-- Posted 18 December, 2004 | |

La Jornada, Mexico City

http://www.plata.com.mx/
(Translated from Spanish to English by the author)

Silver as a vehicle for popular savings has turned
out to be a very effective flag that has gathered
support among the principal Mexican political
parties, which in everything else are deeply at
odds with one another.

This November 30 the 31 governors of all the
states that make up the Mexican Republic sent
a communiqué to the Ways and Means Committee
of the Mexican House of Representatives,
expressing their unanimous approval of the
monetization of silver and urging the committee
to approve a bill which aims to achieve precisely
this objective.

Some 176 Mexican newspaper writers put their
signatures to full-page declarations by the
Journalists' Club in the main newspapers of
Mexico City, also in support of the
monetization of the "Libertad" silver ounce.

A permanent organization of ex-legislators
also expressed their support for the
measure in favor of the monetization of
silver.

A poll by national TV Azteca revealed that
96 percent of viewers approved of the
monetization of the silver ounce.

The Bank of Mexico, Mexico's Central Bank,
is adamantly opposed to this measure. The
bank does not want the public to have the
opportunity of saving in monetized silver.
It wants to maintain its monopoly on the
printing of Mexico's money, which has no
intrinsic value and does not want the
public to have any alternative for its
savings, other than bills or bank deposits.

The Bank of Mexico sent a group of 12 men
to the meeting of the Ways and Means
Committee on November 30 to confuse and
cow the committee members and forestall
a favorable vote on the bill to monetize
silver.

We do not know how the committee members
will cast their decisive vote when the
time comes. But even if their vote is
negative, we can predict, from the
support given to this reasonable and
salutary measure in the interest of
Mexico, that the idea of monetizing
silver will not die.

The idea of using silver as money that
cannot be devalued, for savings by
the people, is now firmly rooted in
the Mexican consciousness. An idea on
the march is a force that does not die
easily. Suppressed, it will only
gather strength. Such is the history
of all ideas.

But silver flies another and more
important flag.

In the mid-19th century, when modern
Italy had not yet taken shape and
Italians were still under the
domination of Austria-Hungary, there
was sown the idea that Italy should
be reborn as a united and self-governed
state and that the domination by
Austria-Hungary should be ended.

Garibaldi came forward as a leader of
this resurgence of the Italian
fatherland.

A young composer, Giuseppe Verdi,
composed an opera to symbolize Italy
under the heel of Austria-Hungary:
"Nabuco" was its name. The Hebrews
captured by Nabuco, the Babylonian
king, symbolized the Italians under
the rule of Austria-Hungary.

One hymn of this opera was so moving
that it spread like wildfire among
the population. It became impossible
to frustrate the resurgence of Italy.
Verdi's hymn is, to this day, Italy's
national anthem.

This is silver's second flag: national
union, with a consciousness of our own
worth, our own culture, and our
independence. A national consolidation
will take place when we once again take
up silver, our ancestral money.

But there is another and still greater
flag for silver: Silver turned into
Mexican money, circulating in parallel
with paper money, no matter how small
the amount of silver in the nation's
economy, means that Mexicans will
always remember that silver can
actually be used as real, honest money
-- and that as the years pass it will
always be there, inviting us to use it
in the most dangerous and dark times
that may come.

Silver in circulation will remind us
that it is possible for a society to
use silver and benefit from the use of
real money, honest money.

Otherwise, it is possible that we may
forget this, as has happened to many
nations.

When Mexico monetizes silver, it will
become a lighthouse of hope for the
world, a light that shows the way out
of the swamp of slavery and perpetual
impoverishment that comes with paper
money.

Paper money, which is today the only
kind of money in the world, ensures
economic and therefore political
control over the populations that use
it. The planet's banking caste that
issues paper money and virtual,
electronic money, threatens to become
the sovereign power through the
fictitious money it issues, and
aspires to dominate humanity.

The result of paper money is the
dehumanization of the human race.
So this is silver's third and most
important flag: the cause of humanity.

Silver's flags, therefore, are three:

* The flag of people's savings.

* The flag of national union.

* The flag of the preservation of men
against dehumanization.

The silver coin as money: an idea that
has come alive and will not be suppressed.

-- Saturday, December 11, 2004