What can we do about bad laws?

Photo of British suffragette Ada Wright being beaten for breaking the voting law

This is what happens when you break the law. She's lucky they didn't shoot her! They might have if she were Black in the USA.

In 1492, it became illegal in Spain to practice Judaism. Let's say a Spanish family secretly lit candles Friday night to keep the Sabbath holy, then went to church Sunday morning, removing their hat in the Christian style of respect, and genuflecting with holy water at the sanctuary door. Then Monday at school, their child accidentally mentions the Sabbath candles, this picture might be that child's mother after the teacher had informed the police of a known family that breaks the law.

What do citizens do about bad laws? There is a list of bad laws too long to mention here. At Move to Amend, they try to convince corrupt members of Congress to amend the Constitution to state that Rights are for natural persons only. They think that a groundswell of public sentiment might sway the Congress. At Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, they say we should write local laws that directly violate the bad laws, and take it to the Supreme Court, if necessary, to achieve justice in the law. Mahatma Gandhi advocated non-violent direct action even risking death at the hand of those enforcing the bad law. He even advocated home rule in his 1910 book, "Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule." by M.K. Gandhi 1910

How do we achieve justice in the law? Should we include illegal provisions in our new Mendocino County charter like banning the constitutional protection of rights to fictional persons? This is like the "Emperor with No Clothes." It is obvious to everyone that the Bill of Rights was aimed at humans. Yet everyone is somehow willing to accept that under a quirk of the law, that aggregates of money charted by a state to do business have equal protection under the law as human beings or citizens.

I wonder if we include something that contradicts currently established laws, i.e. that fictional persons have rights protected by the Constitution, that even if the voters approve the charter at the polls, would the Secretary of State even ratify a charter with provisions directly contradictory to known law? We should call him and ask.

I wonder if the police would beat up a corporation like this if the corporation tried to vote?

Why do counties keep public funds in private, for-profit banks?

• I and my team are trying to make Mendocino into a charter county. After 15 drafts of a charter over the last 3 years, there was little or no political will for our Board of Supervisors to put one on the ballot. So the only other way to become a charter county is to elect a charter commission. This is a 2-step process. First, we need to collect 2003 valid signatures by January to get the charter question on to the June ballot. We are aiming for 4000. Then later in January, anyone registered to vote in the county can run for the unpaid office of Charter Commissioner. When the time comes, I plan to run for this voluntary elected office. I am currently raising funds and cultivating fellow candidates. This will be an amazing opportunity to think outside the box and redesign our local government to assure more social and economic justice, more direct democracy, more citizen participation, more local control and more accountability.

  
  
• The current legal opinion is that a county must be a charter county in order to open a public bank. Ideally, the charter will be a fundamental step in that direction. It is yet to be seen whether language about a public bank will be included in the charter. It will be up to the charter commissioners what language will be included.

  
  
• There are 3 kinds of money: coins, currency, and credit. Coins are printed by the Federal government. Currency is printed and controlled by a private banking conglomerate called the Federal Reserve (nothing "federal" about it). Money greases the wheels of commerce and causes economies to boom when there is enough of it in everyone's pockets. When money is scarce, the economy tanks. The third kind of money is credit. Per Federal Reserve policy, every bank can issue credit of up to 90% of their reserves. Each time they loan out credit, the "note" gets added to their reserve of assets. In other words, their assets are based on loan notes.
  
• The credit market is a kind of Ponzi scheme which occasionally implodes. In 2009, the government bailed out the banks from their Ponzi scheme losses, yet the big Wall Street banks continue to glean obscene profits using business plans based on fraud. All counties in the USA keep their public funds in private, for-profit banks, which use those funds in their reserve for their credit Ponzi schemes.
  
• SBMC stayed healthy during the 2008 economic downturn because they only issue credit up to 60% of their reserves. And credit unions even have a lower limit. Only the big Wall Street banks like Bank of America issue all 90% of their reserves in credit.
  
•  A public bank could serve the purpose of parking and distributing our own public funds instead of Bank of America. Why not keep our public funds in our own bank? And if the law allows banks to issue credit based on a fraction of their reserves, then why not use the county's reserves to underwrite economic development loans issued by the local partners like Savings Bank of Mendocino County and MendoLake Credit Union to keep the money circulating right here in our own county?
  

  
  
  So why should we keep public funds in a private, for-profit bank?  We shouldn't!