• KUDOS! Now there's more we can and must do!

The world has witnessed the largest climate mobilization since the pandemic as concerned citizens came together to demand presidential action to phase out fossil fuels and address environmental injustice. Kudos to the thousands who turned out, and to the many Greens who participated, led by The Green Party's Eco Action Committee. Visibly present were Jasmine Sherman and Dr. Cornel West, who are seeking the Green Party's nomination for presidential candidate 2024. Protests have been historically impactful, and continue to be indispensable in raising awareness of the climate crisis and demanding action from our leaders. We also recognize that protest alone is not enough. Relying solely on politicians entrenched in the existing system, beholden to corporate interests, and hoping they will enact meaningful climate policies is not a viable strategy. They've done virtually nothing since the first Earth Day in 1970 to thwart global warming, which has evolved into a climate emergency. Greenpeace International noted that at the UN Climate Ambition Summit that "ambition [was] shamefully missing," and that "we remain at full speed on the highway to climate hell."

Banking and Monetary Reform Committee
By Steve Showen, member of BMRC and Green Party of Florida

Contacts:
Howard Switzer, Banking and Monetary Reform Committee Co-chair, [email protected], 615 416-1908
Rita Jacobs, Banking and Monetary Reform Committee Co-chair, [email protected], 517 694-8109

SYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE!

A number of hand-held signs were seen at the NYC march calling for "System Change Not Climate Change!" While folks may have differing ideas on what that entails, and myriad movement efforts collectively contribute to system change, it is essential to perceive the root cause of the climate emergency. It is a profit-driven system that prioritizes financial gain over environmental well-being and social equality. It is incapable of rectifying the mess it has created, even as it touts green capitalist technologies as solutions.

So, what is to be done to dismantle this profit driven system impelling the climate crisis?

To change the profit-driven system requires understanding the fundamental structural mechanism that empowers it. Unbeknownst to most of us, that is our privatized money system, a process whereby private banks create money as a form of interest-bearing debt, by way of making loans. At a recent webinar produced by Swedish monetary reform group Positiva Pengar, Greenpeace International's Carl Schlyter (@50 min.) emphasized that the private bank creation of money is a flaw in the system. This system has driven our planet to the brink of catastrophe. The logical response is to bring money creation back under public control, as was specified in the Constitution. The Green Party's platform features a critical initiative called "Greening the Dollar," which outlines how to do that. We are the only political party to have a plank on monetary reform.

The Constitution granted Congress the power to create money debt-free to spend on the general welfare (Article 1, Section 8). However, in 1913 The Federal Reserve Act transferred this power to private banks, enabling them to create money out of thin air through interest-bearing loans. "Our" money is a form of interest-bearing debt. This grants banks immense power.

Banks decide who gets money and who doesn’t. They own controlling interests in corporations, serve on their boards, setting up a debt-based economy, driving wealth and power to the top, and controlling the political system. The bankers' private debt-money is the dynamo that energizes the profit motive to plunder the planet, oppress people and wage war.

Shutting down the bankers' planet-killing profit machine requires returning the power of money creation to public control, as per the Constitution. That would be a transformational event. As Nobel Prize winner Frederick Soddy once remarked: “Ten centuries before Christ the ancient Greeks recognized that the most vital prerogative of democratic self-governance was to create the money.”

PUBLIC MONEY FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD!

"Greening the Dollar" is a critical initiative found in the Green Party's platform which outlines a program to democratize the money and restore Congress's constitutional authority over currency creation. The NEED Act, already introduced into Congress in 2011, serves as the basis for this initiative. Its core principles are:

1. Ending bank creation of money.
   
   
2. Restoring to Congress the exclusive authority to create and spend money, free from debt, for the general welfare.
   
   
3. Integrating the Federal Reserve into the Treasury.

It falls upon We the People to elect a Congress that will pass the NEED Act. While not the end in and of itself, Monetary Reform would both break up the profit driven system and provide the tool we need to make public policy for the common good, to do the things we need to do.

The Green Party's Banking and Monetary Reform Committee (BMRC) plays a role in educating and inspiring Greens and the public to accelerate this democratic transition. By collaborating with our valued movement partners, who are all doing necessary parallel work, we aim to shift from a burning world ruled by psychopathic oligarchs to a brighter future founded on mutual care for people, planet, and peace.

Achieving climate recovery demands a united effort from individuals across the political spectrum who share a common interest in our collective survival.

The choice is clear – either we unite for systemic change, or we face oblivion.