Public Banking

A recent talk by Ellen Brown on Novemebr 22, reported here 
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Exploring-the-Public-Bank-by-Ellen-Brown-121208-629.html
emcourages the view of a bank as the custodian of the essential infrastructure of the economy rather than a private commercial concern. The example of North Dakota is quoted, with recommendations for Scotland.
Other recent articles have pointed out the inevitability of a move towards public banking
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/What-We-Could-Accomplish-i-by-Richard-Clark-121206-16.html

and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Public-Banking--The-Linch-by-Rob-Kall-121206-706.html
Money is a commons which needs to be protected so that we can have more control over where the energy of money is focused.
Comments welcome.
Anna

Gaza dialogue with Occupy Manchester

I think inner instability is a good place to be, since it means that we don't kid ourselves that we know the answers. We are more likely to be open to listening, to both sides, which is the prerequisite of justice. But this cannot happen while people are killing each other. Peace is not the aim. It is the necessary condition for finding a settlement that is acceptable to both sides, -which may or may not be just according to your perspective.

Once we give ourselves the space to listen to each other with respect, (as we are now doing here) we can find the commonalities among the differences, which no longer need to divide us. We can recognise every person as our brother and sister. That is the first step, the challenge for each one of us in these times, to overcome the rage at the crimes that are happening, and recognise the other as ourselves. This may feel like surrender, like becoming enslaved to power and corruption. Actually that is our state, we are complicit in all the mess and destruction which is happening in the world. To realise that is so heartbreaking, so intolerable, rather than face it, we accuse - see what they are doing, we are not like that, in order to dissociate ourselves from the heinous crimes that are being committed in our name.

That is where we started this dialogue - 'they are the Nazis'.

While we are in that state of dissociation, we disempower ourselves, we feel like victims/slaves and see all the power residing in the other. That impotence feeds our rage, and it becomes a vicious circle feeding on itself. That is what has fed into the 64 years of stagnation.

To reclaim our power we need to recognise the other in all it's guises as ourselves, and acknowledge our complicity. What is our complicity? In simplistic terms every money transaction we make supports this global system of violence.

It seems we are trapped, and that appears to be a hopeless state. What is different is our awareness. We still want to protest the tax evasion, the austerity cuts, the nuclear power, the persecution of Gaza, but our consciousness is different. It is not fuelled by hate or rage. It can protest but it can still hear the other side.

I offer this as a possibility.

BBC news sinks to new low

Was anyone else shocked, as I was, by the broadcast on Friday November 30th 6pm news, of a recording of a Russian prisoner being tortured by prison officers? The news was that the prison officers had been prosecuted and sentenced. But then we were subject to a detailed description of exactly what was done to this prisoner, while handcuffed, and then an actual recording of the screams of pain and the shouts of the torturers. We do have videos of extreme violence on the net and in films, to illustrate for example police violence, or war, but now this graphic violence is judged as news in itself.

It seems there is an attempt to immune us to the sense of outrage and physical repulsion which is the natural reaction when seeing violence perpetrated. And it seems to be working since I have not heard of any other objections to this broadcast.