Adbusters Blog

Pre-emptive strike

Move your money.
Pre-emptive strike: Move your money.

When the G8 meet in Chicago in May, it will be a major moment of truth for the global economy.

Already there are all sorts of ideas percolating – Robin Hood tax, banning high frequency flash trading, a true cost economy, bio-economics – that will lead to reform of the global financial system.

But in the meantime there is something we can all do to set the stage for #Occupy Chicago, and that is the personal action to move our money away from the big banks.

It’s easier than you think. You find the credit union in your town or city that you like. You make an appointment. You tell them, “I would like to leave my bank and join your credit union.” They say, “you got it, we'll take care of it.” It will be the most pro-active hour of your week.

On February 1st if you haven’t already taken the opportunity, join these Canadian rabble-rousers to move your money.

Move Your Money Day Canada: February 1 / Move Your Money Project

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Animated Information on the

by Jean BD on February 03 2012, @02:26 pm

Animated Information on the Monetary System
http://www.theamericandreamfilm.com/

Debt As Money . Animated Documentary on Monetary System
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3sKwwAaCU

Occupy Wall Street Activist Message
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQow0Fhua1A

potatoes are elegant for

by Anonymous99 on February 03 2012, @01:21 pm

potatoes are elegant for dinner

"The United States of

by NotSoAnonymousAnymore on February 03 2012, @11:36 am

"The United States of Israel"? Are you kidding me with that disaffected Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric?

I would LOVE for you to lay out a world map on your table and just look at the PHYSICAL realities of Israel. Now, they are surrounded on all sides by how many people who hate them?

Oh gee whiz. Looks like an awful lot, eh? "Blame the Jews" Hmm...who's said that before? The Catholic church? Hitler? The Taliban? Al Qeda? Naw, not them.

Israel has logistical realities you wouldn't dare to face in any neighborhood. When was the last time you looked across the street, behind you, beside you, and couldn't find anything but people who hoped for, preached about, and tried to implement your death by any means? Who blamed you for the trash in the neighborhood wether you put it there or not? Who blamed you for ALL of their ills? You wouldn't be even SLIGHTLY paranoid?

We are Israel's allies because globally, America HAS been THE most willing to consider the life of the individual, the family, the neighborhood, hope for the future. Have we done everything right? Not by a long shot. Have we screwed up? Yeah. Haven't you ever screwed up with good intentions before? Would you break the speed limit to get to your mothers bedside before she died, or to save her life? How law abiding are YOU when there are serious issues on the table like the future?

Grow up. One fact of human nature is also this: we work in social groups. Inside of America's borders we have divisions, but attack us and you will find out we are family and we WILL fight TOGETHER to defend our land. You are nieve beyond the edges of the universe if you believe American's are the only ones 'guilty' of this. Groups break down according to all sorts of 'rules', written and not. Your own family does for pete's sakes!! Or, are also your own father? Your own uncle or aunt? Do you respect them or do you over-run them any chance you get? How loyal are you, and does it matter? If someone outside your household were attacking you and your children, would you stand in the kitchen and peel an apple and blithely talk about Utopian ideals of peace and harmony, or would you sacrifice your own life to protect them and give them a chance to flee or live?

What we need as Americans is for a very large portion of our society, those under 40, to GTFU already! Great, you care about YOUR future. Do you care about your kids future? Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, your generations' 'purpose' isn't to waylay your own adulthood for as long as possible but to make the biggest sacrifice of all in realizing that maybe, just maybe, you aren't going to get everything you feel entitled to in your life? That if you can't afford a smartphone, then maybe you simply shouldn't have one? Are you gutted when you think about the abyssmal hours Chinese workers go through so you can buy one cheap? Do you scream about that in the streets? And what of the elderly? Will you choose to let the most vunerable, the most ill, and the most needy wait till you grow up and work within the system or will you just go flit off to grow corn and pigs somewhere to save YOUR happiness? I grew up farming and live in the country. Half of you don't know the first thing about how hard a life it is and how when you sweat in the sun you do it so your kids can go to college and maybe have a better life. A life of ease that gives them the chance to create REAL change by creating new laws and showing that there are many ways to give a damn, but worrying about doing the newest drug, hearing the newest band, and proving how solid you are while doing nothing more than whining or criticizing or the psuedo-intellectual 'literary name dropping' coffee shop intellectuals get into.

Follow your dreams, that's important. But if your dream is the destruction of your own country, your disloyalty to it will reap you one helluva poison harvest that all the sweat and blood of your own bloodline and ancestors combined could never overcome. Be very careful about the whispers of doubt, the subterfuge of external Wormtongues, will try to convince you of.

Like saying absurd things like,"The United States of Israel."

Sir, feel free to suck my dick with that b.s. Not only do you reject human nature, you reject the capacity of others understanding that 'divide and conquer' is an ancient method you are clearly trying to use.

Accepting difference is important and so is 'live and let live'. But here's an example to consider: Take a dozen human beings and force them to live together. IN THAT GROUP there will appear dominate and not dominate personalities, little clashes of motivation, jealousies, and selfish behavior and rationalizations. Why? Because we're human beings. Perfection of Harmony is not in our nature. Birds are sweet, but baby birds will peck their own siblings to death to live. Are they 'bad' for doing that? Or is it in their nature, and you accept it like a grown up? The sociopath kills the baby bird that lives because it didn't live up to an ideal. The psychopath kills the whole family. The wise person says,"They're birds." If an alligator crawls into your basement, do you let it live there simply because you understand you and your humanity creeped in on its environment? Or do you have it removed? Do you wage war on all alligators after that if it ate your cat?

Grow up. Just fucking grow up already. If you are not Muslim, you are not a Muslim. If you're not a Christian, you're not a Christian. If you're not an atheist, you're not an atheist. But be one of these things within the majority of the other OVER TIME, and you will find very quickly you will either 'pass' and live with or you will live like a hermit in one defiant stance of 'rejecting' the group nearby ( and good luck if you live next to the only fresh water source! if they get sick, they'll blame you...). In some ways these are allegories and metaphors being used, but it's just an effort to balance all the 'Defy Everything' doctrine ol'Wormtongue groups just adore seeing you participate in. Oh yes please DO scream against your own flag and government. The enemies of your flag and country will promise you the moon and stars to continue doing so. But once or if they take over.....good fucking luck. You will, at the end of the day, only be percieved by them as a disloyal brat, deserving of slavery, imprisonment, torture, or death. If you can understand that a woman or man who cheats on their husband or wife will probably cheat on those they 'love' on the side, why can't you understand that those who hope for, work towards, pray for, and preach about the destruction of your country won't turn on you as well?

Like it or not, at the end of the day you live on a continent and within defined terratories. Like it or not, you are part of a team. Can you switch? Sure. Must you accept all that that mine? One would hope you would be mature enough to have thought on that long and hard. I hope you get very old and know nothing but safety and happiness. But you are out of your mind if you think that will not come without sacrifice, risk, fear, grief, and a distinct intestinal fortitude. How will you use the freedom afforded you by those who lived and died before you? Forget your fellow citizens, and think just a minute of your own ancestry. If you had to face them and all they struggled through to get you to where you are, and hopes of it even without knowing you, how would you fare when looking into their eyes? Would you have to explain you sided with your own countries enemies and against your countries interests? Would you have to explain why you were willing to abandon their allies in the world? To put your neighbors at risk? Your peers? Part of growing up is thinking about these answers not just as you would answer them now, but when you're 50, 60, or on your deathbed.

Think what you will of Israel, but be informed about it first. Look where they live. Would you tell them to 'get out' if they don't like it? Would you tell a black American that, who felt or feels slighted by our society? If not, why not? How is it different?

Most Muslims do NOT want the destruction of their neighbors, but an awful lot do and many who are not typically fundamentalist will, if choosing between themselves and you, will pick themselves if 'called' by Allah to support their brothers and country. And their tenants of faith are some of the most severe of any religion ever created. That is not criticism, it's simple fact ( pardon me, btw, for have read the Qaran many, many times over and being fairly well versed about Sharia law - you are extremely nieve if you think they do not go hand in hand ). And they, too, have their Wormtongues to contend with. But they are not us, and we are not them ( I do not speak of the U.S. Muslim immigrant or citizen or their descendants here ).

And yes, please DO protest, please DO exercise the rights afforded to you by the men and women who founded our country, including your own kin. But you must also be willing to unify with your citizen brothers and sisters when our collective interests are threatened; when our way of life is threatened; when, yes, even our countries 'corporations' are threatened. If you do NOT feel you are an American, if you do NOT respect your own country, if you do NOT wish to have to contend with being, possibly, this age's 'depression generation', then you really should consider, for your own sanity and happiness, looking for a country you can contribute to and get behind, move there, and become a citizen. There's a reason they will ask you to give up your citizenship here before you swear an oath to their country and flag.

They're human beings, and that's how we work.

What Are you yammering about?

by kass on February 03 2012, @02:20 pm

What Are you yammering about? Are you one of those shills that the Zionist Entity has hired to post non sequitirs on the web?

Oh please people stop being

by namanaman on February 03 2012, @01:34 am

Oh please people stop being short sighted as the Wall street firms were and are.

This action is SELF DESTRUCTIVE, its called a bank run (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run)
"occurs when a large number of bank customers withdraw their deposits... As a bank run progresses, it generates its own momentum, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy...as more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, and this encourages further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it faces bankruptcy...A banking panic or bank panic is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time. A systemic banking crisis is one where all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out.[2] The resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession.[3] Much of the GREAT DEPRESSION's economic damage was caused directly by bank runs."

A better alternative is take the incentive of financial institutions away from short term goals based on short term rewards in the form of shares and shares are volatile every second. If you were a CEO and knew if you could lay off a thousand workers, financially you look better on the balance sheet and hence have faked a profit increase which feeds share prices. CEO leaves and sells shares at higher price and the business is weakened. Unfortunately people prefer to invest in businesses that have profits that grows and to keep them there, they have to do it every year. Our desire for never ending growth fuels the objectives of business and investors.

Stop pushing the

by Joni Pispala on February 03 2012, @04:11 am

Stop pushing the "bullshitdown our throats" - shit. In the end its very simple, money does not govern our being. We are in a situation where we need to burn the way express ourselves economically and start something new. The core of you needs to change!

National Day Of Action! -

by Anonymous on February 01 2012, @11:12 pm

National Day Of Action! - PRESS RELEASE 
http://freedividual.com/2012/02/02/press-release-national-day-of-action-...  - PLEASE REPOST! 

PressTV Now Has A Show Called

by Anonymous on January 31 2012, @06:22 pm

PressTV Now Has A Show Called #OWS Week http://bit.ly/y55rLZ #OccupyWallStreet #OccupyWallSt #OccupyBoston #AdBusters #FF #News #NoIranWar - Spread The Word!

Your slogan should be "You

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @09:26 am

Your slogan should be "You cannot protest out of stupid"

US Communities Are Printing

by rimarayd on January 30 2012, @09:12 am

US Communities Are Printing Their Own Money To Support Small Businesses and Compete With Collapsing Monopoly Dollar!
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/pf/1201/gallery.community-currencies...

Occupy is simply stupid

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @12:07 am

Occupy is simply stupid

comment is aptly complex

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @02:54 am

comment is aptly complex

f(0.1)=

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @07:19 pm

f(0.1)= 0.166206257996713
f(0.01)= 0.16662039607267
f(0.001)= 0.166662037293985
f(1e-08)= 0.166666680456728
f(-1e-08)= 0.166666680456728
f(-0.001)= 0.166671296553567
f(-0.01)= 0.16671298870099
f(-0.1)= 0.167132219647406

f(0) = 1/6

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @04:25 pm

f(0) = 1/6

f(0) = 1/6

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @04:22 pm

f(0) = 1/6

is that the ratio of US

by Anonymous on January 31 2012, @09:01 pm

is that the ratio of US citizens who are now on food stamps?

I can't move my money, I

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @02:50 pm

I can't move my money, I spent it all at a $10k a plate fundraiser for Obama.

funny, you can't move your

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @04:53 pm

funny, you can't move your money on account of Obama the 'yes we can' guy

Some people are not allowed

by magmichel on February 03 2012, @10:01 am

Some people are not allowed or cannot afford to open a bank account !

www.mag-michel.blogspot.com

man the adbusters site used

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @11:14 am

man the adbusters site used to have such educated responses, this looks more like youtube now. why do the fox news/milton friedman assholes have to be here too? if i wanted to read stupid high-school history teacher responses to progressive ideas id exactly that, go back to highschool.

Educated responses? Not here.

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @12:08 am

Educated responses? Not here. Adbusters is built on stupid.

I agree a lot of loogans

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @12:19 pm

I agree a lot of loogans posting here who don't have a capacity for critical thinking and believe the nanny state will take care of them... and so why should they give a crap about how their freedom is slowly but surely shriveling so long as they got the corporatist pablum hazing the minds that they will be taken care of with the latest iWhatever app or Call of Duty XXX gamer

Presently if you want full

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @07:30 am

Presently if you want full control of your money cash is king! Eventually, with the way our species is failing itself money will be worthless. A simple potato will have more value then a pile of gold.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @05:39 am

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @04:16 pm

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii

by Anonymous on January 30 2012, @06:54 pm

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I looked into moving my money

by Shangey G. on January 29 2012, @03:52 am

I looked into moving my money from one of the national banks, to a local city bank, but I checked out their fees first. There was literally no difference. So the big question becomes -- Why do I want to switch to a credit union, that has less locations, possibly less open hours as well, to simply "stick it to the proverbial man", when I feel like I'm being "sticked" by another man?

I switched to a credit union

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @09:20 am

I switched to a credit union about 10 years ago. The only mistake I made was not switching sooner. In the 10 years by CU has not been bought, has not merged and has not moved. I do 99% of my banking online and rarely go into a branch but when I do it's pretty quick. Co-Op ATM's are everywhere, easier to find than Wells Fargo one.

10 year on my checking and 2 savings accounts I have not had a single fee.

Pretty much everybody is not

by Anonymous on January 29 2012, @12:36 am

Pretty much everybody is not happy about something the government or the financial industry is doing these days. It cuts across all age groups and levels of society. The young people see problems with jobs, and the older are unhappy about obamacare and taxes. The thing is we are all getting screwed by government and big business down to the last person. What are they going to do when we all hit the street with guns in hand demanding a revolution? Obama will have those who do this arrested and put in camps. DHS already is suspicious of veterans as being potential terrorists. And they figure on the military arresting and detaining those who dare to complain. The military is of course, us, and have the same concerns about what the government and big companies are doing.
The bottom line is that it is time for everybody to get in the streets, and change the government. We should all be angry about the situation in this country today. We should all get together and hang all politicians to the last one of the idiots spending the country to oblivion.
Boot out all of the government and start over.....

Have a look at Congressman

by Anonymous2 on January 29 2012, @01:39 pm

Have a look at Congressman Ron Paul , although I don't agree with all things with Paul, he has part of the answer for quite some time now - sure he is of the libertarian principle with less govt yet he still understands that govt has their roles to vital essential functions and oversights for the citizenry, but more importantly is his staunch criticism US Fed Reserve which has been allowed unabated control the US money supply (and globally with partnership such as IMF, EU) this private cartel of bankers do not have the 99% interest at heart. think about the lobbyists in Washington and the seemingly endless bickering back and forth in Congress both sides of the aisle is it really a Dem vs. Rep conflict, or are they all blindly working for the 1%?
Also have a listen to Dwight D. Eisenhower outgoing speech here > http://youtu.be/CWiIYW_fBfY
there are many points he addresses to which many of the problems we face today are alluded to...