Evolution of Revolutionary Sounds

Evolution of Revolutionary Sounds
In researching the music that was inspired by, and was the inspiration of the revolutions of the past, I am energized with the hope, strength and determination, though I analyze the mistakes and misperceptions of the masses and formulate a new interpretation and reason. Not only does this music echo the sentiment from these different societies but it is the breath and the heartbeat of the revolutionary mind. The composers and artists in history had inspired entire classes of people and struck fear in the hearts of the bourgeoisie from either the lyrics calling for an end to an oppressive regime, or by the sounds and notes played, relaying a feeling of triumph for the people. The musicians and composers had a sense of purpose and they gave the listeners hope. Family members would tuck their children in chanting the words from revolutionary marches. These chants and calls for social justice would become the youth’s “nursery rhymes” and would forever be engrained in their psyche. This was embodied in songs like “The Internationale”, to Shostakovich’s seventh symphony that had no lyrics but was a symphonic patriotic triumphant opus. Social change was a way of life and justice was the inspiration for the sounds created.

Just like the popular music of now where we see the youth glued to iPods listening to songs about erasing memories from drinking excessive amounts of alcohol in a “club”, there was popular music in every part of these older societies as well, and just like now, it was usually frowned upon by the revolutionary party. In revolutionary music, strife from the struggle of survival was the source of a message, not to complain, but to spend each breath living to see a better day and find justice for all people. We can also interpret these condemnations of popular music by the revolutionaries as a kind of elite dictatorship, as it was in many instances. We look at this negatively of course because of our negative association with dictatorships and rightfully so. We do however have to examine the elite dictatorship of our own popular music today in terms of what is played on the public radio waves, how it gets there, and who chooses its position in our society. There is still revolutionary music now but you have to search for it and like everything pure in a capitalist society, anything that captivates any amount of people’s attention is immediately processed and mass produced as something “new” to make a profit. Looking at our “radio-friendly” dictatorship today we notice that we are not encouraged to listen to music that upsets the status quo. We are not even taught to be content with what we have and be grateful. We are merely distracted and brainwashed by the commercials we call “music”, urging us to buy into things and that’s how we as a country whose economy is solely based on consumerism (seventy percent of gross domestic product) must function. We are bombarded by music with similar lyrical content aimed at alienating ourselves from ourselves, or the opposite, music encouraging becoming completely self-absorbed. We are herded like cattle to consume, by images of women scantily dressed and by shiny things, the same way we cling to foods high in salt, sugar and animal fat. We haven’t evolved that much in that respect. Our musical dictatorship has emphasized less thinking in music and more selling of ringtones.

I remember doing one of my first pop gigs and in speaking to the musical director he was explaining what kind of music he was creating for a track. He described it as “house” music. The joke was that he wasn’t speaking of the kind of dance club “house” music I was familiar with; he was talking about music he could purchase a house with. No doubt every musician composes for different reasons but in revolutionary music I’ve found the humble appreciation of being able to even own a musical instrument in the first place.

In this article I will examine the different types of revolutionary music in our recent history. We will analyze the lyrics and the context of where revolutionary music was most influential and how it has influenced the revolutionary music of today. Besides that we will see how this type of music has evolved to what it is today, the latest incarnation of revolutionary music: hip hop.

First off, one thing that needs to be acknowledged is the amount of revolutionary symphonies that were composed that did not have any lyrical content but still represented the revolution to the fullest. We cannot downplay the influence strings and woodwinds had on people’s actions. These symphonies from composers spoke volumes about the emotions the disenfranchised had, which voiced universal understandings that crossed all language barriers.

The early classical pieces of pre and post-revolutionary Russia were meant to inspire and rejoice in the hope for the success of the movement. The leaders themselves were greatly moved by these instrumentals though they wanted to stray away from what they called the elite or bourgeoisie culture and listen to pieces that were written specifically for the movement. Stalin addressed a classical piece: “I know nothing of which is greater than the Appassionata; I would like to listen to it every day. It is marvelous and superhuman music. I always think with pride - perhaps it is naïve of me – what marvelous things human beings can do.” These symphonies represented power but they also told tales of some of the strife that came from a war torn country such as what we hear in revolutionary Russia’s composer Shostakovich’s pieces. At a victorious time for the Red Army, Shostakovich composed his eighth symphony. When the piece should have embodied victory, honor and strength, Shostakovich created a dark and bleak work which in reality portrayed the devastation a war torn country was facing. Stalin himself was so perturbed by this lack of patriotism in the music he heard from Shostakovich that he banned this eighth symphony until 1960.

The Marxist regime in Russia, as in many other Marx inspired organizations, believed firmly that art reflects and advances ideology of the class that creates it. Their belief in a “class” form of music inspired them to try to define, identify and help create proletarian music. They classified most popular music and dance tunes in a category of what they called “light genre”, where “degenerates” influenced the laboring masses. They dismissed these songs as “musical surrogates” or “cast-off barroom garbage.” Some people maintained that there was still some value in these urban popular songs, but most Marxists maintained that most all urban pop music was the product of the working class’ assimilation of the second rate music of the bourgeoisie. They believed popular music literally had a narcotic effect which would take away from the working class’s drive to help with social work.

In the US a little later in the twentieth century, another completely different form of music was emerging and also was getting heat, not from a Marxist revolutionary regime but from the opposite: mainstream dominance. These were the revolutionary voices of the African American musicians who were creating jazz music in revolt against classical music of Western Europe. This is what the revolutionaries in Russia and jazz musicians had in common and were adamant about as well. The Russian Marxists were against the classical pieces of the bourgeoisie culture because they felt it represented the monarchy of the czar and his class of people. The young African musician’s musical voices, tenacity and prowess were directly influenced from the lack of tolerance in the United States. Their approach on their instruments was a certain attack on white supremacy and euro centrism. Jazz musicians played with a militancy aimed at contesting western classical music and eviscerating popular main stream music. Jazz’s predecessor was “blues” which was created in the rural African American community. As rural laborers traveled north to more urban industrial areas the music evolved from plantation chants and “field songs”, to music that envelops a high degree of sophistication and complexity, utilizing and combining features of both the compositional/notational and improvisational/oral traditions. Jazz musicians were fighting in their own way by specifically playing in places where no one could dance. This forced people to listen to the music and the intentions were to bring the listener to a whole different level of musical understanding and appreciation. These sounds were pioneered by musicians like Charlie Parker, and Art Tatum.

Lyrical content of patriotic chants throughout the ages have been very similar to each other as most of the time revolts occur from similar circumstances. As Defranzo points out in Revolts and Revolutionary Movements, mass frustration is the largest reoccurring theme in an overturn. The frustration leads to the people looking for some leadership with answers, and in many of the Marxist inspired revolutions, religion wasn’t enough of a focus in hard times. Religion was thought of a convenient way for the masses to stay docile while the church stayed a lucrative business and remained in a tyrannical position of control. Though in Latin American, in countries such as Nicaragua, where revolutionary ideas were stirred up by the holy men, most revolutionaries fight against organized religion as just another part of a corrupt establishment. It is important to also recognize that revolutions are not always backed by a leftist or liberal agenda but some are backed by a “right” or conservative agenda such as in the Iranian revolution where fundamental Islam was at the forefront of the cause. Similarly this occurred in nineteenth century China where the converted laborer Hong led the Taiping Rebellion that led to one of the biggest Chinese revolts racking up the highest death toll in human history. In this aspect, the lyrical content of revolutionary songs is not always coming from the same ideology. Some chants may be coming from an actual prayer to overcome “evil”, or in Latin American revolutionary lyrics, songs were written specifically about revolutionary leaders like Che’ Guevara. In any circumstance, these antiestablishment lyrics emphasize overcoming an adversity and general success of the repressed peoples. With many of the world revolutions; we see a draw on Marxist ideas. These ideas shaped revolutionary thought, though many times the movements strayed off course from what Marx actually envisioned. The rural classes weren’t aware of this and/or some didn’t care about the inconsistencies in what Marxist revolutionaries preached. They went along with it anyways, some being educated and some not, similarly to how millions celebrate the birth of a Christ on December 25th every year.

Marx envisioned a state of society where equal opportunity was given to all classes of people by the working proletariat class. This was known as socialism. Eventually when everyone was provided for the need for a government distributing goods would diminish and people’s natural “good” nature would prevail and everything would be beautiful. This final phase would be the final utopian phase of what we call communism today. These are economic theories, not forms of government. Marx never suggested that the working class form political parties and fight for social change through nonviolent means. Even so, workers parties emerged and so did violent revolutionaries who thought the only path to change would be through violent means. In many of the countries that revolted we see it perpetuated by the rural and agricultural class whereas Marx described the revolution coming from the industrial and urban areas.

The final stage of communism was supposed to be “government free”, but that was the opposite of what happened. To add to the pain, the disenfranchised peoples of these societies still live with some kind of hardships in the eyes of the capitalist world when a “Marxist” revolution was successful. We see this in Cuba where social benefits are prized but a selection and choices aren’t. This is simply the nature of two systems. Capitalist markets adhere to the preferences of people who can afford whatever product while providing a diversity of products. Socialism defines needs in much more basic terms such as enough food to eat, clothes, health care and education for everyone. In our society we pride ourselves on being able to purchase the most useless cheap products, made by 3rd world exploited children and their parents. In fact we have been raised to believe this is one of our basic “freedoms”. The fact of not having basic necessities is what the majority of the poor across the globe at any given time are fighting for. This struggle is what unifies the ideas and is what makes revolutionary songs so powerful, regardless of how closely they or their leaders followed an ideal, and in Cuba the lack of musical instruments has not been a hindrance necessarily on the music created there, other than having an instrument being an indescribable privilege. Some of the most talented musicians come from Cuba to this day.

In examining the lyrical content of revolutionary pieces, none encompass such frustration and call for social change as The Internationale. It was created in France after the Paris Commune was crushed and was later used as the first Soviet Union’s National Anthem. It has been reformatted and the lyrics have been adapted at different times but the premise remains the same. These lyrics embody a few different revolutions and can be used to represent the morale of repressed peoples internationally:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

Refrain:
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

I picked these lyrics from this song specifically because in many ways I feel they are relative to now. The first line calling for workers to arise from their slumber resonates with anyone who is not independently wealthy. Few of us are able to do what we love for work and few are able to utilize their passion in life to survive. In this context, and around the world around the late 19th century with the industrial revolution still progressing, Karl Marx believed factory workers were becoming increasingly alienated from themselves. They had no connection to the finished product and their labor was mechanical and automated. Many in the US today still live this reality, though not in the harsh conditions of a factory per se which we save for the 3rd world. The monotony of the same thing every day creates a zombie like state which is what I feel these lyrics are referring to. “Away with all your superstitions, servile masses arise!” This I interpret as a blow to the religious institutions at that time. The Catholic Church in Europe has ruled for the past 500 years and with it came the worst, untouchable corruption the world has ever seen. Not only have we seen the ideology of “god’s plan” promote servitude and compliance to oppressive dictators, we have seen huge amounts of money go to the church to create gold pillars while the poor starve. This is also relevant to today. The “Internationale unites the human race” is a powerful lyric echoing millions of people around the worlds struggle. In my interpretation it is uniting the human race that is the most essential thing. This includes the wealthy elite. We can only hope for such things if the elite were to have an immediate consciousness evolution, which is a fanciful idea to me but it helps in the way of unifying as opposed to separating. The “soldiers to will take strike action, they will break ranks and fight no more” addresses the huge amount of young men and women sent by governments to fight wars that essentially are for the benefit of a small few. In regards to Russia at that time, the Bolshevik party was strongly opposed to anymore war with Germany and this echoes their sentiments. “No savior from on high delivers” is a strong statement that waiting for a holy messiah to come and relieve you of your misery on earth is simply making you a sitting duck. Action must be taken and we are the only ones to be held responsible if we fail to rise against tyranny. “Our own right hands the chain must shiver, chains of hatred greed and fear” is a call for everyone to break the mental incarcerations that those who accuse the wealthy of having, are plagued by as well.

When 2% of the population of the world owns more than half the entire world’s wealth we still have a need for revolting today. If you would NOT take your chances being born any nationality, any religion, any sex in any place, than there is still much injustice in the world. Unfortunately the music today does little to portray or acknowledge the horror some live on a regular basis and through many of our religious institutions, especially here in the US, we are taught that we were “chosen” and “blessed” by a god and those outside were not. This was used to justify the genocide of the native American’s as well as used to justify the slave labor we capitalized on and then later took credit for as an American “hard work” ethic and an “American dream”. The US wouldn’t have survived and flourished as a country without the exploitation of people and cheap labor and a few artists know this and report on it.

Throughout the 20th century we saw revolutionary music blossom throughout the world in many forms. We saw reggae music take hold and call for social change with such revolutionary artists as Bob Marley. We saw the UK punk music scene take over in the fight against the establishment with artists like the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedy’s, and Anti-flag. And here in the US we see the birthplace of one of the world’s newest forms of revolutionary music: hip hop. Hip Hop was born in the south Bronx and was originally the voice of 2 main groups, Puerto Rican Nationalists and black power groups. It eventually evolved to other expressions with its roots in West African griot culture which were groups of traveling singers and poets who were part of an oral tradition dating back hundreds of years ago. From this new hip hop culture emerged the Universal Zulu Nation formed by Afrika Bambaataa, who was a warlord in the South Bronx and founder of the gang the Black Spades. Afrika used his influence to encourage gang members to reform and put their energy positively back into the community after he went on a life changing trip to the mother land: Africa. He eventually became known as the godfather of hip hop and the father of electro funk sound. Hip Hop used elements of jazz, funk and rock backed by a strong beat as the canvas to “flow” over. This has become an amazing art form as hip hop culture has encompassed 4 elements: DJ ing or turntablism, emceeing, graffiti art, and break dancing. Most recently the 5th element has been added which is knowledge. Hip hop has been successful not only as a revolutionary music style as its origins lie in social justice but almost everything that it encompassed in its early stages represented a smack to the status quo. In some instances hip hop beat makers sample jazz music which in itself was rebellious and the verses in between the hooks themselves are jam packed with knowledge and calls for change. We hear chants like in the Internationale in modern day political emcees such as Capital X who stands for prisoners’ rights in a country where African American men make up 12% of the entire US population but make up over 50% of the prison population:

Man they've been feeding me lies, ever since I was an adolescent
Well now watch me flip the script and teach these fucks a lesson
Sure I've lied to survive, but I've never lied to myself
I know I'm going to heaven, cause I already been through hell
Lock down in a cell, a corporate slave
But now I'm rising, like Christ from the grave
And I ain't talking on some Bad Boy shit, or Roca-Fella
I'm talking Filiberto Rios, and Nelson Mandela
Malcolm-X, Karl Marx and Medgar Evers
I'm wielding my machete, till the dragons 7 heads are severed
I ain't just talking about, we need a change,
Man I'm breaking the shackles, handcuffs and chains

Or we see in political emcee, private investigator in human trafficking, S.A.I. (South American Immigrant) who states in his song entitled Breathe:

Someday before my death I’ll see life for what it is worth.
The birth of consciousness will spread the reawakening of all the living dead,
All the souls we’ve shed, freedom that we’ve bled.

Later he says:

Preparing for the day when the shame keeps the sun from shining.
Let’s unite and keep their false creation from rewinding.
Keep the dream from binding, keep the eye from finding.
Wake up and leave your cage put up your fist in rage.
It serves the nerves to surf the war they wage.

Also political emcees like Immortal Technique incorporate lots of research and studying in their lyrical content to enlighten the listener, causing those who are serious about revolution to research what he says. Education is the key always. He says in his song the 4th Branch:

Media censorship, blocking out the video screens
A continent of oil kingdoms, bought for a bargain
Democracy is just a word, when the people are starvin'
The average citizen, made to be, blind to the reason
A desert full of genocide, where the bodies are freezin'
And the world doesn't believe that you fightin' for freedom
Cause you fucked the Middle East, and gave birth to a demon
It's open season with the CIA, bugging my crib
Trapped in a ghetto region like a Palestinian kid
Where nobody gives a fuck whether you die or you live

Since the incarnation of these new styles of revolutionary music, the sounds have been plagiarized and used by people who want less of a pressing message and by people looking at the art forms strictly as “marketable” from a capitalist perspective. Reggae music has impressed a drug and sex culture in southern California turning revolutionary songs into songs promoting 40oz bottles of beer. Punk has evolved to slower soundtracks for multimillion dollar movies and hip hop has become a modern day minstrel show in a lot of circumstances. The famous Amen Brother break, which was a drum sample taken from a band called The Winstons in 1969 was mass produced by countless genres of music and can now be heard backing everything from gangster rap to car commercials.

The artists that stay true to revolutionary music are far and few between but they are out there. Some have been able to sneak their message in with catchy guitar riffs like Rage Against the Machine or use their clout to voice their activism like the late John Lennon but none the less, the roots of revolutionary music remain the same because the basic premise of slavery remains the same. If we are ever to respect life in its entirety, we cannot fall into too much of a capitalist system or too much of a socialist system. The biggest misperception the human race has is its view on how everything we perceive with our senses is separate, and on a more defined scale, we think we came from different places and that people should be able to lift themselves by their bootstraps because it is a level playing field. This has never been the case and people’s right to excel on their own merits and their adaptability, on a level playing field, is always the last means of success. Wealth is accumulated the same way it always has, through inheritance and as long as imperialists and unfettered capitalists keep speaking solely in terms of pocket lining currency above the value of life, there will be a tremendous amount of energy put towards their overturn.

Enslaving the Free

Many Americans attend their schools and are taught at a young age to pledge allegiance to the flag of their united nation and depending on where they were raised, they are taught that the possibilities are endless. They are shown via the media that they can become rich and famous, own many houses and make millions. This in fact is the American dream that working hard and pulling yourself up by your boot straps will guarantee rewards. Some children become obsessed with money and begin seeing currency as freedom. The fact is the American dream was tarnished with racism, sexism, elitism, and classism. To the layman this is a pessimistic way to view it but the truth hurts. No one wants to tell these kids that there are greedy white men sitting on Wall Street waiting to take them for everything they have regardless of their ethnicity, and the point is not to kill or be killed but to understand and not perpetuate the cycle. No one wants to tell them that every dollar they have in their hands has debt attached to it. The wealthy do not care about dollars.
The Federal Reserve Bank is an institution that thrives on the citizen’s ignorance of it and the creation of debt. In this article we will look at how and why the some of the forefathers, though many corrupt themselves, wanted to be free of this age old practice of usury. We will also see power corrupts absolutely and how we, our children and our children’s children will be forever chained by these old families until we do something about it. The Federal Reserve is detrimental to any real freedom in this country. It allows the citizens to stay subservient, greedy, and irresponsible.
Since the early days of bartering and trading and mercantilism we as a species have needed a way to exchange goods and services to survive. People would use products and goods to trade for other products goods and services. If there was no services or goods to trade people could fall back on gold and other precious stones and metals to serve as currency. This currency had value of its own judged specifically on its scarcity and weight. Carrying around gold to trade was a tedious task and eventually this form of currency became impractical. The first “bankers” were just people who held a place for other people to store their gold. A person would keep their gold in this storage facility and in return they would get a voucher or a paper to “offset” debt. This paper or note represented portions of how much gold someone had. Bankers realized this could become a lucrative business. Not only could people store their money there in the bankers vault at a price, the bankers could let people borrow money that was just sitting around and charge them “interest”. Interest is a percentage of money based on the amount borrowed that would also be added to the total amount of the loan so that the bankers could make a cut. In some religions and also an established law for a time, this was thought of as a sin because it was seen as “usury”. Here is where we start our decline into the shady, cannibalistic practices of central banking[1].
A central banks job is to issue currency and control the economy through interest rates. It sounds simple enough and also innocent enough however the issue of this currency does not come for free. The currency created has an interest rate attached to it. Now, if a central bank is the only source of currency and has a complete monopoly on the creation of it, the money needed to pay the interest rate does not exist! This creates this never ending game of “musical chairs” where someone, or a lot of someone’s, will always end up with the short end of the stick simply because there is not enough money in circulation and there was never meant to be. If we go back to the old days of the first banking institutions we see another problem. These bankers realized they could not only loan out notes that represented the gold in their vaults, but they could loan out notes that represented gold that didn’t exist. This could greatly increase their revenues because they didn’t even have to have the actual amount of gold in their reserves but they could still make the percentage on it. The ratio of the notes issued to what was actually available in reserves is called a fractional reserve policy which is what we still use in the US today.
In 18th century Europe, central banks were the in full effect, and the American colonists were striving to gain their independence. The new Americans were establishing themselves and were developing their own means of currency. Their currency was interest free and was a slap in the face to the central banks in England because the new Americans couldn’t be exploited. King George III outlawed this currency which would force the colonists to borrow money from the bank of England, doing what central banks were created for. Benjamin Franklin wrote “The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” This is what the fore fathers were so adamant about leaving in Europe and this is what made men like Andrew Jackson get “I Beat the Bank” written on his tombstone.
Some of the US’ forefathers saw this problem and fought against it. Alexander Hamilton was an advocate of a central bank and he lobbied for it in 1789. Congress chartered the 1st central bank of the US in 1791 against Thomas Jefferson’s warnings “I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.” In 1811 James Madison and the vice president George Clinton broke the tie vote in Congress and did not renew the charter for the central bank. After the war of 1812 Madison flipped and supported a privately owned central bank which resurfaced in 1816. In 1836 President Andrew Jackson closed it. Both the 1st and 2nd central banks of the US were chartered for 20 years. Jackson saw the banker’s cohorts who had worked their way into high government positions and began casting them out. He ended up firing 700 federal employees saying to the bankers “You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal god I will rout you out.” We enjoyed a central bank free nation for decades from 1837 to 1862 but the economy was still unstable as it continued to go in and out of recessions (as it had with or without central banks since the countries inception.) The US would have a total of 29 recessions, depressions and “panics” up to 1913.[2]
“Panics” were a term used to explain a “run on the bank” where people would fear the safety of their money and would withdraw their funds. Why would people do this? These panics were initiated by many things but one of the large factors happened to be false information leaked by powerful bankers to frighten the American public. At this time in history and still today there are a few families who virtually run everything bank related. The predominant families include the Morgans, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and the Warburgs. Using their powerful influence they could steer public opinion by publishing articles speaking of smaller banks as “insolvent” or bankrupt[3]. This would create these panics and runs where people would rush to withdraw all their money at once, which in turn would cause the banks to call in their loans, forcing people to default, file bankruptcy, sell their assets, and get everything they owned repossessed.
In 1907 there was a huge panic which lasted over a year. Frederik Allen, an editor and historian for LIFE magazine which was founded in 1883 wrote “The Morgan interest took advantage of the panic of 1907 guiding it shrewdly as it progressed.” These scares eventually would lead up to heavy investigations into what needed to be done. Of course by this time bankers had already infiltrated congress and their minions were like storm troopers in Star Wars. A man named Nelson Aldrich, whose only daughter had married one of John D. Rockefellers sons, was the head of this investigation in what needed to be done. Of course his interest lied with the banking cartel family. Aldrich was at the forefront of the bill that would become the Federal Reserve Act.
Like any other needy president, Woodrow Wilson was in need of campaign money and what better place to get the money than from these filthy rich bankers but as some religions believe you can sell your soul to the devil, a president must basically so the same thing. He agreed to sign into law the Federal Reserve Act with the financial support of powerful bankers. This bill was meticulously constructed by Wall Street in secret on an island named Jeckyll Island. The writing of this bill was so secret that the draftsmen didn’t use their real names while traveling and were forbidden to say each other’s last names while in attendance of the drafting. Secrecy was essential for this project because if any of congress knew that Wall Street had a hand in the drafting of the bill it would never pass and Aldrich’s plan would be foiled. Essentially the bill was written by Paul Warburg, one of the most powerful bankers of the time. They came up with this new central bank and called it the Federal Reserve Bank. They used that name because any “central bank” title would quickly be opposed. (Funny thing is most Americans do not realize how fraudulent this title actually is. The Federal Reserve Bank is no more Federal than FedEx. It is not a government entity, it is a privately owned as business. There are no “reserves” in the Federal Reserve and it is not a bank either.)
Once completed the bill was submitted in December when most of congress was home for Christmas. The bill slipped through the senate which had adjourned sine die (without setting a further day for meeting). It made it to President Woodrow Wilson to sign which he reluctantly did and as he realized how he had prostituted his entire country out to bankers he reflected, “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
The pitch to sell this idea of a private entity (business) having monopoly over the money supply and economy of an industrious nation was that the country needed “elasticity” to its money. The years of recessions, depressions and panics were used to justify this need. With this entity being apart from the government it would be free from the checks and balances of the 3 branches of government. This was sold as a benefit to the “purity” of the institution but in all reality it allows the Federal Reserve to do whatever it wants, have loyalty to no one, and be free of any government intervention. The former Federal Reserve Chairmen Alan Greenspan explains “The Federal Reserve is an independent agency and that means basically that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take.” Though this is the reality it is portrayed as “independent within the government” in books and on websites.
There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks throughout the US, these include the cities: Boston - Massachusetts, Buffalo - New York, Richmond – Virginia, Atlanta – Georgia, Chicago – Illinois, St Louis – Missouri, Minneapolis – Minnesota, Kansas City – Kansas, Dallas – Texas, San Francisco – California. The only relation to the government the Federal Reserve has is through the Board of Governors. The board is made up of seven members and is appointed by the president. Each member serves 14 years and the appointments are staggered so that one term expires on January 31st of each even-number ending year.
Generally the Federal Reserve’s duties include:Controlling the economy of the US by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long term interest rates.Supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers. Maintaining the financial system and containing systemic risks that may arise in financial markets.Providing financial services to depository institutions, the US government, and financial institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nations payments systemsThese duties also include the creation of our money, dollars, or Federal Reserve Notes which used to read “Redeemable in gold” but were soon taken off when the fractional reserve banking got out of control and when the debt was too great to have it supported. In short the United States government asks the Federal Reserve for money. The Federal Reserve prints out this money and the United States government prints out what are called “Treasury Bonds” in return. The treasury bonds are nothing more than pieces of paper with fancy official words printed on them as well as the determined value the government is asking from the Federal Reserve. Once traded, the government deposits the newly printed Federal Reserve Notes of whatever value asked for, into the economy thus adding more money. This is all done electronically. (3% of the United States’ money supply is in physical currency.) These treasury bonds are a promise of payback or an I.O.U. to the Federal Reserve from the borrower, (the United States Government). As stated in the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ publication “Modern Money Mechanics”, the money deposited in the smaller bank is considered the bank’s reserve. Under the fractional reserve policy, the bank is only legally required to keep reserves equal to a required percentage of its total deposits. The reserve requirements against most transactions is 10% meaning the bank only has to have 10% of what it claims to have. The other 90% is considered excessive reserve and can be turned into more loans with the same stipulations. The problem is, this money for the loan does not come from the original amount, it is made up. This means that for every amount of money that is physically there or on a computer, nine times that amount can be created out of thin air. As this process continues we see more and more money loaned out with very little of the actual amount, 10% to be exact in actual existence.[4] Of course this money is loaned with interest, so now the question comes, “Where does the money come from to pay the interest on the non-existent money loaned out?” The Federal Reserve of course, loaned out at more interest. We see how this cycle creates perpetual debt that will never and can never be paid off, ever. It is similar to throwing water out of a sinking boat with holes, using a bucket with holes, it is completely useless.
As for the duties that the Federal Reserve was put in place to perform which would keep the economy from collapsing, all we have to do is look at the history of recessions since the creation of the Federal Reserve. We are in a recession even as I write this and we’ve had 16 other recessions and not to mention the Great Depression of the early 1930’s. The creation of the Federal Reserve has served to weaken the US dollar and placed the majority of the United States citizens in some form of debt. You cannot own anything physical of great value without going through a bank. Some people are capable of paying for their houses in cash but not many. There is an extensive lineage of owners of central banks and their families placing the serfs and peasants in debt to control the population. We are witnessing the collapse of our economy now as the government continues to allow Wall Street to literally gamble with the public’s money then get bailed out. If this were truly a free market system these businesses would have failed like other businesses that fail. The Federal Reserve’s job was supposed to protect the economy but as we see they are above the law when they fail, like a sadistic doctor who keeps murdering his patients but has enough money to manipulate media and stay out of a prison which is meant solely to house the poor, the Federal Reserve shifts the blame and lurks in the shadows. We have to keep in mind, the Federal Reserve is a business and it is privately owned. A tiny group of people own the “greatest nation” on earth’s economy. We need to put an end to this debt propagation and learn to take responsibility rather than borrow invented money from jackals.
There are no races, no Africans, no Mexicans, no Chinese, there’s just the haves and the have not’s, so when you tell your child that they can be whatever they want, tell them the truth, the way most people get rich in the United States is by inheriting their wealth and until we all help each other to stop these entitled tyrants, we’ll be where we’ve always been with no one to blame but ourselves. We point the fingers and call it socialism when people making over 250,000 dollars a year are taxed more while literally tons of food a day is thrown out of Las Vegas buffets and one in every 3 homeless people is a United States war veteran. While 25 hedge fund managers are “worth” as much as a 680,000 teachers who teach 13 million children[5], we see we are only going to hit the bottom harder if we do not drastically alter the way we see things in our consumerist economy.
[1] Paul Grignon, Money as Debt, Oct 28 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8
[2] John Pounders, Jeckyll Island and the Federal Reserve, (Paradigm Publishing 1995)
[3] Peter Joseph, Zeitgeist, June 2005, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ
[4] Public Information Center Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Modern Money Mechanics, (Oct. 2008)
[5] Les Leopold, The Preposterous Reality: 25 Hedge Fund Managers are Worth 680,000, April 2010, http://www.alternet.org/story/146402/the_preposterous_reality%3A_25_hedge_fund_managers_are_worth_680,000_teachers_(who_teach_13_million_students)/

Paul, Ron. “End The Fed.” Grand Central Publishing September 2009
Lynn S. Fox, Scott G. Alvarez, Sandra Braunstein, Marianne M. Emerson, Jennifer J. Johnson, Karen H. Johnson, Stephen R. Malphrus, Vincent R. Reinhart, Louise L. Roseman, Richard Spillenkothen, and David J. Stockton. “The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions.” Publications Committee Ninth Edition June 2005
“History of the Fed.” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Nov 21st 2010

Further Progress

Another April 30th came and went marking my 3rd year of sobriety. I've been really busy which has given me less time to blog but I'll make this one count. On the cusp of so many things, this past year has been filled with new opportunities and new friends and networks. I found my niche and my family amongst 2 main organizations. My drive has gotten stronger and my abilities have flourished as well as I've found new ones I didn't know I had.
I've started school again. I was encouraged by many friends because of my constant reading and search for knowledge to get a degree. I was spending hours a day reading anyways, the next logical step was to get credit for it. From all the politics, world policies and history I've been reading, getting my civil rights law degree seems to be the only answer. It makes the most sense but it will be a work in progress because of the busy schedule I have now. Civil rights law makes the most sense and will allow me to help the most people to the best of my ability.
As a member of the Universal Zulu Nation and Anti Injustice Movement (AIM), I've been exposed to and had the honor of meeting many new friends and comrades in this struggle against the fake, greedy, merciless and ignorant.
There are many events and campaigns involved with these movements and I'm honored to be part of both. I've finally found like minded people to collab with. Amazingly, I've finally realized who I am to form these collabs with. After taking a Myers Briggs personality test and writing many papers in my Psychology class about my upbringing, I've finally had a chance to step back and notice who I am, really. After 15 years of consistent alcohol and drug abuse, I finally have been able to stand back and really see who I actually am. Its odd to me to see my characteristics now and think that this is who I was all along but constant substance abuse masked and diluted who I actually was. Its kind of sad but at the same time I'm elated that I'm finally free and see things clearly. After returning from my 3rd Vipassana meditation retreat with my significant other and a close friend over New Years, I've been able to keep my meditation practices up consistently. This helps everything and allows me to stay equanimous to an extent. I'm still working on it. I've developed a more specific set of beliefs in regards to a god which has also helped me to define what my goals are. There is no conscious being making choices for us. I was not put in Southern Callifornia because I am "special" while a Palestinian boy has to pick up the pieces of his mother after an Israeli missile has flattened their house. That could have just as easily been me. This country was not picked by a divine creator and the innocent civilians that are murdered by our soldiers are not killed because we are blessed by god. That is a disgusting repulsive way to view things. It also allows us to sit back and chalk atrocities up as "gods plan" as a lazy excuse to do nothing. I'm done with this mentality. I'm done with fake bullshit vomited on the public to consume like commercial radio. I'm done with it all. This is not an attack on a god and I'm not blaming god because you can't blame something that doesn't exist. That goes for the "devil" too, another political creation. Anyone even remotely trying to attempt to quote the bible or give value and interpretation should learn the book in its original language, greek and hebrew. Everything else is misinformation. Period.
In my searches and travels, I've befriended some amazing individuals including Zulu King Lastman, and Street Poet Monte Smith & Capital X and all the AIM crew started by 2 brilliant women going by AK47 and Santa Maria. I've kept in close contact with all these individuals and they have aided me in knowledge, inspiration, friendship and not to mention the kind promotion they've given me. Along with LatinaBeatz, my promoter who I first started working with, I'm honored to be affiliated with and have a such an amazing team of legends. Checkout the links tab on my website to get connected with these amazing people. I've also picked up Jeet Kune Do training with an amazing mixed martial artist which has gotten my mind faster and more in tune.
In addition to the new tracks I'm working on with multi-platiinum producer Rich Balmer, I'm also working on Street Poet Monte Smith's acapellas and a heavy project with him and hardcore guitarist Todd. I took on a new band with an amazing songwriter Chase Allen backed up by amazing musicians. I'm doing a few other cover gigs with George Loreto and the funk band with longtime friend Jimi-E and Moral Groove. I'm working on an instructional clinic video with close friend Brent Arcement and most recently I've landed a gig taking Sting's place as bassist with Andy Sommers, the guitarist from The Police. The drummer is indian percussionist extraordinaire Ravi Drums. We are setting up to do a tour throughout India in the next coming months. Juggling school and a relationship on top of this is lots of work but it to be honest, I'm enjoying playing my instruments more than I ever have in my life. Its getting easier and more fluid and the concepts are flowing. The drive to help has solidified and given me a good foundation to build with my connections and organizations on. We'll see what comes next.