[CRNMC] What we can teach now...

[Baile Oakes]

Yes, great need, Agnes.

Muni bonds used to be the safe work horse for investment that manifested our community infrastructure while the community had a safe investment.

On Nov 11, 2014, at 11:17 AM, agnes at mcn.org wrote:

> Glad you asked, Baile,
>       I would urge us to consider how a publicly owned bank might save
> the county from the new rule by the Federal Reserve, the
> Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC ( all regulatory agencies
> in favor of banks). The new rule downgrading Municipal bonds from
> high quality liquid assets and raising Corporate bonds and Treasury
> bonds previously lower than muni bonds, which are used to fund
> local infrastructure projects. This action will cause big banks to
> dump muni bonds in favor of Corporate and Treasury bonds.
> Communities that use new muni bonds will have to raise the interest
> rates that entice investors to buy. This is the fast track to
> bankruptcy, raiding assets from local and state governments willing
> to sell  assets at fire sale prices to pay off bankruptcy debts as
> happened in Greece and Detroit. See Ellen Brown's email from Ben
> Price of CELDF about Asset Stripping States and Local Governments a
> month ago. Be forewarned and proactive to save our county public
> funds from the FEDS new rule and imminent bankruptcy of our county
> and state.
> 
> Agnes
> 
>> Well thought and said, Charles.
>> 
>> What is your concept for the next step ?
>> 
>> Come to think of it, let us all post what each of us believes would be the
>> best next step to proactively laying claim to our community's rights.
>> 
>> What say ya'll ?
>> 
>> with love,
>> 
>> Baile
>> 
>> 
>> On Nov 10, 2014, at 12:00 AM, Charles Cresson Wood wrote:
>> 
>>> “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the
>>> tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
>>> 
>>> Hello community rights friends,
>>> 
>>> Yes, after this last victory on election day, it is true that we deserve
>>> a well-earned vacation. Let us rest briefly, but soon return to the work
>>> that must be done. I have been thinking about the Martin Luther King Jr.
>>> quote provided above. I believe we, the Community Rights Network of
>>> Mendocino County, now have some genuine credibility, some new
>>> “listening,” and some brief window for building a much larger
>>> grass-roots activist network here in Mendocino County. But we should not
>>> wait long, if indeed we are going to do this, lest the power of this
>>> moment be lost, lest our victory with Measure S be drowned out in the
>>> onslaught of the millions of propaganda messages coming from the mass
>>> media.
>>> 
>>> There is one message that we can teach now, and that THERE IS HOPE, that
>>> the average person like you and me can make a significant difference,
>>> and that grass-roots activism can actually bring about significant
>>> change. The corporations would have us think that we can do nothing, and
>>> that we must accept the established order. They are doing their best to
>>> redefine freedom and other core American values in ways that suit their
>>> commercial purposes. They would like us to believe that individualism is
>>> the ability to choose any of a large array of athletic shoes. We the
>>> people need to reclaim our own thinking so as to be able say the
>>> metaphorical equivalent of: “I’m not going to wear shoes.” They
>>> would like to have us believe that freedom means having enough money to
>>> select items from a menu at a Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurant. We
>>> the people need take back our freedom so as to be able to say the
>>> metaphorical equivalent of: “I’m going to grow my own food.”
>>> 
>>> The propaganda machine would say that each of us are simply helpless and
>>> ineffectual consumers (not citizens -- consumers). The propaganda
>>> machine would prefer it if we were isolated apathetic disempowered
>>> people each watching our average of four hours of television a day.
>>> Let’s not fall prey to their Siren’s songs.
>>> 
>>> Of greatest concern to me is the involvement with the younger segment of
>>> our adult population. The 18-29 age range has the lowest levels of voter
>>> registration of any segment in the adult American population. And they
>>> are also the ones that Mendocino County risks losing to the cities. They
>>> are our future, and now is the time to reengage especially with them
>>> (but hopefully with everybody else too), to co-create a new possibility
>>> for citizen-led community rights, for citizen-led environmental
>>> sustainability, and citizen-led social justice. CRNMC could lead the way
>>> here, if we have the will to step up to that role.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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