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When the Constitution of the United States of America was written, the "people" meant White, Male, Protestant, Landowners. Women only had the rights the men in their lives granted them. The native people were considered savages to be exterminated, and the black slaves were considered 3/5ths of a person. In the meantime, considerable progress has been made so that most of us believe that We, the People, means all the people. However, it is obvious that somehow the White, Male, Protestants who are wealthy still have the power to shape the society so that it overwhelmingly and unjustly benefits them. The Massachusetts Republic is creating a new society based on “We, the People” meaning all the people. We intend to listen to - so as to hear, every individual in our community. With everyone, we then intend to build a community of communities that is responsible to the communities it represents. The implementation of this bottom-up organizational structure is explained on this website.

Thomas Jefferson describes the Ward Republic as the idea nearest to his heart. The Ward Republic is a pure expression of how the people may govern themselves and so it is a prime resource for our Republic in realizing our aims. Overview: Our Motto: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller We have a republican form of government that is based on the people governing themselves and basing their governance on: The Common Law of Do no Harm, Gods Law, Natural Law, Maxims of Law, Law of Nations. The people govern themselves to secure their unalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, which includes property. How do we do that? What is necessary for the people to be able to govern themselves? First is an agreed upon purpose, mission, or aim. Second is a commitment to being honorable: To be honorable is to be kind, genuine, and compassionate without expecting a reward for your behavior. Third is a commitment to hearing from everyone and respecting the differences. The similarities draw us together but respecting the differences make us a community. Fourth is a commitment to using a rational argument to express our views. A rational argument appeals to the sensibility of others and invites engagement. Fifth is a commitment to treating objections as opportunities to improve a project or policy, and for any decisions and action plans, setting the criteria for evaluating them and the time-frame when they will be evaluated. Sixth is consenting to the project or policy as "good enough for now" and "safe enough to try". 40 years after the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said: “The infancy of the subject at that moment, and our inexperience of self-government, occasioned gross departures in that draught from genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we imagined every thing republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principle in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.” "The organization of our county administrations may be thought more difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself. Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each, a constable, a military company, a patrol, a school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the public roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in some court, and the delivery, within their own wards, of their own votes for all elective officers of higher sphere, will relieve the county administration of nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution. The justices thus chosen by every ward, would constitute the county court, would do its judiciary business, direct roads and bridges, levy county and poor rates, and administer all the matters of common interest to the whole county. These wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation. We should thus marshal our government into, 1. The general federal republic, for all concerns foreign and federal; 2. That of the State, for what relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3. The county republics, for the duties and concerns of the county; and, 4. The ward republics, for the small, and yet numerous and interesting concerns of the neighborhood: and in government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division and sub-division of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of the public affairs." The concept of the Ward Republic was inspired by the traditional practice in England and other feudal European countries to organize people below the county level into what were called "hundreds ", that is, a geographic group of a few hundred individuals and their families. That concept goes back to a similar practice among the ancient Hebrews of organizing themselves for military purposes, and form a militia unit for each such group.[2] Although intended for feudal administration and defense, hundreds also tended to cooperate in performing other functions of government. Jefferson presented the idea in a letter to Samuel Kercheval in July, 1816. "The true foundation of republican government," Jefferson wrote, "is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property, and in their management." [3] Kercheval of Winchester, Virginia had been trying to organize a convention to write a new state constitution, and sought the support of Jefferson, who had been trying since 1776 to get Virginia to adopt a new constitution. In that letter, Jefferson outlined the need for "ward republics," small units of local government, within Virginia's existing counties, which he thought were too large for direct participation of all the voters. He proposed to divide the counties into "wards of such size as that every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person … will relieve the county administration of nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution." [4] Jefferson proposed that such ward republics, among their other functions, should select jurors, so that these units of local government would act as a restraint on the judicial as well as the legislative and executive branches of government. One of the functions to be performed by such wards was public education. Jefferson's 1779 Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge was never passed in the form he proposed. Virginia did not set up a system of mandatory common schools until well into the nineteenth century. However, the concepts it contained persisted and he continued to campaign for public education as the safeguard of republican citizenship.[5] Jefferson's Bill proposed that each county would be divided into "hundreds … so as that they may contain a convenient number of children to make up a school, and be of such convenient size that all the children within each hundred may daily attend the school to be established therein". Jefferson's deliberate use of the term "hundreds" echoes the Anglo-Saxon term for such a political sub-division. He and many of his contemporaries believed that English and American liberties were rooted in Anglo-Saxon political life. These "hundreds" are the origins of Jefferson's later conception of "ward republics," political units so small that "every citizen, can attend, when called on, and act in person".[3] The school system was envisioned as tiered, from primary to secondary to college, so that the ward republics were to be the smallest, most intimate parts of political life and the basis for state republics and the national republic.[6] Footnotes are forthcoming.

INVITATION TO JOIN THE UNITY TEAM IN CREATING THE IDEAL UNIVERSAL SOCIETY, A SOCIETY TO BENEFIT EVERYONE! The Unity Team meets on Sunday Evenings at 7 PM Eastern on Zoom www.zoom.us/j/4133293200 Please join us, you are most welcome. What does the Ideal Universal Society look like? Would you like to participate in co-creating a society that benefits everyone? Do we, the people, have a similar imagination of the ideal society? Is what we desire for ourselves also what we desire for our family, our friends, our colleagues, the people in our town or city, County, State and Nation, even the whole world? Do our answers indicate that perhaps it is worth pursuing the idea that it would be fruitful to imagine the ideal together? The Unity team proposes that we think about the ideal universal society in terms of three ideals, namely Freedom, Justice, and Collaborative Community. Freedom: Do we desire to be free, at liberty, to pursue our calling in life, what we desire our life to count for, our life’s purpose and mission in the way that inspired us and we see fit, with the opportunity to develop mastery in doing it? Justice: Do we desire to pursue our mission in a society that we feel is just, that honors virtue and talent, and remedies harms? Collaborative Community: Would we like to be cooperating voluntarily as inspired with other people to provide the necessities and luxuries of life in a fair and sustainable manner? The Unity team proposes that the three ideals of Freedom, Justice, and Collaborative Community belong in the three domains of Culture, Governance, and Economics . Culture consists of the realms: - Science (the seeking of truth) - Art (the creation of beauty) - Education/Spirituality/Religion (the values and ideals of goodness out of which we live). Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are what we all strive for. Governance encompasses the Legislative (Funding), Executive (Implementation), and Judicial (Justice) functions. Economics involves managing our resources to address our needs and desires. This encompasses production, distribution, and consumption. This is the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Order. “Threefolding” coordinates the ideals of Freedom, Justice, and Cooperation into domains, namely Culture, Governance, and Economics, believed to be appropriate to each ideal so that they cooperate. Otherwise, these ideals could create confusion and conflict, whereas freedom could adversely affect equality, justice could adversely affect freedom, and no one necessarily cooperates to manage our resources for the good of all. Consider how our current paradigm distorts the ideals of Freedom in the domain of Culture, Justice/Equivalence in the domain of Governance, and Community/Collaboration in the domain of Economics. Instead of our culture being free, it is unduly influenced by special interests and government influences and controls. Instead of a government of, by, and for “we, the people” based on our common sense of justice, it is a corporatocracy, bought and controlled by special interests; whoever has the money rules. Instead of our economic system being cooperative and collaborative so as to responsibly manage our resources for the benefit of all, it is based on competition; a profit motive that tends to externalize costs onto the society and the environment; rampant consumerism; usury; and corruption. Freedom, Justice, Community – Are these the ideals that we desire for ourselves and everyone else? Are these the ideals that we would like to inform the society that we live in? Would we like to be able to honestly say: “My community is as it should be and I am doing my part to make it so”? Rudolf Steiner put it very well: “A healthy social life is found only when, in the mirror of each soul, the whole community finds itself reflected, and when, in the whole community, the virtue of each one is living.” How about: “The ideal universal society is one in which the individual honors and is inspired by the community, and the community honors and is inspired by the individual”. What are your ideals? We would like you to share this with us in the Sharing Seminar we are planning. Please join us on Zoom on Sunday Evenings, When thinking about your ideals, where in each of the three domains of Culture, Governance, or Economics would you place them? Freedom is an unalienable right. It is not created by government, but exists anterior to it. Governments are created to secure our unalienable rights, as declared in the promise of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Should society be organized to protect our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, along with all our other unenumerated rights, as long as we do no harm? Should the means we use to protect our rights assure they are respected? If our lives are to be secure in pursuing Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, what of the money we need to live? What if we do not have to earn the money we need to live? Will we be at Liberty to Pursue Happiness? Is succeeding with our life’s purpose what reliably makes us happy? Is the problem in the money? Is the source of our societal problems the money? Does the necessity to earn our living distort our human nature? Do the problems of society stem from not understanding the nature of money and silently consenting to having to “earn our living” by doing what someone who has money wants us to do, the way they want us to do it, when they want us to do it, for the amount of money we have to accept? Is having to “earn” one’s living a form of coercion we do not immediately recognize? What if we did not have to earn our living? What if we voluntarily brought our interests, talents, and capacities to bear in accomplishing our calling and contributing to society? What if we, the people, learned how to issue the money for what we agree would be good? Money and Rights What if we distributed the money supply in an equitable fashion to secure our right to Life? If we have an unearned income sufficient for each of us to live at a reasonable standard of living, would we be at Liberty to Pursue the Happiness that comes from succeeding with our life’s purpose? What if there were no compulsion to spend our time and energy doing what someone who has money wants us to do, the way they want us to do it, when they want us to do it, just because we need the money to live? If we have a right to the money we need to live, and we have a right to the capital our capacities warrant, would everything we do be a voluntary, freely undertaken initiative to express our love for and contribute to our family, our community, and our fellow human beings throughout the world? Could Life be truly satisfying and could we live in a just and sustainable abundance? Ideal Universal Society What if we cooperate and collaborate together to create a Common Good Community that could decide to give everyone the money we need to live as our right to the equitable distribution of the wealth we all create together, and access to the capital our capacities warrant so that we may: - pursue our transcendent purpose - bring our service and contribution to expression - make a meaningful difference in our communities and the world - create the conditions wherein we desire to live; the society to benefit everyone; The World We Know In Our Hearts Is Possible; a free, peaceful, healthy, just, collaborative, life-empowering, and regenerative world where we all thrive?! What of Community-Created Credit? What of the Common Good payment system? Would you like to research and share your findings about how we might govern ourselves and how we might decide together what is good; what will contribute to an ideal universal society? How shall we ensure consent-based self-governance? What of Dynamic Governance/Sociocracy ? What of the Jeffersonian Ward Republic ? What shall our values, principles, and standards be? Check out the MassachusettsRepublic.org website for some insight into what the Unity Team has come up with so far. How shall we foster harmonious relations, address grievances, and adjudicate harm? What of: Non-violent communication at sociocracyforall.org , here , and here Proposed Grievance Process Restorative Justice and here What would happen if we, the people, reclaim our right to consent-based self-governance and the right to issue the money for what we agree would be good? Would we co-create and fund the world we know in our hearts is possible, the ideal universal society? What does the ideal universal society look like to you? Please share with us on Sundays at 7 PM on Zoom! I would like to join the introductory meeting on Zoom. Please email or call me with the details. 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CONTACT John G Root Jr: Alternate Delegate to the Nations of the Republic johngrootjr@gmail.com and (413) 329-3200 for questions about the website content (nature of money in particular), the Republick, and the Massachusetts Republic. Brad Herrick: Delegate to the Nations of the Republic bherrick57@gmail.com or text (508) 583-5523 for questions about the Replik and the Republick. Margaret Arndt: Scribe for the Massachusetts Republic msarndt@verizon.net and (617) 244-1966 for questions about the Massachusetts Republic. Joe (Grok) Boyer: Community Builder for the Massachusetts Republic GrokBoyer@gmail.com or text (978) 648-0420. If you have questions or suggestions or would like to join us, please use this form or email one of the above people. Success! Message received. Send

Union Education calls are on the first and third Thursdays: on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/4133293200. Ask MSArndt@verizon.net to put you on the list to receive notices of upcoming calls and events. Scroll down to find the links to Union Call Recordings. The American Voice Website is at www.theAmericanVoice.org INVITATION TO A UNION OF WE, THE PEOPLE AT LARGE The purpose of a union of we, the people at large, is to revendicate the promise of the Declaration of Independence (without ambiguities). Guided by the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, we are divinely inspired to create life-empowering consent-based self-governing communities that assure liberty, justice, and abundance for all. The following questions may help you determine your interest in learning more, and joining us! 1. Do I agree with the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain “unalienable Rights”, among these are “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”? 2. Do I agree that primary functions of government include: securing, protecting, and defending our unalienable rights ensuring “do no harm” being lawful and ensuring justice? 3. Do I agree that the existing government is not aligned with the intentions of freedom, equality, and justice established by the founders of the U.S.A.? 4. Do I agree that the existing model of government is becoming obsolete and that the existing course of human events needs to be dramatically changed? 5. Do I agree that the first paragraph of the 1776 Declaration of Independence provides a remedy for the existing course of human events as follows? When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people (1) to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and (2) to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should (3) declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 6. Do I agree that there is a need to create a new model for a better world? 7. Do I agree with the following motto in creating a better world? “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - R. Buckminster Fuller 8. Do I agree that we, the people at large, should be engaging in life-empowering self-governing communities based on our ongoing active consent. The highlighted text below is outdated. Currently the calls are on Zoom on the first and third Thursday evenings at 8:30 Eastern Time The zoom is: https://zoom.us/j/4133293200. To receive notices about the calls, send an email to MSArndt@verizon.net and ask to be put on the email list for the Brad and Bill conference calls. Outdated: If you answered “yes” to the above questions, you may be interested in learning more. Union Education calls are Thursdays at 8:30 pm est (and some Sundays at 7:45 pm est). Details are: (667) 770-1297 Access Code: 811378# *** Replay: (667) 770-1318 Access Code: 811378#. Call Brad Herrick to get the current schedule: (508) 583-5523 On your phone click on this and it will dial for you: 667-770-1297,,811378 Union Call Recordings: http://theamericanvoice.org/union-call-recordings.html The Massachusetts Republic is temporarily hosting the Union Documents and recordings here: MassachusettsRepublic.org The conference we are hosting is also available at the Seminar tab on this Massachusetts Republic website. To learn even more and join the seminar we are hosting go to www.justabundance.org or www.selfgoverningcommunities.org (if it is not live it is undergoing an update) Feel free to forward this to those you believe would be interested. Declaration of Independence, a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum .) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [ now the International Banking Cartel and the BAR Association] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. [ Here, in the original, are three pages of grievances. Among our grievances are the Federal Reserve System, the usurpation of Common Law by the UCC, the Deep State and the American Empire, debt and wage slavery, loss of basic rights, no redress of grievances, monopolies, the technocratic transhumanist totalitarian tiptoe -- basically, business as usual by the powers that be! ] We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown [Banking Cartel], and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain [the powers that be], is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. Signed by the delegates from the 13 Colonies assembled in the Continental Congress **************************** Most of the documentation for a Union of we the people at large is in Google Docs that the Unity Team is working on. The following links will take you to the Google Doc described: Overview of a Union of We, the People at Large Republic Members Survey This is a work in progress, chime in if you feel inclined. Revendicating the Declaration of Independence. The Longer Version Call Recordings not yet on the American Voice website. http://theamericanvoice.org/union-call-recordings.html Sunday Union Call 09-12-21 - Roles in the Jural Assemblies https://fccdl.in/KHskmxOAoU Wednesday Union Call 09-15-21 https://fccdl.in/xGg7V3dytj Sunday Union Call 09-19-21 - The need to establish a Common Law court https://fccdl.in/j2MFONq2iv Wednesday Union Call 09-22-21 https://fccdl.in/LI9FGMTK0G Sunday Union Call 09-26-21 - Consent based decision making https://fccdl.in/O4oCi2EQfB Wednesday Union Call 09-29-21 https://fccdl.in/Efk4x33WJd Sunday Union Call 10-03-21 - The responsibility of the jural assembly to issue the currency as the primary tool of the sovereign to fund what we want. What shall Jural Assemblies issue money for? https://fccdl.in/Z5GrL9YbFw Wednesday Union Call 10-06-21 https://fccdl.in/9YTDp08cut Wednesday Union Call 10/13/2021 https://fccdl.in/gEb0GPJkiB Wednesday Union Call 10/20/2021 https://fccdl.in/lSHebSEc0g Wednesday Union Call 10-27-21 https://fccdl.in/noXW1EfgVv Wednesday Union Call 11-03-21 https://fccdl.in/3IcdDKdfL1 Wednesday Union Call 11-10-21 https://fccdl.in/95Qd7s3a4B Wednesday Union Call 11-17-21 https://fccdl.in/lC93iG8TEk Wednesday Union Call 12-01-21 https://fccdl.in/1urPKmt5iY Sunday Union Call 12-05-21 - Market money as self or market created credit in creating a high and abundant culture. https://fccdl.in/bHzJrvkzLY Wednesday Union Call 12-08-21 https://fccdl.in/aOKhkjDOJn Sunday Union Call 12-19-21 - The transition from the Middle Ages to the Age of Discovery; how the goldsmiths became bankers Wednesday Union Call 12-29-21 https://fccdl.in/horTuSsCWM Wednesday Union Call 01-05-2022 https://fccdl.in/f1zEtNAzsa Wednesday Union Call 01-12-2022 https://fccdl.in/k2IgI1FxbY Wednesday Union Call 01-19-2022 https://fccdl.in/haXeUJnoUs Wednesday Union Call 01-26-2022 https://fccdl.in/VdpDQjJtvM Wednesday Union Call 02-02-2022 https://fccdl.in/Zzq9WsXgFN Wednesday Union Call 02-09-2022 https://fccdl.in/AYr0s4rykR Wednesday Union Call 02-16-2022 https://fccdl.in/YBpEpfkfHd Wednesday Union Call 02-23-2022 https://fccdl.in/SC950M7no5 Wednesday Union Call 03-02-2022 https://fccdl.in/3fOqOAIH3e Wednesday Union Call 03-09-2022 https://fccdl.in/vOM8PAXfl5 Wednesday Union Call 03-16-2022 https://fccdl.in/1AqTWnmQgs Wednesday Union Call 03-23-2022 https://fccdl.in/HZJiusDKgk Wednesday Union Call 03-30-2022 https://fccdl.in/CHkKYIvsj0 Wednesday Union Call 04-13-2022 https://fccdl.in/QcmaKfGx6u Wednesday Union Call 04-20-2022 https://fccdl.in/QWdNimlss7 Wednesday Union Call 04-27-2022 https://fccdl.in/rgzgwjBSRk Wednesday Union Call 05-04-2022 https://fccdl.in/0u1T5TliTF Wednesday Union Call 05-11-2022 https://fccdl.in/m31Yupzgt3 Wednesday Union Call 05-18-2022 https://fccdl.in/79NHozI9jk Wednesday Union Call 05/25/2022 https://fccdl.in/onV7H3eCHw Wednesday Union Call 06/01/2022 https://fccdl.in/N9mOvxj3vm Wednesday Union Call 06-08-2022 https://fccdl.in/nKC19sRyEX Wednesday Union Call 06-15-2022 https://fccdl.in/AOLEuxUGNc Wednesday Union Call 06-22-2022 https://fccdl.in/maQIZ9PjQb Wednesday Union Call 06-29-2022 https://fccdl.in/qkG0VCO5Wz Wednesday Union Call 07-06-2022 https://fccdl.in/1pVT2dc5ec Wednesday Union Call 07-13-2022 https://fccdl.in/k0FveeORPO Wednesday Union Call 07-20-2022 https://fccdl.in/jCVzcmgpnP Wednesday Union Call 07-27-2022 https://fccdl.in/L76sjrzCFy Wednesday Union Call 08-03-2022 https://fccdl.in/7nXlkJeKQs Wednesday Union Call 08-10-2022 https://fccdl.in/brLgRNj6jU Wednesday Union Call 08-17-2022 https://fccdl.in/tnTJvXNvZj Wednesday 08-31-2022 Conference Recording Ref #77 09-28-2022 https://fccdl.in/WjXIQ8DTRc 10-05-2022 https://fccdl.in/abS07v51cb 10-12-2022 https://fccdl.in/VDB3TR6CA6 10-19-2022 https://fccdl.in/X7TOAp7ymn 10-26-2022 https://fccdl.in/vlKTJPuWA3 11-02-2022 https://fccdl.in/dftffEL8bB 11-09-2022 https://fccdl.in/vNqUFjZAgv 11-16-2022 (Last Call for now.) https://fccdl.in/NTm2bzlkRY Begin the monthly series 02-15-2023 https://fccdl.in/eVkVZQbmkt 03-01-2023 https://fccdl.in/5EkBgqI14l 04-12-2023 https://fccdl.in/GsWPrEu6bd 04-19-2023 https://fccdl.in/2VeY5jaYi0 and link to State Consititutions right to change form of government https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I2fnWQUAvUwDHc3Fvdbe9Heozn5GihfxUvXpm61NVe4/edit?usp=sharing 04-26-2023 https://fccdl.in/M7oLOzvDKa 05-03-2023 https://fccdl.in/be7jaIYlKE 05-10-2023 https://fccdl.in/mCne7tSuBa 05-17-2023 https://fccdl.in/GXYnWPqmL7 05-24-2023 https://fccdl.in/FP4ECiRcqz 05-31-2023 https://fccdl.in/qSt9pCIFvz 06-07-2023 https://fccdl.in/42g6C885G5 07-05-2023 https://fccdl.in/K6OI7pg45G 08-02-2023 https://fccdl.in/mhlwgFkEUj 09-06-2023 https://fccdl.in/E606Y4YfLJ 10-04-2023 #103 https://fccdl.in/NWDRxomOJQ 11-01-2023 https://fccdl.in/FWVsBI6Kt6 12-06-2023 #105 https://fccdl.in/K3HW20CIFu 01-03-2024 #106 https://fccdl.in/bSvkvGg6Fw 01-24-2024 #106 https://fccdl.in/rua9fMGygr 04-18-2024 https://fccdl.in/Q7R3IOuovQ 05-02-2024 https://fccdl.in/HhsZ2QwZHV 06-06-2024 #115 https://fccdl.in/UGGbDUEBla 06-20-2024 https://fccdl.in/Sa9otZPFRT 07-11-2024 #117 https://fccdl.in/Fc5eov7fOD 07-18-2024 #118 https://fccdl.in/eIMSqfYP6l 08-01-2024 #119 https://fccdl.in/wl1WUvH3ss 08-15-2024 #120 https://fccdl.in/snXpJCFRKU 09-05-2024 #121 https://fccdl.in/ncNfiFI8uR 09-19-2024 #122 https://fccdl.in/RQQ7DOmDV6 Feb 6 2025 Brad & Bill https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q4G74dLLA2JQJP6wTVRZMW_H_hJeXnkp/view?usp=sharing Brad and Bill Feb 20 2025 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DeOmHb3yyAfTPyZS7qZG-HVQJRhAJbik/view?usp=sharing Brad and John Mar 6 2025. audio, video, chat https://drive.google.com/file/d/17D6x5yBs4mKsY7XsD-8e_XhrSxvWewq1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HSCv0cRaQryX4fKz-GPASY00syaCI8vL/view?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1usy4xHkqNP3cbDoMTmcVmeWMNY-GWX2g222GUrEdayE/edit?usp=sharing We forgot to redord the call on Thursday March 20th. April 3rd, 25 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k-kSkMpgUXcDOkbAIU1176bryrV8BtPv Brad not Bill April 17 25. The call is on my google drive search for April 17 to find it. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XNxnL9zfsOnpchtKGdOEzFZLEwb67niB Thursday May 1 25 with Will Baker. Search for May 1 25 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XNxnL9zfsOnpchtKGdOEzFZLEwb67niB Thursday, May 15 '25 with John on Solomons Gold, and CBDC https://drive.google.com/file/d/1So4eqwa1Km1bM1HEHxb-FHfrtYYVZMQp/view?usp=sharing Thursday June 5 '25 John on Common Good and a Village https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XNxnL9zfsOnpchtKGdOEzFZLEwb67niB Thursday, June 19 '25 Unioni Call with Brad and Bill https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/KtbxLwgpqfmPzZJBWxvCbdkkvmdWmbCPmL?projector=1 UnionCall Jul 17 '25

To see this working, head to your live site. All Posts My Posts Forum Welcome! Have a look around and join the discussions. Sort by: Recent Activity Follow All Categories Create New Post Comments Views Recent Activity Item option menu Great website! An inspiration for other Nation states. Tara Nova 41 0 Aug 21, 2022 I need you to try this out. John G Root Jr MA 2nd Delegate 54 0 Aug 16, 2022 Get Started with Your Forum John G Root Jr MA 2nd Delegate 46 0 Jul 27, 2022 Are you willing to test the website? John G Root Jr MA 2nd Delegate 44 0 Jul 05, 2022 Forum - Frameless

The best Community-Created Credit system is the Common Good Payment System, which creates Common Good Communities that decide together what to issue and allocate money for and how to manage the money supply. Check it out at www.CommonGood.earth

Educational Materials This is where you will find educational materials that will help you understand the background to the united states of America Republick . There are lessons about the Private vs the Public at http://nationsoftherepublic.freeforums.net/ and also in the Gallery In order to create the world we know in our hearts is possible, we must know who we are as sovereign individuals and how to relate to each other as sovereign individuals. As sovereign individuals, we can join together and co-create the world we know in our hearts is possible. THE PROBLEM The Corporate Deception The rationale for the corporation is that it limits the liability of the individuals owning or managing it, thus insulating them from the full consequences of their decisions. Ownership can be easily transferred, capital can be raised by selling stock, and the corporation has perpetual life. These advantages are also the reason that the mega corporations and the too big to fail banks are causing the fourth major extinction event. With profit for its owners as its bottom line, the corporation justifies sociopathic, psychopathic, and ecocidal decisions for which those responsible are not liable. As a matter of background, the first corporations that began the corporate hegemony were chartered by Kings for conquest. For example, King Charles II gave colonial charters to loyal friends which made them owners of the colonies, subject only to English Law and the King. The Duke of York was given what he then called New York, and William Penn was given what he then called Pennsylvania. The purpose of the colonization was to enrich the grantee of the charter and make a profit for the King. The legal basis for this was the Doctrine of Discovery that had been issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493. This proclamation declared that all the lands occupied by non-christian "heathens" was to be conquered and those "heathens" who did not convert to Christianity were to be exterminated. The Doctrine of Discovery has been quoted by the Supreme Court as the justification for genocide of the "heathens" (Native Americans) and it is clear from the effect of the Constitution that it was designed to protect the interests of white, male, protestant land owners. "We, the people", never did mean All the People. The problem with the corporate form is that it creates a fictional person in law, a fictional person with powers that supersede the powers of the individual citizen. While corporations and people are subject to laws and regulations, the superior power of the corporation has been used to shape the laws to benefit the owners rather than the people generally. The corporations have supplanted Common Law with the Uniform Commercial Code. The Uniform Commercial Code legitimizes victimless crimes, white collar crimes, nonsensical rules and regulations, contractual provisions that are contrary to Common Law and the Maxims of Law, and banking as a private enterprise that exploits the people instead of a public utility that benefits the people. In sum, all those contracts you sign without reading them is empowering what could well become a near-global corporatist totalitarianism that hoards resources, oppresses the majority, and protects the interests of a powerful, coordinated minority, creating a world we should know is not only not "of, by, and for the people" but is leading to our extinction as a people. In our struggle to cope with a plethora of economic, energy, and ecological crises exacerbated by the ongoing concentration of wealth and power of an unconscionable ruling group, we may soon be witnessing the end of civilization! The Banking Deception If you already know that banks issue the dollar as an interest bearing debt to benefit themselves, then you are ready to realize that the banking system is the hidden sovereign that is creating the conditions that are leading to our extinction. If you do not know this already, please go to the section on banking here : THE SOLUTION Build a Common Law Republic from the ground up. The united states of America Republick and the Massachusetts Republic are committed to creating a republican form of government based on confidence in the ability of the people to govern themselves on the basis of their sense of justice and common sense. The law forms that inspire this confidence are Common Law (the English tradition going all the way back to the Magna Carta), the Maxims of Law (the principles with which everyone can agree), and Treaty Law (the agreements that Sovereigns make to regulate their mutual affairs). The Massachusetts Republic The Foundational Documents that established the United States of America are the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution, which came after the Revolution, is so full of compromises of the principles of a republic that it may become obvious that it was crafted to preserve the hegemony of White, Male, Protestant Landowners! The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The phrase that we are all familiar with is that governments govern with the consent of the governed. That consent, however, is tacit or assumed consent. So the question becomes: What would happen if the people govern themselves by their active consent? Is there a way of coming to agreements that are based on active consent? Sociocracy, which is also known as Dynamic Governance, is based on such an understanding. If we are to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then the people need to be involved in the decision making. The foundational idea in Dynamic Governance is that the people who are doing the work and are affected by the decisions - need to make the decisions. In Dynamic Governance, every voice is heard, objections are welcomed because they contribute to a better decision, the better angels of our nature are encouraged because of the firm commitment to appreciating the differences that arise among us, and all seek to arrive at an agreement and/or action plan to which everyone can consent because it includes the best thoughts of each of the participants. Sociocracy for All offers training in Dynamic Governance and has a very useful website at SociocracyForAll.org Once we are confident in our ability to govern ourselves, we can agree to use a means of exchange of our own making. Community-Created Credit is a simple method of issuing money to create the conditions in which we want to live. Common Good offers a payment system that creates Common Good Communities. Their website is CommonGood.earth The Nature of Money For a more general introduction to the nature of money, please read the following interview with Bernard Lietaer, who was the champion of the local currencies movement. He describes clearly the effect of the debt based monetary system and he highlights solutions. The following is taken from the Yes! Magazine website: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/money-print-your-own/beyond-greed-and-scarcity Beyond Greed and Scarcity Bernard Lietaer posted Jun 30, 1997 Few people have worked in and on the money system in as many different capacities as Bernard Lietaer. He spent five years at the Central Bank in Belgium, and he was president of Belgium's Electronic Payment System. He has helped developing countries improve their hard currency earnings and taught international finance at the University of Louvain, in his native Belgium. Bernard Lietaer was also the general manager and currency trader for one of the largest and most successful offshore currency funds. He is currently a fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources at the University of California at Berkeley. YES! editor Sarah van Gelder talked to Bernard about the possibilities for a new kind of currency better suited to building community and sustainability. He can be reached to discuss this topic via an Internet conference at: http://www.transaction.net/money/ BERNARD : Money is like an iron ring we've put through our noses. We've forgotten that we designed it, and it's now leading us around. I think it's time to figure out where we want to go - in my opinion toward sustainability and community - and then design a money system that gets us there. SARAH : So you would say that the design of money is actually at the root of much else that happens, or doesn't happen, in society? BERNARD : That's right. While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money - using markets and resources to do so. So designing new money systems really amounts to redesigning the target that orients much human effort. Furthermore, I believe that greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament; I have come to the conclusion that greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive. Money is created when banks lend it into existence (see article by Thomas Greco on page 19). When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough world to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000. SARAH : So some people have to lose in order for others to win? Some have to default on their loan in order for others to get the money needed to pay off that interest? BERNARD : That's right. All the banks are doing the same thing when they lend money into existence. That is why the decisions made by central banks, like the Federal Reserve in the US, are so important - increased interest costs automatically determine a larger proportion of necessary bankruptcies. So when the bank verifies your "creditworthiness," it is really checking whether you are capable of competing and winning against other players - able to extract the second $100,000 that was never created. And if you fail in that game, you lose your house or whatever other collateral you had to put up. SARAH : That also influences the unemployment rate. BERNARD : It's certainly a major factor, but there's more to it. Information technologies increasingly allow us to attain very good economic growth without increases in employment. I believe we're seeing one of the last job-driven affluent periods in the US right now. As Jeremy Rifkin argues in his book, The End of Work, jobs are basically not going to be there anymore, even in "good times." A study done by The International Metalworkers Federation in Geneva predicts that within the next 30 years, 2 or 3 percent of the world's population will be able to produce everything we need on the planet. Even if they're off by a factor of 10, we'd still have a question of what 80 percent of humanity will do. My forecast is that local currencies will be a major tool for social design in the 21st century, if for no other reasons than employment. I don't claim that these local currencies will or should replace national currencies; that is why I call them "complementary" currencies. The national, competition-generating currencies will still have a role in the competitive global market. I believe, however, that complementary local currencies are a lot better suited to developing cooperative, local economies. SARAH : And these local economies will provide a form of employment that won't be threatened with extinction? BERNARD : As a first step, that is correct. For example, in France, there are now 300 local exchange networks, called Grain de Sel, literally "Grain of Salt." These systems - which arose exactly when and where the unemployment levels reached about 12 percent - facilitate exchanges of everything from rent to organic produce, but they do something else as well. Every fortnight in the Ariege, in southwestern France, there is a big party. People come to trade not only cheeses, fruits, and cakes as in the normal market days, but also hours of plumbing, haircuts, sailing or English lessons. Only local currencies accepted! Local currency creates work, and I make a distinction between work and jobs. A job is what you do for a living; work is what you do because you like to do it. I expect jobs to increasingly become obsolete, but there is still an almost infinite amount of fascinating work to be done. For example, in France you find people offering guitar lessons and requesting lessons in German. Neither would pay in French francs. What's nice about local currency is that when people create their own money, they don't need to build in a scarcity factor. And they don't need to get currency from elsewhere in order to have a means of making an exchange with a neighbor. Edgar Cahn's Time Dollars are a classical example. As soon as you have an agreement between two people about a transaction using Time Dollars, they literally create the necessary "money" in the process; there's no scarcity of money. That does not mean there's an infinite amount of this currency, either; you cannot give me 500,000 hours - nobody has 500,000 hours to give. So there's a ceiling on it, yes, but there's no artificial scarcity. Instead of pitting people against each other, the system actually helps them cooperate. SARAH : So you're suggesting that scarcity needn't be a guiding principle of our economic system. But isn't scarcity absolutely fundamental to economics, especially in a world of limited resources? BERNARD : My analysis of this question is based on the work of Carl Gustav Jung because he is the only one with a theoretical framework for collective psychology, and money is fundamentally a phenomenon of collective psychology. A key concept Jung uses is the archetype, which can be described as an emotional field that mobilizes people, individually or collectively, in a particular direction. Jung showed that whenever a particular archetype is repressed, two types of shadows emerge, which are polarities of each other. For example, if my higher self - corresponding to the archetype of the King or the Queen - is repressed, I will behave either as a Tyrant or as a Weakling. These two shadows are connected to each other by fear. A Tyrant is tyrannical because he's afraid of appearing weak; a Weakling is afraid of being tyrannical. Only someone with no fear of either one of these shadows can embody the archetype of the King. Now let's apply this framework to a well-documented phenomenon - the repression of the Great Mother archetype. The Great Mother archetype was very important in the Western world from the dawn of prehistory throughout the pre-Indo-European time periods, as it still is in many traditional cultures today. But this archetype has been violently repressed in the West for at least 5,000 years starting with the Indo-European invasions - reinforced by the anti-Goddess view of Judeo-Christianity, culminating with three centuries of witch hunts - all the way to the Victorian era. If there is a repression of an archetype on this scale and for this length of time, the shadows manifest in a powerful way in society. After 5,000 years, people will consider the corresponding shadow behaviors as "normal." The question I have been asking is very simple: What are the shadows of the Great Mother archetype? I'm proposing that these shadows are greed and fear of scarcity. So it should come as no surprise that in Victorian times - at the apex of the repression of the Great Mother - a Scottish schoolmaster named Adam Smith noticed a lot of greed and scarcity around him and assumed that was how all "civilized" societies worked. Smith, as you know, created modern economics, which can be defined as a way of allocating scarce resources through the mechanism of individual, personal greed. SARAH : Wow! So if greed and scarcity are the shadows, what does the Great Mother archetype herself represent in terms of economics? BERNARD : Let's first distinguish between the Goddess, who represented all aspects of the Divine, and the Great Mother, who specifically symbolizes planet Earth - fertility, nature, the flow of abundance in all aspects of life. Someone who has assimilated the Great Mother archetype trusts in the abundance of the universe. It's when you lack trust that you want a big bank account. The first guy who accumulated a lot of stuff as protection against future uncertainty automatically had to start defending his pile against everybody else's envy and needs. If a society is afraid of scarcity, it will actually create an environment in which it manifests well-grounded reasons to live in fear of scarcity. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy! Also, we have been living for a long time under the belief that we need to create scarcity to create value. Although that is valid in some material domains, we extrapolate it to other domains where it may not be valid. For example, there's nothing to prevent us from freely distributing information. The marginal cost of information today is practically nil. Nevertheless, we invent copyrights and patents in an attempt to keep it scarce. SARAH : So fear of scarcity creates greed and hoarding, which in turn creates the scarcity that was feared. Whereas cultures that embody the Great Mother are based on abundance and generosity. Those ideas are implicit in the way you've defined community, are they not? BERNARD : Actually it's not my definition, it's etymological. The origin of the word "community" comes from the Latin munus, which means the gift, and cum, which means together, among each other. So community literally means to give among each other. Therefore I define my community as a group of people who welcome and honor my gifts, and from whom I can reasonably expect to receive gifts in return. SARAH : And local currencies can facilitate that exchange of gifts. BERNARD : The majority of the local currencies I know about have been started for the purpose of creating employment, but there is a growing group of people who are starting local currencies specifically to create community. For example, I would feel funny calling my neighbor in the valley and saying, "I notice you have a lot of pears on your tree. Can I have them?" I would feel I needed to offer something in return. But if I'm going to offer scarce dollars, I might just as well go to the supermarket, so we end up not using the pears. If I have local currency, there's no scarcity in the medium of exchange, so buying the pears becomes an excuse to interact. In Takoma Park, Maryland, Olaf Egeberg started a local currency to facilitate these kinds of exchanges within his community. And the participants agree that is exactly what has been happening. SARAH : That raises the question of whether local currencies can also be a means for people to meet their basic needs for food and housing, or would those sectors remain part of the competitive economy? BERNARD : There are lots of people who love gardening, but who can't make a living from it in the competitive world. If a gardener is unemployed, and I'm unemployed, in the normal economy we might both starve. However with complementary currencies, he can grow my salads, which I pay for in local currency earned by providing another service to someone else. In Ithaca, "Hours" are accepted at the farmer's market; the farmers can use the local currency to hire someone to help with the harvest or to do some repairs. Some landlords accept Hours for rent, particularly if they don't have a mortgage that must be paid in scarce dollars. When you have local currency, it quickly becomes clear what's local and what's not. K-Mart will accept dollars only; their suppliers are in Hong Kong or Singapore or Kansas City. But Ithaca's local supermarket accepts Hours as well as dollars. By using local currencies, you create a bias toward local sustainability. SARAH : Local currencies also provide communities with some buffering from the ups and downs of the global economy. You've been in the business of monitoring, dealing in, and even helping to design the global finance system. Why would communities want to be insulated from it? BERNARD : First of all, today's official monetary system has almost nothing to do with the real economy. Just to give you an idea, 1995 statistics indicate that the volume of currency exchanged on the global level is $1.3 trillion per day. This is 30 times more than the daily gross domestic product (GDP) of all of the developed countries (OECD) together. The annual GDP of the United States is turned in the market every three days! Of that volume, only 2 or 3 percent has to do with real trade or investment; the remainder takes place in the speculative global cyber-casino. This means that the real economy has become relegated to a mere frosting on the speculative cake, an exact reversal of how it was just two decades ago. SARAH : What are the implications of this? What does it mean for those of us who aren't transacting deals across international boundaries? BERNARD : For one thing, power has shifted irrevocably away from governments toward the financial markets. When a government does something not to the liking of the market - like the British in '91, the French in '94 or the Mexicans in '95 - nobody sits down at the table and says "you shouldn't do this." A monetary crisis simply manifests in that currency. So a few hundred people, who are not elected by anybody and have no collective responsibility whatsoever, decide what your pension fund is worth - among other things. SARAH : You've also talked about the possibility of a crash in this system... BERNARD : Yes, I see it now as about a 50/50 chance over the next five or 10 years. Many people say it's 100 percent, and with a much shorter time horizon. George Soros, who's made part of his living doing what I used to do - speculating in currencies - concluded, "Instability is cumulative, so that eventual breakdown of freely floating exchanges is virtually assured." Joel Kurtzman, ex-editor at the Harvard Business Review, entitles his latest book: The Death of Money and forecasts an imminent collapse due to speculative frenzy. Just to see how this could happen: all the OECD Central Banks' reserves together represent about $640 billion. So in a crisis situation, if all the Central Banks were to agree to work together (which they never do) and if they were to use all their reserves (which is another thing that never happens) they have the funds to control only half the volume of a normal day of trading. In a crisis day, that volume could easily double or triple, and the total Central Bank reserves would last two or three hours. SARAH : And the outcome would be? BERNARD : If that happens, we would suddenly be in a very different world. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Here, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. The only precedent I know of is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours. SARAH : So local currencies could provide some resilience for a community that could help it survive a currency melt-down or some other international breakdown. You've also mentioned that local currencies help promote sustainability. What's the connection? BERNARD : To understand that, we need to see the relationship between interest rates and the ways we discount the future. If I ask, "Do you want $100 now or $100 a year from now," most people would want the money now simply because one can deposit money risk-free in a bank account and get about $110 a year later. Another way of putting it is that if I were to offer you $100 a year from now that would be about equal to offering you $90 today. This discounting of the future is referred to as 'discounted cash flow'. That means that under our current system it makes sense to cut down trees and put the money in the bank; the money in the bank will grow faster than trees. It makes sense to "save" money by building poorly insulated houses because the discounted cost of the extra energy over the lifetime of the house is cheaper than insulating. We can, however, design a monetary system that does the opposite; it actually creates long-term thinking through what is called a "demurrage charge." The demurrage charge is a concept developed by Silvio Gesell about a century ago. His idea was that money is a public good - like the telephone or bus transport - and that we should charge a small fee for using it. In other words, we create a negative rather than a positive interest rate. What would that do? If I gave you a $100 bill and told you that a month from now you're going to have to pay $1 to keep the money valid, what would you do? SARAH : I suppose I would try to invest it in something else. BERNARD : You got it. You know the expression, "Money is like manure; it's only good when it's spread out." In the Gesell system, people would only use money as a medium of exchange, but not as a store for value. That would create work, because it would encourage circulation, and it would invert the short-term incentive system. Instead of cutting trees down to put the money in the bank, you would want to invest your money in living trees or installing insulation in your house. SARAH : Has this ever been tried? BERNARD : There are only three periods I have found: classical Egypt; about three centuries in the European Middle Ages, and a few years in the 1930s. In ancient Egypt, when you stored grain, you would receive a token, which was exchangeable and became a type of currency. If you returned a year later with 10 tokens, you would only get nine tokens worth of grain, because rats and spoilage would have reduced the quantities, and because the guards at the storage facility had to be paid. So that amounted to a demurrage charge. Egypt was the breadbasket for the ancient world, the gift of the Nile. Why? Because instead of keeping value in money, everybody invested in productive assets that would last forever - things like land improvements and irrigation systems. Proof that the monetary system had something to do with this wealth is that it all ended abruptly as soon as the Romans replaced the Egyptian 'grain standard' currency with their own money system, with positive interest rates. After that, Egypt ceased being the grain-basket, and became a "developing country" as it is called today. In Europe during the Middle Ages - the 10th to 13th centuries - local currencies were issued by local lords, and then periodically recalled and reissued with a tax collected in the process. Again, this was a form of demurrage that made money undesirable as a store of value. The result was the blossoming of culture and widespread well-being, corresponding exactly to the time period when these local currencies were used. Practically all the cathedrals were built during this time period. If you think about what is required as investment for a small town to build a cathedral, it's extraordinary. SARAH : Because cathedrals take generations to build? BERNARD : Well, not only that. Besides the obvious symbolic and religious roles - which I don't want to belittle - one should remember that cathedrals had an important economic function; they attracted pilgrims, who, from a business perspective, played a similar role to tourists today. These cathedrals were built to last forever and create a long-term cash flow for the community. This was a way of creating abundance for you and your descendants for 13 generations! The proof is that it still works today; in Chartres, for instance, the bulk of the city's businesses still live from the tourists who visit the cathedral 800 years after it was finished! When the introduction of gunpowder technology enabled the kings to centralize power in the early 14th century, the first thing they did was to monopolize the money system. What happened? No more cathedrals were built. The population was just as devoutly Christian in the 14th or 15th century, but the economic incentive for collective long-term investments was gone. I use the cathedral simply as an example. Accounts from 12th century estates show that mills and other productive assets were maintained at an extraordinary level of quality, with parts replaced even before they wore out. Recent studies have revealed that the quality of life for the common laborer in Europe was the highest in the 12th to 13th centuries; perhaps even higher than today. When you can't keep savings in the form of money, you invest them in something that will produce value in the future. So this form of money created an extraordinary boom. SARAH : Yet this was a period when Christianity was supreme in Europe and so presumably the Great Mother archetype was still being repressed. BERNARD : Well, actually a very interesting religious symbol became prevalent during this time: the famous "Black Madonna." There were hundreds of these statues during the 10th to 13th centuries, which were in fact statues of Isis with the child Horus sitting on her lap, directly imported from Egypt during the first Crusades. Her special vertical chair was called the "cathedra" (which is where the word cathedral comes from) and interestingly this chair was the exact symbol identifying Isis in ancient Egypt. The statues of the Black Madonnas were also identified in medieval time as the "Alma Mater" (literally the "Generous Mother," an expression still used in America to refer to someone's 'mother university'). The Black Madonnas were a direct continuity of the Great Mother in one of her most ancient forms. She symbolized birth and fertility, the wealth of the land. She symbolized spirit incarnate in matter, before the patriarchal societies separated spirit from matter. So here we have a direct archetypal linkage between the two civilizations that spontaneously created money systems with demurrage charges while creating unusual levels of abundance for the common people: ancient Egypt and 10th-to-13th century Europe. These money systems correspond exactly to the honoring of that archetype. SARAH : How interesting! What potential do you see for local currencies to bring this Great Mother archetype of abundance and generosity into our economic system today? BERNARD : The biggest issues that I believe humanity faces today are sustainability and the inequalities and breakdown in community, which create tensions that result in violence and wars. We can address both these issues with the same tool, by consciously creating currency systems that will enhance community and sustainability. Significantly, we have witnessed in the past decades a clear re-awakening of the feminine archetype. It is reflected not only in the women's movement, in the dramatic increase in ecological concerns, or in new epistemologies reintegrating spirit and matter, but also in the technologies that enable us to replace hierarchies with networks (such as the Internet). Add to these trends the fact that for the first time in human history we have available the production technologies to create unprecedented abundance. All this converges into an extraordinary opportunity to combine the hardwareof our technologies of abundance and the softwareof archetypal shifts. Such a combination has never been available at this scale or at this speed: it enables us to consciously design money to work for us, instead of us for it. I propose that we choose to develop money systems that will enable us to attain sustainability and community healing on a local and global scale. These objectives are in our grasp within less than one generation's time. Whether we materialize them or not will depend on our capacity to cooperate with each other to consciously reinvent our money.

This is a work in progress. We have many unfinished versions! Maybe you would like to write a new Declaration of Interdependence.

In the American Colonies, there was a chronic shortage of gold and silver coins. However, the native people would honor the gifts the colonists gave them, such as muskets and knives, horses and domesticated animals, with wampum (shells strung together to form belts, bracelets, etc.), and the colonists could spend that wampum with the Indians for food and pelts; and so wampum also became an accepted form of money. In most of the colonies, wampum was legal tender and one could pay taxes with it. What would become money generally was up in the air until Benjamin Franklin attended an Iroquois Nation powwow when he was a young man. He was very inspired by the separation of powers he found in their governance, which was an inspiration for our republic. While he was there, a brave came into the camp laden down with wampum, which he proceeded to give to the chief who distributed it to all the chiefs of the tribes and clans. The chief recognized the question Ben Franklin had and explained to him that in Indian culture, wampum is not money, but is used to make flags and belts to commemorate and remember all the events and gifts that are given during the year. “Of course, there always has to be enough wampum to make all the ceremonial mementos we use to honor our gifts to each other.” Ben Franklin realized in that instant that “there always has to be enough money for all the transactions the people want to make.” He became a major advocate of fiat paper money, called Colonial Scrip, and attributed the prosperity the colonists enjoyed to its use. When Franklin was in England representing the colonists, he was dismayed to discover the unemployment and poverty and almshouses and debtors prisons there. It was explained to him that there was a population explosion and too many people without enough work. He wrote: “There is abundance in the Colonies, and peace is reigning on every border. It is difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort prevails in every home. The people, in general, keep the highest moral standards, and education is widely spread… We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.” This was not the case in England, which had the Bank of England and a debt-based monetary system in place – and where debtors who could not afford to pay their debts were often thrown in jail. There was plenty of poverty in the streets of London and elsewhere. Here, Franklin explains the difference between England and her colonies: “In the colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip.’ We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and have no interest to pay to anyone… You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of un-payable debt and usury.” Soon enough, however, the Bank of England had Parliament impose restrictions on the Colonies’ issuance of Colonial Scrip. The first law was enacted in 1751, with more restrictive measures in place by 1763. Colonial Scrip became illegal tender, and the British Parliament declared that all taxes could only be paid in coin. Poverty and unemployment began to plague the colonies just as it had in England, because the operating medium had been cut in half and there were insufficient quantities of money to pay for goods and work. Indeed, this was the cause of the Revolutionary War, and not the Stamp Act or a tax on tea, as is taught in all history textbooks. “The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.” – Benjamin Franklin One of the first Acts of the Continental Congress was to issue Continentals as the currency of the Colonies. It was the issuing of the Continentals that gave tangible evidence that the Colonies were united, and Continentals financed the Revolution. What is not taught in conventional history is that the British counterfeited more than twice the amount (perhaps 8 times) authorized by the Congress and after the War the currency lost its value until it was practically worthless. When it came time to write the Constitution, there was a general sense that coin was much more reliable than paper scrip and so the relevant paragraph reads: Congress shall have the authority “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. To this day Congress issues the coins, debt free. Updated: Jun 10, 2019 Original: Oct 27, 2009 Committees of Correspondence History.com Editors The Committees of Correspondence were the American colonies’ means for maintaining communication lines in the years before the Revolutionary War. In 1764, Boston formed the earliest Committee of Correspondence to encourage opposition to Britain’s stiffening of customs enforcement and prohibition of American paper money. The following year, New York formed a similar committee to keep the other colonies notified of its actions in resisting the Stamp Act. In 1773, the Virginia House of Burgesses proposed that each colonial legislature appoint a committee for intercolonial correspondence. The exchanges that followed built solidarity during the turbulent times and helped bring about the formation of the First Continental Congress in 1774. Committees of Correspondence were the American colonies’ first institution for maintaining communication with one another. They were organized in the decade before the Revolution, when the deteriorating relationship with Great Britain made it increasingly important for the colonies to share ideas and information. In 1764, Boston formed the earliest Committee of Correspondence, writing to other colonies to encourage united opposition to Britain’s recent stiffening of customs enforcement and prohibition of American paper money. The following year New York formed a similar committee to keep the other colonies notified of its actions in resisting the Stamp Act . This correspondence led to the holding of the Stamp Act Congress in New York City . Nine of the colonies sent representatives, but no permanent intercolonial structure was established. In 1772, a new Boston Committee of Correspondence was organized, this time to communicate with all the towns in the province, as well as with “the World,” about the recent announcement that Massachusetts’s governor and judges would hereafter be paid by–and hence accountable to–the Crown rather than the colonial legislature. More than half of the province’s 260 towns formed committees and replied to Boston’s communications. In March 1773, the Virginia House of Burgesses proposed that each colonial legislature appoint a standing committee for intercolonial correspondence. Within a year, nearly all had joined the network, and more committees were formed at the town and county levels. The exchanges that followed helped build a sense of solidarity, as common grievances were discussed and common responses agreed upon. When the First Continental Congress was held in September 1774, it represented the logical evolution of the intercolonial communication that had begun with the Committees of Correspondence.