Originally appeared at Globalresearch
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
America’s hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.
The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific countries in all major regions of World.
Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments’ ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.
In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.
The global economic crisis is intimately related to America’s hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. “War is Good for Business”: the powerful financial groups which routinely manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war. A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.
Beyond the Globalization of Poverty
Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the “globalization of poverty”: countries are transformed in open territories,
State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire populations (refugee crisis).
This “second stage” goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction of human life.
In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.
The New World Order
Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are
• Wall Street and the Western banking conglomerates including its offshore money laundering facilities, tax havens, hedge funds and secret accounts,
• the Military Industrial Complex regrouping major “defense contractors”, security and mercenary companies, intelligence outfits, on contract to the Pentagon;
• the Anglo-American Oil and Energy Giants,
• The Biotech Conglomerates, which increasingly control agriculture and the food chain;
• Big Pharma,
• The Communication Giants and Media conglomerates, which constitute the propaganda arm of the New World Order.
There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.
These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the “Deep State”, integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks, secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate interests.
In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental organizations, trade unions, political parties.
What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.
Media Propaganda
The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.
Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.
Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.
Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development
There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era, the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.
In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union. Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.
The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians, civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It’s called corruption, co-optation, fraud.
Latin America: The Transition towards a “Democratic Dictatorship”
In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e. a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded. They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.
Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin america region.
In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the “Dirty war” and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.
The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged. Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.
Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of “dirty tricks” including acts of infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money laundering and the protection of the drug trade.
The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky’s Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)
I’d rather die as a result of a war to thwart these sumbags than live in their oppressive and corrupt world. .
I know that this paper is 10yrs old but it is still quite relevant. It claims that at this time the U.S. had nuclear primacy because we had the ability to penetrate Russian defenses with stealth and launch from nuclear submarines undetected to take out Russia’s nuclear arsenal and that their submarine fleet was almost entirely at port because of budget constraints. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~dpress/docs/Press_US_Nuclear_Primacy_CS.pdf
It was written by members of the Council on Foreign Relations and I think it raises a valid question on whether nuclear primacy is a goal of the mad Neocons. In my heart, I can’t believe that they are genocidal maniacs but yeah, I do believe they would try to leverage this advantage.
A belief that nuclear primacy was possible would certainly explain the rush to deploy ABM systems and modernize nuclear forces which are otherwise not needed for just plain deterrence. I had never seriously considered this before, considering this a fringe argument.
“The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil… I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.” (Albert Einstein)
1.0 ‘Fiat currency and fraudulent debt structures’ Money was created to facilitate more efficient trading of services and goods. Fiat currency is now a representation of debt that is no longer a representation of anything of intrinsic value (such as a physical commodity like gold). This is the basis of fractional-reserve banking whereby banks literally create money as part of a debt contract, put simply, an IOU. Our economic system is dependent on the perpetual expansion of debt (perpetual growth) to compensate for an accumulating interest component but debt is now overwhelming many economies (and perpetual growth is unsustainable in this biosphere).
2.0 ‘The logical outcome of neoliberal structures’ Neoliberal reforms of ‘deregulation’ (the removal of protections facilitating increased exploitation for profit), ‘tax minimisation’ structures (to ‘attract investors’, resulting in diminishing government revenue) and ‘privatisations’ (transforming public services and assets from serving the public interest to providing profit to private interests) have a logical outcome.
Neoliberal reforms (privatisation of state assets and services) reduces the ability of governments to generate revenue (revenue is redirected from public coffers to private interests). Diminishing government revenue (due to privatisations and tax minimisation structures) is currently being addressed through austerity (disproportionately affecting the poorest).
It will gradually reach a situation whereby there is an excess of capital concentrated in a wealthy class and over-production/ over-supply/ over-indebtedness/ lowering incomes/ job insecurity/ escalating costs of living, etc. resulting in inadequate consumerism to maintain a balanced supply and demand situation. This disparity and growing divide between the poor and the wealthy is already evident.
For business to increase profit (their primary objective)/productivity, labour costs and conditions are often reduced but this (in addition to escalating costs of living such as housing, electricity, etc.) also reduces the consumer activity of the working class (and has serious social consequences). Austerity that targets those on lower incomes will only further restrict economic activity and increase poverty.
The resultant oligarchy (related to the increasing concentration of wealth) will further corrupt government policy as money always has. ‘Democracy’ will likely be limited to (in effect) a plutocratic system (also already evident as government officials are part of the investor class that benefit from investor oriented policy). Indeed, we are gradually progressing towards neo-feudalism. Plutocratic governments (that are part of an investor class) are facilitating the transfer of public wealth to private interests resulting in the concentration of wealth/creation of a class of disproportionate wealth (oligarchs/ historically lords) exploiting labour (historically serfs).
p2. Unfortunately we have an economic system based on the pursuit of profit (often through the exploitation of labour and the environment) rather than intelligent long term planning for the development of society.
But recognising the imbalances in the financial system, vast toxic assets created by fraudulent financial instruments, the distortion of asset values through speculation, the conversion of financial markets into speculative gambling casinos and increasingly unserviceable levels of debt, comprehensive structural failure of our economic system would in time occur (if other approaching events were not to intercede. See below).
The current imbalances that exist in the financial system well exceed those that led to the great depression. The economic crisis is far from over and will eventually deteriorate significantly as levels of debt (much of it fraudulent/speculative due to the employment of corrupt financial instruments) become ever more unserviceable. As countries face default, financial institutions will fail in a domino effect. In the meantime this situation can only be temporarily deferred. Reliance on a private banking system (that exploits society rather than serves its interests) that employs unsustainable practices, has short term benefits for some but will have long term consequences for all. Many have profited from the Ponzi-like debt structures that have distorted prices and created overvalued assets/bubbles but all Ponzi structures have their limits. The question then becomes, what will be the consequences when this collapse occurs?
3.0 ‘Fraudulent debt structures and the resultant situation’ The manufacture of extensive fraudulent debt through the employment of fraudulent financial instruments has created a financial time bomb.
“One of the biggest risks to the world’s financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market…… its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy ” [Big Risk: $1.2 Quadrillion Derivatives Market Dwarfs World GDP, By Peter Cohan, Daily Finance, 09/06/2012]
“The reality is that when this [derivatives] bubble pops there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it… we should have never allowed world financial markets to become a giant casino. But we did. Soon enough we will all pay the price” [The Horrific Derivatives Bubble That Could One Day Destroy The Entire World Financial System]
Would anyone care to ‘speculate’ what will occur when the derivatives bubble (which is 20 times the world’s GDP and constitutes largely unpayable secondary bets) bursts?
p3. “The derivatives casino itself is just a last-ditch attempt to prop up a private pyramid scheme in fractional-reserve money creation ……… The private creation of money at interest is the granddaddy of all pyramid schemes; and like all such schemes, it must eventually collapse, despite a quadrillion dollar derivatives edifice propping it up.” (Wall Street’s Protection Racket of Covert Derivatives: JPMorgan Derivatives Prop Up U.S. Debt, by Ellen Brown, Global Research / Web of Debt, June 20, 2012)
The root problem is an unsustainable and exploitive economic system (involving long term debt bondage in order to be able to adequately function in society) by private financial organisations that exploit society for profit (rather than banks being a public service that function to benefit the development of society). These institutions also employ corrupt financial instruments and engage in fraudulent practices. Derivatives trading, the conversion of financial markets into gambling casinos allowing the distortion of asset values through the inflation of Ponzi structured debt/speculative bubbles, etc., will have profound implications when these structures fail.
We are arguably still in the predatory phase of human development. Neoliberal reforms that favour powerful business groups to the detriment of public interest could not have been implemented without aligned government policy. Capitalism/Neoliberalism will result in the ever increased transfer of public wealth to private interests and concentration of wealth by an oligarchy that will have the power to influence/pervert policy to their favour at the detriment of the public. No amount of talk of ‘democracy’ will prevent this corrupting influence of capital. As profit is the motivation (and not purpose), this oligarchy will exploit the workers/public for ever more profit.
“Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands… The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.” (Albert Einstein)
Unfortunately, other events that are unfolding are likely to render this issue moot.
They spread their lies, and others die. That is the Zionist-plan of action everyday.
Chossudovsky is a radical left-wing nutbar. He produces “research” that keeps him on the margins of mainstream academia – he echoes the age-old anti-Semitic expressions that abound in the Arab world, which blame the Jews for everything from 9/11 to the tsunami disaster.
Free markets are an outgrowth of the physical constructal law. Society’s nemesis is the morality factor; a defining factor being the maker or destroyer of any ism. The following discovery has the potential to open new doors within the political and social sciences. http://www.westernfreepress.com/2016/03/13/scientific-proof-of-the-existence-of-natural-rights-found-in-the-constructal-law/