A while back I came across this excellent talk by John Jordan (of Reclaim the Streets, Clown Army, The Take etc).

You can watch the talk online:
http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/live_culture/live_conference.htm

(its in Day 2, 12:05 - 13:25 Activations Alan Read, Alastair MacLennan, John Jordan)

Or read a rough transcript:
http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0304/msg00016.html

See also:

• Housing Co-ops
• The War On Democracy by John Pilger
• Some of my favourite websites
• My del.icio.us bookmarks for September 9th through September 12th
• Oil companies to buy the world!

Widespread debt slavery created by an insane banking system is undoubtedly one of the biggest problems we all face.

This video animation, Money as Debt by Paul Grignon, is undoubtedly one the most important films ever made.

If you don’t yet understand why money is such a big problem, WATCH THIS VIDEO.

Please help spread this video far and wide.

I’ve embedded it here, but you can watch and download it on Google Video too.

Further introductory reading

• Ecology of Money and Short Circuit by Richard Douthwaite
• Community Currency Guide (pdf) by Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith
• Interest and Inflation Free Money by Margrit Kennedy
• Extract of Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (pdf) by Tom Greco
• Draft of Healthy Money Healthy Planet:Developing Sustainability through new Money Systems by Deirdre Kent
• Chapter One of Grip of Death (literal meaning of mortgage) by Michael Rowbotham
• Money Debt and Banks essay by Richard Greeves, Dr. John Courtneidge and David Soori
• Openmoney.info and the Open Money Manifesto by Michael Linton and friends
• The inspirational article A Tale of Two Ecovillages by Jonathan Dawson, that looks at Damanhur’s Credito currency and Findhorn’s Eko

Some of the many examples of successful alternatives to the Money as Debt madness:

• Bartercard
• The Totnes Pound
• Berkshares
• Toronto Dollar
• Salt Spring Dollars
• Ithaca Hours
• WIR Bank - Economic Circle Co-operative that has been running in Switzerland since 1934
• Damanhur’s Credito
• Findhorn’s Eko

See also:

• Timebanks.org
• Time Banks UK
• The LETSystem Design Manual
• LETS Link UK
• The ccSyndicator
• Complementary Currency Resource Center
• The Workgroup on Solidarity Socio-Economy’s sub-site on Social Money
• Interra Project
• LOADs more really good money links can be found via all the sites above, here, here, here and here

Again, please help to spread this video and information far and wide.

Thank you.

Further reading:

• a_changing_money_system.pdf by Margrit Kennedy
• Beyond Greed and Scarcity.pdf - an interview with Bernard Lietaer by Sarah van Gelder, editor of YES!: A journal of positive futures.
• breadhoursnewsletter.pdf - a nice newsletter from the now defunct www.breadhours.org (anyone know what happened?)
• ccClearingHouse.pdf - a proposal for an “Internet-based clearing system that would enable complementary currencies of different types from anywhere in the world to be exchanged among themselves. It would be an important next step to empower the complementary currency movement.”
• Comment on the Wörgl Experiment with Community Currency and Demurrage.pdf by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• Community Currencies in Japan.pdf by Yasuyuki Hirota
• community currency for solving social issues.pdf by Akio Doteuchi
• Community_Currency_Guide.pdf - an excellent guide by Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith
• Community_Exchange_Systems_screen.pdf - a Community Exchange Systems in Asia, Africa & Latin America newsletter from 2002
• Complementary currency systems and the new economic paradigm.pdf by Stephen DeMeulenaere for Strohalm Foundation
• decentralizedcurrency.pdf - Money as IOUs in a Social Trust Network and A Proposal for a Secure, Private, Decentralized Digital Currency Protocol by Ryan Fugger, founder of Ripplepay,com
• FEASTA Proposals 4 Gobal Monetary Reform.pdf by Feasta: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability
• How to Build Healthy Community Economics.pdf - a presentation by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• InternationalExperienceInCommunityCurrencies.PDF by Gill Seyfang and Ruth Pearson
• interraproj.pdf - an introduction to the Interra Project
• InWhoseInterest.pdf - an article by Mark Kinney for http://www.terratrc.org/
• Islamic Banking and its Importance in the Emergence of Economic Democracy.pdf by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• keeping_the_gp_away.pdf - a nef (new economics foundation) briefing about community time banks and health
• local_currencies_catalysts.pdf - “Local Currencies: Catalysts for Sustainable Regional Economies” by Robert Swann and Susan Witt
• Local Currencies in European History.pdf by Jerome Blanc for LEFI
• MoneyABriefHistoryDeeHock.pdf - “Money - A Brief History” by Dee Hock, founder of VISA
• money debt and banks.pdf by Richard Greeves, Dr. John Courtneidge and David Soori
• money_guide.pdf - United Diversity’s Money Guide
• pictorial_history_of_CCS.pdf by Stephen DeMeulenaere
• Plugging the Leaks - Handbook.pdf - Making the most of every pound that enters your local economy, published by nef
• Presentation of Tucson Traders for the Forum Social Money.pdf by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• Public Involvement in Health-Timebanks.pdf by nef
• Report of the Worldwide Database of Complementary Currency Systems 06.pdf by Stephen DeMeulenaere
• Setting Up a Credit Union.pdf from the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd
• Social_Money_as_a_Lever_for_the_New_Economic_Paradigm.pdf, summarised by Heloisa Primavera
• Social Money the experience of Friendly Favors.pdf by Sergio Lub
• Social money - Well timed permanence or break from normality.pdf by Heloisa Primavera
• The SANE Community Exchange System.pdf by Tim Jenkin
• the_time_of_our_lives.pdf - Research findings about Time Banks in the UK, by Gill Seyfang
• Time Banking - A briefing.pdf by nef
• Time Banks - A Radical Manifesto for the UK.pdf by nef
• Time Banks in the UK-Building Sustainable Communities.pdf by Gill Seyfang
• Wealth money and power.pdf by Heloisa Primavera
• What is a credit union flyer.pdf by ABCUL

See also:

• Money as Debt
• Money
• Money Books
• Inspiring Land, Money and Media Projects
• My del.icio.us bookmarks for November 15th through November 17th

In my last post about Transition Towns I mentioned that Gloria and I decided to try and write a post a day throughout May about inspiring people and projects. She’s done a pretty good job so far, having covered Maya Angelou, Ruth Cox, Muhammad Yunus, Charles Drew, Jane Goodall, and Mark Johnson.

I’ve not managed to keep the one post a day pace at all, so to make up for it I’m going to link to all my favourite land, money and media project on this page… (but its now gone 3am so I’m hitting the sack and will actually finish this page at a later date! Typical!)

Land
Some of my favourite land projects:

• Community Land Trust website from Community Finance Solutions
• Land for People - a network of welsh Community Land Trust who have also developed model rules for CLTs.
• The Village - a very inspiring Ecovillage project in Ireland.
• Lammas - an equally inspiring Ecovillage project in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
• Institute for Community Economics - a national US community development organization promoting economic justice through community land trusts (CLTs) and community investment.
• The Land is Ours - campaigns peacefully for access to the land, its resources, and the decision-making processes affecting them, for everyone, irrespective of race, gender or age.
• Art for Land’s sake - Land Roots cooperative land network’s project to raise funds for land by selling art and music.
• See my land links for more inspiration.

Money
I’ve covered most of my favourite money links over at Money as Debt, but repeat a selection of them here too…

• Bartercard
• The Totnes Pound
• Berkshares
• Toronto Dollar
• Salt Spring Dollars
• Ithaca Hours
• WIR Bank - Economic Circle Co-operative that has been running in Switzerland since 1934
• Damanhur’s Credito
• Findhorn’s Eko
• Timebanks.org
• Time Banks UK
• LETS Link UK
• Interra Project
• Lots more good stuff is listed in the Money as Debt post, also check out my money links.
• Also check out the inspirational article A Tale of Two Ecovillages by Jonathan Dawson, that looks at Damanhur’s Credito currency and Findhorn’s Eko

Media
It is time for everyone to stop watching TV, stop reading the paper and Be The Media!

• Indymedia (UK) - the original open publishing site.
• Undercurrents - an inspirational award winning media charity based in Swansea. I reckon their forthcoming Ecovillage Pioneers DVD is gonna be essential viewing and their Vision on TV project looks set to rock the world
• Make Internet TV - a fantastic site that has step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, and publishing online videos that can be watched and subscribed to by millions of people. Brought to you by the wonderful people at The Participatory Culture Foundation who also make the excellent Democracy Player
• Project Censored - all the important news that didn’t quite make the news.
• Z Communications - best known for Znet “a community of people committed to social change”.
• Popping out to lunch now, will have to finish this post later this afternoon…

See also:

• Inspiring Land, Money and Media Projects
• Money as Debt
• We Have Land!
• Money Books
• Transition Towns