Our Time To Stand

“These are the times that try men’s souls…” — Thomas Paine

Text of speech by Tom Kowitz of Our Time To Stand
July 2, 2009
Covington, Louisiana Tea Party

Sorry about the heat, but I want you to know I proposed legislation that caps our temperature at 80 degrees, and then we sell the extra heat to Anchorage and Fairbanks.

I’d ask if you take just one thing from this event today, it’s this: that the root of our financial crisis is the Federal Reserve. And if you don’t understand that, then everything that’s happening to us financially will always be a mystery to you. But once you do understand the Federal Reserve, not only does everything become clear, much of it becomes predictable.

There’s a lot more information about what I’m going to be talking about today at the web site OurTimeToStand.com. And Our Time To Stand also has a table over here. Our Time To Stand, where are you guys? Just wave for us so we know where to go. Where are you? There they are. They’re going to have some petitions for you to sign and some very important information for you.

With Independence Day approaching it’s sad to think that we’re not as independent as we might think, because in a way we are owned. We have a $1.8 trillion deficit for this year, and trillion-dollar deficits for many years to come. Our national debt stands at $11.4 trillion. And our unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare — that’s money that the government has promised future generations (or, us) — that’s money they have promised us that they don’t have, and the Federal Reserve puts that figure at $99 TRILLION.

We’ve been had. We are the unwitting suckers of a massive Ponzi scheme being played by the Federal Reserve.

It’s important to understand, too, that our financial crisis is not due to a failure of the free market, because we don’t have a free market. It’s not a free market when you have a central bank that determines money supply and interest rates. It’s not a free market when you have a financial system in which money doesn’t even exist until some banker somewhere creates it out of thin air, and then lends it to somebody at interest. It’s not a free market when you have a government that confiscates the wealth of the people, and redistributes it, and subsidizes certain industries at the expense of others.

That is not a free market. That’s financial thuggery of the highest order, and we are the victims. We’re the victims of the Federal Reserve and their fraudulent money system. And whether you know it or not, that is exactly the reason that you’re here today. Because the bailouts, the unaccountable Congress, stimulus package, TARP, the debt, the deficit, on and on, none of that would exist without the Federal Reserve. And until you understand that the Federal Reserve is at the root of all of this, we’ll be back here every April 15 and every July 4 protesting against the wrong thing.

Blame for this goes back many decades. The two major parties have had a lock on the federal government for a hundred fifty years. We’ve many years where the Republicans had control. We had many years where the Democrats had control. We’ve had many years where there was a mix. But it doesn’t seem to matter who’s there. The results are the same: bigger government, less freedom, more borrowing, more spending, more inflation, deeper and deeper debt.

Do you know what the march of tyranny sounds like? . . .

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT!

It’s not a question of Left or Right. It’s Left AND Right, ignoring the People and pursing their own selfish agendas at our very dear expense. Both parties say they want fiscal responsibility, and look at us: we’re financially ruined. Both parties say they want a simple tax system, and look at it: We have a tax system that nobody can comprehend. Both parties say they want peace, and yet we’re always at war. The parties have forgotten the People, and now our country is in grave danger.

Ron Paul in the House and Bernie Sanders in the Senate each have a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, which is a very important step toward our ultimate goal of abolishing the Federal Reserve. Did you know that the Government Accountability Office is prohibited by federal law from auditing the Federal Reserve, unless they first get written permission by the Federal Reserve? Could it be any more obvious? The fix is in!

When Bernie Sanders asked Ben Bernanke, “Will you tell the American People who you just lent the $2.2 trillion to, Bernanke’s answer was straight up, “No, I won’t tell you.”

Then when Congressman Darrell Issa asked the Federal Reserve’s own inspector general what happened to the several trillion dollars you created off the books; where did it go? The inspector general was clueless. She sat there for several minutes. She didn’t have one answer.

And the Federal Reserve is a private entity, so they’re not responsible to answer to Freedom of Information Act requests.

So you put all that together: This means that the Federal Reserve is not accountable to the GAO, to Congress, to its own inspector general, or to us! Who’s in control here? I’ll give you a hint: It ain’t us! Who’s paying for it? We are! It’s as though you turned your checkbook and your credit cards over to Bernie Madoff. But at least what he did was illegal. What the Fed has done, maybe not moral, but it’s been legal. They’ve seen to it. Like I said, the fix is in. But we must remove government protection of this racket by abolishing the Federal Reserve. The first step is to conduct an audit. I don’t believe that they can survive an audit. They can’t survive daylight.

Here’s what we need every single one of you, please, to do here today: Over at the Our Time To Stand table, there are several petitions. One of those petitions will go to Senator Mary Landrieu and Congressman Charlie Melancon. Those are our only two people from Louisiana in Washington who have not yet co-sponsored the bills to audit the Federal Reserve. Please sign the petition. Also, we have their contact information — their emails and phones. I would ask you all, everyone, to call at least once, twice a day, until they co-sponsor. That kind of pressure has worked all over the country. In the House there’s now something like nearly 250 co-sponsors for a bill that for each of the last several Congresses has had maybe one co-sponsor, maybe zero. So the pressure is working.

I would suggest that today is a good day to remind Washington of what that right-wing extremist Thomas Jefferson wrote: that to secure our natural rights, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter, or to abolish it.” Now, we do not wish to alter or abolish our republican form of government, but let’s be clear: With their unconstitutional laws, and unconstitutional czars, and unconstitutional signing statements, and unconstitutional money, it’s Washington that seems to be trying to alter or abolish our republican form of government, and it’s we, the true American patriots, who are the ones trying to save the republic.

Listen: This is our time to stand, against the parties that have forgotten us and betrayed us, against the bankers, and for our children. If we don’t stand who will? And if we don’t stand now, when will we? What is at stake is the very freedom of future generations.

A great many women and men have taken up this struggle for us, at a time when we were a future generation. Will we dishonor them?

What shall we hand off to our children — a torch burning bright with the light of liberty, or a stick charred black with its pathetic remains?

You have a choice to make, and you need to make it today. In the future your children, or grand children, or great grand children will look you in the eye and ask what you did way back in 2009, when everything started to unravel. Will you flinch? Will you turn away? Or will you be able to look them in the eye and say you did everything you could to preserve their freedom? I won’t have to flinch, and I won’t have to turn away.

I would encourage all of you: Learn about the Federal Reserve, learn why it is they are at the root of our financial crisis, and why they need to go away.

Thomas Paine wrote about a man with a small child, who in the time leading up to the Revolutionary War one day was speaking his mind about the events of that time, and the man finished by saying, “Well, give me peace in my day.”

Here’s what Thomas Paine wrote about that: “A generous parent would have said, ‘If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.’ And that single reflection, well-applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.”

If you’re not willing to do it for today’s America or for yourself, I urge you, look at your children in the eye when you go home tonight and realize their very freedom is at stake.

This is our time to stand, together. I urge you to learn about the Federal Reserve and help us to work toward abolishing it.