Creative Communities

Practical solutions for a new society (includes a 5-part series on how to print your own community money)

Banking ( 1)

Simple Technologies ( 1)

Transition Towns ( 1)

Paul Grignon – Money As Debt

By MariaJuly 10, 2018Creative Communities, Newest Catalog Items

An independent movie on the question “Where does money come from?” already has had a huge two year success with well over 2 million viewers on the internet. Now it is seeing another surge of interest because it also explains some of the underpinnings of the current financial crisis.
Money as Debt by the Canadian Paul Grignon makes the case that only a small part of our money is created by the government mint that prints or coins it. The vast majority of money is created by banks whenever a loan or mortgage is made. Banks, which are private institutions, are given enormous power to make and manage the money supply.
The web site of the film is: http://www.moneyasdebt.net
Thanks to [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)

Who’s Counting – Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics – ARCHIVE

By MariaJuly 19, 2016All Time Favorites, Banking, Newest Catalog Items

Marilyn Waring was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. This GDP system counts only cash transactions in the market and recognizes no value other than money. This means there is no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment.
At age 22 (in 1974) Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Remembering Doris “Granny D.” Haddock – and her fight to get money out of politics

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

At a time when the 2010 midterm elections set a record for campaign spending; and a new populism is on the rise that contains elements of anger and racism it’s good to remember Doris “Granny D.” Haddock the amazing, eloquent, funny grandmother who gave the last 15 years of her life to getting money out of politics and to embody a populism that is fueled by love, compassion and a bright, clear sense of justice.
Granny D. was best known for walking, in her 90th year, from Los Angeles to Washington DC to tell those she met along the way that there is a way to restore democracy by removing the privilege of money. Among the many proposals for campaign finance [ . . . ]

Ellen Brown – The Financial Hijacking Of America

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

How and why to escape the web of debt
This is a talk about the trillion dollar bailout of the too large to fail banks and how it relates to the underlying crisis caused by the private control of the US – and soon the world’s – money supply. Brown has an intriguing theory that she sets out to prove: Congress was initially not very interested in a bailout of the banks and needed to be shown, she says, that the situation was serious and that more money than ever before had to flow from taxpayers and the Federal Reserve into the banking system. In part ONE of her talk Ellen Brown runs down the incidents that led to the collapse [ . . . ]

Michael Ruppert – Collapse

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

This is a one hour program based on the movie Collapse. Shot in only two days in May 2009 in an abandoned warehouse in Los Angeles the film has become an internet sensation. Pirated almost 2 million times before its official release as DVD in June 2010 the film has undercut the censorship of oil and money. <http://www.collapsemovie.com/>
Beginning with a surprising number of favorable reviews, including from the New York and Los Angeles Times, the film continues to expand attention in spite of its stark and scary message: A collapsing global financial system and the end of an abundant supply of oil are removing the underpinnings of the current economic system. Michael Ruppert says that human industrial civilization [ . . . ]

Frances Moore Lappé – Getting A Grip

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Barbara Kingsolver says of Frances Moore Lappé’s most recent book: Getting a Grip, “This is not an ordinary book; it’s more like a new pair of glasses, allowing you to see everything around you with greater clarity. Suddenly the world is more comprehensible, even more beautiful.”
Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 18 books including the three-million copy Diet for a Small Planet. Diet for a Small Planet was the first book to expose the enormous waste built into U.S. grain-fed meat production. For Frances that was a powerful symbol of a global food system that is creating hunger out of plenty. Eating a planet-centered diet, she argued, means choosing what is best for the earth and our bodies—a daily [ . . . ]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti and people of Willits – End Of Industrial Civilization

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

and Wild Dreams of a New Beginning
Documentary of an art exhibition under the title of End of Industrial Civilization in the small former logging town of Willits, CA, with poems and paintings by Ferlinghetti; and collages, and photos from Indian reservations by Maria Gilardin.
The program opens with the Ferlinghetti poem: Wild Dreams of a New Beginning, written in 1974, about the mile high tidal wave that runs over Los Angeles which sinks like the Titanic, all lights lit; crosses the country to sweep Manhattan Island clean in 16 seconds. The washed land then awakes again to wilderness, and the Indians reclaim their canoes.
The poem was part of an art exhibition in Willits, CA, around the theme: End of Industrial Civilization, [ . . . ]

The Real Patch Adams – How to eliminate greed and profit in health care

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

In the 1998 movie Robin Williams played Patch Adams, the funny doctor with a red clown’s nose, the young man who almost committed suicide but then found joy in becoming a physician and taking care of people. That movie made Patch Adams a folk hero but it also undermined the deeper meaning of the healing project that he and his friends were and are building today.
In this program Patch Adams gives a review of the history of his project, the Gesundheit Institute, <http://www.patchadams.org> lists some of the international activities on behalf of orphans, prevention of child sexual slavery and women’s mortality in childbirth. Adams now wants to build a full hospital based on the principles of healing that [ . . . ]

Stephen Zarlenga – The American Monetary Act

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Solving the Financial Crisis by Monetary Reform
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has posted the following on his web site:
“The U.S. monetary reform is urgently needed: It is long past time we look at the
implications of . . . the privatization of money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the bank fractional reserve system and our debt-based economic system. Unless we have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in order to protect the economic well being of America.”
<http://kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2786&Itemid=76>
Observers believe that this single measure has the potential of bringing together tens of millions of [ . . . ]

Tom Greco – The End Of Money And The Future Of Civilization

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative CommunitiesBanks, Community Money

Tom Greco demystifies money and banking and explains the destructive power of the current financial system. He challenges us to recognize that our dreams of a sane, just and ecologically sound future can become reality only if we change the way in which money is created and used.
Tom Greco was recorded at the beginning of his lecture tour for his most recent book: THE END OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION. A former engineer and college professor, Greco has written on monetary and financial innovation for over 30 years. Earlier books include: New Money for Healthy Communities and Money and Debt, A Solution to the Global Crisis. His web site is http://www.reinventingmoney.com
Kelly Durkin and I recorded him at [ . . . ]

David Korten – Community And The New Economy

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

Why Wall Street can’t be fixed and how to replace it
David Korten is the author of the 2009 book: “Agenda for a New Economy” and chair of the board of YES Magazine. He is probably best known for his famous anti-globalization book: When Corporations Rule the World.
He argues that pouring trillions of dollars in bail-out money into the Wall Street institutions that created the crisis does nothing to repair the failed economic system.
In this speech, given in March 2009 at the NW regional conference of Veterans for Peace, he analyzes two major flaws of the current economic system and points to ways to replace them. One is the monetary system, the other the concept of ever increasing growth, measured as [ . . . ]

The Ceres Community Project

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

A phone conversation with the Executive Director Cathryn Couch and client Katherine Kraemer.
In the California town of Sebastopol high school students meet for two hours after school on a day of their choice to cook organic healing food for people with serious health problems. Named after the Greek goddess of agriculture and generosity, Ceres, this project is almost entirely based on gifts. The teenage volunteers enjoy cooking so much that there is a waiting list. Sonoma County organic farmers donate most of the food, the use of the first kitchen was donated by a church, and volunteers are bringing the prepared dishes to the homes of the clients. These clients, and often their whole family receive a week’s worth of [ . . . ]

Ithaca Community Money

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

A history of the ITHACA HOURS community currency
During the Great Depression when banks were closed so they could be audited – over 400 currencies called SCRIPT were used in the US to buy food and services. When the banks reopened, sometimes several months later, SCRIPT was replaced with the federal currency.
Since the beginning of the financial crisis a resurgence of interest in alternative money systems has led to many new initiatives. A new website in the US called mainstreetcash.org is giving an overview over a huge number of community currencies and computer based trading systems with space for comment and discussion.
Featured on that web site are the Ithaca Hours, the oldest printed paper currency in the US. Founded in 1991 [ . . . ]

Marilyn Waring – Sex, Lies And Global Economics

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

The gross domestic product, the GDP, allegedly is an indicator of the well being of a society. Since powerful forces in banking and public policy are driving attempts to increase growth to solve the 2009 financial crisis it is important to listen to the critics of growth.
The GDP formula was invented by John Maynard Keynes who wrote a pamphlet during World War II entitled: The British National Income and How to Pay for the War. In 1953 that Keynesian set of rules was imposed on everybody. The rules are called The United Nations System of National Accounts. All countries must use them or they will not be allowed to be a member of the UN, or deal with the World [ . . . ]

Fred Morse – Sun Engines And Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

By MariaJuly 11, 2016Creative Communities

A brief history of a carbon free technology that could produce enough electricity to replace coal. CSP was pioneered by US engineers in the late 19th century and lost out to oil and coal.
President Nixon asked Fred Morse whether solar energy made sense for America. His answer was “definitely yes”. Fred Morse went on to manage solar energy in the Department of Energy for Presidents Carter and Reagan until 1989 when the programs were dismantled. Today Morse is the senior adviser for US operations for the Spanish firm Abengoa. They operate in over 70 countries and specialize in solar and bio-energy. Abengoa is trying to build the world’s largest CSP plant near Phoenix, AZ. <http://www.abengoasolar.com/sites/solar/en/our_projects/usa/arizona/index.html> Coal and nuclear [ . . . ]