time labor property then controlled by the holder of the debt. 

Graeber includes on page 81 of his book a quote from Nehemiah, Chapter 5, 3-7, which was written during the years of Persian dominance.

               "Some also there were that said, "We have mortgaged our lands,

         vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth."

             There were also those that said, "We have borrowed money for the king's             

        tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards.

             "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children:  and, lo,

        we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters 

       are brought into bondage already; neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have

       our lands and vineyards."

             And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words.

            Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them,

       "Ye exact usury, every one of his brother," And I set a great assembly against them.​"

 David Graeber's specific area of inquiry was not economics, but anthropology. He was a socialist, having failed to thoroughly research American history from colonial times to the early 20th Century. He notices and comments on the appearance of “elites", always denoted by their wealth and power, ignoring the use of the economic tool that has caused erratic incomes during his own lifetime.  This trend began in the early 20th Century when  America's economy was put under the control of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. 

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild  

There is much bickering over who said what when.  But the phrase would more honestly have been, "let me dictate the terms for payment and nothing else will matter."

Does ideology matter?  Not much. 

Remember the quote from Dr. Friedman? "If the only thing Certain in business, is Uncertainty, then we must base our fiscal systems on Uncertainty." 

Dr. Friedman waited patiently for the young man to write his book.  Writing the book is a highly regarded act in economics as originality is for inventions.  Many people in a short period of time invented the light bulb.  But only one patent was issued.   Economists operate in much the same way.  An ethical economist, Dr. Friedman did not publish on the young man's insights as this would have violated his principles.  

Dr. Friedman had  entirely overlooked that it was the tool for charging which entirely altered America’s economy, converting 85% of people from small businesspeople to the 85% of us who are employees today. 

One tiny easily overlooked economic tool did this to us. 

This is the Rigid Installment Payment (RIP).  Its use today in America is standard for nearly all larger purchases and for credit cards. 

The adoption of the Federal Reserve System was a carefully orchestrated action which achieved the conditions needed to control America's economy and so direct unearned  benefits, taken directly from people facing the hazard of erratic incomes.  The predatory use of Rigid Installment Payments (RIP) and strip of equity. RIP & Strip is the most accurate description of RIP.  You can make regular payments on a house for 29 years and 11 months and lose it because of one missed payment.  Ensuring that the well-understood nature of human life was ignored dictated the use of RIPs. 

The rise of an elite class in America was in place through government soon after the American Revolution was won. This became obvious with  the publication of Leonard R. Richard's book, "Shays' Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle", published in 2003. 

 A policy for balancing debts from the Revolution proposed by Alexander Hamilton, was adopted and transferred wealth from those who earned it and had erratic incomes to the period's elites.   This economically destroy veterans and working farmers in western Massachusetts and other states.  The new governments even refused to accept the script for taxes, again benefiting speculators who were buying up the script from desperate veterans at ten cents on the dollar. 

The lies told by government were uncovered when the local historical societies went through the records of court actions, providing this data to Leonard L. Richards, a professor and local resident.  Richards correlated these records with those for military service.  Professor Richards had not expected this; a history professor based in Amherst; Massachusetts Professor Richards realized the facts had been intentionally concealed.  Veterans who had returned home from the war to farm found themselves unable to use the script given to them for their military service, even to pay the high taxes on their farms being exacted by the government under constitutions not necessarily voted in by more rural, distant counties.  

 How Graeber missed these facts is a question which cannot be answered. Graeber died suddenly, from necrotic pancreatitis, on September 2, 2020, while on vacation with his wife and friends in Venice, Italy.

 Graeber notes these factors across thousands of years and with most cultures but does not study the economics of voluntary exchange and tool providers as lenders of stockholders.  

 This also concealed facts which were widely understood in the 1930s to late in the 20th Century.   These facts had been published through the American Economic Foundation in a book for adults and children titled, "How We Live".  It is obvious that ignoring uncertainty is a critical factor, strongly associated with the rise of a limited class of 'elites' who oppose the use of an economic tool that eliminates the problem of erratic incomes, also in use widely across time and in many cultures. 

 Today, Debt Bondage also includes home and car loans along with 45 other forms for payment. All of these have the same impact; to take the property of people who are vulnerable to the impact of changed conditions and life events which produce an erratic income for a time. 

 The solution is the charging tool that turned American immigrates into business owners from the Colonial Period, 1620, until 1913.  This economic tool was used to solve a problem for the Merchant-Adventurers who had acquired lands in the New World but had no way to profit from this.  Those are the colonies you might have heard about briefly in school.  At the bottom of this article see the Power Point which explains the this.  

 Casting about for a solution to their problem, the Merchant-Adventurers realized many discontented English, French and Dutch wanted to leave where they were.  These canny and desperate landowners began making loans to those seeking new places to live and start businesses.  Loans included transport to the Colonies, tools for the trade they would take up, and a year's income to get started.

 The original terms were 7% of what the borrower earned for seven years.  There were no recorded defaults.  Every loan we could find was repaid. 

 The young man discovered this first in the BYU Library, where he cut the pages in never read books of Lading that recorded the shipments back to England and the transfers of payments.  The list of respected experts, many of them economists, is HERE.

 This is the source of the American prosperity we once knew.  85% of Americans for these three centuries were small businesspeople. Erratic incomes were never a problem.  

 This is the solution; popular demand and the resulting transition for finansuring major purchases will result in a rapid transition.  Investors today are also worried about the impact of the economy by their investments.  Since PAYE is both inflation-proof and deflation-proof, ideal for long-term contracts fair to both borrowers and lenders.  

Visit PAYEhome.org

See Power Point