A former member of the communist party on how Bitcoin can help prevent the violence that historically accompanies economically induced social unrest.
This is an opinion editorial by Frank Kashner, founder of UnChainDemocracy.org.
In 1971, I joined the communist party while working at the highest-paying General Electric (GE) defense plant in the country. I was sickened by the photos of our military dropping napalm on Vietnamese children, convinced that the justifications of our government they were lies, and I was drawn to the idea that “the working class” would soon take over the world and create a utopia.
The group I joined broke away from the American Communist Party. He it was supposed to be “democratic and centralist.” I left the group after two months when he tried to order me around without understanding what was really going on. I saw that it was all about centralism without any democracy. But I stayed at the GE factory for 13 years, participating in movements that reformed both the labor union and GE.
But what about the “revolution” and who are the “workers”? I didn’t have a violent bone in my body, and treated the terms “revolution” and “workers” as metaphors, neither I nor anyone else (including our would-be FBI monitors) took me seriously. But the need for dramatic social and political change stuck with me, and my notion of “working people” grew to include just about everyone who isn’t billionaires or lackeys.
Over the years, I have been involved in personal, union, community, school, environmental, and political reform efforts, always aware that while we often won victories, we were shoveling shit against the incoming tide of empire, greed, militarism, autocracy and disintegration.
In 2017, I was introduced to Bitcoin and was fascinated by the idea of money independent of corporations and governments, limited to 21 million, created by solving mathematical problems, guarded by vigilante nodes, decentralized and not rigged by and for the elite. Over the past year, I’ve learned from the brilliant Bitcoin community, including people like jeff booth and Jason Lowery. Bitcoin is a non-violent international economic revolution tool against corruption. Bitcoin strikes at the heart of corporate and government theft of our families, our jobs, our property, and our intellect.
wake up bitcoin
This applies to all debt-based government systems in the world. In his magnificent book, “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” David Graeber shows us how national debt-based systems always result in inflation and then war and revolution. Bitcoin does not replace the need for political organization and resistance, but I am now convinced that political and economic reform cannot succeed peacefully without Bitcoin. For the first time in history, Bitcoin offers a non-violent path to a stable and growing value of our labor, in all its forms, for us “workers of the world.” Progressives have been slow to do the work to understand the economy and Bitcoin, and join this movement. To them I say, “wake up!”
Many of you reading this have tried to contact friends and family about Bitcoin, often to no avail. For some of them, I have a possibly more compelling message.
Graeber points out that our economy has depended on military spending as much as all the other nations in the world combined. This spending, in turn, has depended on the dollar being the global reserve currency. Other nations are now turning away from the dollar. That move, plus the multi-trillion dollar wealth gap (grab), plus our current mountain of debt and resulting inflation, is ticking down the clock on our economic system. This result follows:
Our crumbling infrastructure, insurance-dominated healthcare, inadequate housing, schools under attack, racism, misogyny, religious nationalism, inability to respond to the destruction caused by global warming, and our dissolving social fabric They are problems that cannot be solved with our current debt. -based economic system As our economy inevitably declines, all other just causes suffer. If you care about any of those things and the future of our children, then you need to learn about Bitcoin.
Every government in the world, capitalist and communist, is now deeply in debt, money stolen from current and future generations. All are unsustainable, economically and environmentally. They are all Ponzi schemes. And like all Ponzi schemes, they depend on our knowledge, belief and acceptance continue. Historically, systems that reached high levels of misery and inequality ended in revolution, war, or both.
bitcoin changes things
For the first time in human history, we have a vehicle that goes to the heart of our financial and economic system. It is increasingly available for both savings and transactions. Step on batons, rifles and police and military tanks, and establish an irreproachable value for our work, for our remittances home, for our savings and for our retirement. lowery postulates that Bitcoin can replace much of our overreliance on (non)violent military solutions.
The corruption of our political systems is based on patronage and cultural hierarchies, some centuries old, something modern. Hierarchies, which dominate both US political parties, are designed to protect and hide those responsible (remember Jeffrey Epstein and his client book?) and limit participation in organizations for change, including Bitcoin. Our ability to have a say in how we are governed, at the federal, state or municipal level, is diminishing as schools and towns face budget deficits, commensurate with the declining value of money in our pockets.
Our democracy is under attack. At all levels. This decrease, as measured by the groups that liberty track worldwide, corresponds to The decline in the purchasing power of the US dollar. The dollar (including the value of our labor) goes down, freedom goes down! Mass strikes, demonstrations, and resistance to the disintegrating world order are taking place in other countries, but they are poorly covered by our corporate media.
Teachers, medical and health workers, farmers, machinists, retail workers, transport workers, the underemployed, unable to work, from all countries: it is time to unite. We have nothing to lose except the chains of billionaires, their lackeys, their rotten financial and political system, and their often cruel or clueless managers. For the first time in history, we have a tool that values our work and ideas, that prevents their corruption, that allows us to transfer value at the speed of light, avoid their fees, harness lost and wasted energy.
Bitcoin is a peaceful global economic revolution with profound social and political implications. No other weapons are required than your learning, imagination, courage and participation. And you will have to see through all their propaganda, their Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) aimed at delaying, devaluing, and defeating them.
This is a guest post by Frank Kashner. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
