Plan locally, act globally by Ton Haex
This is the first of a series of articles that will outline a strategy for creating a world system that supports just economies and ends war in the process. Basically, the strategy rests on the recognition that the central problem in the world today is the corruption of governments, particularly the U.S. government. Its goal would be to combine the individual efforts of citizens in "democratic" countries to divest the global economic elite of the power to dictate the choices citizens have of those who will represent them. If successful, such a strategy would effectively prevent the economic elite from dictating the domestic and foreign policy of the nation, as well as of its partners and client states.
The next several essays in this series will elaborate on specific elements of
this strategy.
Part 1:
When you mention the developing "New World Order" to people who still think
there is a two-party system in the United States, eyes roll. Anything you have to say afterward is
dismissed before it is out of your mouth. Many Republicans are closer to
understanding what the "New World Order" is than are partisan Democrats. They recognize that there
has been a fundamental change in the way the federal government operates,
starting with the first banking bailout. They acknowledge the effects of
financial manipulation of the economy, but mistake it for a socialist takeover
by Democrats rather than the fascist coup that it is. Partisan Democrats
believe that the only problem is Republican politicians, and the solution is merely
to elect more Democrats, whom they equate with "champions of the People." Any debate about partisan politics is
therefore a distraction from the real issues.
The obvious truth is that both parties have been
systematically corrupted by powerful financial elites who put their interests
over those of the rest of us. Therefore, one of the objectives of any strategy
must be to find a way to get partisans to understand that neither party
represents them. Liberals and conservatives are already beginning to work
together on selected issues. If we can connect these issues to a larger agenda
and convince partisans that the issues are more important than whether a
candidate is a Republican or a Democrat, it is possible to develop a strategy
to take back America for the People.
Congress
already ignores the clear will of the People on many critical issues. The only
way we can change that is to work together. We must agree that our overarching goal is representative democracy. If we can put aside ideological differences,
it is possible to pressure our elected representatives to act according to the
common will. Americans have proven capable of putting the candidate over the
party when given a reasonable choice. They will do it again, if they understand
that it is the only way to make their votes count. We can worry about consensus
on other issues after we get the attention of Congress by taking out a few
entrenched corporate puppets.
With election campaigns having become largely a matter of
who can generate the most funding, and with corporations and the wealthy free to
spend unlimited sums to influence elections, only a fool would think that
voters can influence decisions in Washington before strong campaign finance
reform is instituted. We must find a way to guarantee that members of Congress
know their jobs depend on supporting a Constitutional amendment to effectively
ban corporate expenditures to influence elections, while limiting the amount
individuals can spend to buy the candidates of their choice. The only way to do
this is to make support for such an amendment the litmus test in every
Congressional campaign where a candidate of any party can be found who will pledge
to amend.
The first goal for assuming popular control of the United
States government and restoring national sovereignty to all nations is to
define the fundamental problem in a way that most people agree on. We then have
to educate average Americans and citizens around the world about the danger of
allowing the U.S. government to be controlled by the economic elite. This common
understanding is necessary to find a solution, since Americans must speak with
one voice to merit the claim of representing the will of the People, and
citizens of other nations must stand with them against the same global
financiers who control their governments, directly or indirectly. It is critical that those with the biggest
audiences outside the corporate media understand and communicate the urgency of
putting aside partisan, national, cultural and religious differences to save
humanity from perpetual economic slavery. Ultimately, even the survival of human civilization as we know it may depend on reining in the global financiers.
It is evident, for instance, that a failure to check the power of corporations in the fossil fuel industry, which have trillions of dollars in assets, will doom millions as a result of increasing global climate
instability.
For those who question the existence of a relatively small
group of individuals so powerful that they can manipulate the global economy,
consider this:
1) 147
of the largest international corporations hold 40% of the assets and collect
60% of the profits of over 43,000 transnational corporations. Almost all of
the top 25 are financial institutions. The most influential individuals in each
are also members of the Boards of Directors of others. They are at the top of
the pyramid of the global economic elite, whose power we must attack.
2) Through interlocking directorships and
financial resources that dwarf those of even the United States, international financial institutions have come
to control key economic sectors, including energy, telecommunications, insurance,
and health care. In addition, they control a financial industry that generates 40% of U.S.
GDP--wealth that the common citizen never sees.
3) Six corporations control virtually all of American
mainstream media: Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, Newscorp, CBS and NBC. Moreover, corporate
donors heavily influence the content of "public" TV and radio in the
U.S.
4) It is estimated that there is more than enough money held
offshore by wealthy citizens to pay off the U.S. debt.
Most Americans have almost no knowledge of how the economy
really works, having been brainwashed into buying the myth of the free market.
This is the essential assumption of the Washington consensus. The other
demonstrably false tenets of this neoliberal model are that globalization is
inevitable, that endless growth is possible, and that national economies
struggle in it only if they do not adhere to financial and monetary policies
that allow the rich to accumulate enough wealth--which magically trickles down
to those who are willing to work hard enough.
This is an economic model that in the
final analysis is nothing but a scheme cooked up by international financiers to
consolidate their control. That consolidation, as the financiers see it, will progress until they essentially run everything through their
proxies in governments and the corporate intermediaries they own.
Ironically, as taxpayers around the world accumulate
massive debt owed to the very individuals who crashed the global economy, the global
economic elite counsels austerity. This leads to slashing of government
services, job loss in nations with no industrial base or with excess capacity in the
face of reduced demand, and, finally, to the sell-off of government assets to pay the
interest on the accumulated debt. As job
losses mount and wages and salaries decline, the tax base is undermined--a problem that is magnified by corporate and individual tax breaks for the rich. This cycle is, moreover, ultimately self-defeating, since the worker, in contrast to paper money, is the only source of real
wealth.
Americans are starting to grasp the enormity of the fraud
perpetrated on them, but are far from organizing effectively to do anything
about it. It is considered a major victory that Larry Summers, one of the chief
architects of the global Ponzi scheme in derivatives, was not selected to succeed Ben Bernanke as
Chairman of the Fed, passing once more through the revolving door between Wall Street and government. A real victory, however, would have been to see both Summers and his co-conspirator, Timothy Geithner, former Secretary of the Treasury under Obama, put in prison. Yet, none of the principal criminals responsible for the
global economic meltdown has been prosecuted. And, meanwhile, "too big to fail"
banks have used taxpayer bailout money to buy failed financial institutions for pennies on
the dollar, making them even more powerful.
Here is the difference between most socialist nations and
those that by definition are fascist: In
a centralized socialist system, the political class generally controls the
economic elite, and they work in tandem to promote the interests of both. Venezuela and some other Latin American
countries are notable exceptions to this rule.
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