Tapeworm

This week's entry is dedicated to one of my heroes, Catherine Austin Fitts. I first heard Catherine on KPFA's Flashpoints. (The interview was several years ago, but here is a link to the earlist archived CAF interview I could find.) She was talking about how our government, hand-in-hand with drug dealers, and corrupt bankers, uses our tax dollars to destroy our communities, and suck up all the assets in an endless, insatiable cycle. Catherine was Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bush I, so she has first hand knowledge of how the corrupt system works. Later, when she tried to reveal this corruption, she and her company were attacked and nearly destroyed by Justice Department lawyers.

In one of her most powerful and chilling pieces, she describes the unholy alliance of corrupt governments, banks and powerful corporations as a tapeworm, which devours its host from within. If allowed to grow unchecked, ultimately the host and the tapeworm will die.

However, unlike many critics of our corrupt government and capitalist economy, Catherine has a real plan for how communities can reverse this deadly cycle, and take control of their own resources and financial destiny. Basically, her idea is to create local investment circles or Solaris. By investing (& borrowing) locally, we can make our resources work for us instead of being used against us by Citibank, Bechtel, Halliburton or whoever.

I'll confess I'm not really putting her ideas into practice in my life yet, but it's one of my goals. And I suggest you take a look at some of these links and find out more about Catherine Austin Fitts' writings and her radical ideas for how we can fight the tapeworm. Check it out!