[P2P-F] Fwd: "protest currencies" ?

Wed Oct 12 15:42:04 CEST 2011

Here's the nub of it. Yes, the Community Forge may be working their  
collective asses off, perhaps. And two points stand out for me. First, we,  
locally, went through an extensive process of attempting to work with him  
and his crew toward adapting the programming from their utility. A piece  
of our intent being that we have been working to establish an MMT/FF based  
community exchange utility. My major complaint with the model being used  
to define the Community Forge is that it is a debt based process, and  
thereby a version of the same sort of relationships as being exploited by  
the banksters. I provided links to the summaries of the economic model we  
wanted to use, and basically we were brushed off. The ere were basic  
elements of the process which could have been reused, and we are intent on  
putting together was substantially different from the libertarian lite  
variety of Thomas Greco's "Free Banking" advocacy. We were prepared to  
adapt their system into a debt-free exchange system. At the bare minimum  
there is a value to having multiple alternatives.

So, if you have a plumbing problem, who do you call? A programmer? Aside  
 from the unwillingness to work out a constructive solution mutually  
beneficial to all, we were presented with the sole option of using the  
debt based model and paying for remote hosting. The side point is that  
pop-level economics persists primarily by its self righteousness, and that  
most of the advocates remain steadfastly unwilling to do the homework  
obliged to actually judge the value of an informed economic/monetary model.

In this case the assumption that "hard Work" entitles anyone to just  
compensation, when the core information/principles reproduce the same  
problems and at a level of no regulation or standards at all Much like  
hiring a contractor that makes it a habit to ignore building codes and  
standards. How does the abuse of the adjective "Protest" in any validate  
the content and principles of the economic model, except to exploit good  
will whenever possible? It is primarily a branding strategy, selling  
substantively second rate economics. This is a disjunction between  
appearances and functionality.

A further bit of nonsense from Matthew Slater came from him posting upon  
the major MMT/FF blog in the US, New Economic Perspectives, critical of  
Randall Wray's explanation of a piece of banking practices and monetary  
theory. Wray was much too reserved to bother taking Slater's (signed as  
Matslat) comment to task. I posted an entry describing Slater's level of  
interest and investment, and alerted the person there who monitors that  
blog. The audacity to flame a group involved in a serious discussion for  
no good reason, is a form of trolling

Add another piece and tactic, this one is on Thomas Greco. Go to the US  
Amazon.com page, search The Lost Science of Money BY Stephen Zarlenga. Go  
into the comments/reviews and one of the earliest reviews was from Thomas  
Greco who gave a highly critical review. Ordinarily that would not be an  
issue, BUT because Greco used that context to also promote his own  
material, this became a major conflict of interest favoring self interest.  
If you are familiar with Zarlenga's book it may have a few flaws, but he  
did a massive job of putting a lot of monetary history in one place.

On another level I am short of patience of what I see as fraud, either  
intentionally or even unintentionally by a lack of interest in the details  
between here and an entitlement based upon dys-education. There has been a  
lot of technology which has been replaced by something potentially better,  
and it becomes a simple monopoly sustained by public relations rhetoric to  
obstruct innovation in the favor of a questionable economic model.

Tadit

On Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:02:55 -0400, Michel Bauwens  
<michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:

> not only hasn't it made Matthew rich, it has rather made him very poor  
> ...
> to be clear, Matthew is working his ass off for a better world, and fully
> engaged through personal sacrifice.
>
> as much as I appreciate your technical expertise, it seems to me there  
> is an
> underlying tendency to personalize the criticisms as flaws in the person
> that is critiqued, for example assuming that Ellen Brown was financed by  
> the
> banking cartel, while nothing could be further from the truth ..
>
> I think we can air our grievances and critiques without necessarily  
> imputing
> ill will to those we disagree with ... (I'll make an exception for the
> banksters myself <g>, in view of overwhelming evidence ... but I haven't
> seen evidence of malfeasance in people like Ellen and Matthew)
>
> On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Devin Balkind
> <devin at sarapisfoundation.org>wrote:
>
>> Tadit.  I'm surprised at your response.  First, the CommunityForge  
>> people
>> have built a workable, free/libre/opensource tool set that makes it  
>> easy for
>> groups to start a gifting network and LETs exchange using the popular  
>> Drupal
>> CMS.  I don't think it's made them rich.  Second, the author's idea is
>> general and is basically saying that protesters should start printing
>> currencies and using them as a tool to create discussion around our  
>> monetary
>> system.  Sounds good to me.
>>
>> I've read your posts on this list and recognize that you have a very
>> thoughtful opinion about these issues so I wonder if you could dig a  
>> little
>> deeper and explain your response to the group.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM, <ideasinc at ee.net> wrote:
>>
>>> This is to my eye a piece of massive opportunistic self promotion by  
>>> the
>>> "Community Forge" people who operate out Geneva, Sw. They press for the
>>> variety of community currencies which they run their business by  
>>> hosting
>>> one single variety of community currency, and it is as debt based as  
>>> the
>>> federal debt based currencies that they are promoting as "protest
>>> currencies." If all that is available to advocate for such
>>> non-alternatives is that there a tenuous validation by an asserted
>>> association of "Protest" with the rising of resistance, this is a  
>>> fraud at
>>> its core.
>>>
>>> Tadit
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:37:49 -0400, Michel Bauwens
>>> <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> > From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
>>> > Date: Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 5:31 AM
>>> > Subject: "protest currencies" ?
>>> > To:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > http://matslats.net/protest_currencies
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Devin Balkind
>> Director, Sarapis Foundation
>> devin at sarapisfoundation.org
>> @devinbalkind
>>
>>
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>>
>