So, in my daily research that I conduct, I came across an interesting article over at the Centre for Research on Globalization written by Richard C. Cook that, at first whiff, smells interesting, possibly even eye opening. Interesting and eye opening it was, as a clear attempt that the propogandists, upon failing to stop the rush to Ron Paul, are now trying to do damage control.
But let me back up a bit, and introduce who exactly Richard Cook and this Centre are, and why they even remotely matter. According to their site the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) is:"An independent research and media group of writers, scholars journalists and activists. The CRG is based in Montreal. It is a registered non profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada."
Not an "evil" or "fringe" organization, by any means, just your general run of the mill activist organization.
Mr. Cook, also not a "fringe" person, is a: "retired U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, and NASA, followed by twenty-one years with the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites, and he is cited in the Wikipedia article on "Economic Democracy" as one of the world’s leading monetary reformers. He is the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years."
Interesting background, and presents the image that this guy knows what he's talking about. But the meat of his article displays a use of logic that can only be followed with a liberal use of cognitive dissonance, and revisionism of history that could only pass muster inside some of the more left leaning groups.
Don't believe me? Then follow along with Mr. Cook's own writings. He starts off by saying the following:
· Money should be viewed by progressives as a) a medium of exchange, b) created by law, c) to serve the needs of the individual and the nation’s physical economy. Under the progressive definition, money is the servant of man. · Money is viewed by conservatives as a) a commodity, b) having intrinsic value, c) equivalent to "wealth," d) properly usable for anything the owner desires, including usury and speculation. Under the conservative definition, man is the servant of money.
Ok, other than the general bias that suggests these are mutually exclusive ideas, nothing really out of the ordinary is here. But this is just the beginning after all. Just two bullets down he says the following:
"In American history, the progressive definition of money has prevailed when the government has controlled or strongly influenced the creation of money. The conservative definition has prevailed when private bankers have controlled or strongly influenced the creation of money, particularly during the century since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913."
If you didn't catch that, he just asserted that since the Federal Reserve has been in power money has been viewed as a "commodity", having intrinsic value. Evidently Mr. Cook needs a dictionary. Intrinsic means: "belonging to the essential nature of constitution of a thing". So, by this logic displayed by Mr. Cook, a gold standard is only a medium of exchange and doesn't have intrinsic value, but paper fiat does. He does get one thing correct though; the first century of our country did have money as the servant of man, while the Federal Reserve century had it the other way around. He does get it correct that the Federal Reserve is bad, but for the exact opposite reasons he gave.
If that was the totality of my disgust with his article, I would have just written it off as general MSM propaganda, but oh no, he continues, ever valiantly, to prop up the insanity with more insanity!
"The right of the federal government to issue money is contained in the Constitution but is not clearly defined. It was more clearly defined under the Articles of Confederation. This indicates that financiers were influential in the drafting of the Constitution."
Nope, not clearly defined at all, ONLY GOLD AND SILVER legal tender isn't clear enough for this man, nor should it be for you, as a progressive either.
He asserts that Andrew Jackson opposed banks. Not a central bank mind you, all banks. And evidently this was out of a fear of, not inflation, but of fractional reserve banking. This article goes on and on with these sometimes outright lies, like claiming Lindbergh and the Federal Reserve opponents as progressives; claiming that 19th century authors influenced the founding fathers (because obviously, apart from being insightful, they could time travel as well); claiming that the "American System" was created in Europe in opposition to laissez-faire economics; and claiming that the "Constitution created a commonwealth of citizens which has a right to control its own money supply like any other public utility". Right....
This article can pretty much be summed up as such. Mr. Cook, seeing the success Ron Paul as at impassioning people on such a boring topic, is attempting weld the core passion, anti-Federal Reserve sentiment, into a "progressive" stance that he feels Democrat's should use to try to gain the Presidency. Hardly does this man realize that the people inclined to actually care about what the Federal Reserve does are also the type of people that are going to do some fact checking and probably already have some understanding that time travel doesn't exist, fiat money doesn't have intrinsic value, and that gold is not created by government.
So, as we can now tell, the opposition, finding that ignoring us doesn't work, finding that attacking us isn't working, is now trying to play "us too" by taking Ron Paul sound bites and working it into their preexisting semantics. Unfortunately, not all imitation is flattering. But at least we have them realizing we're stealing their troops and are tying to keep those remaining that might swing, that's a plus.
©2007 BJSchaefer, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Saturday, December 15, 2007
Last modified: Saturday, December 15, 2007
The views expressed in this article are those of BJSchaefer only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. BJSchaefer is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2007-12-15 21:56:12
I thought your article was well conceived. I gave it a thumbs up.