For example, if
we take the fact that these multi-national corporations are larger in terms of
their economic power than most countries including some surprising European
countries, such as Greece and Poland (the source of this info can be seen here:
http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html), and consider that therefore,
competing for profit within the same markets, the debts must be shifted to the
weakest countries in order to maintain profits for the stronger economic
competitors. The fact that these Corporations are privately owned and serve
only their profit margins means that they have no responsibility to a people
and unflinchingly put countries in debt, seeing them as competitors, allying
themselves with the higher powers of nations such as a the US in order to
maximise profits at the expense of entire nations.
Iraq, under the
control of Saddam Hussein, refused to let American corporations come in to
extract oil, in order to reap the economic benefits themselves, this idea was
of course rejected by the multi-national corporations and the US Government
from which they were spawned, this led to the use of what is termed an ‘economic
hitman’ (the first example of this method of resource extraction was Iran, 1953
when Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister began to
stand against the multi-national oil companies, asking that they pay more
toward the people of Iran, rather than just exploiting the resources of Iran to
the benefit of themselves, looking to take over the British oil assets within
their own country, which is entirely understandable. Of course the British and
US governments as well as the privately owned corporations who currently extracted
the oil were not happy. Yet, as it was a perfectly reasonable request, the
usual response of military action was not appropriate, or cost effective. It
was at this point that CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (relative of Teddy Roosevelt)
was sent over to Iran with a few million dollars and was very effective in
raising the ‘coup d'état ’ against Mossadegh, bringing him out of power in a
relatively short amount of time, and in a way that was far more cost-effective than
military action. They then brought in Mohammad
Rezā Shāh Pahlavī, who was far more lenient towards the oil companies. However,
it was decided that the risk of repercussion through the use of a government
agent was too great and decided to use private consultants from branches of the
corporations in order to make the use of these ‘hitmen’ more anonymously.), the
economic hitman in this case however failed to bend Saddam Hussein to their
will, with him apparently rejecting an offer similar to the one accepted by the
house of Saud in Saudi Arabia. This led to the second stage of the extraction
process; the use of ‘Jackals’ whose job it is to instigate the overthrow of a government,
or assassinate the current leader. These Jackals could not get by Hussein’s
very tight personal security though, and so they too failed, this is most
likely because, according to John Perkins (Author of: Confessions of an
Economic Hitman) Hussein himself was a former employee of the CIA, used to
assassinate a former president of Iraq and had failed, meaning that he knew the
system that would be used against him. This led to step three of the system:
Military invasion in 1991. This led to the destruction of the Iraqi military,
leaving Hussein defenseless, this meant that, at this point Hussein was
vulnerable, and so the US government thought to just use him to control the
people of Iraq as he had been doing, yet now, in his weakened state, manipulate
him into the allowed exploitation of their resources. And so, at this point (90’s),
the economic hitmen were sent back into Iraq again. However, once again Hussein
refused the advances of these hitmen, and so this led to the most recent
invasion of Iraq and the death of Saddam Hussein under the pretense that he was
developing weapons of mass destruction. The destruction caused by the military
invasion was also profitable for US-based multi-nationals such as Halliburton
who gained hugely lucrative contracts at the expense of the Iraqi economy for
the re-construction of a country which was destroyed by a movement started by
their own beneficiaries, thus extracting more wealth from the nation,
re-funding the expense of military mobilisation.
This process is repeated throughout the world, meaning that the current
monetary system allows for profits to lead to the death of people and the de-stabilisation
of economies, under the assumption that they must maximise profit, regardless
of the social and environmental cost.
And so, yes, the large corporations are the only ones capable of
functioning using the forefront of technology, however, this is because within
the current system of monetarily based economics, the only way to succeed,
within a system with more debt than money in circulation and thus a system of
desperate competition to shift such debts onto others, is to overpower the
entire economy of the country which supplies the resources needed, by,
essentially, stealing it for rock-bottom prices on the basis that the economy
has had any resistance removed or scared into line by the economic/monetary
power of these alliances forged in the name of profit. So, the only legitimate
way to enforce/maintain corporate and governmental responsibility for the
wellbeing of the population, is to remove this monetary system.
I won’t dive head first into a what new systems could potentially replace
this ridiculously outdated system, as we’d be here forever. However, I will
suggest watching this video on an idea for a new method of global resource
management, which, whilst full of flaws is the first step toward a far more
efficient and economic (in the original sense of the word) system.
No comments:
Post a Comment