A few years ago, I did a five part series called Selling Out to the Corporations via my alter ego, Benjamin Schadenfreude. I suppose I admit to being him now, but I fear what future employers might think if they look me up. Therefore, I am disowning that part of myself. Ah, not really. I am a snarkety bastard when it comes down to it, but I thought I did a pretty good job on that particular group of blog posts, so I am going to repost them here, maybe adding on a few points which I have uncovered in the past rotation and a half. If you are at all interested in this type of thing, I recommend you read. I think you will enjoy it, but be prepared for interesting language. If you want the original, it's still online somewhere, but I am not linking to it here. Good luck finding it (I don't think it will be that hard). Anyway, my opinions haven't changed much since I wrote these. The only difference worth noting may be the section on not blaming corporations. They can be subversive (obviously), and to not hold them as accountable as the government would be the same as letting someone get away with murder. Our system is based on unsustainable fiat currency which only can exist by creating more debt. It's the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind. Interestingly, I have not backed off in my belief in some sort of secret elite being behind the scenes. They are quite clearly there, and that people remain blind to the horror of TSA grope downs, illegal wars, and the uselessness of politics, sports, and reality television is beyond me. People really do need to wake up. I might not be the man to do it; however, if you are ready to open your mind to new ideas, continue reading. The journey starts now.
From my readings over the past few days (edit: a year and a half ago now), namely John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and a short story by Leo Tolstoy named "How Much Land Does a Man Need?", and even Glenn Beck's Common Sense (please don't think less of me, I'll explain more later) I have come to the conclusion that unfettered greed is the second worst of man's sins. However, some have come to claim that capitalism is the enabler of this terrible trait, I would argue that the real enabler is instead the system known as corporatism (or as Perkins likes to call it: corporatocracy). In true Capitalism, greed is not an outstanding trait. If one gets too greedy, one has a high likelihood of losing everything he gained. Case in point, Leo Tolstoy's aforementioned short story. Pahom, a peasant who is happy because he is too busy to be unhappy, exclaims, "If I had plenty of land, I shouldn't fear the Devil himself!". Well, the devil overhears, and says to himself, "I'll give you land enough; and by means of that land I will get you into my power", or as I read it, "I am one tricky bastard, har, har, har". So, through a series of fortunate events, Pahom slowly amasses more land, more wealth, and more power. Until finally, things take a turn for the worse. Wikipedia continues:
"he is introduced to the Bashkirs, and is told they are simple-minded people who own a huge amount of land. Thus, he goes to them to take as much of their land for as low a price as he can negotiate. Their offer is very unusual: for a sum of one thousand rubles, Pahóm can walk around as large an area as he wants, starting at daybreak, marking his route with a spade along the way. If he reaches his starting point by sunset that day, the entire area of land his route encloses will be his. .... His journey across the land illustrates his greediness. He tries to cover as much land as possible, not content with what he already has. As the sun nearly sets, he realizes his error and runs back as fast as he can to the waiting Bashkirs. He finally arrives at the starting point just as the sun sets. The Bashkirs cheer his good fortune, but exhausted from the run, he drops dead. They bury him in an ordinary grave only six feet long, thus ironically answering the question posed in the title of the story."
We can see from this story that greed will lead to disaster. There are so many examples of this in literature, film, television, basically anywhere, that it's incredibly pointless to list through more. However, in my example, Pahom gets it because he pushes this trait too far in his life. Capitalism is much the same way. If you get too greedy, like many agree the banks did, you fail. This is also like nature (imagine a lion trying to take down a fully grown elephant). However, when government gets involved and bails you out, you no longer have capitalism, you have corporatism. To this man's thinking, it is not the corporations we should blame (because it's in their best interests), but instead the government (who are supposed to have our best interests). In every way, our government has sold out to the corporations. They accept bribes, they bail out the big banks (but only the ones with government ties), they support a health bill that is favored by big pharma, they approve of invading a country under dubious circumstances (oil?), they allow companies to go into the third world, loan them huge amounts of money, then in debt them for favors, they do everything in their power to appease the corporations. On the other hand, they let the small businesses fail, putting on tax after tax.
Having just finished John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman, I am slightly at a loss for words. The corruption is thick, the revelations pure shocking, and the extent to which the private sector has weaseled its way into government horrific. We really are living at the end of the world, and Perkins had a front row seat. The book covers 35 years of empire building by the corporatocracy (the US government, banks, and multinational corporations), where Economic Hitman--EHM's for short--entered third world countries and cooked statistics so it looked like projects such as dam and bridge building, electrification, and other infrastructure projects would lead to huge GNP growth. Once the country fell for the baked data or were forced to comply, deals would be made with firms like Bechtel and Haliburton, and American companies would move in. Essentially, money would be transferred from one American company to another, but it would put the third-world country under a mountain of debt which could never be repaid. The Corporatocracy wants this. They want to hold the country over a barrel, forcing them to comply to oil drills or UN votes. America built the greatest, richest, and most powerful empire to ever haunt the face of the earth by using EHM's. More shocking, maybe, is what happened if the EHM's weren't successful. In the case of Panama's Omar Torrijos and Ecuador's Jaime Roldós, it meant death. For Torrijos' successor, Manuel Noriega, it meant invasion of his country by the US military (a conflict no one seems to remember). For Saddam Hussein of Iraq, it meant both.
I was particularly interested in Iraq. Years before America's twin wars, the US had made a deal with Saudi Arabia, known to Perkins as "The Saudi Arabian Money-laundering Affair" (SAMA), or otherwise known as the United States-Saudi Arabian Joint Economic Commission. As Perkins describes, it entailed "Saudi money to hire American firms to build up Saudi Arabia ... in exchange for petrodollars and, most important, assurances that there would never again be another oil embargo" (Perkins 95). US corporations and President H.W. Bush (who founded the oil company Zapata) were also greatly interested in Iraq. The country held bountiful oil resources, stood in a strategic location between the major Middle east countries, and, according to Perkins, "presented a vast market for American technology and engineering expertise" (Perkins 217). The EHM's offered Iraq a similar deal to the one the US had with the Saudis, but the country refused to sell out. Saddam has always been portrayed as a boogy man, a Hitler wannabee, a mad man, but I have more respect for him than the Saudi clan. At least he refused to sell his soul to the devil for a quick buck and a promise for protection. When Saddam did invade Kuwait, Bush, "responded with a denunciation of Saddam for violating international law, even though it had been less than a year since Bush himself had staged the illegal and unilateral invasion of Panama" (Perkins 217). Young American men and women charged into the desert on a lie. Iraqis died on a lie, but most importantly the Multinational corporations made a lot of money. One has to wonder: what if Saddam had complied with the deal offered by the Corporatocracy? Would he still be in power today? Would American companies have built him skyscrapers, Western-style cities and infrastructure, even neo-Babylon? Yes, and they would have laughed all the way to the bank.
Both Iraq wars are often painted with a great deal of American ego and pride. Many believe they were fought for good causes--to take out a maniac, to free people from the bonds of tyranny--but in reality, these are delusions. America has a vested interest in the corporatocracy turning a profit, and there was ample opportunity to make a large one. Perkins says, "For them, a U.S. victory in Iraq offered possibilities of huge profits, promotions and raises" (Perkins 217). How did this happen? It is a result of the shuffling of men between government and the private sector. Perkins believes we can place the blame for that on Robert McNamara. Perkins writes, "I see now Robert McNamara's greatest and most sinister contribution to history was to jockey the World Bank into becoming an agent of global empire on a scale never before witnessed" (Perkins 91). McNamara rose from being the first non-family president of Ford, to Kennedy's secretary of defense, to the president of the World Bank. He was only the beginning. Perkins lists through more examples of powerful men who dabbled in both worlds: George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Richard Helms, and George H.W. Bush. The trend has continued today into the Bush and Obama administrations (Geithner and Goldman Sachs, Dick Cheney and Haliburton, George W. Bush and Spectrum 7, etc; many of the men and women in government will have another corporate job waiting for them when they leave their positions). I believe this is the reason America has fallen victim to greed and empire building. Where once our great country symbolized freedom and hope, now it serves the interests of an elite oligarchy. A shocking example, Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda, most of the hijackers were Saudis, and the head of Al Qaeda is a Saudi. Why did the US invade Iraq instead of the Saudi Arabia? The answer is corporate interests. Saudi Arabia had made many men very wealthy and still was--this, of course, included George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush. What we have now is a vast web of corporate interests sucking the world dry of capital, resources, and lives. Where once they were fine with raping the third world, now they are moving in on their homeland. It's corporate cannibalism; we are cannibalizing ourselves. The only way out is to put restrictions on government, namely stop allowing men and women into public positions who are part of this system. Save our republic from Corporatism.
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