We already have a community exchange system, it is called CASH!

We already have a community exchange system, it is called CASH!

From what I gather from going to a few meetings about currency issues, 97% of all money in circulation is "funny money" that is created by the banks as interest bearing debt. The remaining three percent is cash issued by the government through the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, which unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank is 100% government owned. That's not to say that the RBNZ is a benign institution, as it is still a part of the overall system of usury that is the root of all our problems, but at least our(!) government owns it.

It draws a wry smile from me when I see people I know are involved in TTNZ paying for shopping with eftpos. I wish these people would realise that every time they do this, or write a cheque, take a loan or use the bank in any other way they are "feeding the monster that enslaves them".

Endeavour to transact as much as you can in cash. If you must keep a bank account, keep it with a state supported bank such as Kiwibank. Keep only enough money in it to do the things that you absolutely cannot do with cash. Forget the convenience aspect of it - this is war, and some inconvenience is to be expected.

For me, I guess, this is easier, as we are market sellers of home-grown organic produce, and our customers pay cash. If, however I was doing a job where I had to be paid into a bank account I would withdraw the bulk of it as cash and spend it as cash. Don’t worry too much about security, just hide it well and don’t carry more on your person than you need. Better to be robbed than taken as a slave!

Convert all your spare money as soon as you can into tangible assets such as land, infrastructure and tools. Obviously you need to keep a bit by for emergencies.
Never take credit from a bank! This is the modern equivalent of selling yourself into slavery. Better to go hungry and buy all your clothes in the op-shop.

If the demand for cash is greater then the amount in circulation, it will be increased by the Reserve Bank to ensure that the demand is met. No government can be in a position where people go into the bank to get cash and there is none. More cash transactions mean the banks are starved of their life-blood. If the banking system goes into freefall people will still need to buy and sell stuff and those who have real cash money will be able to transact when the eftpos card is just a piece of worthless junk.

Complementary currencies are just for fun. The IRD won’t allow you to transact your main revenue generating occupation in them and the only thing you seem to be able to get for them is massages and bicycle mechanics. I need to pay the rates and put fuel in the truck and pay my agricultural contractor. Cash will do all these things and the bank can butt-out of my business. Cash is utilised in face-to-face transactions, thus it automatically stimulates the local economy, but is still "legal tender for all debts public and private" where complementary currencies are not.

I would encourage you to keep proper account of your transactions and pay your taxes just as you would have to if running your business through a bank account- squeaky clean keeps you out of jail (mostly).

Who should pay for pensions?

Historically, that is to say throughout human existence, except for the last, say, sixty years, the welfare of the older generation has fallen upon the younger generation. In it's simplest form this was all well and good. I well remember my Great Grandfather living with my Mothers Aunt and Uncle in the final years of his life and doing what he could as far as gardening and so-forth until his death well into his nineties. Of course the whole system relied on a high degree of social cohesion, although there were many instances of unrelated "friends of the family" being taken in in order to live out their final few years in a modest but civilised environment rather than destitution.
In these days when people have fewer children, and with regard to the lottery that occurs when a person/couple are unblessed by the advent of children, or their sexual orientation precludes the production of offspring and where the general disintegration of the social fabric enables the younger generation to deny responsibility for the wellbeing of their elders, then society has deemed fit for the state to assume that responsibility.

The figures put forward by RogerDouglas are no doubt accurate from an accountants point of view, but to extrapolate the notion of seven percent return on investment over the next several decades is a dangerous nonsense. Forty years ago, with hindsight, any sum invested would yield a huge return, but in that time, limitless growth seemed like a given truth. In 1972, the Club of Rome commissioned the report "Limits to Growth" that attempted to model the interaction of the concept of limitless growth with the realisation that the planet earth does not provide a limitless resource base. So far, 37 years on, the pattern of the global economy has been consistent with their findings.

The consequences are dire for the uninformed investor, but the banking sector has much invested in the concept of "Businesss As Usual Until The End Of The World As We Know It". Any other notion for them is unthinkable.

For us, we have the freedom to visualise a world where Natural Law takes precedence over the artifice of accountancy. We can look forward to a time where our Sovereign Government resumes sole authority to issue money on our behalf and to see an end to the centuries old "crime of usury" perpetrated by the banks that the likes of Douglas, Brash, Key et.al. depend upon for their very existence.

Defense of provocation is gone.

28 Nov.
The police and crown prosecutors are persuing an agenda of seeking the removal of motive from the equation of criminality. Politicians of all persuasions are easily swayed into this reductionist viewpoint by the promise of cheaper legal proceedings and a higher conviction rate.

The Crown vs Weatherston case, which has been used as a trojan horse for the removal of the defense of provocation, has in fact demonstrated that the defense of provocation was NOT an easy way out for a criminal. A defense counsel has the right to enter a not guilty plea and a duty to argue the case for the defense as best they can. The outcome is for the jury to decide. No-one can doubt that in this case the jury did their duty.

Motive is the very essence of criminality. To remove motive from the equation and to find guilt based solely on the forensics, a smoking gun and a dead body will lead incrementally to the obsolescence of trials by jury as no judgement call will need to be made. Another short step on the road to a bureaucratic and police state.

I believe that the Ellis Family were primed/groomed by the police and/or prosecution to bring, by their statements, the defense of provocation into disrepute. I believe they have been cynically manipulated by a bureaucratic elite who waited for the opportunity of an emotive case (pretty young woman killed by nerdy academic misfit) upon which to fly their flag.

When, at some future date, a battered woman kills her abusive partner and a jury is left with no option but to find her guilty of murder, then the chickens will surely come home to roost. Remember, the defense of self-defence is only valid as an immediate response to an actual physical attack (abuse can take many other forms). One wonders what would be the outcome? Either the woman is found guilty of murder, or the police or prosecution service refuse to prosecute the case for fear of the fallout from the outcome, or the absurdity of a not guilty verdict followed a rash of copycat slayings. The proper outcome – a defense of provocation with a conviction for manslaughter and more or less leniency in the sentence according to the merits of the case – will not be an option.

Herein lies the thin end of the wedge. Repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act (removal of the defense of reasonable force with regard to child discipline) was the thinnest end. This latest machination (repeal of section 169) is the newest nail in the coffin of common sense. Coming up in the future will be the removal of the (already severely curtailed) defense of self-defence.

29 Nov

With regards to the gay cases vs provocation in the sense of domestic violence, street brawls and so-on there is a huge difference. The disgust or revulsion that a homophobic or racist person feels in a certain situation is generated in their own mind more or less independently of the actions of the person “provoking” that emotion. i.e. it is a product of prejudice. Whereas in “true” provocation the provocateur is actively trying to cause fear or mental anguish in the provoked person. That should be the “legal test”. If the provocateur succeeds in provoking their victim to the extent that the victim reacts in an irrational way, even if the outcome is fatal, then that should be sufficient defence to allow the conviction to be reduced from murder to manslaughter.

The case of the murderer of the gay man being found guilty of manslaughter following the defense of provocation is clearly a miscarriage of justice and if the above test had been applied it ought not to have happened

I cannot accept that “now that murder is punished the same as manslaughter*” it makes no difference if a person is convicted of murder or manslaughter. A murderer is a murderer for the rest of their life, not just for the duration of their sentence. It is a lifelong stigma and for some people murder is an unforgivable sin. ( *In fact this is not true, as in a conviction for murder, there is a presumption to life imprisonment, which is almost never observed by sentencing judges.)

I cannot agree that an abused woman should have no other option than to plead “not guilty by reason of loss of mental faculty”. This amounts to a nice way of admitting a susceptability to “temporary insanity” and pays no recognition to the fact that the abusive partner set out to cause fear, intimidation and mental anguish to the accused. The lawyer may advise it but it is merely a legally expedient construct that does not actually have to be true to be effective in court. I believe the defense of provocation allows the victim of abuse to come out of the situation without stigmatising opinions regarding their sanity. I think both options should exist for the defendant.

“What about the government wanting to reduce the types of trials that are heard before juries, just so that they can speed things along?” I think it is possible that the thinking behind this is not just speeding things along, but also that there is so much rubbish and politically/economically motivated law coming onto the statutes these days that the government are worried that jurors will rebel. Defendants will stand up in court and say “Yes I did it but I’m not guilty” and the jurors will say “good on ya mate” and find them not guilty. I’m talking about, for example, selling traditional medicinal herbs (Yarrow, Tansy, etc) at the farmer’s market and being prosecuted under some “Theraputic Goods Act” for selling “Restricted Substances”.

“The decision should reside in the sentence imposed by the judge not the jury” -and what makes you think that a judge that allowed, perhaps because of his own homophobia, a defense of provocation to be entered despite the fact that in no way could the situation be regarded as truly provocative as opposed to merely inciting revulsion in a prejudiced person- makes you think that this judge will not continue to exercise the very same prejudice in his sentencing?
The law has been debased by the removal of the mandatory life sentence for murder, now it has been further debased by this tinkering with permissible defense and now it seems that in the face of an intelligent debate that should have taken place a long time ago before this wretched bill went through parliament we are all being told to shut up!
Like so much of modern “democracy”, I dare say the whole thing was sewn up in the corridors of power before it even went to the chamber so no proper debate or committee proceedings have taken place, just a cross-party clamour to be seen to be closing a percieved loophole because a couple of senile judges have embarrassed the political establishment with their prejudice and ineptitude.

1 Dec

I just spent half a day re-reading the Law Commission report. Notwithstanding my general objections to the law change, the following glaring omission sticks out like a sore thumb;

Recommendation of Law Commission:

R2. The Sentencing Establishment Unit SHOULD DRAFT A GUIDELINE addressing departure from section 102 of the Sentencing Act 2002 AS IT OUGHT TO OPERATE IF SECTION 169 OF THE CRIMES ACT 1969 (defense of provocation) WAS REPEALED. The guidance should cover not only the relevance of provocation under section 102, but also the range of other mitigating circumstances that might justify rebuttal of the presumption. PRIORITY SHOULD BE GIVEN TO THIS WORK, with a view to ensuring that a draft guideline is available IN TIME TO INFORM THE VIEWS OF THOSE CONSIDERING OUR RECOMMENDATION for repeal.

So the Law Commission saw fit to place this second recommendation alongside that for the repeal of section 169 with sufficient gravity to use terms such as OUGHT and SHOULD, rather than “could” or “may” indicating that they see the sentencing guidelines as vital to the proper interpretation of the law as amended. BUT parliament saw fit to adopt the first recommendation without the second. Of course we can understand the National Party persuing this approach. They don’t like sentencing guidelines on principal as they wish the judiciary to have a free hand to dispense a different level of sentence to “their” class of people as opposed to “our” class of people.

This surely would have been worth a fight over, even if it meant Labour attempting to align with the apalling ACT party and the treacherous MAORI party and the despised GREENS. When will the Parliamentary Labour Party get it into their heads that they are meant to be “Her Majesties Opposition” and it is their duty to OPPOSE. It rather negates their vehement advocacy for the Law Commissioners report that they are only prepared to stick up for half of the commissioners recommendations. The public would in the end give them a lot more Kudos for engaging battle with the Nats than for hitching a ride on the populist bandwagon out of fear of not supporting this emotively hyped law change . After all, the maximum sentence for manslaughter is life the same as for murder (apparently the stigma of being branded a murderer is of no consequence) so the whole issue has only been about not giving defendents the platform to say nasty things about their victims in court. Am I right?

Electoral Reform Referenda 2011 & 2014

This idea of two referendums is nothing but a sham attempt to defuse discontent over the governments defiance of the electorate in the "anti-smacking" referendum. It matters scarcely a jot which electoral system is in place when the result is government by a political class who persue their own agendas without reference to public mandate and without recall. It is a diversion from the path to direct democracy and is merely window dressing. I for one have nothing but contempt for this circus sideshow.

Better Democracy

I would like at first to state my support for Steve Baron's Better Democracy campaign for legally binding referendums. The government of New Zealand, in stonewalling the issue of the 87% vote against the "anti-smacking" law is sending a clear message to the citizens of this country that they are not prepared to have the public at large dictate to the political class how they run the country.

The most important thing for them is to demonstrate to their true masters, the global financial community, that they have the public at large on a tight leash and are able to govern without deference to public opinion. Of course the (Trans-) National (Corporation) Party and their far-right allies would dearly love to dump this piece of limp liberal social engineering in order to show faith with their rank-and-file supporters, but there is no capital to be gained by scoring brownie points over the Labour (Bureaucracy) Party this far away from an election and it is far more important to maintain the stability of the political class as a whole so they can carry on gorging at the trough of their taxpayer funded expense accounts whilst doing the bidding of their unelected overlords at the World Trade Organisation, World Bank and United Nations.

When Corporate interests and the Bureaucratic interests work together in this way to subvert the will of the people, this is the very definition of the word FASCISM.