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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Meditational music for relief
Meditation music can help the soul and can help you come to grips with what is going on in this current moment. I have known that I have had to adapt as of lately being an Americorps Vista member in a different area so music like this is good for me to work with it might suit well for you as well.
People First of Alabama
What is People First of Alabama?
People First Of Alabama is a self advocacy group for people with developmental disabilities living in the state of Alabama who are dedicated to making their dreams come to fruition by having choices and control over their lives. People First Of Alabama wishes to be more self sufficient through making personal decisions and plans on their own instead of having other people make their decisions and plans for them. People First intends to reach out to youth and communities in Alabama with public campaigns with its chapters in the state and also to pursue ongoing funding sources that will maintain its existing state and regional structure that it has.
People First Of Alabama produces its own newsletter every season which is called, "Speaking Out!," and also has a 1-800 toll free number to call, an Arc Link, and has events reguarly. People First also makes community visits and strongly supports its community needs with advocacy and by making public speeches in which local governmental representatives can attend in order to be able to understand how to accurately represent their intellectually disabled constituents. Below is the latest People First Of Alabama newsletter.
SO - 3-2b
People First Of Alabama is a self advocacy group for people with developmental disabilities living in the state of Alabama who are dedicated to making their dreams come to fruition by having choices and control over their lives. People First Of Alabama wishes to be more self sufficient through making personal decisions and plans on their own instead of having other people make their decisions and plans for them. People First intends to reach out to youth and communities in Alabama with public campaigns with its chapters in the state and also to pursue ongoing funding sources that will maintain its existing state and regional structure that it has.
People First Of Alabama produces its own newsletter every season which is called, "Speaking Out!," and also has a 1-800 toll free number to call, an Arc Link, and has events reguarly. People First also makes community visits and strongly supports its community needs with advocacy and by making public speeches in which local governmental representatives can attend in order to be able to understand how to accurately represent their intellectually disabled constituents. Below is the latest People First Of Alabama newsletter.
SO - 3-2b
Using People First Language
People First Language is a new kind of language that is being using for those who are disabled and intellectually disabled as well in which its purpose is to empower those who have either physical problems and or intellectual disabilities. People first language is politically correct language and focuses on not dehumanizing people with disabilities. The language emphasizes that people are put first and the disability is put second although it is still a part of them. The disability community is therefore respected as a group of and to rightly define themselves as they would like to and they can choose their own name. The following video on "Using People First Language" describes when to use people first language, examples of people first language, descriptions of people that need to change, and a quick quiz on what is acceptable in describing a person with disabilities. The video also defines what is a self advocate and how to go about being one in short and clearly defined steps and also how to start a People First organization Chapter. How to support a People First group is also explained in this video.
Money As Debt II: Promises Unleashed
This film is Paul Grignon's second in his film series "Money As Debt" which fully explains how bailouts, mortgage failures, easy credit, and derivatives have sabotaged our economy. Grignon does this simply with compelling art work and in a way where it is easy to understand his logic and reasoning and he also proposes his solutions in this film as well to our current economic crisis.
Money As Debt II - Promises Unleashed from Vega Angkor on Vimeo.
Money As Debt
This is a movie made and produced by Canadian animator Paul Grignon about money and how it was first created for a means of accounting for goods and services by trade. Also it explains how money is being created now in our current monetary system. This is a movie for those who are just learning about why our monetary system is so bad and or wanting to learn about our current central banking system of money. It deals with the major problems of fractional reserve banking, creation of money by debt, exponential growth beyond our means, and also the issue of continuous inflation.
Pay close attention to how the banks are involved and how many past presidents, former bankers, politicians, and others alike are quoted about their views on money. Following this film in this blog will be the second "Money As Debt" film called "Promises Unleashed" which is again made and produced by Canadian animator Paul Grignon.
Pay close attention to how the banks are involved and how many past presidents, former bankers, politicians, and others alike are quoted about their views on money. Following this film in this blog will be the second "Money As Debt" film called "Promises Unleashed" which is again made and produced by Canadian animator Paul Grignon.
Powerful quotes on Money
"We are absolutely without a permanent money system...
It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.
It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon."
Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Georgia (1935)
In the foreword to a book by Irving Fisher, entitled 100% Money (1935)
"Each and every time a bank makes a loan (or purchases securities), new bank credit is created — new deposits — brand new money."
Graham F. Towers, Director, Bank of Canada
"The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled."
John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, International Banker
"I am afraid that the ordinary citizen
will not like to be told that banks
can and do create money
...And they who control
the credit of the nation
direct the policy of Governments
and hold in the hollow of their hands
the destiny of the people"
Reginald McKenna,
past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England
“Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess.”
Irving Fisher, economist and author
“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”
Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board
"Everyone sub-consciously knows banks do not lend money. When you draw on your savings account, the bank doesn't tell you you can't do this because it has lent the money to somebody else."
Mark Mansfield
"If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible -- but there it is."
Robert Hemphill. Credit Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
“One thing to realize about our fractional reserve banking system is that, like a child’s game of musical chairs, as long as the music is playing, there are no losers.”
Andrew Gause, Monetary Historian
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Albert A. Bartlett, physicist
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
Kenneth Boulding, economist
“I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money... I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.”
Congressman Wright Patman
“Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, that there is no human relation between master and slave.”
Leo (Lev)Tolstoy
“None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Goethe
“’The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.
Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again...
Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit’.”
Sir Josiah Stamp Director, Bank of England 1928-1941
(reputed to be the 2nd richest man in Britain at the time)
Josiah Stamp
"Throughout the ages,the devices of cunning men have turned money to their nefarious purposes.
Money, beginning with private enterprise as a means of escaping the limitation of barter, soon developed the cheat to exploit the honest trader who, in an effort to protect himself, turned to government for protection, only to find that now he had two thieves, the private money changer and the political plunderer working hand in glove against him. By this combination the money changer gained the prestige of political sanction through legislative license and the state secured a deceptive device for laying taxes upon the citizenry (by means of the hidden tax called inflation). It was and remains a vicious alliance."
E.C. Reigel (1879-1953) monetary theorist & consumer advocate
“All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
John Adams, Founding Father of the American Constitution
“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”
James A. Garfield, assassinated president of the United States
The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.”
Abraham Lincoln, assassinated president of the United States
"Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognised as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."
William Lyon Mackenzie King
"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions.
Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."
David Rockefeller, international banker Memoirs (2002) pg. 405
"Only puny secrets need protection.
Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity."
Marshall McLuhan, media “guru”
It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.
It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon."
Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Georgia (1935)
In the foreword to a book by Irving Fisher, entitled 100% Money (1935)
"Each and every time a bank makes a loan (or purchases securities), new bank credit is created — new deposits — brand new money."
Graham F. Towers, Director, Bank of Canada
"The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled."
John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, International Banker
"I am afraid that the ordinary citizen
will not like to be told that banks
can and do create money
...And they who control
the credit of the nation
direct the policy of Governments
and hold in the hollow of their hands
the destiny of the people"
Reginald McKenna,
past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England
“Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess.”
Irving Fisher, economist and author
“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”
Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board
"Everyone sub-consciously knows banks do not lend money. When you draw on your savings account, the bank doesn't tell you you can't do this because it has lent the money to somebody else."
Mark Mansfield
"If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible -- but there it is."
Robert Hemphill. Credit Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
“One thing to realize about our fractional reserve banking system is that, like a child’s game of musical chairs, as long as the music is playing, there are no losers.”
Andrew Gause, Monetary Historian
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Albert A. Bartlett, physicist
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
Kenneth Boulding, economist
“I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money... I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.”
Congressman Wright Patman
“Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, that there is no human relation between master and slave.”
Leo (Lev)Tolstoy
“None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Goethe
“’The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.
Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again...
Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit’.”
Sir Josiah Stamp Director, Bank of England 1928-1941
(reputed to be the 2nd richest man in Britain at the time)
Josiah Stamp
"Throughout the ages,the devices of cunning men have turned money to their nefarious purposes.
Money, beginning with private enterprise as a means of escaping the limitation of barter, soon developed the cheat to exploit the honest trader who, in an effort to protect himself, turned to government for protection, only to find that now he had two thieves, the private money changer and the political plunderer working hand in glove against him. By this combination the money changer gained the prestige of political sanction through legislative license and the state secured a deceptive device for laying taxes upon the citizenry (by means of the hidden tax called inflation). It was and remains a vicious alliance."
E.C. Reigel (1879-1953) monetary theorist & consumer advocate
“All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
John Adams, Founding Father of the American Constitution
“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”
James A. Garfield, assassinated president of the United States
The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.”
Abraham Lincoln, assassinated president of the United States
"Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognised as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."
William Lyon Mackenzie King
"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions.
Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."
David Rockefeller, international banker Memoirs (2002) pg. 405
"Only puny secrets need protection.
Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity."
Marshall McLuhan, media “guru”
Understanding how the community currency system works
This is a video on how the community currency system works based on how the system of money had originally started out. The following film is an animated film by Canadian animator Paul Grignon which is called "The Essence Of Money, a Medieval Tale." The movie starts off with the standard trading of goods, services, and products and then goes to the bartering system and then to a system of community currency. Grignon does a great job at explaining how the money system worked in basic terminology from the medieval times up until now and how it can be made better in this short animated film. Although the proposed change to our monetary system is an online system for digital coins to be traded by exchanges it is just one of the many solutions available for alternative trading and currencies.
"All goods therefore must be measured by some one thing...
now this unit is in truth, demand, which holds all things together."
-Aristotle 384 B.C.-322 B.C.
"All goods therefore must be measured by some one thing...
now this unit is in truth, demand, which holds all things together."
-Aristotle 384 B.C.-322 B.C.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Community Exchange System for creation of work
The picture above is a popular community currency called "the Ithaca Hours" which is based on hours of work but uses the national currency to back it. The hours of work are determined by dollars per hour rate. Other states can become involved in the hours system as well. The Ithaca Hours community currency is a prime example of a Community Exchange System.
What is a Community Exchange System?
A community exchange system is a community based local system of trade in which money other than the national currencies is traded for value based on what the buyer or seller of goods and services determines the value to be. This could be based on what they are already earning in the current marketplace operating from national currency such as hourly rates or flat rates. A Community Exchange System operates on an alternative, parallel, local, or community based currency system. A community exchange system is a new money system. Banks can be created out of this system with alternate currencies yet the currencies do not bear interest and are made solely for the benefit of others who use them for productivity in their communities. Popular methods of doing this are money by time or hours of work, money by talent or specialty, and or free banking. Free banking is banking without charging interest and by giving money to those who can give goods or services to the bank in return for money needed.
Money in this kind of system is basically a way of “score keeping” which keeps a record of who did what for whom and also who sold what to whom. So therefore money can never have a shortage because a third party like banks or government does not have to create it outside of the circuit of buyers and sellers which makes the money and credit free, for the buyers and sellers create it at the moment of trade.
Community currencies help to build up a real sense of community by means of creating a network for businesses, individuals, and organizations to prosper with alternative commerce solutions. Community Exchange System money is public domain money meaning that it is not a form of barter because barter means that there is bargaining involved between the goods or services that they wish to exchange.
What makes this function and work efficiently?
A Community Exchange System starts off with the creation of a directory of a community’s local goods and services offered by the traders registered with them as well what the wants and requirements. Once a trader requires what is advertised then the seller is contacted and the trade then takes place. Those in credit can claim goods and services to the value of their credit available to them and those in debit owe the community goods and services to the value of their debit. Updates are accounted for regularly and newsletters are given out and a list of trades is accounted for so the traders can be informed. Information about the trading positions of others is given and a balance is given so that other buyers can not exploit the system. News is updated for a community exchange system group or region regularly to assist in building links and a stronger sense of community as well.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sean Liebel Ability Alliance VISTA member
Hello,
my name is Sean K. Liebel and I am an Americorps VISTA member for the Ability Alliance of West Alabama and what I am responsible for doing is to help build capacity for the AAWA's clients for the purpose of job creation and more efficient job placements for people with intellectual disabilities that the AAWA serves. I will not be carrying out the services that the agencies and or partnerships that the AAWA has but will be helping build more partnerships, resources, and or volunteer opportunity for the AAWA's VISTA program. I am also responsible for developing an employment handbook for the VISTA program with another VISTA member who has been with the AAWA for a few months now and I have just merely started as this is my second week coming up here. I am excited about what I can do to help the program and how my team members can assist me in carrying out what I intend to accomplish over my one year of service with the Americorps VISTA program.
VISTA
Americorps is a program that Lyndon B. Johnson's Administration created in 1964 in an effort for the war on poverty initiative that his administration had undertook during this era in history. It is basically a domestic peace corps for the 50 states of America. It's mission is to counter the issue of poverty through services, actions, resources, community projects, etc. In 1994 the Volunteers In Service To America in an effort to alleviate the problems and issues of poverty because as of current times there are thirty seven million people living in poverty. The Americorps VISTA has a program with the Ability Alliance Of West Alabama that just started in October 2009 and is located in Northport, Alabama. The mission of the Americorps VISTA program for the Ability Alliance's VISTA program is to build capacity by building partnerships in the community to help build sustainable relationships and infrastructure for many years to come. The Northport VISTA program is less than a year old but is amongst a three year governmental grant which is sustainable based on the efforts of its four members that is has now.
Nationally there are 6,852 members amongst the VISTA program nationwide in America and 11.4 million hours of service have been achieved. Americorps VISTA members are essentially paid volunteers that only make approximately $800 a month with health care and life insurance benefits. This is because the Volunteers In Service Program of Americorps is based largely upon serving others through being able to experience the toughness of living on a tight budget or being on the poverty line which varies based on the state that you are living in. Americorps VISTA has amassed an impressive 943 projects nationwide thus far and VISTA members mobilize volunteers in their prospective regions and the average is 110 per VISTA. Community volunteers have achieved 7.4 million hours of service with the cooperation of the Americorps VISTA member nationwide with a national budget as of 2008 of $93.8 million. However the amount of money raised for organizations nationwide is $172 million which amounts to approximately $25,000 per VISTA member. These are achievements of the Americorps VISTA program which the Ability Alliance Of West Alabama hopes to contribute to with its own new program with efficiency, poise, and focus.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Services of the Ability Alliance Of West Alabama
The key contracts that the Ability Alliance Of West Alabama currently has are as follows:
-Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (DMH/MR)
to provide Medicaid waiver services
-The Arc of Tuscaloosa
-Easter Seals of West Alabama
-United Cerebral Palsy of West Alabama
-Resources for Independence
-Volunteers of America
-Indian Rivers Mental Health Center works directly with DMH to provide services for mental health
AAWA also provides various services that are not funded by the Medicaid waiver which its value proposition
such as:
- Hourly services
Case Management
-Day habilitation and respite services to a limited number of individuals not eligible for such services through the Medicaid waiver
-The agency also covers the cost of a variety of living expenses
-Utilities, transportation, food, clothing, medical and dental care, etc.---for individuals with intellectual disabilities who are in great need of these services but would not receive them without AAWA’s intervention. In addition, the agency provides financial and staff support to promote self-advocacy in the local community.
-Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (DMH/MR)
to provide Medicaid waiver services
-The Arc of Tuscaloosa
-Easter Seals of West Alabama
-United Cerebral Palsy of West Alabama
-Resources for Independence
-Volunteers of America
-Indian Rivers Mental Health Center works directly with DMH to provide services for mental health
AAWA also provides various services that are not funded by the Medicaid waiver which its value proposition
such as:
- Hourly services
Case Management
-Day habilitation and respite services to a limited number of individuals not eligible for such services through the Medicaid waiver
-The agency also covers the cost of a variety of living expenses
-Utilities, transportation, food, clothing, medical and dental care, etc.---for individuals with intellectual disabilities who are in great need of these services but would not receive them without AAWA’s intervention. In addition, the agency provides financial and staff support to promote self-advocacy in the local community.
Ability Alliance Of West Alabama
It is the mission of the Ability Alliance of West Alabama to affect positively the quality of life for persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities by helping to ensure that appropriate and quality services are available and accessible throughout their lifespan. The Ability Alliance of West Alabama expects that all services will ensure full participation in all life experiences through a family and consumer-driven, proactive, and creative system.
In our current economic situation it is difficult for those with intellectual disabilities to find work, get services needed, and to be able to receive transportation. The Ability Alliance attains the services needed for the clients it represents yet is looking to become as progressive as possible in regards to aiding the intellectually disabled. Internet marketing needs to be campaign oriented and around the specific needs of the intellectually disabled population such as the UK's effective Austism Awareness video campaign. The Ability Alliance can do a similar campaign if proper funding is in place to do so yet can start out with social networking to get feedback on new concepts, new ideas, and new models in order to attain better and more efficient results.
In our current economic situation it is difficult for those with intellectual disabilities to find work, get services needed, and to be able to receive transportation. The Ability Alliance attains the services needed for the clients it represents yet is looking to become as progressive as possible in regards to aiding the intellectually disabled. Internet marketing needs to be campaign oriented and around the specific needs of the intellectually disabled population such as the UK's effective Austism Awareness video campaign. The Ability Alliance can do a similar campaign if proper funding is in place to do so yet can start out with social networking to get feedback on new concepts, new ideas, and new models in order to attain better and more efficient results.
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