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Please stay on topic/s–in this case tonight’s film, HOW TO START A REVOLUTION, Gene Sharp, nonviolent shifts in government, Tahir Square, Serbia, Occupy and related subjects. If you’d like to discuss other newsworthy issues please find a post elsewhere on FDL to do so. Thank you. And yeah, I tpye badly…

Welcome to Firedoglake Movie Night

and thank you so very much for being here tonight!

Ruaridh, Welcome to the Lake.

Great to be here Lisa

Ruaridh, how do you first learn about Gene Sharp?

As a newspaper journalist, I was covering alot of the so-called “color” revolutions. I noticed that everyone was using the same tactics. I wondered why. At first I wondered if it was sort of a conspiracy — are there forces at work? — but when I talked to the leaders of these groups they were all using the same book, and that book was Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy. That was a few years ago.

Then I saw it used by the Iranians in 2009 before the Iranian uprising. It’s a very different country than the ones I’ve seen it used in before, and I thought that there was something in this, that this person was obviously of extreme importance. He’s a writer first and foremost, but he’s maybe not the most obvious topic for a documentary because he doesn’t really get involved on the ground. It’s his book that’s going places, but he’s making a significant impact in very different countries. And therefore I felt like I had to go and make a film about him, just for the historical record – so that the story wouldn’t be lost.

Tell us about your experiences in Tahir Square,a nd also for those who haven;t yet seen HOW TO START A REVOLUTION, what are the 7 lessons that can be used/applied by all revolutionaries?

When do you first meet Gene Sharp? What was it like to discuss the project with him?

Hi – welcome to the Lake.

Was it hard to persuade him to cooperate on this documentary?

Well first of all the 7 lessons are my lessons not Gene Sharp’s. They are some key themes that I organised the structure of the film with. Genes work requires careful dedicated study and it cannot and should not be condensed if people are serious about using the work. What I wanted to do with the film was to inject just enough academic content that people would understand the ideas and encourage them to read the work more fully. To that extent its been very successful, the film has spurred huge interest in the books particulary From Dictatorship to Democracy which is available from the institution on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/From-dictatorship-democracy-conceptual-liberation/dp/1880813092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335820483&sr=8-1 …. following with Egypt experiences

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I had no in with him at all. Really I just called them out of the blue and got his assistant Jamila, and we talked about the project. I think they were kind of careful at first because they had had so many bad experiences with journalists going down the whole CIA conspiracy theory track. So they weren’t sure. What I was saying is, “I want to make a movie about your work and your life as a whole,” although it didn’t really turn out like that. Nevertheless, that’s a big thing to hand over, all of that access to a young, relatively inexperienced filmmaker [who wants] to interpret your life. It was quite a brave thing. It took a while for them to get back to me, probably about a year after we’d been talking about it. He said, “it would be useful to have a film in existence to speak my words when I’m no longer able to speak them myself,” which is the point where I knew I had a great responsibility.

I must note that many of Gene Sharp’s books are available for free download from the Albert Einstein Institution website http://www.aeinstein.org/ however the link I’ve posted is the edition of From Dictatorship to Democracy featured in the film. A little more expensive than some others available online but this edition directly helps the funding of Gene Sharp’s work

Did you find Kickstarter effective as a fundraiser?

Starting a Revolution is one thing , making them a success is quite another. Once asked what he thought about the French Revolution, Chinese Foreign Minister and Revolutionary Chou En Li was once quoted as saying, “the Jury’s still out on that one.”

I started work on the documentary in 2009 so it was in process long before the Arab Spring. In fact I was really just finishing the film when Egypt happened. I flew into Cairo on a BA 747 with only 14 people on board, it was taking part in the evacuation of British citizens from Cairo. I went straight to the square but on the way all of my camera equipment was taken by the secret police. I was left with my iphone which ended up filming some of the key sequences of the film. It was quite clear as soon as i entered the square that the protestors were exercising nonviolent discipline

Kickstarter is a fantastic way to raise funds. Obviously our campaign was one of the most successful on the site at almost $60,000 in 3 weeks http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/172444007/how-to-start-a-revolution-a-new-documentary-film?ref=live whats just as important is the relationships you build with the people who help fund the project who help inspire you along the way

“Leaders in… Venezuela see him as a dangerous man”

On this point you are very wrong. The people of Venezuela used nonviolent direct action tactics right out of Gene Sharp’s writing to defend the Chavez government against a US-backed authoritarian coup attempt, and stopped that coup attempt dead. Sharp is friend of Chavez.

You need to be more careful about letting oil companies decide who you call “dangerous.”

Robert Helvey seems like a very interesting person. Was it hard keeping up with him? Very colorful.

I’m not sure where you’ve taken this quote from? It is true that in some countries opposing groups are both using Gene Sharp’s work. When I have asked him about this he is very positive. If we are replacing violnce with non violnet struggles against our enemies then we are moving towards taking the violence out of war and that’s a huge achievement.

DO you think these principles can work in the US nowadays?

The color coded revolutions are widely speculated to be intimately connected with the CIA.

The so-called Syrian revolution contains some of the most scurrilous people on earth, AQ among them, not that Assad is a model of propriety. Syria is speculated to be a Mossad, Saudi, Turkish, [insert any others of your state sponsors of terrorism here] and is certainly not peaceful. Weapons galore on the ‘revolutionary’ side, otherwise they’d have been defeated by now.

What are Sharp’s connection with CIA, Mossad, Saudis?

Robert Helvey was a really great person to interview. Obviously a great character who had served his country with extreme courage but also had the bravery to come out and say “we’ve got to find a better way than killing eachother”. That’s not always easy for a military man but some of the strongest proponents of Gene Sharp’s work do have a military background. The identify with the need to use careful strategy in achieving political objectives.

Having a color–green, orange, whatever is a long standing tradition in warfare–flags, tartans, the “reds.” The modern use of color helps to brand a movement (note Anonymous’ use of masks)

Ok so the CIA question is a big one. I actually came from this perspective when I first became interested. I’m an investigative journalist by training and if I had found anything to suggest that Gene Sharp was funded or carrying out work on behalf of the CIA I would have put it in the film. Here is a good youtube video of Gene answering this question at the Frontline Club in London this year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNv-Hfww2jo He actually tells people NOT to use CIA money or help because if policy changes in Langley your movement could be left high and dry. Most of the accusations against him are guilt by association – he once received money from NED, NED sometimes receives money from the CIA therefore he must be taking direction from the CIA. It just doesn’t work like that.

Could the CIA pay for his work to be translated and distributed to further a policy in a certain country. Of course, like any country or organisation could. But he is absolutely not working for the CIA.

Hi Ruaridh,

When nonviolent uprisings fail, Tiananmen Square for example, is it because the movement is not adhering closely enough to these principals, or are there social/cultural limits to where and when these principals can work?

Helvey was really inspirational, and I loved how the Serbs vetted him carefully before coming and out and saying, “Um, we’re the leaders.”

Yes that’s right, the 198 methods contain tactics like symbolic colours that have been used in nonviolent and sometimes violent conflict throughout history. What Gene Sharp has done is codify these tactics in one document and tied them together with a planned nonviolent strategy. The methods do not work by themselves. They have to be combined carefully and wisely in an overall plan directed towards your ultimate aim whatever that is. It’s the strategy that’s important.

If we put an army of 100,000 soldiers on a battlefield without a plan their guns, mortars, artillery would be much less effective or entirely useless. The same is true of a protest of 100,000 people in the street. What Gene’s work does is make nonviolent struggle more effective.

What are some of your favorite of the 198 methods?

Obviously nonviolent movements fail for a variety of reasons in different countries. Achieving nonviolent discipline in a population and a strategic approach to a struggle is challenging. There will always be those who believe violence is a more effective option or that people are too weak to confront a dictatorship. However what Gene’s work does is show real examples from history of where this technique has worked against some of the toughest regimes in history including the Soviet Union and Hitler in Norway for example. The Arab Spring has shown that there are not cultural or religious boundaries to this technique. What he emphasises again and again is study. Study your opponent, where is he strong where is he weak? And study yourself, what are your resources what can you do to break the fear, how can you withdraw economic and political support from a regime so that it is weakened.

Yes I absolutely know that these techniques can work in the US. Occupy is evolving using these techniques. What Occupy has failed to do so far is come up with interesting ways for news media to cover them so that they get widespread coverage and can draw in the general population. They’re not doing the sorts of interesting and humorous skits and pranks and things, peaceful, non-violent ways of getting into the media, big publicity stunts, really innovative things that catch the public imagination. Therefore they were getting frustrated and breaking things. It’s a big danger that Occupy was falling into because Occupy needs to spread their message, they need to get more people on the streets — young people, old people, the grannies, the military veterans, everyone out onto the streets.

I was in Tahrir Square. As soon as violence broke out, the only people who stayed were the young men. The kids, the old people, they all left. Then it became very easy for the police and military to brand the people still there as agitators, as young thugs, because it was just young men throwing rocks. It was easier for them to then clamp down on the protests. As soon as someone in a black bloc at Occupy comes out and start breaking windows, the kids and the old people run away and go home and what Occupy is left with, at least on the news that night, are loads of young men breaking windows. And the next time they have a big march or demonstration the old people and the very young people don’t come out because they’re scared of violence, and therefore you don’t see on the news a picture of the whole of society working to counter the system, but what just looks like a small, fringe minority. So I think that’s a very clear example of how these sorts of things clearly make your movement weaker. If the whole of society can’t get behind you because physically they’re threatened by the actions of a few, than clearly that is going to dim your movement, because the movement relies on numbers.

Obviously sex strike is one of the 198 methods that people remember – particularly men!

Right now it seems as if some, if not all, of the Arab Spring countries now have governments in place that are more repressive (and coming form a religious angle) that those they replaced…

interesting and humorous skits and pranks and things, peaceful, non-violent ways of getting into the media, big publicity stunts, really innovative things that catch the public imagination.

The first wave of Anonymous, when they were protesting a cult that shall remain nameless certainly managed to do so, and for many, many people was their first experience protesting anything.

I do think Occupy should have more fun–and some of thier actions and those inspired by Occupy–like Move YOur Money—hade real and lasting results.

Well I think if you’re talking about Egypt as it stands tonight, we’re in a situation where most Egyptians would say that the revolution is not complete. However gains have been made by predominantly nonviolent action – that has empowered the population and made them a more potent force to be reckoned with. The opposition groups are active and a force to be reckoned with so they know what to do if they feel like their rights are being infringed again.

Very Lysistrata. And used effectively in 2003 in Liberia by Leymah Gbowee and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace who also took to the street and just sat with signs.

I would agree that it’s actions like Move your Money which really make a difference. The Spanish who have been huge fans of the film also instigated a no pay on public transport which was very effective. These groups have to move beyond just protesting. That is only one of 198 methods.

Exactly–it’s not done yet, as you pointed out re the French Revolution and Chinese Foreign Minister and Revolutionary Chou En Li’s comment, “the Jury’s still out on that one.”

yes. exactly. It makes me quite skeptical of Lisa and Ruaridh when they start off with neocon talking points propaganda against Chavez. Hate him all you want but the man, and his party (PSV) do have a democratic mandate from relatively free and fair elections with observers from the OAS and Carter Center.

OpBART in San Francisco made waves and changed some aspects of BART. Day with out a Mexican in Los Angeles was pretty amazing.

I am curious what May Day tomorrow will be like,a nd also the planned demonstrations against NATO in Chicago where the county sheriff says he’s hoping to reopen Joliet Prison to house those arrested (talk about scaring people…)

I think people have to accept that the political situation is not going to become perfect overnight but huge gains HAVE been made and they’ve been made nonviolently.

How long were you in Serbia for the interviews and shots of the capital?

It would seem Americans need to read Mr. Sharp’s book. Reform is out of the question in the U.S. and the only thing that can save the working and middle class is a revolution.

Lisa is enraptured by the glitterati.

Doug Henwood shows that “Move Your Money” is basically a symbolic gesture without meaningful lasting results. Even credit unions have to still plug back into the banking system and the circuit of capital.

Check Henwood out here:

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Move_your_money.html
http://lbo-news.com/2011/11/08/moving-money-revisited/
http://lbo-news.com/2011/12/10/credit-union-update/
http://lbo-news.com/2012/04/13/the-nation-moves-money-again/

I’m about as far from neo-con as you can get so that made me laugh a lot. I do not hate Chavez, I’ve spoken to many people who love him but also Venezuelans who feel he is eroding their basic liberties. I’m a journalist not a politician, I have no investment whatsoever in the political system of Venezuela. The film is neutral on this point. Chavez is only featured because he alleged that Gene Sharp was part of a neo con plot to destabilise the country

I was in Serbia for 3 days

Kindly remember that this is not a place for ad hominen attacks. You can use your LiveJournal or Word Press for that. thanks.

thanks i’ll check these out. Whatever the results I think these types of practical actions are better than sitting in street for months on end.

yes it can. NO progressive should EVER take from from NED. NED is CIA.
The evidence goes back to Salvador, Nicarauga, and Former Yugoslavia.
So Ruaridh is shilling for CIA front man. Nice work FDL.

I like street theater–Billions for Bush/Wealthcare are sharp and funny. Satire and parody are wonderful “weapons.” Archie Bunker certainly sent points home with All in the Family (though I worked with a woman who actually thought Archie was a really wise man and supported his ideas)

and Francois-Noel Babeuf would have said it was a failure. It did not deliver on the promise of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite. For that he lost his head.

When I talked to these various revolutionary leaders, their most perilous point during the Orange Revolution or the Serbian revolution was when people came to the table and said, “We’ve had enough of this now, we want a violent option.” Non-violent struggle groups are very similar in their organizational structure to terrorist groups in many ways. They have the same capabilities, are jammed with very smart people with great international contacts, and they can go different ways. At each stage of these movements, the leaders who used Gene’s work were able to go to the table and say, “We’ve got something else, this is peaceful protest but it’s more powerful than that, and it’s not terrorist action, so let’s try this first.” And it was a really important stage in diffusing what could have become a civil-war type situation.

Again, kindly respect our guests.

Well. Sicne Sharp takes money from NED I’m with Chavez on this. NED directly funded people who violently sought to overthrow the democratically elected president of Venezuela. Some actual journalists made a good documentary about the attempted coup. It is called the Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Also, your comments creates the impression that since you are a journalist that you are therefore exempt from any moral or political obligation to try and ascertain the truth in a political conflict. When journalists don’t try to figure out which side has more truth, they inevitably become stenographers of the ruling class. As Zinn noted, you can’t be neutral on a moving train.

And change occurred with far less damage and bloodshed than otherwise.

But why would Gene Sharp be telling people NOT to take money from the CIA if that was the case. He also spent 9months in prison for objecting to the Korean war in 1953. That’s hardly the MO of a future neo-con CIA agent.
This work needs funding. People living under dictatorships from all over the world come to him for help. He doesn’t seek them out, the resources are not there to do that.

The fundamental question here is should the US be promoting democracy abroad?

I’m happy to answer these type of questions Lisa. It’s very important that these views are aired and countered properly

Should the U.S. be promoting democracy at home? When 1% of the population controls a majority of the wealth of than nation it’s hardly appropriate to say the U.S. is a “democracy.” A benign banana republic perhaps but far from a democracy.

I’m not an expert on Venezuela and have never been there so it would be wrong of me to comment on the situation. I can only report what I have been told by people on both sides of the political spectrum there. Yes journalists should be investigating the story and there are very many good ones there doing just that.

Pat Buchanan who is far from a liberal doesn’t like NED, so really it’s a matter of which hand tightens the tin foil around your head.

I think we all want to see our own democracies held to a higher standard

Next week we have a surprise film and guest and on May 14 SHOWGIRLS 2 PENNY’S From HEAVEN

Trailer here

Madeline Albright spoke openly about using NED, IRI and USAID to fund and support the Orange revolution (setting up training efforts in Hungary etc.), that not only overthrew Milosavich but also other legitimate left wing groups that actually had democratic mandate and sought only to not turn Serbia over tot he IMF and privatization. Joe Biden was chair of Foreign Relations committee at the time and had publically televised hearings about the role of NED, IRI and USAID in funding organizations to undermine the sovereignty of another country. This is imperialism pure and simple. All democratic and freedom loving people should oppose imperialism even when it claims to be democratic and humanitarian. Breaking up Yugoslavia wasn’t about democracy or human rights but rather breaking up a hobbled market-socialist society that wasn’t sufficiently small (now many mini-states), weak and compliant in the face of US, UK and German capital. There are literally dozens of petty tyrants akin to Milosavich around the world today. US/NATO want after the rump of FRY in order to erase the vestige of an alternative to neoliberal capitalism in Southeastern Europe. Final evidence of this is that Otpor ending up joining the DS party which privatized the Serb economy, ended not only state run enterprises in utilites and heavy industry but also smaller worker owned firms in the rump of FRY.

Ruardich, thank you SO MUCH for being here to night, staying up in the wee hours of your morning to join us in discussing HOW TO START A REVOLUTION, Gene Sharp and your own experiences, perfect for May Eve. Happy May Day tomorrow, happy Beltain everyone!

And thank you firepups for being here tonight.

One thing I wonder about is the prospect of non-violent revolution succeeding here, and not being put down by the national security state. It appears to me that in every other case where non-violence has succeeded, the target country was not the most powerful country/only superpower. The British were subject to international pressure on India. The Brits, French, and Dutch were subject to pressure over their colonies in Africa, the Middle East, and SE Asia. Russia was even subjected to the economic pressure brought about by the US in the form of the arms race.

But what country can apply pressure to the US? (Other than perhaps China, and China is not going to support any pro-democracy movement anywhere.) What’s to stop the national security state, with its surveillance, drones, mercs, National Guard, Army, CIA/FBI, etc?

Ok, that’s fine but what I’m arguing is that you have to separate the NED from Gene Sharp. Gene Sharp is an author and thinker on nonviolent struggle. He is absolutely not under the direction of any government agency.

It is possible that government agencies promote his work abroad but if that’s the case isn’t it better that they’re using his nonviolent strategies as opposed to violent ones like Bay of Pigs or the invasion of Iraq?

Thank you for inviting me Lisa

The answer to this one would be that it should not be necessary for an outside power to be exerting pressure on a government to make it fall. The citizens of a state should with careful planning and good use of nonviolent strategy be able to disintegrate a regime self-reliantly.
This is another irony of the NED allegations in the thread above. One of the most recent Sharp publications is called Self Liberation. Its a guide for movements to help liberate themselves without the assistance of a foreign power.

Time in prison in 1953 does not constitute evidence that you can not be CIA agent. Ho Chi Minh worked with OSS in WW2 and then became biggest enemy of the US from 1954 until his death.

The US should most certainly NOT be using any financial resources to “promote democracy” around the world. Such a formulation is the crudest propaganda providing cover for anti-democratic impulses imbedded in US foreign policy. Have you even heard of Arbenz, Lumumba, Mossadegh,and Allende? The notion that US foreign policy is driven to any meaningful extent by the imperative to promote democracy simply does not stand up to even the slightest empirical scrutiny. Rather, US foreign policy is directed at securing favorable economic and political conditions for the profits of the shareholders of US based TNCs. If this can get done democratically, then fine, ,but the imperative of US foreign policy is to secure profits for the 1%.

In recent years, the US backed a coup against democratically elected Zelaya in Hondorus and then stood aside quietly as new elections were held that excluded Zelaya and went against the wishes of other OAS countries in validating the results of that election. Previously, the US backed the forces that overthrew democratically elected Aristide and then supported banning the Levalas party from participation in Haitian elections. You can’t support coups against Chavez, Aristide and Zelaya and then go around the world and pretend to be “promoting democracy.” Or I guess you can, but only extremely naive American liberals (or shills for the CIA) will take you seriously. FDL is feeling an awful lot like Huffington Post right now.

I’m not sure you know what irony means. You and Lisa started out suggesting that Chavez is a dictator and that Sharp’s techniques should be used against him. Then it comes out that Sharp has taken funds from the CIA front group NED who have acted in distinctly un-democratic ways in many different countries since the 1980s. The real irony is that you use “promoting democracy” when you really mean “promoting policies favorable to the American 1%”

To be absolutely clear, I did not say anywhere at all that Chavez was a dictator or that Sharp’s work should be used against him.

Millions of people around the world know that NED, IRI, USAID, etc. are instruments of a US foreign policy that is an anethema to democracy, freedom and equality. That you are so ill informed and ignorant is your problem, but please, try to not project you infantile liberalism on the rest of the world. Get a library card and do some serious reading on US foreign policy before you suggest that opposition to NED automatically makes a person a tin foil nutter. You only make yourself look foolish.

Fair enough, it was tin foil Lisa Derrick’s second paragrah characterizing you and Sharp’s work and not your own words. I stand corrected. While we are at it do you want to distance yourself and Sharp from the Rose Revolution in Georgia that topped Sheverdnadze and brought American trained lawyer Saakashvili to power. Saakashvili, proceeded to do everything possible to become a client regime of the US, converted its military over to become a potential gendarme of the US in the Caucuses and then proceeded to (extremely foolishly) initiate military action against South Ossettia. It took a few companies of Russian troops to send the Georgians scurrying back to Tiblisi. Then when actual democratic forces emerged in Georgia to oppose Saakashvili, this paragon of democracy (and constant McCain talking point) attacked protesters, shut down TV broadcasts, and made mass arrests of genuine democracy advocates. Here is an article from the Guardian on the authoritarian impulses of Saakashvili, a man Gene Sharp helped bring to power.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/09/georgia-protests-mikheil-saakashvili

I apologize for coming late, but are you saying Sharp is funded by the CIA or the US government?

FDLers interested in a more critical understanding of US (and UK) policies “promoting democracy” should check *The Liberal Defense of Murder* by Richard Seymour. Although it is riddled with spelling errors and typos the content of the book is top notch. Michael Parenti and John Pilger are also good sources for solid critical journalism challenging the trope that the so called color revolutions of eastern europe were only about spreading democracy and not really about spreading NATO and neoliberal economic policies.

I would point out that a bank does not need money to lend. It just lends as it wishes and then borrows the needed reserves after the fact from the fed if needed. So, moving money may not accomplish much except if you have fewer deposits, then you are a smaller bank?

Ruaridh Arrow admits that Sharp took funds from the NED. And NED was openly using retired US military personnel to train people to undermine the sovereignty of their own countries in the interests of the US.

NED was created by the US government to openly do part of what CIA used to do covertly but would now be done under different aegis. This was after the Church commission report on the CIA in the 1970s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

NED, the putative republican democracy spreading group, the national democratic institutute for international affairs party democracy spread group (name esscapes) and even the AFL-CIO group Free Trade Union Institute all have documented track records of being primarily focuesd on expanding the power of the US around the world. NED, USAID, IRI, etc. have worked in Nicarauga, Salvador, Venezeula, Former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Georgia and other places to encourage pro-US policies and undermine folks pursuing policies contrary to the US. Sometimes this involves undermining authoritarians, other times it involves undermining folks with democratic mandates (FSLN in 1984, Chavez in 02, Aristide in 004, Zeyal in 2009). Even when they undermine undemocratic regimes these organizations are most keen to set up economic policies favorable to Washington (IMF structural adjustment and neoliberal privatization) far more than they are about promoting genuinely accountable democratic regimes (Serbia in 2000, Ukraine 2004 and Georgia 2003) are examples in this column. In each case the new powers were not meaningfully more democratic than the previous regime, but they were meaningfully more free market oriented and more interested in being client regimes for the US and NATO. NED, USAID, IRI etc. are soft power fronts for US imperialist foreign policy. Genuine democracy movements will have nothing to do with them. If are interested in more on this check our Richard Seymour, John Pilger, Michael Parenti and Wiliam Blum (all of whom would make good FDL book guests).

Henwood’s point isn’t about whether or not a bank can lend, but rather, that banks (even small community banks and credit unions) have to park their money somewhere and those places often involve the very same big banks, the move-your-money people are advocating customers leave. Credit unions have to park their assets in the same kinds of investments that the big and commercial banks park their assets in. As Henwood writes:

“many small banks have more money than they can profitably invest locally. As Barbara Garson shows in her wonderful book, Money Makes the World Go Around, the portion of her book advance she deposited in tiny upstate New York bank was probably lent via the fed funds market to Chase, where it entered the global circuit of capital. This is not at all uncommon. Money is fungible, protean, and highly mobile even when it looks locally rooted. That very mutability is part of what makes money so valuable: it’s the ideal form of general wealth that can instantly be turned into caviar, lodging, Swedish massage, or shares of Google.”

Read the Henwood links.

Yes, I got that. I am the last person to support a neo liberal agenda to spread our form of “free enterprise” to the world. Goor heavens, just look at the havoc it is having on Europe today and likley the US soon.

That being so, I would suppose that Sharp has something to say about how you might do it without their funding. I also suspect that in any struggle, whether it is national in scope or a union strike or OWS, there is likely to be protagonists on both sides or perhaps multiple sides. The US government necessarily weilds a good deal of influence and power. But there will be others representing other groups, even in a company fight. It would be interesting to see how Sharp navigates those situations. Maybe the “win” is never all the way but just a little at a time, like all the civil rights struggles. Ghandi ultimately won in India.

If the local bank has excess reserves they can loan them to other banks or at the fed. I think the money all clears through the fed. The new bank now has a deposit and a reserve at the fed. At this point all we’ve done is debit and credit accounts to move the money around. One bank loses, another gains reserves. ( I think)

PS I would think that one reason someone cooked up this scheme was to force the big banks to borrow reserves. Interest is so low now, it doesn’t matter much. But then I am not a banker.