Town Hall Meeting in New York Canceled Due to Death Threat Against Monetary Reform Advocate Richard C. Cook
Posted on February 7, 2009 by dandelionsalad
February 7, 2009

Due to a death threat against monetary reform advocate Richard C. Cook, a Town Hall meeting scheduled to be held on February 27, 2009, as part of President Barack Obama’s “Organizing for Change” initiative, has been canceled. Cook had been asked to speak at the meeting and present his program called “Bailout for the People” that he has been advocating as a solution to the economic crisis.

The meeting had been organized by New York City activists to provide Cook a forum at a time when the Obama/Biden administration is soliciting ideas to address the deepening recession where over 1,500,000 people have lost their jobs in the last three months. Over the next several weeks, hundreds of Economic Recovery Meetings will be held around the country leading up to public hearings by Vice President Joe Biden’s economic recovery task force.

Cook has written prolifically on economic and monetary reform since retiring from the federal government as a Treasury Department analyst in 2007. During his 32-year government career he also worked for NASA and the Carter White House. Upon retirement he published a book on the space shuttle Challenger disaster entitled Challenger Revealed. More recently, Tendril Press has published his book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform.

We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook
Originally uploaded by Lorri37

Cook’s proposals are based on what he calls “Dividend Economics.” He cites as an example the annual citizens’ stipend under the Alaska Permanent Fund. Through what he is calling the “Cook Plan,” he is advocating a tax-free per capita payment of $1,000 per month through vouchers to be used for the necessities of life such as housing, food, and transportation. The vouchers, once redeemed, would be used to capitalize a new national network of community savings banks that would lend at low interest rates to revitalize local and regional economies.

Despite the threat, Cook spoke at another Organizing for Change meeting in Takoma Park, Maryland, on Saturday February 7. On February 27th, when the Town Hall meeting in New York had been scheduled, he plans to keep his appointment that afternoon to speak at the 8th Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network/Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association. At this conference he will present a paper entitled: “Bailout for the People: Dividend Economics and the Basic Income Guarantee.” Further details, along with a downloadable version of the paper, are available at his new website at http://www.richardccook.com.

Regarding the cancellation of the Town Hall meeting, a decision made jointly with the organizers, Cook said:

“I have worked in the public eye my whole life for the government, as a whistleblower after the Challenger disaster, and as a writer. These things don’t frighten me. But in this instance, I cannot in good conscience expose my supporters and members of the public to the slight chance of harm in a relatively non-secure venue.”

Cook also pointed out that the perpetrator of the threat has been identified and reported. He said the person used “vicious language” and called him a “traitor.”

all these fail to achieve an understanding of the real problem. the us is a centrally managed economy and has been for more than a century. the only difference between this country and the former ussr is who owns the means of production. here it is nominally private (tho much less so with each bailout) and there is was totally held by government.

the ONLY solution is to cancel the central government’s control over the economy. the simplest way to reach that goal is to end the fiat money regime by dissolving its controlling agent – the federal reserve system. until and unless such action is taken, this country is going to struggle economically.

Neither I nor Daly would ever consider him a “leftist”, nor a “socialist”.

Again, you come this and other topics with a tiny little lens and try to build a narrative around it. It’s empy thinking. Start to connect. Read some history. Become familiar with things other than Zionism and “left” words.

With that you’ve got some work to do…so I won’t delay you further.

DB you HAVEN”T READ DALY. it’s apparent in your response. Adieu

Max it is apparent you haven’t a rejoinder. I’ll let readers here make up their own mind about Daly. Here’s the link to Daly writings.

It was very easy finding this on Google and I would not have given my opinion on Daly before reading his ideas. There was nothing I read in his piece that hasn’t been addressed by socialists.

That being the case I did a Google search to see if I could find an opposing or contrasting opinion which I found and posted. Apparently Max you are unable to formulate a rejoinder to the Socialist Party of Great Britain in whose journal published since 1904, they criticize Daly with other “scientist” who have attempted to formulate their ideas of the construction of society and society’s economic systems.

As cautioned by the Socialist Party of Great Britain they expressed the concern that people like Daly are they are latecomers to the political and economic debate, and that it is unhelpful to cloud the issues with careless ignorance of genuine socialist ideas.

The consequences of these latecomers like Daly who says …
“shifting from growth to development doesn’t have to mean freezing in the dark under communist tyranny.” (New Scientist, ibid). creates confusion within the Left.

Confusion on the Left has disrupted and stunted solidarity which is a major concern. Without solidarity there can be no movement and there will be no change.

So the real issue Max is that you haven’t made the case why the Left should embrace Daly and what he has to offer that goes beyond socialism.

Adieu

Also Max perhaps you can explain why you are against the redistribution of wealth which you wrote here on DV several weeks ago.

However I do agree with The Socialist Party of GB conclusion…’

Still, all in all, it is undoubtedly a good thing that scientists are turning their attention to the question of free-market capitalism. They do at least have more credibility than politicians, priests or pop-idols, and one can only hope they don’t squander it by failing to sort through their various ill-conceived assumptions and prejudices. After all, that’s what the scientific method is supposed to be all about. The worst and most absurd assumption of all was always that science was somehow above politics, and that seems to be changing. What scientists need to do now however is recognise that they are latecomers to the political and economic debate, and that it is unhelpful to cloud the issues with careless ignorance of genuine socialist ideas, or to promote unworkable and possibly dangerous solutions which ignore capitalism’s known behaviour. Most of all, they would do well to recognise the importance of class in the debate, and their own class position as workers. If they don’t do that, they are always going to be so far behind other workers that they think they’re in the lead.

Since the Left has been infiltrated by posers and at best well meaning dilettantes it is extremely easy for the Left to become polarized and disjointed and to have solidarity easily stunted by a state of confusion.

Are you familiar with Heman Daly? No? Read him and we can debate if you’d like.

Otherwise you’re broad sweeping-as-usual-generalization are really nothing more than empty provocation of an faux argument.

A good example of this on the economic from is Michael Albert’s confused “Parecon” which he deliberately states he developed because socialism is fought with such negative connotations. In other words rather than provide clarification he’d prefer to succumb to ruling classes distortion of socialism. In the same vein we have contributors on DV presenting “new” ideas from Herman Daly.

Before activists get distracted perhaps more opinions are necessary. Here’s a link to an article from The Socialist Standard 11/2008 that can offer some clarifications.

We must have posted at the same time. You make mention of Daly, but your easy dismissal begs the question: why?

First step? We’re so far from this so-called first step that to diss it is like putting a gun to your head. Most here may not even know Daly and his fine work and you’re already diluting it to some kind of “yesterday’s news” and again, we’re in overdrive preditory capitalism….

Give it a chance man.

Interesting piece. I would use Herman Daly (steady-state economy) and his use of land value tax to provide for what Winston Churchill addressed. Daly’s premise is that growth(the US economic system) is uneconomical. They it cost more to grow than to simply manage a steady-state. This is simply another term for sustainability.

As mentioned Daly and Churchill (and many others who have grappled with this problem) are Georgists. Providing a dividend to all comes through the Georgist notion of Land as key to any economics and land value rent/tax is a means for retaining the commons and capturing the wealth of the commons to provide for all.

The work by Daly (recipient of the Livelihood Award) and Alanna Hartzog of Earth Rights Institute provides insight into the citizens’ dividend.

The same thinking Daly brings to the uneconomics of growth can be applied and directly connected to energy.

It’s not that we lack solutions. It is the power which barely moves the needle from Bush to Obama. Stiglitz is better than what Obama has as economists, but he definitely doesn’t take the problem to its core. Short of that his solutions are just tinkering and worthless. He does understand, however the value of land value tax. But again, he is not a mover. In the end he is simply a luke warm progressive in a pool of fundamental free marketer sharks.

We need a radical redistribution of wealth and a radical expansion of public industry, much of which should be used to rebuild our cities for sustainable living.

Alas, the politics of the Great Restoration are far from over. Obama is the perfect new pitch-man.

We’re in huge trouble, ala Dmitry Orlov…

I say: It is true that bank manager salaries and bonuses are obscene, but the way you characterize “social returns” is shortsighted. You speak of bank profitability falling short even though, since the financial deregulation of the 1980s and 1990s, the banks have become the nation’s chief growth industry, with profits as late as 2006 of over $500 billion. Further, the financial sector doesn’t really “allocate capital.” What it does is skim the cream off the top of the producing economy by financing consumption and facilitating the most irresponsible types of speculation in the real estate, equity, hedge fund, and derivative markets.

Bingo, 2 in the B row to be or not to be. Very nice and that is what I call a new way of thinking. Now how do we get this started along with a few other minor changes?