In the 1960s, my mom worked in a tiny two-room Pasadena office where she wrote and designed World Vision’s very first pamphlets sent around the world to raise money for some of the world’s poorest and most marginalized people.  It was in the doorway to that office where my parents met, and her influence and my fathers’ led me to start The Reader.  Its mission is to dramatically raise awareness in the most influential country on earth about the realities we face and the solutions open to us.

Thomas Jefferson knew quality information and its free-flowing distribution were as important to democracy as freedom of speech.  He called them two pillars as important as government in achieving democracy.  People sometimes stop at his quote of preferring a nation with newspapers and no government to a nation with a government and no newspapers.  He goes on to say quality information must be distributed to all, not only accessible.

It was he along with James Madison and George Washington who put this belief to action by government subsidization of postal rates, as the mail was the primary way newspapers were distributed at the time.

In a letter from Paris to Edward Carrington Jefferson wrote:

The way to prevent [errors of judgment by] the people is to give them full information…& to contrive that [it] penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.

What kind of “errors” in how government was working should the people know about?  Another founder answered that question.

John Adams said: “All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”  

Since 2011, in The Reader we have looked closer at what our money is and discovered a violence and destructive power tied to its nature and who controls its circulation which unquestionably diminishes our personal freedoms. 

Today we our money is created most often by commercial banks in the form of new loans with interest that has to be paid.  There is much more money circulating in the system as a result of this “bank created” money, created as an accounting entry, than there is in the form of currency and coins. What does this mean?  It means very simply that the people’s own power to create currency (through representative government) has been usurped, and this making quite an impact on American life. 

The ugly truth is that commercial banking has usurped what is rightfully the sacred responsibility of a nation– control of how much money is in circulation.  What turned a light on for me was coming to the realization that no for-profit bank anywhere has a right to control the supply of something that is ultimately backed by the people’s credit. 

Consider the example of people being on a desert island– just like you might think of a nation of 300 million Americans being on our big island.  On the island, to make it easier for people to trade with each other as well as to contribute to projects that benefit everyone, a form of money is created and each person receives some of the money.  The money is created as a public good, backed by the faith and credit of all members of the island to honor it as a form of value and as payment for things. 

Would it be good for all on the island if one person declared they alone had the right to create money and had the right to charge interest for using it?  What do you imagine would happen to the value of the original public money once this new “debt-money” came into existence?  One thing for sure– it would certainly cause confusion.  

What would happen if the person who wanted to create their own money and charge interest for it recruited onto their team the best storytellers and communicators on the island to convince others that the “public money” wasn’t really that good, and that in reality, everyone should be using their money– that of course wasn’t free anymore– but it did have a zero percent introductory rate? 

If we believe that “money makes the world go round” and that absolute power corrupts absolutely, what is in store for a people who have lost control of their money supply?  In truth, what used to be our right– control through representative government of the nation’s money supply– has been usurped by for-profit banks who wield enormous power that they are able to buy up government, educational institutions and the press all of which are intended to prevent such concentration of power. 

It’s important to remember history again– and that we don’t need to demonize people to fix the system– we just need to figure out how to fix the system, graciously, courageously and gently do it.  I remember a T-Shirt worn by a person that looked like your average Inland Empire mom who was standing outside a meeting of the leaders from the 20 largest industrialized nations which said, “You are 20, We are Billions”.  Anyone putting their efforts towards changing the system now for good has the power of billions of people on their side for whom the system does not work. 

One of many important things you can do to stand up for your freedom is support institutions like The Reader that are committed to preserving it.