By Catherine Austin Fitts
In the summer of 2000, I asked a group of 100 people at a conference of spiritually committed people who would push a red button if it would immediately stop all narcotics trafficking in their neighborhood, city, state and country. Out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push such red button. When surveyed, they said they did not want their mutual funds to go down if the U.S. financial system suddenly stopped attracting an estimated $500 billion-$1 trillion a year in global money laundering. They did not want their government checks jeopardized or their taxes raised because of resulting problems financing the federal government deficit.
Our financial profiteering and complicity is not limited to aristocrats and the elites who do their bidding. Our financial dependency on unsustainable economics is broad, ingrained and deep.
This is the first time I am reading this. I would have to give a great deal of thought on whether or not to press the button, but the reason given by the 99 frankly never occurred to me. My issue is that by pressing the button I would be negating the free will of a large group of individuals. I would have to consider the balance between denying the free will of some to prevent the suffering of a large group of individuals who had no part in the decision making process (i.e. to produce and market the drugs etc.). In a free society individuals and governments have no business in denying the freedom of others, however, we must always remember that our freedom to swing our fist ends at another persons nose.