Reform Party candidate Joseph Martin is seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate because he said the majority of elected representatives are not honoring either the Constitution or their oaths of office.
The Globe recently interviewed the St. Marys resident about his opinion on the Federal Reserve, immigration and the war in Iraq. Here are those questions and answers, which have been edited for length.
Daily Globe: What relevant experience do you have for this position?
Joseph L. Martin: I ran my secretary of state campaign two years ago. I've been very politically active, looking for candidates and raising awareness on the issues. I've been listening to experts and activists discuss issues on a daily basis for several years now.
I have seen the flagrant disregard for interests of their constituents done by the majority of the elected officials in this country at all levels, not just the federal level. But the most urgent issues are happening at the federal level, and they are the ones causing many of the problems at the state and local level.
DG: What would be your priorities for Kansas and the rest of the country?
JM: At the federal level, of course, the priorities are the economy is basically now completely in the hands of the international bankers.
In the year 1913, the financial system of this country was handed over to a private group of international banks in what was called the Federal Reserve Act that was unconstitutional; it was illegal. The whole process for passing the law and getting it signed was illegal. The Congress and the White House and the courts have basically been silent on this fraud and deception ever since.
And we see in this recent banker bailout, the last moves of the international bankers to take possession of what remaining assets there are in this country, which are the small and medium-sized businesses and people's personal assets. ...
In the case of the derivatives, it was largely based on the home loans and the mortgages. And that's why they were in such a hurry to get as many loans as they could get, good or bad — most of them bad — in order to build up the bad mortgages on which to base their derivatives. ...
Now because those mortgages have become due, the bad mortgages are beginning to fail in large numbers. They came to the point of having to show their fraud publicly and be held accountable to it. So instead of that, they badgered Congress, the White House badgered Congress, the banking industry badgered Congress into getting this unconstitutional banker bailout passed. So that way, they could transfer all of this bad fraudulent debt into the national debt, giving the secretary of treasury — former CEO of one of the principal banks behind the Federal Reserve System — to have no oversight, not have to have congressional approval, not to have a presidential signature, not to have judicial oversight or review to basically buy any industry he chooses and to trick federal agencies in the same process.
It's like paralyzing the whole constitutional structure that was there to set up a balance of power through checks and balances between the different branches of government. So that's, of course, an extremely important priority. ...
We need people to wake up, for Congress to stand up to their oath of office and defend this country and the Constitution from all enemies foreign, and domestic. That's one very important issue.
We also have the sovereignty issue with the borders of our country wide open. We have federal mandates forcing the hospitals and other welfare systems to give basically free access to their services to illegal aliens.
Another very serious issue is the proliferation of genetically modified food products into the marketplace. They are cross-pollinating with non-genetically modified crops, threatening the existence of the heirloom seed. They are testing genetically modified alfalfa, and that's already had some disastrous implications for the farmers and the neighbors of the farmers that were growing it. ...
So I would call those probably the three most pressing concerns that are affecting us now. I mean, we are being torn to pieces right now by those three issues.
DG: What would you replace the Federal Reserve with? Would you support our monetary system being backed by gold?
JM: Well, I wouldn't mind it if it were possible. You'll find that the gold is not there now. ... So in a practical sense, we really cannot go currently to gold and silver.
If that gold and silver were somehow to become available to the U.S. Treasury, so they could put it back into circulation as money, then it would be feasible. And then you could discuss whether or not it makes good economic sense to do so.
I'm not, personally, a real big fan of having money that itself is intrinsically valuable because it encourages people to take that money out of the money supply because of its own value. So I personally would like to see basically some sort of a currency based on the value of American production.
I think probably the best choice would be commodities. It would be kind of like a receipt system. We have so much grain in storage today, so much grain that's anticipated to be available in a month or two or three, or corn, any of those large-scale commodities. ... I like tying it to production. What's produced and put into the marketplace, what's available for sale, and then the money actually is tied to something valuable and liquid. That's a very important component to monetary systems, that it be immediately available and that it have value to it.
DG: With so many factors going on in the economy, where does the country need to start to fix the problem?
JM: It needs to eliminate the Federal Reserve System immediately. It needs to assign all of this derivatives debt and all of the phony national debt to the bankers that allowed this to happen, that wanted it to happen. They were the ones profiting from all of this system. Let them manage those debts. Put the economy back in the hands of the Congress and treasury. Start printing American money based properly on commodities.
We need to get rid of the power to create money out of thin air. That's another very startling thing that's been going on. Again, ever since the Federal Reserve, ever since fractional backing’s been around, they basically increase the money supply on paper, in theory, about 15 to 16 percent a year.
Why do they do that? Because they need to get more and more money into circulation so they can continue to bind up more things to fund their wars, to pay off their political officials, to pay their lobbyists, to bribe Congress. They need this constant increase in the money supply, and that robs you and me. ...
Two main things: Bring our economic system under congressional control, and also to remove the ability to create money out of thin air. Those two things have to happen immediately.
DG: What is your opinion on the war in Iraq?
JM: Well, the war in Iraq is one of the things they need all this money for. We don't have the money to pay for that war. We've spent what, upwards of a trillion dollars on that war? And most of it's been going into the hands of the military-industrial complex, and that's why the war is being fought.
It's basically a huge theft accomplished by deception. They tell the American people that we have to be over there. They scare them to death. Then once we're over there, they're just raking in the money.
We need to hold our elected officials and their unelected minions accountable for their actions. We need to start impeaching them for their high crimes and misdemeanors. And that is what's needed to restore confidence in America abroad, as well. And they are waiting for us to hold our government accountable. They hear about how our government is supposed to be in the hands of people in America.
We need to bring America back to where she claims to be. She tells her people that she's great, but it's all just words. The actions of our country are all completely contradictory to that. The world sees both the words and these actions, and they're waiting for us to reconcile them.
Reach Cherise Forno at (620) 408-9931 or e-mail her at cherise.forno@dodgeglobe.com.
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