Gold & Silver Forum - SILVER�S THREE FLAGS

December 17, 2004

SILVER�S THREE FLAGS

By Hugo Salinas Price

Silver as a vehicle for popular savings, has turned out to be a very effective flag that has gathered support amongst the principal Mexican political parties, which in everything else are deeply at odds with one another.

This past 30th of November, the 31 governors of all the states that make up the Mexican Republic sent a communiqu� to the "Ways and Means" Committee of the Mexican House of Representatives, in which they expressed their unanimous approval of the monetization of silver and urged the Committee to approve a bill which aims to achieve precisely this objective.

176 Mexican newspaper writers put their signatures to full page declarations by the Journalists� Club in the main newspapers of Mexico City, also in support of the monetization of the "Libertad" silver ounce.

A permanent organization of ex legislators also expressed their support for the measure in favor of the monetization of silver.

A poll by national T.V. Azteca, revealed that 96% of viewers approved of the monetization of the silver ounce, when asked if they were, or were not, in favor.

The Bank of Mexico, Mexico�s Central Bank, is adamantly opposed to this measure. It does not want the public to have the opportunity of saving in monetized silver. It wants to maintain its unblemished monopoly on the printing of Mexico�s money, which has no intrinsic value, and does not want the public to have any alternative for its savings, other than bills or bank deposits.

The Bank of Mexico sent a group of twelve men to the meeting of the Ways and Means Committee on the 30th of November, in order to confuse and cow the members of this committee, and forestall a favorable vote on the bill to monetize silver.

We do not know how the members of the Committee will cast their decisive vote, when the time comes.

Even in case their vote should be negative, we can predict, by the support given to this reasonable and salutary measure in the interest of Mexico, that the idea of monetizing silver will not die.

The idea of using silver as money that cannot be devalued, for savings by the people, is now firmly rooted in the public conscience of Mexico. An idea on the march is a force that does not die easily. Suppressed, it will only gather more strength. Such is the history of all ideas.

But silver flies another, more important flag.

In the mid-19th Century, when modern Italy had not yet taken shape and was still under the domination of Austria-Hungary, there was sown the idea that Italy should be reborn as a united and self-governed State, and that the domination of Austria-Hungary should be expelled.

Garibaldi came forward as a leader of this "resurgence" of the Italian fatherland.

A young composer, Giuseppe Verdi, composed an opera to symbolize Italy under the heel of Austria-Hungary: Nabuco was its name. The Hebrews captured by Nabuco, the Babilonian king, symbolized the Italians under the rule of Austria-Hungary.

One hymn of this opera was so moving, that it spread like wildfire among the population. It became impossible to frustrate the resurgence of Italy. Verdi�s hymn is, to this day, the national anthem of Italy.

This is silver�s second flag: national union, with a consciousness of our own worth, our own culture and our independence. A national consolidation will take place when we once again take up silver, our ancestral money.

However, there is another still greater flag for silver:

Silver turned into Mexican money, circulating in parallel with paper money, no matter how insignificant the importance of that small amount of silver in the nation�s economy, means that Mexicans will always remember that silver can actually be used as real, honest money. And that as the years pass, it will always be there, inviting us to use it in the most dangerous and dark times that may come.

Silver in circulation will serve to remind us that it is possible for a society to use silver and benefit from the use of real money, honest money.

Otherwise, it is possible that we may forget this, as has happened to many nations in the world.

When Mexico monetizes silver, it will become a lighthouse of hope for the world, a light that shows the way out of the swamp of slavery and perpetual impoverishment that comes with paper money.

Paper money, which is today the only kind of money in the world, ensures economic and therefore political control over the populations that use it. The planet�s banking caste that issues paper money and virtual, electronic money, threatens to become the sovereign power through the fictitious money it issues, and aspires to dominate all humanity.

The outcome of paper money is the dehumanization of the human race.

This is silver�s third and most important flag: the cause of humanity.

Silver�s flags, therefore, are three:

The flag of people�s savings.

The flag of national union.

The flag of the preservation of men, from dehumanization.

The silver coin as money: an idea that has taken life and will not be suppressed.

(This article, translated by the author, appeared in Spanish on the 11th of December, 2004, in "La Jornada", a Mexico City newspaper.)