From the October 2001 Idaho Observer:

Protesting the Federal Reserve - one dollar at a time

Amschel Rothschild said a long time ago that he cares not who makes a country's laws so long as he controls its money supply. We are in the middle of a economic storm that is driven by contemporary disciples of the Rothschild school of finance who are currently in control of our nation's money supply. There appears to be no legal or legislative remedy available to us that will force the Rothschild mentality to give up its dominion over our monetary system. Therefore, as long as we continue to use the money controlled by the international banking industry, we can expect the peaceable commerce of well-intended people to be increasingly taxed and regulated. To the Rothschild mentality ordinary people are not flesh and blood beings willing to work toward realizing their hopes and dreams. To them we are merely row crops to be harvested. The revenues they extract from the labors of productive people through taxes, fees, regulations and marketplace manipulations-methods of plunder directly tied to "our" usage of "their" money-are being used to grow the bureaucratic monster. The resources stolen from ordinary people have financed the government monster that is now capable of monitoring our private communications and justifies peeking into our bedrooms from space.

There is a solution: We can defund the monster ourselves because our legislators haven't the courage to do it for us. We can stop using, as a medium of exchange, the money they give us to use. If we believe that the fruits of our labors belong to us and that we are people, not row crops to be harvested, why don't we begin using our own medium of exchange? We now have the ability, through Liberty Currency, to protest the systematic plunder of ourselves and our countrymen one dollar at a time.

By Don Harkins

NorFed's gold and silver-backed Liberty Currency became available October 1, 1998. Since that time several of my friends and associates have become Liberty Currency "redemption centers" and I have met NorFed's senior economist and Liberty Currency developer Bernard von Nothaus. Though I thought gold and silver-backed Liberty dollars was a novel idea, I could not see the alternative currency as anything beyond a valuable educational tool.

The Sunshine Mint in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, is where the gold and silver that backs nearly $1 million of Liberty Currency currently in circulation is warehoused. While in Coeur d'Alene September 18, 2001 for his annual audit of the Sunshine Mint, von Nothaus had lunch with a dozen friends and NorFed associates. Over lunch von Nothaus, who was the Mint Master for the Royal Hawaiian Mint which he founded in 1976, told the story of how a remote southeast U.S. convenience store is attracting regular customers from 50 miles away because its owner decided to give them the option of trading in Liberty currency.

After three years, I finally got it. The convenience store story allowed me to see the light. Liberty Currency can be used among peaceable people to exchange goods and services just like they can use other alternate mediums of exchange such credit cards. Liberty currency is better than credit cards because each note is actually a warehouse receipt that can be exchanged upon demand for gold or silver coins. The bearer, in reality, owns his own money.

The key to the successful use of any medium of exchange is faith that the medium is a representation of value that can be used in subsequent transactions.

Liberty Currency - The Educational Tool

In order to convince someone to use Liberty dollars he must first understand that our traditional paper "currency" is not currency at all. The paper we exchange on faith as "money" is printed, out of thin air, by private bankers who call themselves the Federal Reserve Board (Fed). The Fed, which is not federal and has no reserves, fires up the copy machines and prints money that is made available to the public for a usury fee that is commonly referred to as interest. To insure that the Fed will eventually be compensated for the money it prints out of thin air and allows us to borrow into circulation, it is backed by "the full faith and credit" of the United States.

Translated, our modern paper money, a debt "note," is not "payable to bearer on demand," because, since 1933, there has been nothing backing them. Without any such backing, Federal Reserve Notes cannot be a "note" because they convey nothing to anyone. Using their money also makes us subject to an entire menu of taxes and regulatory control.

The combined assets of the American people are viewed by those who print the paper money as collateral on the ever-increasing debt that is tied to the privilege of using their devious medium of exchange.

Once people understand that the money they are using is a tool for sinister men to secretly and systematically transfer the assets of the American people into the hands of the international bankers as represented by the Fed, they are then able to understand the need to begin using an alternative medium of exchange.

Liberty Currency - The Convenience Store Story

While at the lunch table with a dozen or so friends and redemption center representatives, von Nothaus began to explain how a convenience store owner in remote southeast U.S. location was able to make 25 percent on his money and increase traffic into his place of business by offering to facilitate the exchange goods and services in Liberty Dollars.

Von Nothaus began his story by recounting how he was, "talking to a group of people just as I am now when a redemption center representative, whom I will call 'Joe,' had been listening silently from the back of the room. He finally came up and said, 'I like Liberty Currency, but I just don't know how to use it.'"Von Nothaus continued, "I asked him what he did for a living. Joe said that he owned a convenience store that sold beer, gas, cigarettes and some groceries. I said, 'You own a convenience store and you don't know what to do with Liberty Currency?' I told him to simply start offering it to his customers."

Joe apparently took von Nothaus' advice as he began placing weekly orders for more Liberty Currency, primarily the silver $10 Liberty coins. People would make a purchase in his store at which time he would offer to make change in Liberty Dollars with the explanation that, when they had $10 worth of Liberty paper currency, he would trade it for a $10 silver coin.

According to von Nothaus, by offering Liberty Currency to his customers, Joe found that his customer base had expanded to include people who lived up to 50 miles away because they loved the silver Libertys. Joe was making weekly orders for the $10 Libertys, which he could obtain from NorFed for $7.50 each in quantities of 100 or more.

Joe was not only increasing the traffic in his store, he was educating people as to the true nature of money and giving them a minted coin of intrinsic value rather than mere paper. von Nothaus recalled a recent conversation he had with Joe where the convenience store owner, in a rather animated fashion, told him that, " My store is making more money by trading in Liberty Currency than it makes from selling beer!"

"After awhile," von Nothaus explained, "Joe's orders for silver Liberty's began to drop off but his orders for the paper Liberty Dollars began to increase. His customers were accumulating so many silver Libertys that they began to appreciate the convenience of paper Liberty Dollars."

Paper Liberty Currency is available to redemption centers at five percent below face value.

Liberty Currency - The Legality

According to the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Liberty Currency is a legitimate and legal medium of exchange. Treasury Department spokesman Claudia Dickens said May 3, 1999, that a team of federal attorneys reviewed NorFed and Liberty Currency and concluded that, "As long as it doesn't say legal tender, there's nothing wrong with it."

Liberty Currency - The Future

Since fall, 2000, the amount of Liberty Currency in circulation has increased from $400,000 to nearly $1,000,000 and the number of redemption centers have correspondingly increased from 400 to 1,000. Though people who hold Liberty Currency are not yet able to exchange it as freely as one is currently able to exchange FRNs, von Nothhaus describes the process whereby two new mediums of exchange that were introduced into the stream of commerce, took a few years to get off the ground. Once up and running, they became as commonplace as traditional paper money and metal coins. Checks were introduced around the turn of the century and has since become one of the most common ways to pay for goods and services; credit cards, first introduced by Macy's Department Store in New York in the 50s, is now such a common medium of exchange that nearly everyone in the U.S. has at least one.

"The future of Liberty Currency is bright -- brighter even than checks, credit cards and those dreaded Federal Reserve Notes -- because the people who hold Liberty Currency own their money. It belongs to them," von Nothaus said.

Make money, have fun and help your country

After three years, I have finally seen the light. The Idaho Observer is a NorFed redemption center. We now encourage our subscribers and advertisers to conduct their business with us in Liberty Currency. We have no idea whether or not this will be profitable, we just know it is the right thing to do. How can we effectively protest the imperialistic and totalitarian actions of our federal government when, with every FRN we exchange, it gets stronger and more invasive?

The truth is we cannot effectively protest the all-sided assault on the freedoms and the sensibilities of the American people if we continue to use the fraudulent debt paper with which they are funding their insidious efforts to economically enslave us.

It is my advice to those who resent being harvested like row crops and who are opposed to the freedom-usurping intentions of the federal machinery to seriously consider using an alternate medium of exchange while engaging in peaceable commerce. Go to the NorFed website at: www.norfed.org. Call NorFed at (888) 421-6181 and ask to be put in contact with a redemption center in your area or call The IO at: (208) 255-2307.