Cool. How do we get there?

Ah Watson, that indeed is the rub! People have been talking about better societies for literally thousands of years - and we still have lying politicians and rich people running our societies for their own personal benefit, using the rest of us like some kind of slave labour - yea, the Egyptians controlled their slaves with whips, the Bay St Boys control We the People with 12 years of brainwashing, tv and mortgages - but the result is the same. They have much, we have little (which might be ok if they worked hard and produced much and we lazed around and produced little, but that ain't how the story goes - We the People produce it all, They the Trolls steal it all....). Occasionally we make a bit of progress, as through the post-war years here, but soon enough the trolls reassert their power, as they did here in the 1980s, and what we gain on one hand, we lose on another (yea we got medicare and a new car - we also got a 20-year mortgage that means we can't leave the soul-numbing day job until our dreams have turned to ashes and we're past the time we can enjoy life much while the trolls and their spawn jetset around the world on the fruits of OUR labour... - my grandfather might not have had medicare - but by golly he wasn't punching a time clock every day either with some trollette counting his key strokes by the hour.... - and also the security of medicare is getting pretty shaky - but the mortgage payments aren't getting smaller). But as another wise man once said, the longest ever journey nonetheless begins with a single step. And sometimes also a few steps can take you further than you ever thought you would go. So let us begin this journey, with a single step. And then another, and another, and see where we get to.

• Understand the problem - it's a bit obvious, but you can't solve any problem without defining it first. This includes simply acknowledging that there IS a problem - that we do NOT live in a "democracy" as they constantly tell us, but a plutocracy. To many people, this is fine and there is no problem - they know nothing about running a country and have no desire to learn, and don't want any more than a half-decent job that provides them with shelter and food and family and some entertainment like tv and malls, in a society like Canada where the rulers don't at least torture people for kicks on Friday nights after a few beers (well, a few exceptions of course - but not likely to impinge on your middle-classers). To others of us, that is much less than we want in a society, and thus we fight for something better. If you are of the latter persuasion, then the struggle becomes more focused - getting rid of the trolls, and working with other like-minded people to establish a government truly of, by and for We the People. The trolls will, of course, oppose this - as will the many who are happy enough with the government of the trolls and don't want to get the trolls mad. When you've made this decision, start reading, thinking, talking - I've got a lot of places to start scattered throughout these pages, but you have to get your own education - that's what free, independent people do. Many of us will help, of course.
  
  
• Be the future you wish to see - perhaps one of the wisest sayings ever said - and as you know, there are a lot of wise sayings out there to choose from. The trolls do this - they beg and borrow and steal money, and construct great houses of sand and shadow, but with great lights and loud music blaring from every corner, and they have convinced everyone that THEIR future is the future we all want to see - indeed, they would have us believe, there is, nor can be, no other future. They have built a society, and envision a future of more of the same, based on lies, and secrecy, and violence and coercion and exclusivity, a small group hoarding and stealing the wealth we have all worked for, we and our forefathers and mothers - we, now, must build OUR future - a future built on a solid foundation of truth and openness and inclusiveness, of light, and love, and intelligence and compassion, for all to share, a future open for all sentient creatures.
  
  
• Be the future you wish to see. Do not support the trolls - never again go to a Walmart or purchase your necessities from huge multinational corporations. And be open about it, and spread the word about what you are doing and why. The longest journey and all that. When you buy your produce from the local farmer's market, take with you some brochures or something that explains some part of what is happening, that shines some light on the trolls and their world. Sit and talk for a few minutes with someone who expresses some interest. Not someone you know already thinks as we do, but someone who has perhaps been wondering if there might not be a better way, and is ready to have the front of the cave pointed out to her. That is all we need to do - get people thinking. They will do the rest themselves. We are an immensely intelligent species, if given a chance to think. An awful lot of people are getting REALLLLLLLY suspicious of what is going on in the upper levels of their government, but being too busy to have a lot of time to spend on researching this stuff, and being kept in the dark as much as possible by the Canadian corporate media, and told over and over again that they live in the very best of all possible worlds, they aren't as aware of the problems and possible solutions as they might be. Give them some truth and open their eyes, point them to the front of the cave - and nature, as the old saying has it, will take its course. Most people, I think, will cast off their chains - once they are aware of them, and aware of the options for becoming free humans, in a much better land.
  
  And yes, I know that a lot of things you really figure you need can only be gotten someplace where you're giving money to the trolls. That's ok - it will take a while to find some new sources, or learn to substitute where you can, or do without other stuff. The important thing is that you think of it, and are aware, and really trying (and progressing!). This ain't gonna happen quick anyway - but do take these steps, or it will never happen.
  
  
• Free Money - Hahahaha - that does NOT mean you don't ever have to work again! - don't be silly, who would be the doctor, who would make your shoes, who would be your ISP or provide your computer or the software, who would grow your food or get it to you if nobody worked???? - no no no, it just means that the money we use as a means of exchange for the work we all do is created free of debt.
  
  Now I know that is probably like a lightning bolt right out of the blue - as in "What do you MEAN??? Like - the money we use is already "debt-free" isn't it?? I mean - where does it come from anyway?" - yea, for such an important part of our lives, we don't really know much about where it comes from, do we? Interesting, that. Sort of a barking dog thing, if you know your Holmes.
  
  As things stand, the money we use is created and LOANED to our government or businesses or ordinary folk by private banks, and we have to pay interest on that money. Yea yea I know that sounds crazy, that all of our money is "loaned" into original existence - but that's the troll system - you can see, I expect, it's pretty great for them (bankers are the Chief Trolls) - you can print about a billion dollars worth of banknotes for a thousand bucks or so - and the rest is pure profit - what a great deal!!!! - for them, anyway. So they "loan" that billion bucks to the gov, which then turns around and puts it into the Canadian economy. But then every year after that, then, they "have to" collect a hundred million in taxes to pay the interest on that billion that the banks created and loaned us. And you get a headache if you start working on the ramifications of that - but go for it. And then that little light bulb will go off and you'll realize that where you go with that is where we are today. (Gosh DARN greedy Boxer Canadians wanting medicare and UI and pensions!!! NOW look at the DEBT you've caused!!!!)
  
  And where does the gov get the money for the "service charges" they pay to the trolls?!?! Why, your taxes, of course!!! The taxes you THOUGHT you were paying for healthcare and education and public infrastructure and stuff like that for We the People - a big skim right off the top, every year, for the Trolls. Sort of sounds like racket money, doesn't it?? heh heh - if it looks like a duck and all that ....
  
  And it STILL ain't "our" money - We the People of Canada!!!! - we still OWE that 500 billion to the trolls!! Wild, eh? Who in their right mind would set up a system like this? If you and I and the neighbors wanted to start a little trading club amongst ourselves, and needed a means of exchange - would it be better to do it ourselves on OUR computer for free - or to let John the Loanshark from the next neighborhood print up some script on his computer and LOAN it to us - which we then had to pay interest on every time we made a transaction amongst ourselves - and had to pay back at the end of the pre-determined period as well - and then borrow more!!!!! - it absolutely astounds me how anyone could fall for this shit. I guess ol Barnum know what he was talking about. But with 12 years of brainwashing, and a "media" who are part of the scam, I guess anything is possible.
  
  Check it out - don't take my word for it - here's two good sites for some background reading - browse around, there are a lot of articles - Prosperity UK, and then a very good Canadian site as well, COMER - the Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform.
  
  But after you have checked it out, you will hopefully start to see that it is a crazy way for a community - or country - to get its money - and it makes a WHOLE lot more sense for us to create a system whereby we create our money "debt-free", and just use it for what we need it for - facilitating the exchange of goods and services among ourselves, so we have a good community with lots of stuff and services, and an easy way to negotiate the exchange of that stuff, without resorting to barter, which is very impractical when you have hundreds or thousands of different products and services that people produce or want. Why should we allow some "third party" or outside agency to provide that means of exchange - and in return basically let them skim half of everything we produce or make?!?!?!?!?! - absolutely crazy. We could do it ourselves for free!!!
  
  You might also think a bit, while you're on this path, just why it is that "your" government and the Canadian media have never bothered to tell you about this. hahaha. Sure sure they will tell you that We the People providing our own money is absolutely crazy! - but con men are ALWAYS full of good reasons you should be conned, no??? And remember too, that the current system confers GREAT power on those who control the money - and ensures that We the People live our lives surrounded and controlled by a very powerful set of chains. They know this well - one of the primary paths to your freedom is understanding it equally as well, and taking steps to remove that dagger from your throat.
  
  For the nuts and bolts of this stuff, there are many, many ideas out there, all good, all (of the realistic ones) FAR better than the system of debt-money we are using. Start here for some good background reading - LETS System - The Home Page, or Ithaca Hours Online - and then, as always, THINK about it yourself, ask questions, get answers - get involved. That is the way from here to there - WE do it. And I would not want you to get the idea that this will be real easy to do - it won't. You'll need a substantial number of people in your community who understand what is happening with the debt-based money, and want to get out from under the troll thumb - and also be aware that the trolls are not going to roll over and play dead if you actually start to threaten their monopoly on the money supply. You will be challenging the Troll Godfathers if you do this (and don't be confused by the analogy - these troll godfathers aren't wearing Marlon's face or some other shady Sicilians - they're wearing the faces of your Bay St Bankers and "investors" and upper-tier politicians, among others, at least here in Canada, but they have all the best PR firms in the country making you think they are your friends (!!!!! fer crisake!!!!!) - and their muscle is wearing fancy uniforms with stuff like RCMP written on their cars and "Canadian Court of Justice" (sic) written on the papers they give you to shut you up...., and "security warrants" for the ones they REALLY find dangerous or really dislike), and all the media, if you ever get going, is going to treat you like either you're kids playing with monopoly (apt word!) money "isn't that cute! - but certainly nothing we could use in our 'real' world", or terrorists trying to undermine the Great Free Democracy of Canada - and the only "rules of engagement" these people understand are basically "win at all costs").
  
  As part of the never buying from the trolls again, it is pretty much a necessity that more and more people start using non-troll money - this is the central troll chain, and we will never be free in our own land as long as the trolls control the means of exchange we use to order our affairs in our communities. It was one of their great achievements on the road to consolidating their power to manage to do this, and it will be OUR central achievement of autonomy to wrest that power from them.
  
  This will take some doing, as the Brits say about all kinds of things, but it can be done. Like everything else - one step at a time. Start small and grow.
  
  
• Be the Democracy of We the People you want to see!!! - I don't think there's going to be any magic revelation one day, one glorious awakening when the trolls are suddenly there no more, and We the People run things. It's going to be a slower process, one step at a time - we remove their power bit by bit by asserting our own power, bit by bit, in small things at first, and then every now and then the small things will coalesce into a bigger thing, and then a few bigger things will coalesce into We the People finally standing tall while the trolls slink off into their caves or something - let's not get too carried away with analogies. That's probably a tad optimistic anyway - these people are not going to go without a fight, and there will be casualties - we should never be unrealistic about that.
  
  But if you want a Canada of, by and for We the People - start BEING that Canada. Get involved in We the People democracy. Get active with some of the many We the People Democracy movements -
  • - the Council of Canadians is a good place to start - be aware of the issues facing us, and do some volunteering to spread the word about what the government is REALLY up to with their "trade" treaties and what not - far too few people actually understand this, and the Council of Canadians has a lot of good material explaining things. There's all kinds of other non-troll places to get info out there - Tony Clarke's Polaris Institute has good stuff, and Clarke's book Silent Coup: Confronting the Big Business Takeover of Canada should be must reading. As should David Orchard's The Fight for Canada, Mel Hurtig's The Vanishing Country, Murray Dobbin's Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen, or anything by Linda McQuaig (or her Star columns). There are many others, but these are a good start for people who believe in Canada and what it SHOULD be - a We the People democracy, leading the way into a new and better world, rather than another American puppet blindly following the PNAC people and our own CCCE traitors to Armageddon.
  • Fair Vote Canada is another good outfit to support - PR may not be perfect, but it would be one HELL of a lot more democratic than the "first past the post" system that so very much favors the troll parties while we work on the next step to "real" democracy, with much more local decisions being made at bioregional levels, with full citizen involvement.
  • We still live with a reasonably honest electoral system (this is not contradictory to my disgust with the way things are - remember, we were making good progress as a society until the 1970s, when the troll revolution got underway to turn things around), so if you really want to get rid of the trolls - start working with political parties that are not controlled by them. And this means NOW!!! - not sometime a few weeks before the next election is called. The NDP, again, is not perfect in many ways, but they have the largest non-troll political organization in Canada, and have what certainly appears to be the best chance to replace the trolls, if they could just up their vote percentage a bit - and I have to think they would be a pretty substantial improvement on either the Libs or the Republican-northers masquerading as the "conservative" party in Canada - both firmly controlled by the Bay St trolls. (I'd personally advise against the national Green party at this time, which appears to have been taken over by a Libertarian sort of group, which is not what I at least want to see for the future - they're far too much in the "dog-eat-dog" camp when it comes to social responsibility for my liking. And although I like newer parties like the CAP and have supported them (still do, they have great ideas), I really think that at this time in our history we have to be a bit rational about things, and work together as one anti-troll group with the single primary goal of getting rid of the trolls, and replacing them with a party that will facilitate our further objectives - firstly by instituting PR, after which we can vote for these other parties secure in the knowledge that our votes will be meaningful, which they will NOT be under this FPTP system currently in use.)
• Spread the word. You who read this are most likely aware of most of what I have to say here - we progressives tend to have a habit of preaching to the converted, reading each other's words, sharing stories of the latest troll atrocity with indignation, and so on. But that path is a false one - not without its attractions and uses, but it will not lead us to where we need to go, its false comfort perhaps often doing more harm than good, if we were forced to be acting rather than passively reading one another's words - I think the trolls are ok with us, as long as we sequester ourselves in this way and do not threaten them directly. Our problem is not OUR unawareness of what is happening in our community and country and world, but the unawareness of those who, for whatever reason, and there are many of them, have not managed to have that epiphanous moment that makes them realize they have been living in the back of the cave, forging and maintaining their own chains while the trolls party with the gold they produce, and the entrance, and the light, are but a few short steps away, and eminently, eminently attainable, if they but desire it, if they can overcome their fear of the unknown and the green Oz-like miasmic curtain the trolls have placed over their eyes. So the first step to a better future is to spread the word that such a future awaits, if enough of us but wish to cast off the chains that bind us to the darkness, and embrace the light.
  
  
• Demand and take what freedom you can. Civil disobedience. Be the future etc. It does not have to be huge things that they will shoot you for, not everyone has the strength to be a martyr, or perhaps you might have the strength, but also the responsibility to your family or others that makes martyrdom at this time apt to do more harm to others than good for anyone - it's the symbolism that counts, your awareness, your resistance, your spreading the word, your waiting for the day of freedom. Every act of civil disobedience will strengthen you, and weaken them, and be a beacon for others. I've started a list of suggestions, things you can do. Small or big, as you feel able to do. Don't be too much "in their face" right away - they'll just bury you, and if there are only a few lonely voices crying in the wilderness and those voices get buried, we have gained nothing, but they much. Large demonstrations like we have seen in the past are ok, way too many people to bury and maintain the pretense that keeps most people in the cave sort of quiet, that we live in a "democracy" - but such demonstrations have not had much lasting effect, either, at least in a positive sense - they have alerted the trolls that some people are fighting back, and the trolls have increased their brainwashing efforts - but they are ok.
  
  
• Speak true words - when you let the enemy define the issues and the rules of debate, the whole thing is about half over before you even start - Propaganda 101. Don't call them the "democratic government" or "business elite" or anything like that anymore - those words have good meanings and good connotations in a good society, and we should reserve them for the day that will come when we have people and institutions that fit those words - for the present bunch, call them trolls, which they are in every realistic sense of the word, and their government the troll government, NOT a people's democracy. Scurvy things who came from under rocks and in dark and dank and smelly spaces, full of nasty stuff, lying and stealing and causing huge amounts of suffering in pursuit of their own selfish, meaningless little ends. Trolls. Don't talk about the Canadian media, as if it was some sort of real media - call it the Canadian corporate media, so its roots and rots amd prejudices are clear. Etc and etc.