John C. Turmel, B. Eng.,
19990526
Ralph Nader,
Consumer Watch,
nader@aol.com
Dear Ralph:
We met at your talk at the University of Mississippi. I hope you
had the chance to scan my book, The Adventures of John The Engineer
Turmel. As you publish a newsletter for bankers, I hope you noted my
anti-bank activities. If so, you're aware that my funding of LETS
timecurrencies was just one tactic added to legal and political
challenges I pursued on a pauper's resources. I do believe I was the
first person to bring the unsafe engineering design of money to your
attention and have often since then pointed to your endorsement of 1/s
interest-free currency systems to bolster my arguments.
At your Mississippi meeting, your presentation would have been
pure doom and gloom had you not, in answer to my prompt on a question
about a US National LETS, perked up the audience with the success
story of the quadriplegic on the Phil Donohue show who explained how
he paid for his rides with Hours earned organizing their library.
Instead of people people leaving the meeting with a feeling of
hopeless dread at corporate control, they left with a feeling of hope
at employment liberation. You could have capitalized on it.
Having been the engineer to derive the equation and then fund the
Local Employment-Trading System software and the politician to run in
47 elections telling Greendollar, Timedollar, and Hour stories, I know
what crowd-pleasers those success stories can be. It took but this one
successful Employment-Trading story to change the tone of your meeting
from dread to hope.
Your subsequent reference to Brooklyn Greenbacks, Ithaca and El
Paso Hours cinched the upbeat tone so that Pauline Morrissette noted
28 names on your LETS info sheet. I think any other politician who
could walk into a meeting of 100 people and end up with 28 signatures
to join a database would consider that quite a score. I doubt your
other interest sheets scored so well.
And you weren't even trying. Imagine how many names you could
have had on a Nader LETS financial database if you were trying to sign
them up. Using only everyone's business cards, you could broker a
hypothetical circle of trades and then point out the possible "fait
accomplit" if they simply all sign up and make their promises binding.
Posting each business card on a board in Occupational order as trades
are brokered shows them what their ad would look like in the
Directory. And they could contribute Green to purchase resources to
your campaign right then and there.
In 1993, I ran for Canadian Prime Minister as head of my 80
candidate Abolitionist Party slate to promote National LETS. In 1996,
you ran for President with LETS less prominently in your party
program. I asked for your endorsement of a US National LETS and though
you got good mileage with some local models, you didn't respond to the
national question. Green parties around the world have been endorsing
LETS for a decade, though never prominently. I've always joked that
LETS is a rocket engine and the Green's have got it installed in their
lawn-mowers.
LETS is now being endorsed by more and more religions and
political parties. I've got endorsements from Catholics, Protestants,
Muslims and Jews. Green parties, Liberal parties, Socialist parties,
Capitalist parties, leading to the conclusion that an interest-free
time-trading barter system is on the verge of sweeping the world. Once
my Mondex card includes a LETS Green account with all my other
accounts, I know what currency I'm going to be using 100% of the time.
Politicians world-wide are hailing the LETS solution. Check out
my web site for recent endorsements by the UK government. But you were
the first American to champion the cause.
Since a National LETS Hourdollar System needs a political
champion in the United States, who better deserves the votes of many
databases of happy US LETS users who might support you if you
championed their upbeat success stories more prominently. Every LETS
you talk them into helping themselves with becomes a database of votes
for you in your quest for national LETS.
1999 Chicago Local Currencies Conference
I will be speaking at this year's Chicago Local Currencies
conference. Many advocates including Edgar Cahn will be there. Is
there any chance you could be there? I'm sure you could get on several
panels and your presence would certainly generate the attention this
worthy poor people's conference deserves.
I picked up 9 new books at TOES97 which mentioned that using LETS
Timedollars is a prerequisite to a sustainable society. If there is
LETS reform being touted anywhere internationally, this is it. You
should come and get your name prominently associated with the LETS
movement.
I know that my world record for political persistence now gets
the interest of media which permits me to inject the more serious LETS
information in with the more flamboyant activities. That a
professional gambling winner would be the world's biggest political
loser provides too much of a paradox for them to ignore. All I know is
that I bet on LETS from the start and that's the bet I'm going to want
to be talking about.
Would you be interested in joining us in discussions of linking
all America's local currencies under the Hour standard of value and
making it an issue in your upcoming national elections? If so, I would
pleased to have you attend my presentation on July 11, 3p.m.
Hoping you see the same potential in national LETS that I do, I
am, yours truly,
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