Page 13 - Michael Journal 2019 August

u business districts in their grip. Social Credit? Some Questions Answered
Today, producers find themselves unable to In Memory of
sell their goods, unemployment results, and there In 2002, Frances Hutch- everywhere.
are financial obligations which are literally impos- Carmel Parenteau inson, who currently chairs
sible to meet. The consumer suffers from both high the Social Credit Secretariat 1. What is ‘social credit’?
prices and insufficient purchasing power. Every- (formed in 1934 by Clifford Social credit is the wealth of society, compris-
one suffers from the multitude of taxes which have Hugh Douglas to promote ing the resources of land, labour, capital goods and
been grafted onto the system. However, regardless Mrs. Carmel Paren- study and debate on the sub- equipment, and the skills and knowledge of how to
of whether society is at peace or war, in boom or teau (née Boudreault), ject of Social Credit), wrote a use those resources. Social credit is the real wealth
recession, the financial system works profitably — wife of Lucien Parenteau booklet, “Social Credit? Some of the community, but is currently controlled by pri-
that is, for the financiers. of Digby, Nova Scotia, Questions Answered”. Here vate financial interests. Since the 1920s the popular
The budget of every public institution has one passed away on July 2, are some excerpts: F. Hutchinson Social Credit movement has sought to create local
sacrosanct budget line: Debt Service. This is the 2019 at the age of 77. by Frances Hutchinson economic democracy through promoting study and
research into how the money system works. The
capital and interest costs which must be paid to the From a family of 16 chil- Social credit is a fact of economic life. Money concept of economic democracy is fundamental to
financiers. Other budget lines can be reduced or dren, her parents, Mr. represents society’s credit, presently created as debt social credit economics. Political democracy, the
even eliminated, but Debt Service must never be and Mrs. Charles-Eugène to be redeemed through paid employment in the right to vote, is weakened by the absence of eco-
touched. It is the tribute due the masters who are in Boudreault, from St-Gé- market economy. All economic agents who ‘make’ nomic democracy, the right to income security for
charge of the population and even in charge of the déon, Quebec, were dedicated Social Cred- money, whether as bankers, commercial interests or all, independent of a private or state employer.
populations’ representatives in government. Debt iters. Several of her sisters are in the Social wage and salary earners, remain in debt to society
Service costs are like a ransom which must be paid Credit fold, including Mrs. Adrienne O’Donnell and the natural world for the real goods and servi- 2. How did the Social Credit movement origin-
in exchange for the right to live. of Ontario and Mrs. Alfred Boudreault of Lac ces supplied to them by right of their possession of ate?
Before World War II, Canadians paid $125 mil- St-Jean, Quebec. money. Social credit economic theory derives from the
lion to service the debt in the federal budget. In 1959 Widowed in 1974 with 4 children from a Money takes the form of the legal endorsement writings of Clifford Hugh Douglas (1879-1952). In the
[when this article was first published], after a war first marriage to Mr. Wilbrod Laforest, Carmel of society’s credit. Once this is understood, the next development of his ideas, Douglas worked closely
which Canadians fought and for which they sup- homeschooled her children. Her Chicoutimi stage is to examine ways in which individuals and with Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934), editor of the
plied all the necessary materials, more than $600 home hosted the monthly meetings of the Pil- groups have sought to retain and regain control over weekly paper, The New Age. Douglas' earliest books,
Economic Democracy, Credit-Power and Democracy
million was required to service the debt. In 2018, grims of St. Michael in the region. In the 1980s, their own work and the intellectual and natural re- and The Control and Distribution of Production were
Canadians paid $22 billion for the same budget line, she married Lucien Parenteau, a Social Cred- sources inherited from past generations through first serialised in The New Age. Douglas also wrote
Debt Service. For whom was the war won? For the iter from Western Canada. The family moved gaining control over their finances. Freedom from
extortionist; the thief who is not arrested and who to British Columbia and then to Peace River, wage and debt slavery is an essential first step to Social Credit and The Monopoly of Credit, together
Alberta. She had two children from this union,
with a host of smaller booklets, pamphlets and arti-
somehow commands respect from the ordinary fel- including Lucie Parenteau who was a full-time regaining the fundamental conditions of economic cles. He gave evidence before the Canadian Bank En-
lows who must beg for the right to live and breathe. democracy.
Pilgrim in Rougemont, Quebec for 13 years. In quiry in 1923 and the Macmillan Committee in 1930,
An insatiable rodent more recent years, the couple moved to Digby, Although social credit economics has been in the on the latter occasion being interviewed by John
Nova Scotia. A big thank you to Mrs. Parenteau public domain for eighty years, it has been effect- Maynard Keynes.
In past issues of MICHAEL we have written
about the financial system, an ubiquitous and vor- for raising her family in the Catholic faith and in ively silenced by a mass media and an educational 3. What is the social credit idea simply stated?
system locked in the illusion of technical ‘progress’
accordance with the principles of Social Cred-
acious rodent who is present everywhere. Here is it. Dear apostle of MICHAEL, it is only a brief perpetrated by the purveyors of a vast array of con- Modern economies in the West have developed
another example of how this animal gnaws away goodbye. We will meet again in the heavenly sumer products. The necessity to produce in order technologies capable of producing enough to meet
at the sum and substance of our wealth until there homeland one day. to consume, to buy all the ‘right’ products so as to the needs of all the people of the world. Through so-
are but a few crumbs left to toss among the people. keep up with the latest trends, has overtaken virtu- cial credit economics it becomes possible to ensure
During one of our Annual Congresses, a mayor ally all other reasons for existence. Today social rela- that all citizens in each country have secure access
told us that the taxpayers of his town, Kenogami, thief, swindler, and extortionist. It is all these things tions are overwhelmingly mediated by money, with to the necessities of life without any conditions or
Quebec, would be paying the extortionist (whom which leave in its wake victims suffering from want, all political and economic policy decisions being de- obligations being attached to this right. Society owes
we are calling a rodent) for their aqueduct three- privation and insecurity. It humbles proud nations pendent upon the availability of money. every human being the right to livelihood, with the
and-a-half times over: once for the actual cost of and forces governments to go down on bended Although money is a socially engineered phe- time to enjoy the fullness of spiritual, emotional and
the job and two-and-a-half times more. knee to ask for that without which any nation can nomenon, the people who do the work of society, cultural life.
This devouring rat is everywhere — in the bricks survive. It will not hesitate to foment nation-de- and who stand to suffer as the natural environment Through the implementation of social credit eco-
which go into your house, in the medicine you pick stroying wars in order to keep the world subject to disintegrates, have no control over the money cre- nomics, consumption and production can be brought
up at the drugstore, in the theatre ticket, in the food it, paying tribute. ation processes which dominates their lives... It’s into a balanced relationship such that production
in your plate, for the taxes which are levied. In one Yet nothing is done to halt the predation of this actually the global financial system that’s in charge. keeps pace with consumption. Income security can
way or another, the rat chews on everything we infamous thief. It has the elected representatives of Much of the dysfunction in our economic system can offer sufficiency for all without the necessity to sub-
use, as one of the primary functions of the finan- the people as its protector. It has as its defenders be explained by the fact that the ruling financial elite mit to drudgery, or to engage in fraud and corrupt
speculative practices. It eliminates the need to pro-
cial system is to attempt to satisfy a hunger that is the very men who should lead the charge, casting has largely detached itself from anything real. It pur- duce armaments and consumer goods designed to
insatiable. off injustice and defending the oppressed. v sues its own independent agenda, and in the course become obsolete and discarded merely in order to
The financial system is a rat that lays waste; a Louis Even of doing so is wreaking havoc on human societies maintain incomes through employment. u

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