Corporatocracy, Carbon Offsetting, Clean Elections

Corporatocracy
Last night I watched a video of a speech by John Perkins who is the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He was speaking to the Veterans for Peace.

He was discussing the tactics that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in conjuction with multinational corporations and the US Government use to coerce developing nations. The goal being to exploit the natural resources of developing nations as well as to earn money for corporations by helping the developing nations to "modernize".

An individual like John Perkins would approach the leadership of a given country and offer them a loan from the World Bank to help "modernize". Private corporations such as Haliburton would then be hired to come in and build roads, ports, power plants, cities, etc.

John Perkins contends that the modernization was not of benefit to the average citizens of these countries as they are to poor to be connected to the power grid, too poor to have cars to drive on the roads, nor would they be likely to have boats that would benefit from the ports.

The loan money would actually end up in the pockets of the corporations doing the work without benefiting the people of these developing countries.

The loan amounts would be too large for the developing nation to ever be able to repay which gives what he calls the "corporatocracy" leverage. When the developing nation is unable to pay its debt it is asked to sell its resources to the "corporatocracy" for less than market value or vote a particular way in the UN, etc.

If the leader of the developing nation refuses to accept the loan then they are coerced with subtle threats of violence.

The next level of escalation is to send in what Perkins calls the "Jackals" which are CIA operatives used to assassinate the particular leader. He gives a list of leaders who have been assassinated or died under mysterious circumstances.

If the "Jackals" fail then the US military is mobilized, the recalcitrant government is removed and it is replaced with a government that is willing to deal.

It is his contention that 9/11 can be linked to these actions. Apparently US corporations through a deal with the Saudis built facilities near holy sites which enraged Osama Bin Laden and may have been the catalyst for the terrorist attacks.

Perkins also contends that the Iraq war is due to Saddam Hussein's unwillingness to accept the deal offered by the "corporatocracy" and the failure of the "Jackal's" assassination efforts.

Perkins is encouraging a holistic shift in corporate policy that gives greater value to the workers, greater environmental consciousness, and the end of exploitation and destruction of native cultures. He also believes that if we want to end terrorism we need to respect the cultures and religions of other peoples and to ensure that everyone in the world has a standard of living that precludes things like starvation.

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Carbon Offsetting
The Christmas present that my significant other gave to her extended family was to offset their carbon footprint. Her contribution was to carbonfund.org which also helped her determine how much to offset.

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Clean Elections
I think that publicly funded elections are a good starting point in terms of regaining control of the American democratic process.

We heard RFK Jr. speak a few weeks back and one of the things he mentioned is that in order for a democracy to work we need an informed populace which in turn requires a free press. In order to have a free press we need officials that are not beholden to special interests such that they can rework the regulations governing our broadcasters. (He mentioned the damage that the Reagan Administration did in terms of loosening broadcast regulations.)

If we want to reign in the power of the multinational corporations and hold them accountable then we need to free our government from the grip of their monetary influence.

Many of the issues I have researched tend to loop back to the issue of corporations running amok and being allowed to do so because of the influence they have on the varying governing bodies in the world.

For example, I am concerned about the safety of our food supply. There is a concerted effort to reduce organic standards (http://organicconsumers.org) and the panels that are intended to oversee the safety of our food supply are being stacked with industry insiders (this has been cited in the mainstream media as well as a number of independent documentaries I have viewed). We are also being sold Genetically Modified foods with no requirement for package labeling. And most recently we are being sold foods from cloned animals. The fact that there are no labeling requirements means that consumers are not being allowed to make an informed decision about their food purchases.

If consumers were allowed to make an informed decision about their food purchases I believe that the majority would choose not to purchase GMO or cloned food products. The companies producing these "foods" believe the same thing which is why they are fighting so hard to keep the products from being labeled.

Which brings us back to public officials being allowed to represent the will of the people and not the desires of special interests.

Here is the URL of the PBS show that originally sparked my interest in clean elections: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/index.html

Here is a link to an episode of Town Hall Seattle presenting A Public Forum: Clean Elections:
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5070703