Who Cares?

Yesterday I found my elderly near-neighbour wandering around his garden in a state of high agitation. Two cars stood in the driveway of his large garden, and when he saw me he pointed at them in anger. "They're all talking about me in there, and I can't stand it. They want to put me away, so I've come out." They want me to leave all this!" he exclaimed, pointing at the terraced garden with fruit tress, green houses, neat lawns, hedges and flowerbeds. "I'll be locked up, behind screens, I won't have it. I'll kill myself first". His wife died just before the first Lockdown, and he has suffered from loneliness ever since.

We have known him for forty years. When he taught at the local middle school he introduced vegetable and fruit growing long before it became fashionable, and he planted a small woodland (which thrives to this day) on land surrounding the playing fields. He had four children, kept a flock of Jacob sheep, with sheep dogs beautifully trained, and he also bred orchids. Later in life he taught art at a private school. Although he continues to take long walks out into the woods, his mind is going. His family are at their wits' end. They love him dearly, and somebody is round at the house every day. But they can't provide adequately for him to stay in his familiar surroundings as his mental facilities continue to deteriorate. Their prior commitment is to maintain their income streams from the full-time employment to which they are committed. This raises the fundamental question of our times. What exactly is the employment system? Why is it necessary to prioritise working for a money wage or salary above all other considerations in planning our daily lives? Virtually every family I know faces this problem in one form or another, as they struggle to provide adequate and appropriate care for the very young, the elderly and the mentally and physically sick members of their families. During the late 20th century 'socialism' came to mean nothing more than getting better pay and conditions of work under capitalist conditions of employment. In effect, the availability of finance came to dominate institutional and personal policy formation.

It was not always so. During the 19th century and early decades of the 20th century, 'socialism' came in a great number of varieties, all raising the importance of voluntary cooperation in work and community building, all opposed to the imposition of waged and salaried labour. Communism and the Welfare State were later imposed upon the working populations of the world, forcing them to prioritise working for a wage or salary above home making, housekeeping, gardening, care of the natural world and farming in all its many forms. But, until the time of World War II, a lively debate was conducted by and through a host of individuals and organisations. These included the work of Edward Carpenter, A.R. Orage, John Ruskin, William Morris, the Guild Socialists, Fabians, Arts and Crafts Movement, Douglas Social Credit, the Alberta (farming) Experiment, Henry George and the Land Question (see the origins of Monopoly), the Distributism of G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, the Catholic Worker movement of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the cooperative and adult education movements as a whole, Thorstein Veblen and so many more. This debate is being revisited by a host of individuals and groups in the light of current events. (see https://www.douglassocialcredit.com/ for some relevant links, references and articles).

The title of this edition of my blog is taken from Wendy Teall's article in New View (Issue 102, Winter 21-22) in which she raises many of the issues faced by carers and the cared-for alike as they faced impossible choices imposed by an archaic employment system that is founded upon an archaic financial system. These matters urgently require informed discussion at local level by all involved in providing care of all kinds.

Luddites for Life

It was probably during one of his months on Skyros that Murray McGrath wrote Luddites for Life, well before there was any sign of a pandemic crisis. Certainly his choice of title for the rhyme is most apt. Luddites are remembered for their apparently negative opposition to technological progress, although in reality they did far more than merely protest. They were truly pro-life. Their love of the land, the natural world, the farm, the well-run household, arts and crafts and good work in general led them t oppose a way of life. The idea of men, women and children being wage slaves, forced to work at a repetitive, soul-destroying task minding a machine for a pittance of a money wage simply did not appeal. For the Luddites and their families, three acres and a cow were infinitely preferable. But, as Murray's rhyme indicates, the world as a whole turned a blind eye to the warnings of the Luddites and went hell-for-leather for the Machine Age.

Luddites for Life by Murray McGrath

Where is modern technology taking us?

Effective techniques every day are making us

Work, when we need to replace faulty parts,

New joints, and new livers, new kidneys and hearts.

New arms and new legs like Oscar Pistorius

Doing the job in a way that's quite glorious.

But treatments for flu, hypertension, and gout

Are doubtful at best, we're finding this out.

Failing with super-bugs, cancers and aids,

With the risks and the side effects, confidence fades.

They're studying parts, that get smaller and smaller

But profits get bigger, make many a dollar.

And how does it help in our everyday lives?

Does it ease all the worries of husbands and wives?

And their children, so precious, to have vaccination,

Do they know what they do without full information?

Interfere with the body, you're asking for trouble

Far from fixing your problems, they'll soon end up double.

So follow your heart, look after your health

Live a natural life, it doesn't take wealth

With a spring in your step and a smile on your face

You can show how it's done to the whole human race.

NOTE: Murray McGrath (1934-2020) published his Rhymes for Reciting in 2019, is also available on the Understanding Life and Debt blog for 7th October 2021.

The Great Reset has nothing whatsoever to do with preserving the health and safety of humanity. On the contrary, it is all about a global elite's quest for total power over the social order. (See Mattias Desmet on 'Mass Formation' works on the fears, doubts and uncertainties of individuals who are lacking in social contacts and worthwhile jobs. The task ahead is to break free from waged and salaried slavery, the assumption that an employer must he found to hire us as paid workers so that we can buy food, clothing and shelter. Fortunately, the concept of viable alternatives to wged and salaried empployment has been explored, explained and discussed through various movements of the past century. These include the distributists, guild socialists, Douglas social crediters, Alberta experiment, Catholic Worker, Camphill and so many more as documented in Understanding the Financial System and Down to Earth.

The time is now for all, every single one of us, to break the chains of finance and build the New Community. As explained in New View:

"The present operations of the financial system are resulting in neglect of care for the land and the natural world; neglect of the cultural and spiritual life of humanity as a whole; and, above all, neglect of what Steiner has termed "good, self-sacrificing work"ⁱ. In present times, a soul-destroying education system trains waged and (often very highly paid) salaried slaves to work for an income that will supply them with food, shelter and entertainment according to their status and selected lifestyle. In return for their chosen 'happitalist rewards, workers undertake the work required to wage war against the natural world (agribusiness), and humanity itself (armaments, nuclear power and weapons, Big Pharm products)." New View Issue 102, Winter 21-22. p44)

But what is to be done? Murray McGrath's Rhyme 'Luddites for Life' provides and excellent starting point for Round-table Discussions in the Catholic Worker tradition. (To be continued...)

New Year Message

New Year Message: See the Blog for New Year's Eve for Murray McGrath's rhyme entitled "Many Cries of Pain". See also his "Luddites for Life" piece, to be found on the Blog for 7th October 2020. Both are relevant to what follows here.

The Social Control System

The term 'social credit' has been taken quite deliberately from a century-old movement that sought to fight free from the power of the transnational corporations. In the early decades of the 20th century corporate finance was already using the financial system to create war, ecological disaster and poverty amidst plenty, to buy up land, labour and all forms of capital. The Douglas social credit movement and the allied movements of guild socialism, distributism, Henry Georgism, cooperatives and agrarianism sought to counter the power of the corporate world through decentralisation, local businesses and community banking as the means to bring an end to waged and salaried slavery. Although the battle to fight free of corporate finance failed in the twentieth century, the history shines a beacon to the future. For details see Understanding the Financial System and Down to Earth: A Guide to Home Economics.

In a video entitled "Pandemic will end when their digital monetary system is in place", Melissa Ciummei. a financial advisor from Northern Ireland, voices her concern that injections passports are intended to become data passports to control all participation in society. The whole passport system was dreamed up with a view to bringing about a totalitarian world government through a financial reset. The plan is to replace the failing world fiat currency system that is on the verge of collapse with a new central banks digital money system that has complete control over all transactions.

Following Ciummei, we observe that, after the various banking crises, trillions of dollars are now owed to the banks. Since there is no way of paying this money back to the banks, a new financial system becomes necessary. In order to introduce that new system, mandatory vaccination of all citizens, young and old, becomes imperative. The way - the only way - to prevent this new system from being introduced is for all people to refuse to comply. (See video link below)

There are no medical reasons to hold a vaccine passport. Vaccine passports don’t do anything to keep you healthy. On the contrary, all they do is turn you into a trackable data unit. The world--wide elites view humans as data. Whether that data is useful or harmful to the new world depends on whether we line up with their plans or not. Their plans will see the Chinafication of the whole world.

We are transitioning from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Bodies, where every bit of your personal information will be kept inside your bodies. This can then be connected to Artificial Intelligence. We will be chipped, marked like cattle. Most of us won’t complain since it appears to be all for the common good. Human behaviours will be used to further the power of AI by all the while keeping you monitored 24×7. The pandemic will continue until people accept this reality. Once they have done so, the new digital monetary system will track and trace each and every transaction. The old fiat currency system that has operated over many decades will be replaced by one that gives total control to finance. The first stage will be 'social credit' scores with incentives. Then then enforced mandates will follow, on the lines introduced throughout this pandemic.

In summary, the plan is to introduce a cashless society, in which every transaction is made through the central bank digital currency system.

The 'Pandemic' is the excuse to force you to get the vaccine/injection. The injection offers you the vaccine passport. The passport provides you with a 'social credit' score. The social credit score is used to force you to obey the government. The upshot is that the government can now DENY you food, medicine, access housing, travel, work, mortgage, health care, access to public transport, petrol etc... etc....if you do not toe the line, fit the bill or fulfil any useful purpose in the eyes of the centralising elite.

Cryptocurrencies are not the answer. They are not the digital gold that many people think. The enemy of all cryptocurrencies is tracking which is now put up in place. Sooner or later people will have to come out of this illusion. We are at war,and non-compliance is the only answer. As long as you keep paying for your shackles you cannot complain about being kept in the cave.

The very sketchy summary provided here merely introduces the key points. For details, follow any links you can find, and verify them in discussion with others.

The quest for world domination by the financial system of all the real resources of the planet. That is, all land, all knowledge, and all labour is coming under the control of the financial system. Resistance must come through study, informed debate and discussion, and above all non-compliance with the whole injections passports system.

See Understanding the Financial System and Down to Earth for clear explanation of why local communities must rally around local Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to retain control over the real resources of land, labour and capital. Both are available for free download on the Douglassocialcredit website. See the FRANCES HUTCHINSON page.

 The Pandemic Will End ... Melissa Ciummei

https://rumble.com/vr7fph-melissa-ciummei-pandemic-will-end-when-their-digital-monetary-system-is-in-.html

 

Many Cries of Pain

The Rhyme for Reciting entitled Many Cries of Pain was written by Murray McGrath well before the onset of the Covidvirus lockdowns in 2020. It raises many current issues and is presented here as a tribute to Murray, who died in December 2020.

Many Cries of Pain

The good Earth revolves and flies out through space

It's beauty and magic show ultimate grace.

The wonder of nature blooms and blossoms all round,

The birds of the air offer colour and sound.

The creatures that crawl, swim, wriggle and run

Living together since time had begun.

And each with its needs for surviving and giving,

Enough is enough for community living.

Then along came humanity, sure of its role,

To conquer the Earth spirit, body and soul.

Such a fabulous source of pride and of pleasure

Was enough to corrupt man's greed, beyond measure.

No more satisfaction from having enough,

The demands of the ego want more and more stuff.

In the civilised world, it's money that matters.

Cash in on the living and leave it in tatters.

A great source of profit, mass production of meat.

We'll pay through the nose for a nice tasty treat.

Who cares for poor creatures who suffer and die

In disgusting conditions, we turn a blind eye.

But we suffer too, in so many ways.

A diet of death that handsomely pays,

Is promoted and treated to taste quite delicious.

When reality is, it's just not nutritious.

On a diet like that you're bound to get ill.

But the doctor's on hand, and the right sort of pill

Will soon have you better and up to your tricks.

Modern medicine works well with its technical fix.

We're lucky it seems, to have such a service,

But a much closer look might make you feel nervous.

Corporate corruption takes advantage of trust.

With an evidence base you'd think that it must

Be the best you can get for keeping you well.

But vaccines and drugs make big profits to sell,

So keeping you ill, is what suits them best.

Big money for them, tough luck for the rest.

So they mess with the evidence, distort the conclusions,

Select the results, create healing illusions

Spend lots of money, promote and conceal

That they don't do the job, don't really heal.

Poor doctors are victims of this grand deceit

Their ways come from evidence, all they have to treat.

Well trained and brainwashed, conditioned to do

What science prescribes, it's not about you.

But the Earth keeps on turning sadly knowing its fate,

And the suffering cries into space, radiate.

The universe weeps and wonders, looks on

The magic, the beauty, might soon all be gone.

So we've got a planet and creatures to save

We can do it, let's do it, but we must be brave.

From Rhymes for Reciting by Murray McGrath (2019)

The Catholic Worker Movement

As facts and figures float across our consciousness through the various news media that technology has made available to us, it is very difficult to focus our minds on what is happening in order to judge what appropriate action we might take. One silly example could quite possibly assist in bringing present events into the wider context of historical events.

Apparently 90% of the world's physical trading freight is carried by sea. This has given rise to the addled notion that removal of those freight ships from the sea would, according to the Archimedes principle, cause sea levels to fall, mitigating the effects of rising sea levels due to global warming. The nonsensical thought leads to a vastly more interesting one. If 90% of the world's physical trade did indeed cease forthwith, all our Households would be dramatically affected. There would be no bananas in our fruit bowls. Many of the items presently in stock in our fridges, freezers and kitchen cupboards, bedrooms, wardrobes, sitting rooms, garages and offices would simply not be there. As the world's ecological, political and economic systems stand on the brink of collapse, it is high time we explored some fundamental questions about our present lifestyle priorities. Fortunately, we do not have to start from scratch. In the mid-twentieth century the Catholic Worker movement blazed a trail for us to follow.

Led by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker movement embraced people of all faiths and none, including people from all walks of life, of all ages, rich and poor, highly educated and totally unschooled, people with homes to go to and people with nowhere to lay their heads but the pavement. The term 'catholic' means universal, embracing all. But it has the further connotation of being based upon the moral and ethical social teachings of the universal church. Those values pervade and inform the writings of the authors of universally-read books that were household names throughout the English speaking world and beyond. They were read and discussed by homeless down-and-outs like Peter Maurin, who was said to be the best read man in America. His Easy Essays are full of references to the names of key social philosophers, whose relevance continues to the present day. Many of those names appeared in Commonweal, the influential journal on social issues that is still in publication. Contrast these writings with the political psychology and mass manipulation through fear that is driving the world population into totalitarianism. (See UK Column News for sources)

Contrast also the term 'worker' as used in 'Catholic Worker. In producing the Catholic Worker newspaper, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin took on board the battles of the urban, industrial workers with their low wages, strikes, lock-downs, unemployment, inadequate living accommodation and homelessness. However, they also promoted the dignity of labour and the love of good work that is to be found in peasant farming communities the world over. All work on homes and communities, including the art and architecture of churches, cathedrals and community infrastructures, brings respect to the worker. Above all, work on the land brings the physical and spiritual well-being that is so sadly absent from waged and salaried employment and many an urban household divorced entirely from the land and nature.

The history of the Catholic Worker movement has been documented in various ways, often alongside records of similar movements seeking to create communities based on a living relationship with the land and the natural world. (See Dan McKanan's work.) It is becoming increasingly apparent that self-organisation based upon self-education will become central to creating a viable social order based upon a just relationships between humanity and the land. In this, the Catholic Worker movement has a great deal to teach us.

In writing the following, Peter Maurin took a leaf out of the writings of Arthur Penty and other guild socialist writers.

Outdoor Universities

The machine

is not an improvement

on man's skill;

it is an imitation

of man's skill.

Read Post-Industrialism

by Arthur Penty.

The best means

are the pure means

and the pure means

are the heroic means.

Read Freedom in the Modern World

by Jacques Maritain.

The future of the Church

is on the land,

not in the city;

for a child

is an asset

on the land

and a liability

in the city.

Read The Church and the Land

by Father Vincent McNabb, 0.P.

See also earlier blogs, including An Agricultural Act (12 December) Voluntary Poverty (18 November)

The Agronomic Revolution

As "The-War-To-End-All-Wars"(1914-18) ended a century ago, Spanish Flu took millions of lives on top of those lost in the war Although many worked hard to build a safer, saner world, they failed, and, as a result, we inherit a sorry history. The founding of the Soviet Union totalitarian state led to the death of untold millions of peasant farmers. It was followed by the rise of Hitler's Nazi Germany, Mussolini's fascist Italy, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the bombing of Dresden, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Vietnam, Korea, Afghaninstan and so on, on and on. In the meantime, humanity made war against the natural world destroying rainforests, and replacing sustainable peasant farming techniques with financially profitable agribusiness that suits neither man nor beast. Presently we are seeing the frightful isolation of the elderly and dying, the injecting, masking and isolation of children, and the evaporation of basic human rights, all in the name of scientific and technological 'progress'. At the heart of the matter is the economic system. The world of finance forces us to sell our time for money to the highest bidder in order to buy the necessities of life.

According to the text books, economics is the "study of the allocation of scarce resources to infinite wants". But this leads to the 'diamond/water paradox. Water is essential for life, but it is plentiful. Diamonds are a luxury, but they are scarce. Hence diamonds sell for a high price, whilst water sells for a low price. The paradox invites us to consider the two basic forms of economy, the financial economy that is driven by finance and competition, and the real-life economy through which we manage our lives in cooperation with others and using the resources of the natural world. The financial economy that presently rampages across the world is, to put it simply, out of control because it is beyond the comprehension of rich and poor alike. It does not have to be that way. All that is necessary is to take a long, hard, unbiased look at what is actually happening.

When we do so, we discover three basic, interlocked economic systems or networks, all of which are keyed into the money system in their various ways. These are the macro-finance corporate world, the local Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), and the individual Households (upon which everything depends).

The macro-finance corporate economy comprises the massive, world-wide, interlocking networks of transnational corporations that currently rampage across the world playing havoc with every living thing in their path. The networks of finance and Big Pharm corporations control production of armaments, pharmaceutical products, cars, computers, transport systems, agribusiness, mass produced foods, consumer durables, the mass entertainment and information media and, increasingly, the political and legal systems. Corporations include all the familiar names that appear daily in the news media, and whose products are brand names.

The micro- Small and Medium Sized economy consists of a mass of small businesses supplying goods and services to the local community. These include hairdressers, taxis drivers, high street shops, producers of all manner of electrical, plumbing, building, engineering, health care and education services.

The economy of individual Households is crucial to the existence of the other two economies. The full implications of this statement call for much self-help research, discussion and debate in the immediate future. Starting with Your Money or Your Life, leading to Radical Homemakers, Green Housekeeping and the Book of the Home. These point us in the direction of the key issues of food, farming and finance. In short, the Agronomic University of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker movement as a whole. This is the area where we can all, each one of us, make a contribution that will make all the difference. (More in due course).

An Agricultural Act

In these troubled times we are called to examine our basic assumptions about food and the other necessities of life. A child can assume that food, clothing and accommodation will be provided by a parent figure. An adult cannot. All the necessities of life that we consume come to us at a price paid by others, in the form of soul-destroying work of many kinds. Meanwhile, the processes of packaging, transporting and disposing of the waste is causing untold damage to the natural world. Presently, the financial system allows us to live in childlike dependence upon a motherly market system that we do not understand, and that is rampaging across the corporate world, completely beyond our comprehension or control. It is time to recognise how the act of eating connects us with the land upon which it was grown.

Eating is an agricultural act. Food comes to us when the labour of others is skilfully combined with the produce of nature and the land. In the course of his teaching, Peter Maurin (of the Catholic Worker) drew attention to the work of Guild Socialist Arthur Penty. In Guilds, Trade and Agriculture, Penty argued that the international financial system, based as it is on competition, was the root cause of war, degradation of the land and poverty amidst plenty. The alternative is international cooperation based upon the revival of agriculture.

"The revival of agriculture implies a return to the idea of communities that are as self-contained as circumstances will allow; and such communities inevitably rest upon agriculture. In an earlier chapter I showed that the revival of agriculture was necessary alike to the solution of our unemployed problem and to provide us with food. .... But it is necessary also for another reason: to ensure a healthy population. It came as a surprise to most people in this country that recruiting statistics [for the First World War] revealed the fact- that we had a larger percentage of physical inefficients than any other country at war. But it is not surprising, remembering that no other country in the world has such a large proportion of her population living in crowded towns nor been industrialized for anything like the same length of time. These statistics prove that a town population gradually loses its vitality. In the past this vitality was every generation renewed by a stream of population from the country. In this light a peasantry on the soil is to be regarded as a reservoir from which the towns replenish their stock, and therefore agriculture stands on a different basis to that of any other industry, and its welfare should be protected at all costs.

"From a mercantile point of view it matters little whether the population be engaged in the production of food or motor-cars. But from a national point of view there is all the difference in the world, since the production of food guarantees a nation's future while the production of motor-cars does not. Yet when we remember how big business dominates national policy we cannot be surprised that, being, as we saw, heedless of its own future it should be equally heedless of that of the nation. If, therefore, one aspect of the return to fundamentals is a return to the principles of justice, honesty and fair dealing, the other aspect is a return to the land; to a life lived in closer contact with the elemental forces of nature."

Those words are even more relevant today than they were when first published in 1921, exactly a century ago. They lie behind the Catholic Worker movement's case for agricultural communes, also known as 'agronomic universities' (see previous blogs).