NOT BY DROUGHT, NOR BY GLOBAL WARMING... BUT BY CRAFTY USURERS

Headed “Down Town”, the Weekly Times 27th December 2013, reported:
"Hundreds of small country towns have been stripped of their official status". Why? Because the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) "has updated a new statistical standard to define an urban centre locality, or town. Census data is applied to a formula that decrees centres with less than 200 people are no longer towns". Why? Because Government financial policy is making it "too expensive to live in rural areas with attendant withdrawal of essential services".

AUSTRALIA...
When the shearing sheds are silent and the stock camps fallen quiet
When the gidgee coals no longer glow across the outback night
And the bush is forced to hang a sign, 'gone broke and won't be back'
And spirits fear to find a way beyond the beaten track
When harvesters stand derelict upon the wind swept plains
And brave hearts pin their hopes no more on chance of loving rains
When a hundred outback settlements are ghost towns overnight
When we've lost the drive and heart we had to once more see us right
When 'Pioneer' means a stereo and 'Digger' some backhoe
And the 'Outback' is behind the house, there's nowhere else to go
And 'Anzac' is a biscuit brand and probably foreign owned
And education really means brainwashed and neatly cloned
When you have to bake a loaf of bread to make a decent crust
And our heritage once enshrined in gold is crumbling to dust
And old folk pay their camping fees on land for which they fought
And fishing is a great escape; this is until you're caught
When you see our kids with yankee caps and resentment in their eyes
And the soaring crime and hopeless hearts is no longer a surprise
When the name of RM Williams is a yuppie clothing brand
Not a product of our heritage that grew off the land
When offering a hand makes people think you'll amputate
And two dogs meeting in the street is what you call a 'Mate'
When 'Political Correctness' has replaced all common sense
When you're forced to see it their way, there's no sitting on the fence
Yes one day you might find yourself an outcast in this land
Perhaps your heart will tell you then, '. I should have made a stand'
Just go and ask the farmers that should remove all doubt T
hen join the swelling ranks who say, 'don't sell Australia out'

- - Author unknown  

HEADLINES SPELL IT OUT: BUT MEDIA NEVER QUESTIONS AS TO CAUSE

by Betty Luks
The clear message is in the headlines. This debt-laden nation and its debt-laden people are to be bankrupted and sold off by the Usurers’ agents - the banks. The banks in turn operate according to laws drafted by politicians that favour them – as is the case all round the world.

Examples of this Usury-ridden, debt-laden land
• “Rural debt rises across agri-sectors” and; “NQ shock as receiver moves in” Queensland Country Life, 1 December 2011;
• “Shires to sell assets” - Weekly Times, 9 January, 2013.
• “294 Fewer Farmers Every Month” The River News, Waikerie 19 December 2012
• ‘Cow of a Time as Debt Weights Down Cattlemen” and “Local Food Industry Needs China Funds to Feed World” Stock Journal 10 January 2013.

Tell me fellow Australian, have you not had enough yet? Are you going to just give in without a whimper? Or are you going to insist your local state and federal politician take up the matters that are of concern to you and your fellow Australian AND DEAL WITH THEM?

I repeat a portion of G.K. Chesterton’s quote taken from “Utopia of Usurers”
“Every religion, apart from open devil worship, must appeal to a virtue or the pretence of a virtue. But a virtue, generally speaking, does some good to everybody. It is therefore necessary to distinguish among the people it was meant to benefit, those whom it does benefit. Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else. It was meant to benefit the rich; and meant to benefit nobody else….”

Chesterton was of course referring to the Church’s traditional teaching on the true purpose of a money system and the evils of Usury. Historically Religion/Capitalism brought about great changes in the people’s thinking and understanding on this fundamental matter. Download from League’s website - “The Enemy Within the Empire” by Eric D. Butler

The Heritage Bookshop Services and Veritas online carry the following
“Utopia of Usurers” by G.K. Chesterton, $16.00 + postage : “The Just Tax” by Geoffrey Dobbs. $4.00 + postage.

And “O'Malley MHR” by Larry Noye. In a brisk conversational style Larry Noye describes the experiences of King O’Malley on his arrival in Australia around 1888. He immediately made an impression with his colourful oratory. He served three years in the South Australian Parliament, and 16 years in the fledgling Federal Parliament.
As Minister for Home Affairs he promoted the trans-continental railway and saw to it that it was constructed without incurring a debt burden requiring years of payments. The selection of the site of the ACT was another of his responsibilities. Having been trained in banking in America, O’Malley campaigned tirelessly for a “people’s bank” in Australia. This eventually came about in 1911. O’Malley lived until 1953 – commenting on social and political issues up to his death. This book gives an insight into Australian history and life over an eventful 65 years. Price: $35.00 + postage.

"The Story of the Commonwealth Bank" by D.J. Amos:
Leading politicians still scoff at the idea that low-interest creation of money is not only possible, but is part of the answer to Australia's present woes. It is important to re-learn how Australia made enormous progress when 'the peoples' bank' (the original Commonwealth Bank) controlled the creation of Australia's credit.
The original Commonwealth Bank was able to fund the cost of the First World War without debt to the nation and re-settle returned soldiers on land grants at extremely low rates of interest. Public works, such as the East-West Railway, were funded free of debt. The insignificant 0.625% interest charged was sufficient for the bank to make a profit! This book is immensely important for Australians to help with their understanding of the money system. (It will be an introduction to the study of C.H. Douglas’ answer to the usurious international debt-finance.) The hard copy is available - $5.00 + postage. Or download: "The Story of the Commonwealth Bank"

There is ample material on the League’s website – plus a good selection of educational material available from our Book Services. Start with “The Story of the Commonwealth Bank” and digest the fact that politicians of all persuasions have betrayed their own people for many a year.

Tell me gentle reader, do you grasp the truth that money is merely a means to an end and NOT an end in itself? Do you really think blips on a computer (bank’s ‘money’ transactions) are of more value than the families of this nation and the real wealth of this land?  

CAUSE - USURY/DEBT: EFFECT - HERDING US ALL INTO GULAGS

Electricity Cost to Skyrocket:
Ray Hopper, Queensland State Leader of the Katter Australia Party is calling for the LNP Government to rethink its plans to sell off our Electricity Government owned Corporations. “Energex, Ergon, Powerlink, Stanwell and CS Energy are no doubt on the shortlist” said Mr Hopper.
“Surely this is a no brainer! Anyone can see that once privatized the cost of electricity to consumers will go through the roof. We will see pensioners freezing in the winter, industry crippled and primary producers will not be able to justify the cost of irrigation. This is total madness.

I have been advised that rural depots with less than 15 staff will be axed, the call out time for maintenance will quadruple. What will happen in our storm seasons? In some instances rather than travel 50 km it will be 100’s of km to repair a service. This is yet another example of the Bligh/Newman era.

Comment: This party also must come to grips with the effects of usury, industrialisation, automation and technology, etc., otherwise they are ‘baying at the moon’ for all the long-term good they will do.  

SCIENCE AND ART – AND THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF CREATION

We have quoted Owen Barfield on a number of occasions. Barfield insisted modern man must take into account his perception is in one direction only, therefore it would seem he lacks the ability of taking into account the multi-layered and multi-direction concepts that C.H. Douglas presented.

Michael Lane in “Social Credit of the Left” explained it takes a well-rounded perception and intellect to grasp the wholeness of Douglas’ writings:
“C. H. Douglas is one of the great prose artists of the English language. His long sentences are syntactically flawless and rhythmically modulated. His elliptical and allusive style is ideal for incorporating multiple levels of meaning. It is the only way, perhaps, to express his multidimensional thought, for no one has ever put Douglas's ideas in "simple" language without diminishing them.

Paradoxically, although his sentences may be long, no author is more concise. The difficulty in reading Douglas is not looseness of conception but high intensity--too much meaning. In his mind everything really is connected to everything else, every idea immediately contiguous to a dozen more. There is therefore a haphazard quality to the progression till you suddenly find yourself at a familiar place, having arrived by a strange route. It's an adventure, but that is also why his books are ever young and never wear out. Anyone who hasn't realized this quality of Douglas hasn't read him yet. "It's economics, for heaven's sake! Just give me a clear exposition!" What Douglas gives us instead is high art--rich, playful, and profound. To a holistic mind like his, there's no such thing as economics…”

Dr. Bryan Monahan also helps the student in “An Introduction to Social Credit”
“In the historic development of Social Credit doctrine, different aspects, all of them implicit in Douglas's original conception, have required the contemporary emphasis”. And then explains further:
"There is no one aspect deep enough to exhaust the contents of a real idea, no one term or proposition which will serve to define it; though, of course, one representation of it is more just and exact than another, and when an idea is very complex, it is allowable, for the sake of convenience, to consider its distinct aspects as if separate ideas."

THIS ‘MODERN’ PROBLEM HAS ROOTS STRETCHING BACK INTO THE PAST

What appears to be a ‘modern’ problem of ever-increasing financial debt has roots that go far back into history. As a young man Henry Swabey wrote articles for the Social Credit quarterly “The Fig Tree”. His life-long study into the history of Mammon/Usury was published in the late 1990s and is online to be downloaded. The foundation of his study was based on Natural and Moral Law. Sadly, I doubt there are many ‘shepherds of the flocks’ who could explain to their faithful following just what this entails. Go to: “Usury and the Church of England” by Rev. Henry Swabey,

Australia’s history reveals the people have been betrayed by their governments for quite a long time. Even before federation governments of various political persuasions co-operated with bankers behind the scenes and brought in legislation to the Bankers’ advantage. That historical fact is brought to light when one studies the Australian Commonwealth Constitution against an understanding of how the ‘credit’ system of the banks works, plus with reading some history of Money Systems. In the early 1900s a politician named King O’Malley (a former banker) fought to have legislation passed setting up the Commonwealth Bank as a ‘People’s Bank’.

Remember. Over time and with the collusion of the various political parties, the Commonwealth Bank was taken over by the private banking system and is now part of the international banking system. Larry Noye has written about King O’Malley in “O’Malley MHR”. Send for your copy today.

ICELAND LOOKING TO REMOVE BANKS’ POWER TO CREATE ‘CREDIT’

The news from Iceland is that twelve reviews were submitted to the Committee set up to study the issue. Six of the submissions were from outside of Iceland supporting the separation of the money (credit) creation function from other banking practices. The fact that a number of reviews were submitted from outside of Iceland, attracted the media’s attention.

The Central Bank of Iceland warned of ‘economic isolation’ from the rest of the world if this separation is undertaken. Moreover, the chief economists at the Central Bank stress the need for more research and time for preparing this type of change to the banking system. Our correspondent who sent us the news noted “the chief economists of the central bank are not very familiar with the proposals for change. The intent is to give a group of experts the task of making an independent evaluation of the best way for Iceland to make this separation of money creation and present banking practises”. Well done Iceland!

But one can hope this is only the beginning. It is not enough that the people of Iceland free themselves from the debt-money system of the international bankers, but that to be truly free, they must take into account some important principles of an evolving democratic system, as well as the ongoing effects of not just the Industrial Revolution, but the further developing of Automation and Technology within industry - otherwise the financial system approved of will be the one based on the ‘Old’ Economics and not the ‘New’ and the people will not be as free as they may hope for.  

ICELANDERS NOTE: IRAN TO PHASE OUT DOLLAR & EURO IN TRADE

It seems Iran’s leaders don’t anticipate problems with foreign trade once they have phased out the dollar and the euro. “Iran's Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Shamseddin Hosseini says the country plans to phase out the dollar and euro in its future international transactions after the US and the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on Iran. “[Iranian] government has made up its mind to phase out vehicle currencies such as dollar and euro in its [foreign] trade,” Hosseini told reporters on the sidelines of the first meeting of the heads of Economic Co-operation Organization’s tax organizations in Tehran on Monday. He added that after the imposition of sanctions on Iran by the US and the EU, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) immediately moved to change the country's hard currencies reserves into euro and gold which “was beneficial to the country.” The Iranian minister noted that a change in trade model would reduce the country’s need for vehicle currencies, including dollar and euro.

Hosseini stated that Iran’s trade partners have welcomed the decision due to the currency war waged by the US through devaluation of the dollar and also because of the West's financial crisis which has convinced other countries to phase out vehicle currencies.
On November 22, 2012, the CBI Governor Mahmoud Bahmani called for the use of local currencies in the global trade system as alternative to dominant tenders.
“Iran has taken proper measures to remove dominant currencies, particularly the dollar and euro, from its foreign currency reserves as well as its international trade. [In doing this, Iran has shown that] it is possible to do trade without relying on major currencies,” he said.
At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran”. Source: SF/SS/MA 15/1/2013  

CULTURE DEMOLITION, IN FAST FORWARD

The Permaculture Research Institute website’s editor Craig Mackintosh, has written on “The ongoing cultural destruction of the Ladakh people and their environment thanks to the cancerous growth of the ‘corporate world’”. He explains: “Ladakh is a mountainous region in northwest Jammu and Kashmir in north India and in the area known as the Trans-Himalaya, (the lands beyond the Himalaya: Tibet, Xinjiang and northern Pakistan). It's slightly smaller than Scotland, the settled population live between 2700 m and 4500 m, and nomadic encampments even higher, and it's the largest and the least populated region of Jammu and Kashmir.

Sometimes known as ‘Little Tibet’ (the ancient Ladakhi dynasties came from a Tibetan lineage), Ladakh is a worthy subject for permaculture discussion, as despite its inhospitable terrain and cold-arid desert climate, the Ladakhi people, historically, not only survived amidst their high altitude elements, they had actually improved the landscape over centuries of habitation and agricultural use, whilst living in (mostly) peaceful habitation with each other.

Way Station for Ancient Trade Routes
Despite its apparent remoteness, Ladakh was a way station for ancient trade routes — notably the famous Silk Road, which connected China, India, Central Asia, Europe and even parts of north Africa… It wasn’t until the Indian army constructed the Leh-Manali Road that outside visitors were finally able to access the region — less than forty years ago, in 1974.

Industrial Revolution in fast forward
If you’re reading this, in front of a computer, you’re part of the modern, technological age — an age born out of the industrial revolution that began in the 1760s, more than 250 years ago.
But, if you close your eyes for a few moments and imagine yourself travelling back in time to picture what your life might be like without the oil- and industry-generated systems, gadgets and conveniences this age has delivered, you may be able to see, at least superficially, that the world we know today is vastly different to that of our ancestors who lived just a few lifetimes ago — where a wheel would turn only as fast as a horse could pull it, and where life and livelihoods, for the majority at least, were inextricably linked to the natural world and its cycles, and dependence on family and community.

With this in mind, I’d like us to consider what it would have been like to have crammed the last 250 years of the industrial revolution into a period of, say, just 30 years. Why, you ask? Well, this is the story of Ladakh’s modern history. Where many of the changes of the industrial revolution — positive and negative — have been relatively imperceptible for us, in Ladakh, where these same changes can be observed within a few short years, we can get a much clearer look at the impact the modern industrial age has had on all of us. Observing these before and after effects leads us to question many commonly held beliefs about the contemporary view of ‘progress’.

Isolated from modern intervention and influences for centuries, the Ladakhi people suddenly came face to face with a steady flow of trucks, aircraft and an influx of tourists, as the Indian government spied an opportunity for increased economic activity. The isolation and beauty of their culture and terrain became the draw card that has since turned their world upside down.

Pre-industrial Ladakh
It would be a mistake to romanticise the life of pre-1970s Ladakhis. As with all cultures who lived solely off the land and real-time sunlight, without modern technologies, life could be harsh and cruel at times. Babies, and their mothers, would sometimes die in childbirth. Sometimes there were years of meagre harvests and weather extremes which would bring shocks that were difficult to buffer against. Injuries and maladies that are today regarded as routine and rapidly dealt with in modern medical facilities could cause prolonged agony and premature death.

But the flipside to this is the amazing fact that the Ladakhi people not only survived, but they developed a rich culture that embraced their harsh environment, nurtured it into life and sustainably harvested what it had to offer. Although a tough life, people were content, inequality was hardly known, and without outside interference these people could well have continued their sustainable lifestyle indefinitely.

Unlike with our modern, clock-watching western lifestyles, work and play were not separated in traditional Ladakhi life. Whether in the fields, in the kitchen or tending animals, fun and work blended together as singing, conversation and comfortably-paced effort seamlessly intermingled. Children played and assisted — getting, by involvement and osmosis, the most relevant education for their little worlds, every waking moment of every day.

Life was entirely practical. Most were skilled in spinning, weaving (for clothing and carpets), shoe-making, brick-making, carpentry and masonry. And where strength was not a limiting factor, men and women shared in all these tasks. The only ‘technology’ utilised was the single water-powered grinding stone that each village operated communally to turn their barley into flour.

If a specialised skill was needed, like metalwork for instance, these services were normally provided without charge. Traditional Ladakhis lived instead by reciprocity, exchanging goods and services cooperatively. Even material goods Ladakhis sought from regions outside of their borders — like tea, spices, jewellery, and salt, for example — were traded in exchange for goods they produced, like fine wool, dried apricots and so on.

Although interrupted by the occasional tragedy, life was otherwise one of healthy, muscle- and bone-building exercise, fulfilling, cooperative labour, and meaningful and lasting social interactions. The modern, capitalist every-man-for-himself mindset could not survive in this place — and the words ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ could hardly be used. Everyone was there for everyone else. Indeed, within the constraints of their harsh climate and limited resource base, I can’t see that it could have worked in any other way.

The ‘development’ of Ladakh
The impact of the opening of the Leh–Manali Highway cannot be overstated. With the influx of goods-laden trucks and money-flush tourists into Ladakh, Ladakhis suddenly found they were competing with far away labourers and subsidised grains. Thus began a rapid unravelling of their world — one that had been largely stable for centuries. This economic onslaught had far reaching consequences for every aspect of Ladakhi life.

Before the trucks and tourists arrived, agriculture and animal husbandry were the mainstays for the Ladakhi people in tiny villages scattered across the region, but when the money economy slammed onto their doorstep, there began a steady migration of people from those villages to the capital — the town of Leh — and in some cases even to towns and cities outside of Ladakh.

Breakdown of the family
Men, in particular, left their family homes to take work in the capital, leaving their women behind to try and manage without them… As an example:a woman is left alone, with a daughter and elderly mother, trying to do herself what the entire family worked co-operatively to achieve before — her sons now enlisted in the Indian army, her husband driving a taxi in the capital.

This scenario is, sadly, being played out across the region. The breakdown of the family unit is arguably the biggest casualty from this economic shift. Separations were almost universally unknown before, but are now increasingly commonplace, whilst young men and women are falling prey to temptations they could never have known before.

Over the few decades since the region opened up to outsiders in the 1970s, community-based interdependence steadily surrendered to chasing the rupee — the carefully managed development and cycling of natural resources gave way to the process of extraction and profit. Where Ladakhis had been ‘true economists’, preserving and improving what they had, with no pollution and no waste, now they were looking for the ‘better life’ held out to them by billboards, magazines, TVs and the apparent wealth of gadget-wielding international visitors.

In the 1970s Leh’s population was only around 5000 people. Today it is twenty-five times that. As Ladakh has urbanised, Leh’s population has burgeoned and the strain on its infrastructure and resources has been pronounced.

Breakdown of the Ecology
Until modern goods arrived, everything was biodegradable. It is said that the older Ladakhis struggled at first to understand why a plastic bottle, when discarded, would still look virtually the same, even years later. (Reminds me of the film “The Gods Must be Crazy” featuring the Kalahari Bushmen and the Coca Cola Bottle…ed)
While the cycling of their former economy had no negative excess and no waste, their new economy has both, and in this high, dry climate, it has become an immense problem. In the countryside natural biological processes deal with organic waste and beneficial bacteria normally wins the battle against pathogens. Not so in Leh, where health and hygiene is difficult to maintain. At even the best restaurants, the shortage of clean water translates to many tourists suffering the unpleasant consequences.

In Helena Norberg-Hodge’s excellent book “Ancient Futures”
Helena, who was among the first European visitors to Ladakh and who has lived there regularly ever since, spoke of a particular boy she met there in the early years. After being shown around several communities, with their large and beautiful homes, she asked the boy if he could show her the homes of any poor people in the area. The boy thought for a moment, and replied something to the effect that "we don’t have any poor people". Some years later Helena overheard the same boy talking to tourists — but now he was asking them to help the Ladakhi people, because "we are so poor".

TV, film, magazines, music and tourist dollars — they’ve all lead Ladakhis to think of their traditional way of life as primitive and without merit, and to think of the western way of life as a goal to be achieved. To them we come across as rich, happy, and living lives full of leisure. Just as we are waking to the realisation that our western civilisation has come to a dead-end, and needs to turn about, due to both energy and ecological issues, without even getting into sociological issues, Ladakhis, like a great many other cultures worldwide, are clamouring to follow our lead.

As I wrote previously about another sustainable culture I witnessed being dismantled: Plugging into the global economy at this time could be likened to leaving a lifeboat to hop aboard the Titanic – just to serve drinks at a short-lived party on the upper decks. Many in the west are coming to realise we need to relocalise by rebuilding interdependent communities – something the Black Thai people can teach us a great deal about. In my mind, abandoning such a rich culture now would be bad timing, to say the least.

Through disuse, many Ladakhis today are losing the skills that had kept them nobly independent for centuries. And for what? To cram themselves into filthy urban hovels where all of their needs come to them via supply lines outside of their control.
When I try to think of the positive elements the last few decades of change have brought Ladakhis, and compare that with all they have lost, the lop-sidedness of these two lists is truly enough to bring me to tears.

Communities that never needed money before are now coming unglued as they strive and clamber over each other to get it. Beautiful, harmonious co-operation has given way to ugly, self-interested competition.
Where Ladakhis had a community spirit that gave each individual his or her own feeling of self-worth, now self-worth is based on a treadmill of status symbols promoted by a consumer economy. How is it that all the things they didn’t need or even want before, they now regard as indispensable? I ask myself, what have we done?

DVD: “Economics of Happiness” a documentary on the life of the Ladakhi people narrated by Helena Norberg-Hodge is available from Heritage Book Services. The time has come when we also must rebuild our own culture, the Ladakhi people are not the only people who have forgotten how to be self-reliant and independent.

Social Credit Secretariat Chairman Frances Hutchinson, has produced an excellent series on “Home Economics” to answer the question: “Where do we go from here?” Download “Home Economics” Talks: