11.23.2009

Chicago's "End the Fed" Protest 11/22/09

Hm, who were these people gathering in Chicago yesterday, 11/22/09? Oh! they're the "End the Fed" Protesters! Let's take a closer look.
Nice Skyline.
These signs are getting a workout!

I hope this sequel's as good as the original was. I mean, at least the script of the original was pretty darn amazing. The reality of it was pretty good, too, for the first 137 years or so. But I wasn't so fond of the original's 3rd act, to be honest.
They apparently went shopping along State Street.
Passersby like Walter Payton were a little confused at first, but took the literature anyway.
Some were so confused they didn't even take the literature.
K9s got it, though.
It's a fact that in the middle of 1963, JFK was starting to develop a plan to eliminate the Fed Reserve. I like this T-shirt. I'm just sayin'....
As the song goes, "Reflections of, the way life used to be."
Sunday in the Park
Some of the signs sat down to listen to the speakers.
A stop at the Board of Trade before moving on to the Chicago Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank for the protest's grand finale.
What? The policeman says, "You can't go there. They're shooting a film over there, and if you disrupted them with a lot of noise, it'd be a big hassle for everyone. They'd have to come back tomorrow to complete their shoot. The city would have to block off the streets on a work day, etc…" To which one protester responded, "Well, it'd be more work for you guys, at least. Right?" Laughter ensued.

Sure enough, the film includes old-school Chicago Police Cars, circa late 1980's maybe. Eventually, the lawman allowed the protesters to go in front of the Fed, and hold a "silent protest". So, the protesters engaged in a Silent Protest, which is exactly how the Fed wants it.

Some of the speakers took the opportunity to remind the protestors of some historically important quotes, which helped bring into focus what we are really facing.

1) "Lenin was surely right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." -John Maynard Keynes
2) "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -Thomas Jefferson
3) In 1832, when President Andrew Jackson confronted the Second Bank of the United States, he said, "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul the charter, I shall ruin 10,000 families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin. Should I let you go on, you will ruin 50,000 families, and that would be my sin." -Andrew Jackson
And I'll add one myself:
4) "This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." - Thomas Jefferson

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