Introducing New Silver Circle Blogger, Barry Donegan

As the new blogger here at Silver Circle, I would like to take the time to introduce myself to the existing community that has coalesced around this highly-anticipated animated film. Filling the shoes of Wes Messamore from The Humble Libertarian is certainly no easy task, but I will continue covering the same beloved range of topics and popular weekly features with my own unique twist.

I first discovered the liberty movement back in college in the late ’90s. I was initially exposed to libertarianism in political theory class by way of a John Stossel documentary on the War on Drugs. Later, I learned of CIA intervention in third-world countries during South American history lessons. At the time, I found disturbing and unnerving the matter-of-fact manner in which the teacher and students accepted the reality that the CIA was fomenting civil wars and causing fatalities in our name. No one else at school seemed bothered by it.

When Central Banks Attack

My interest in monetary policy came a little later — fast forward to 2005. I had just signed my first recording contract with Koch/Combat Records along with my bandmates in our experimental punk band when the Federal Reserve came crashing through my American dream like a monster truck. We were on our second full US tour ever, making decent money playing our favorite music when the economic consequences of bad monetary policy began interfering with our plans. Inflation started creeping into gas prices, rising calamitously in response to Katrina.

Overnight, our tour costs doubled. For a brand new band touring on their first serious record, this was an unfair circumstance. Planning around our gasoline costs started to feel like playing chess on a wildly moving, unstable chessboard. I had already become so convinced of the disastrous nature of our monetary system that I had begun boycotting fractional reserve banks back in college, but the inflationary nightmare we were experiencing on tour proved the Mises crowd right in my mind through first-hand experience.

When I saw Ron Paul clash with Rudy Giuliani about blowback in the 2007 Republican Presidential debates, I transitioned from a grumpy skeptic to a full-fledged activist. Since that time, I’ve spent countless hours promoting the principles of freedom, self-ownership, and self-governance.

The Silver Circle Movie Is Compelling Entertainment with a Crucial Message

As a writer and musician from the Do-It-Yourself punk rock community, as idealized in the spirit of artistic thinkers like Ian MacKaye who promoted independent media above all else, I am thrilled to be working with the outstanding team behind Silver Circle. Their innovative approach to funding, creating, distributing, and publicizing independent 3D animated films serves as a blueprint to a way forward for independent filmmakers in this new digital age.

My passion for independent media is not the only reason that I’m wildly excited to write for Silver Circle. As an End the Fed activist who believes the Federal Reserve is one of the most economically destructive organizations on Earth, it is often challenging to discuss monetary policy with the uninitiated in a way that doesn’t cause their eyes to glaze over with boredom. By featuring the Federal Reserve as a villain in a futuristic dystopian animated film, new people will come to understand the dangers of central banking and arbitrary interest rate standards while empathizing with the rebels in their spine-tingling quest to restore freedom.

Stay tuned to this blog for articles on monetary policy, commodities, politics, pop culture, comics, conspiracy theories, and more.