essays on Crime (2): Private Power

Adam Smith, that political thinker who was in favour of the free market, so we are told, berated “merchants and manufacturers”, who went on to use the state for their own interests, so Smith said.  In chapter IV in the Wealth of Nations, he writes:

 The capricious ambition of kings and ministers has not, during the present and the preceding century, been fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of humankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. Nevertheless, the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be the rulers of humankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity of anybody but themselves.

Actually, Smith was never in favour of the free market, which we are presented with.  These “merchants and manufacturers” in today’s world would not be merchants and manufacturers but transnational corporations and concentrated private power. The sorts of people who idolise Smith today evidently never read him. If they did, they would know that if he were alive today he would be regarded as a dangerous radical.  He would, no doubt, be spewing blood at the emergence of the free market.

Deregulation, lower taxation (for the rich) and privatisation was, in a nutshell, Thatcherism. In Naomi Klein’s book about free market fundamentalism, the Shock Doctrine, she presents a very ugly picture of countries adopting this fascist framework.  These include Chile, Iraq, Argentina, South Africa, Russia, Poland, South Korea, even the United States.  This model was adopted in Chile under Augusto Pinochet.  He was a fascist, openly so, who overthrew the Marxist democrat, Salvador Allende, in a military coup, aided and abetted by the U.S.  “Make the economy scream”, Nixon said of Chile.  This “economic miracle” people speak of in referring to Chile is a myth of sorts.  American journalist Greg Palast writes:

 In 1973, the year General Pinochet brutally seized the government, Chile's unemployment rate was 4.3%. In 1983, after ten years of free-market modernization, unemployment reached 22%. Real wages declined by 40% under military rule.

In 1970, 20% of Chile's population lived in poverty. By 1990, the year "President" Pinochet left office, the number of destitute had doubled to 40%. Quite a miracle.

Pinochet did not destroy Chile's economy all alone. It took nine years of hard work by the most brilliant minds in world academia, a gaggle of Milton Friedman's trainees, the Chicago Boys. Under the spell of their theories, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed trade union bargaining rights, privatized the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and on business profits, slashed public employment, privatized 212 state industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus.

Freed of the dead hand of bureaucracy, taxes and union rules, the country took a giant leap forward ... into bankruptcy and depression. After nine years of economics Chicago style, Chile's industry keeled over and died. In 1982 and 1983, GDP dropped 19%. The free-market experiment was kaput, the test tubes shattered. Blood and glass littered the laboratory floor. Yet, with remarkable chutzpah, the mad scientists of Chicago declared success. In the US, President Ronald Reagan's State Department issued a report concluding, "Chile is a casebook study in sound economic management." Milton Friedman himself coined the phrase, "The Miracle of Chile." Friedman's sidekick, economist Art Laffer, preened that Pinochet's Chile was, "a showcase of what supply-side economics can do."

According to Naomi Klein “In 1974, inflation reached 375 percent-the highest rate in the world and almost twice the top level under Allende.”  It was only in 1988, fifteen years after Pinochet seized power that the economy stabilised.  So real economic growth was not seen until Pinochet had been President for well over ten years.  It was the “Chicago boys”, at the University of Chicago, where Milton Friedman oversaw much of the bloodshed in Chile.  Later, Thatcher would refer to Friedman as a “freedom fighter”.  A “freedom fighter” for private, tyrannical power perhaps.

 The fascist economic model Chile adopted laid the groundwork for others to follow. In the 1980s, Russia followed the model with economic advisors, such as Jeffrey Sachs.  Janine R. Wedel of Nation writes:

 Through the late summer and fall of 1991, as the Soviet state fell apart, Harvard Professor Jeffrey Sachs and other Western economists participated in meetings at a dacha outside Moscow where young, pro-Yeltsin reformers planned Russia’s economic and political future. Sachs teamed up with Yegor Gaidar, Yeltsin’s first architect of economic reform, to promote a plan of “shock therapy” to swiftly eliminate most of the price controls and subsidies that had underpinned life for Soviet citizens for decades. Shock therapy produced more shock–not least, hyperinflation that hit 2,500 percent–than therapy. One result was the evaporation of much potential investment capital: the substantial savings of Russians.

 In the 1990s South Africa, under the tutelage of Nelson Mandela, Thatcherism and neoliberal thuggery was their economic model.  Mandela’s promise of nationalisation, turned into privatisation. Mandela’s successor said of himself, “Just call me a Thatcherite”.  In Iraq, after the 2003 invasion, the country was overtaken by large U.S corporations, thus resulting in economic strangulation for the natives amidst the tremendous carnage and shock, Klein speaks of. 

This is free market fanaticism to put it mildly.  These corporate elites have this totalitarian monopoly upon which entire societies work under a certain framework.  These Company Executive Officials (CEOs) have only two choices for their business model: to maximise their profits or leave the company altogether.  To maximise their profits they do various reprehensible things.  For example, they are quite content to employ sweatshop labour and pay their workers an absolute pittance; the working conditions themselves are so despicable that not even a Milton Friedman could even justify them. Another example of state protection roughly translated into capitalism.  All these major companies are able, through criminal state law, in repugnant free market societies, to avoid paying vast amounts of taxes; many of these private tyrannies pay less than 1 percent tax.

When the British government wish to implement policies concerning these colossal companies, they must regulate themselves.  Self-regulation is an interesting phrase but is often unscrutinised.  The government can make no decisions concerning these powerful tyrannies, thus asking their permission before implementing policies, which concern them.  This ought to surprise no one because such practices go on for such a sustained period.  This goes on while economic warfare is waged on everybody else.

Banking institutions are notoriously the worst offenders. These banks are nothing more than rackets and cartels. Some of these banks operating in the city of London have been known to have committed criminal acts so serious that it has even reached the mainstream media; that is rare. Therefore, these many-monied institutions are given two options after having been “found out” after committing serious acts of fraud: they can either spend the rest of their lives in prison or pay a fine, not out of their own pocket but out of the pockets of others.  The choice is inevitable. Only a madman would choose the former option.  Even after the disgraceful practices are disclosed to the wider public fraud continues nonetheless. Incidentally, banking is one of the top professions where psychopathy is prevalent.

Oil is also another area where criminal actions occur, and as is the case with banking cartels, this is widely known.  After the First World War or the Great War, as it was known seven major oil companies known as the “Seven Sisters”, devised a plan between themselves in a perverse capitalist objective.  These companies were:

●      Anglo-Persian Oil Company (United Kingdom):
●      Gulf Oil (United States):
●       Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands/United Kingdom)
●      Standard Oil of California (SoCal) (United States)
●      Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso) (United States):
●      Texaco (United States)
●      Standard Oil Co. of New York (Socony) (United States)

Emine Dilek writes:

 In 1928, three main global petroleum producers met in the Scottish castle named Achnacarry, to sign a secret contract in order to control and distribute the world’s oil and the profits from the oil business. The agreement is known as the Achnacarry Agreement, or “As-Is” Agreement, was signed on September 17th, 1928…

Their vision was that the production zones, transport costs, sales prices – everything would be agreed and shared. And so began a great cartel, whose purpose was to dominate the world, by controlling its oil.

Soon, other biggest oil companies joined them in the plot. Now, they were known as the Seven Sisters: Exxon, Shell, BP, Mobil, Texaco, Gulf and Chevron...

At the end of the First World War, through signed treaties, France and Britain divided up the Middle East that was taken over from the Ottoman Empire. American oil companies were enraged. An American oil broker, Kalouste Gulbekian, came up with a solution. The plan was to create a red zone around the oil rich areas of the Middle East, and form a new oil company to equally own shares. The company was called Iraq Petroleum Company.

Oil filled lands were bought from the land owners without disclosing the riches their lands were hiding underneath the ground. Governments of the countries, such as the Shah (king) of Iran, were bought and paid for by the oil companies through bribes and other forms of political and military support guarantees.

Oil companies became more powerful than governments. Delivery of the oil also was such a crucial matter that in USA or Britain no one could become a President unless they guaranteed the smooth delivery of the oil to the refineries and sellers.

Oil companies were so dominant that they set the rules in every aspect of the oil production, its export and prices. Together with covert agencies of USA and British Governments, they have helped create and support the monarchies in Iran and Saudi Arabia, toppled democratically elected leaders who refused to be bribed, opposed the creation of OPEC and profited from the Iran-Iraq war, leading to the ultimate destruction of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

BP has a wicked history concerning these matters; I cite two examples.  During the time of the Red Line Agreement it was Venezuela which became the world's’ leading oil producer; after the second world war, the dynamics of strategic power and interests changed: it was Saudi Arabia which overtook Venezuela the decades that followed this, with furtive deals with the U.S which allowed America to control oil reserves in the Middle East.  In 1952 disaster struck the western world: Gamal Abdel Nasser ruled over Egypt for almost two decades, during that time he committed one particular major crime: he overthrew the yoke of western imperialism and instead opted for Arab nationalism.

Before and during Nasser’s first few years in power, parts of the region were in turmoil. In Iran, there was a spate of demonstrations by a popular uprising.  Mohammad Mossadegh led this movement.  The main reason for the protests was the oil giant, BP. They were literally controlling vast amounts of the Iranian economy, at the behest of the British government. In 1953, when Mossadegh was Prime Minister of Iran, he nationalised Iranian oil.  The response was inevitable; the British government, backed up by their ally in North America, overthrew Mossadegh and subjected Iran to a savage nightmare. 

Fifty years later BP were at it again.  It was against another enemy of the west, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan revolutionary or “mad dog”, if we listen to Ronald Reagan long enough.  Tony Blair, during that time, was the British Prime Minister, which is significant.  During talks with Gaddafi he decided the Libyan would relinquish his chemical weapons then he would “do business” with him.  Roughly translated as opening up the markets in Libya.  BP were once again, accruing huge profits in these somewhat clandestine deals.  It was not so long after this period that Al Baset Al-Megrahi was released from prison for one of the worst terrorist atrocities in the 1980s.  The lengths BP have gone to in order to accrue stupendous profits is quite astonishing. 

Other major oil companies tell a similar story.  However, one other area of repugnancy is the fast-food cancer factories such as McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza Hut, KFC, as well as many others.  Again, these companies have one key objective: to maximise their profits, in fact their objective is two-fold.  The other objective is to gain control over markets, thus creating smear campaigns in putting smaller competitors out of business altogether. This “junk” food which these sub-cultural, sub-human, inhumane factories operate under giving people all sorts of dietary problems and health dilemmas, including cancers, heart-attacks, strokes, and a whole array of other terrible conditions.  All this is for financial profit.  Nevertheless, one should not be so surprised because after all, we live in a world of the free market and any sort of morality seems miles away in the distant hills. 

Globalisation is an interesting term, and it ought to be tackled.  A great deal of people have written about this matter, coming to debate it from a range of different angles. One man that wrote about it was Vladimir Lenin. Nevertheless, in Lenin’s lifetime-he died in 1924-capitalism in comparison to today’s world was incomparable in terms of private power.  Enmeshed in this globalised  sort of terror is the public relations industry which Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays wrote about, and public relations is synonymous with propaganda, and propaganda ties in with the entertainment industry, which is essentially the public relations industry anyway.  It is corporate private power that advertises throughout the entire industry.  It also goes through sport, all forms of popular culture and so on.  All advertising, or rather, what is referred to as advertising, ought not to exist. It ought not to exist because it is crypto corporate fascism, and we are forced to watch this obscenity.  With marketing, they remove all other cultures and replace them with infantile, unrelenting defecation. 

 But, why? Well it has different functions of course.  In the media, it creates better selling power; it helps to depoliticise and pacify people. It de-intellectualises the individual, and so long as they are following these puerile, irrational, frivolous trends, such as spectator sports, following a person or perhaps a group of them like a religious fanatic, they are out of harm's way.  They are not thinking about the things they ought to be thinking about and of course all of this is rationalised.  This nonsense creeps into serious journals, it is even spoken by highly respected professors in educational establishments, it is on the high street, in shops, at the workplace, even on the street.  This barbarity is inescapable. Yet when one mentions Herbert Marcuse, Edward Herman or Erich Fromm, they are laughed at, branded as extremists, and told they ought not to exist. 

Never mind Aristotle’s insights, Beckett’s absurdity, Steinbeck’s humanity, Homer’s picturesque poetry, John Stuart Mill’s liberalism or anything of the sort.  Now, we are told we must forget all this insignificant indulgence.  Instead, you must not be a dinosaur and become a “modern man”, and think “business”; everything else ought not to exist at all.  For business is the new way.  If there is no profit in this or that then it really ought not to be done; what good will come of it? 

The rules of the game have changed, so to speak.  Now, even CEOs appear on television shows, encouraging their viewers to engage in real principles: the avarice of financial greed and a lust for “free enterprise”, and not much else besides.  The person who reads Sophocles or Heinrich Boll is a danger, a danger to this whole ideology.  Thinking outside of this spectrum is strictly forbidden, and for having such iconoclast beliefs, you must be eliminated from airing your insidious and tiresome views; there is no opportunity to speak in the mainstream media; you are eliminated.  This is a model, which has been hideously successful.  The career liberal journalists would rather close their vacuous mouths and do as they are told.

This is intolerable; nevertheless, it appears indomitable.  What is this called?  It is clearly a form of totalitarianism.  Nevertheless, it goes far beyond even that.  When private concentrated power controls many aspects of our peculiar lives, and in this abominable way, it is a fundamentalist sort of fascism; that is not to be mocked at.  Fascism, many people believe, are Hitler’s gas chambers, Stalin’s gulags, and so on.  Political fascism not only exists but there is financial, as well as fiscal.  For it eliminates entire sections of society, of every society.  People call Hitler a fascist; Lenin a socialist; Thatcher, a conservative and Pinochet a benevolent dictator.  They are all fascists.

 For at the heart of their ideology is free market fundamentalism.  In fact, Lenin was perhaps a more virulent free market villain than Thatcher ever was.  So in Britain, the U.S, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and much of the world have political parties with a single thing in common: they all are part of a fascist ideology because they stick to the free market economic model.  This is seen as rational governance; it should not be. 

A great number of eminent people today have their heroes, heroines and inspirations like Milton Friedman, Jeffrey Sachs and others.  However, these same people do not worship, or at least do not claim to worship figures such as General Franco, Heinrich Himmler or Pol pot.  Yet the only difference is that the economic fascists like have not been found out.

We live in an age now where people feel the inescapable need to hide their perverse acts and views because it is not tolerated by modern society, and inevitably the public relations industry is geared to protect the “ethical” companies and “green” corporations, and so on.  When people vent their ire and tempers-it is inevitably at political power and not private power. For private power is well protected and their repugnant crimes are largely hidden, and so people become unaware of such practices.  The propaganda model, which protects these criminal acts, has even metamorphosed the legacy of Adam Smith, as we have seen. Big business and private unelected tyrannies are the order of the day, nothing else will do. 

30th March-6th April 2014

This is the second part of essays on 'crime'...see my previous post for the first part.  The third part will be posted shortly.

The Free Market

Margaret Thatcher famously said there is no alternative to the free market, likewise her friend Augusto Pinochet, the then fascist President of Chile, could have echoed similar sentiments. If he would have said there is no alternative to massacring communists, it would be no less absurd than Thatcher’s words.  Thatcher’s principle, or rather, one of her principles, was to destroy socialism. The Thatcherite free market fundamentalist extremists of the 1980’s evolved into the fanaticism of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in the late 1990’s and beyond.  Britain and every country in Europe and indeed almost every country in the entire world has the free market as their financial structure. Yet the free market is seldom discussed, many do not have the slightest idea what it is, and those that do tell epic lies without knowing it.  

When free market faithful enthusiasts discuss this they often cite Adam Smith, shamefully misusing his name in their web of lies and deceit.  A few truths, here, should be pointed out about Adam Smith. It was Adam Smith who said “principal architects” in England were “merchants and manufacturers” who went on to use the state for their own interests.  Interestingly he labelled “the national interest” as a total and absolute fraud, saying it was a delusion.  For Adam Smith, one key principle is that individuals ought to be free.  He did not believe in the division of labour, being subjected to such things, destroys people, Smith says, but free market fundamentalists would have you believe otherwise.  The underlying question is was Smith in favour of free markets? That is not such an easy question to answer because he was only in favour of markets that led to total liberty, equality, freedom and so forth; what Adam Smith foresaw was not the terrifying model of the free market we have today, far from it.  So was he in favour of this sort of free market?  Certainly not.  What he believed in was the total opposite of capitalism.  Yet his name is still used, subverting his message.  

Of course the free market is all about bartering, buying and selling produce, but the free market is free from government interference and people too, it must be added.  This  sounds harmless.  It is extremely harmful.  What happens here is that, and this has been a concerted effort by western imperial powers, the poor countries remain poor while the rich ones expand their wealth.  The wealth of the rich countries remains in the hands of the select few: multinational corporations, private investors, CEO's and so on while much of the country suffers from mild poverty, others from absolute poverty.  There is homelessness in their tens of thousands in developed countries all over the world, slums have been created, prostitutes are forced into desperate acts, in many countries people can not afford healthcare, they even struggle to pay their household bills.  

When the words “in the national interest” is used, it is interesting to define what is meant here, when politicians of various ilk use this abominable phrase, they know precisely what they are talking about; the general population do not.  One other group who know what they are talking about is private power, because this language is aimed at them, in the free market system, not one that Smith envisioned, but what we have today, totally eliminates people: the worker, the student, the professional and so forth.  It is interesting to discuss what kind of system or framework does this.

The framework must be called a fascist one.  It is firstly important to understand what fascism is. A definition of fascism is not butchering people, forcing women and children into gas chambers and death camps, no fascism is something more clearly defined than that.  Fascism then is when you move an entire people from an  arena of sorts and reduce their liberty, freedom and living standards, and the free market certainly does that.  I am not arguing the free market is fascist, just the structure of it is.  The rest of government policy is aimed at gaining power.  For no sane person would issue such backward policies in a developed country.  Wealth and power come first, if the government create policies favourable to you, all that means is you are fortunate enough to be within a group  of people where government’s self interest lies, but it is nothing more than that.  Otherwise, the government have nothing to lose.  

Yet the free market and its devastatingly  fascist framework is not even debated in the capitalist press or media.  Mainstream political parties do not discuss it and people are totally unaware of its evils because they believe they have lavish freedoms when they do not.  For the nations, or rather the governments that do not submit to this free market fundamentalism are met with the bludgeon, nations that have met with this with a particular imperial power have been Cuba, Nicaragua, Indonesia, just to name some.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr, the former Kennedy aide, said that “the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into one’s own hands”.  He was, of course, speaking about the former President of Cuba, Fidel Castro. What Schlesinger did not go on to say was what his Government and future U.S governments have been subjecting Cuba to because of “Castro taking matters into one’s own hands”.  It is all fair and well to say Castro was a demagogue and that he was never democratically elected and so forth, while that is true, much of Cuba’s history is deliberately missed out.  In the 1820's those in power in the U.S spoke of invading Cuba for reasons of self-interest and doing unspeakable things there.  People like Benjamin Franklin and John Quincey Adams, after the British forbade such actions, agreed that in a hundred years or so, such a thing would be possible.  They did not have to wait that long.  It was in 1898 when the U.S were able to treat Cuba as their “backyard”, controlling their economy, in other words, stealing Cuba’s  wealth and putting it in the hands of American conglomerates, while many Cubans were just virtual slaves, working in heinous conditions to serve U.S interests.  From 1898 to the revolution in 1953-59 Washington installed dictator after dictator.  They were absolutely brutal, but had Washington’s support from the outset.

Misery in Cuba was so widespread that people started to rise up.  The Castro brothers, Che Guevara and others overthrew Fulgencio Batista.  During the revolution, Castro was supported by his North american neighbours but when Castro initiated his agrarian reforms and the other things he planned, they changed tact.  Castro, on becoming President of Cuba, did what any decent person would do.  He threw out the American corporations who were literally thieving billions from the Cuban economy, and instead launched impressive social programs in Cuba which were lauded all over the world.  This was the threat, nothing to do with communism, that is just a fraud, a delusion to justify in launching terror campaigns against Cuba, which the Kennedy “liberals” did.  John.F.Kennedy launched a terror campaign against the Cuban people in the early 1960's. He appointed his brother, Robert, as the person to lead the terror campaign.  Over a period of decades Cuba was subjected to a systematic terror campaign by America.  During Kennedy’s short reign, chemical weapons were used, a factory was bombed, killing 400 workers, huge damage was done to Cuban infrastructure, including crop destruction, not to mention the economic strangulation of Cuba.  If it was not for Cuba’s impressive health care system, tens of thousands would have died as a consequence of U.S-imposed sanctions.  This systematic terror was because Castro refused to adopt to free market fundamentalism, in other words, refusing to permit U.S corporations from bleeding Cuba dry, while Cubans remain in total penury.  It was nothing to do with communism.

Nicaragua had adopted the U.S framework since 1933, when Washington instituted a brutal dictator, the most notorious family in the whole of Nicaragua: the Somoza's.  Every American President since Roosevelt had supported this barbarism. But in 1979, Nicaraguans rose up, overthrew Anastasio Somoza, the Sandinista's took power and announced free and fair democratic elections. The then President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, was beside himself, he supported Somoza right up to the end, or there abouts, so instead he supported terror against the ruling party, this was extended all throughout the 1980's by Ronald Reagan.  Under Reagan’s two-terms at the White House , he had blood on his hands: at least 50,000 were slaughtered in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, the ruling party, built social programs for the poor and refused to sign up to Reagan’s free market fundamentalism.  The terror Reagan and his recidivist colleagues subjected Nicaragua to is both heinous and outrageous, but will be omitted here.  Adopt our fascist framework or perish, that is the option countries like Cuba and Nicaragua face.  

Indonesia is another story completely, and it is a world away from Latin america.  Indonesia is in South-East asia and from 1945 until 1967, was led by the nationalist, Sukarno.  He did not care so much for neo-liberal, fascistic monetary institutions and asked the World Bank and the IMF to leave the country; in 1957-8 Britain started a covert war with Indonesia and began arming insurgents and opposition groups, a coup was plotted, with direct U.S and British involvement but it failed.  A second coup in 1965 was successful, Sukarno was overthrown and General Suharto was declared President. He, to Washington’s relief, embraced the World Bank and the IMF, he opened up Indonesian markets to foreign investment.  Washington and its European allies did not care that Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and wiped out a third of the entire population.  The massacres were akin to Nazi war crimes, around a million people in Indonesia were also murdered, all in favour of opening up foreign investment with the west.

The European Union in the 21st century, now prefers free market enterprise to democracy, Greece and Italy are models which are likely to follow.  One prominent journalist at the Financial times, Gillian Tett, has already argued that Britain needs a Prime minister to deal with the markets, suggesting it should bypass democracy altogether.  Germany, and others impose fiscal austerity programs, as they like to call them, and expect whoever is elected to adopt their decisions which have already been made for them.  If democracy ever did exist in the European Union, it is certainly being undermined because of the markets, everybody goes on about the markets but never give clear definitions what they are.  

Ever since the infamous financial crash of 2008 a barbaric sort of fascism has been established in Europe.  The people who are paying the price for banking fraudsters are the people with the least money: public sector workers, the unemployed, and those on the minimum wage, while the powerful and rich are feeding into the free market machine and are seeing stupendous profits, and British banks, who are known to have committed grotesque crimes in their fraudulent activities around the world; their connections with murderous drug cartels and terror groups, being given fines instead of life sentences.  The people paying these fines are not the banks but the wretched, the poverty-stricken and destitute worker.

This is a clear example of the free market.  That it is only interested in helping people who really need it: the rich, the powerful and so forth.  The crash justified in extending the fascist framework across Europe: increasing taxes on the poor; decreasing wages for the lowest paid workers and for those that do not work at all, finding new and creative ways to suspend benefit payments, introducing furtive taxes on the poor and defenceless, while at the same time empowering the rich and powerful.  Presently it has turned into a dystopia for many. People who once lived comfortable lives and now living on the streets, people are forced to give their children away because they no longer can afford to feed them.  These cuts to public spending are applauded everywhere.  Yet if the whole of Europe imposed the law onto the rich into paying taxes, instead of paying nothing, the debt would be wiped out overnight. 

What has indeed taken place is shock therapy.  Shock therapy is a system where a country has experienced a shock, in this case a global recession, so many countries are affected.  The shock therapy then begins.  Public services are privatised, taxes are reduced for the rich, funding to public services are then slashed and this becomes the norm.  It will continue without people even realising it.  Politicians of all parties will be complicit in all of it, as will the media, only a few voices will be openly opposed to it and such people are vetted from reaching the mainstream media.  And so it goes.  

The free market serves only the interests of the rich and powerful.  The media are aware of such practices but refuse to report it, intellectuals are aware of these practices but refuse to discuss it, politicians are also aware of these same practices, and lie outright when asked about it. There is only so much misery and suffering people can take, and governments ought to realise when people have nothing to lose fear that is when the savage actions of government will really become regretful.

4th February, 2013

A Hero of Freedom

Hilary Clinton recently labelled Henry Kissinger a hero of democracy.  She did not mention the wholesale slaughter of Vietnam, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the chemical genocide in Laos Kissinger oversaw; neither she care to discuss his 1974 plan of mass genocide by controlling food supplies in order to commit genocide.  In 1995 Joseph Brewder, writing for Executive Intelligence Review, wrote

On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture

Clinton, in her fit of amnesia also fails to mention his support for mass murder in Latin America, the overthrow of a democrat, with the replacement of a fascist, Augusto Pinochet, in Chile.  The bloodbath in Bangladesh in 1971 also happened on Kissinger's watch; but most barbaric than the others was the genocide in East Timor.  This is democracy, so we are told.  

28th March, 2015