Sam Smith
The recent IMF loans to Ukraine with their dictatorial provisions are one more example of the world’s concealed great war, which is to say the massive invasion of nationhood by corporations. Far more dangerous than any current military threat, corporations have already taken huge territories, legal and financial as well as geographical. Our politicians, many of them covert allies of the corporations, say little of this. And the major media, massive corporations themselves, steadfastly hide the truth from their audience.
For America, not since the Civil War has the sovereignty and constitution of this land come under such assault. In the two previous great wars the damage mostly occurred across two great oceans. Now the victims of the battle are in the heart of our land, witness the deleterious economic effects of NAFTA, the political disaster of Citizens United and the corporate assault on our public schools parading as education reform. Nestles is grabbing our water, our language has been mangled by corporate gobbledygook and even non-profits have adopted the organizational misanthropy of modern corporations.
Without debate, without formal conflict, without even much consciousness, we have absorbed the principles of America’s greediest, adopted their language, and surrendered our constitution and other values to their will. Our last three presidents have been willing participants in undermining our sovereignty, our values and our culture. One might well expect this of a Bush, but Clinton and Obama were just as deeply involved and their liberal constituency hardly said a mumblin’ word.
We may not win this war but we certainly won’t until we admit we are in it and must stand as firmly for American standards and beliefs as we have in great military conflicts.
The Battle of the Economic Bulge – aka TPP – is the struggle presently before us, involving arguably the most disloyal legislation since secession. We still have time to stand up against it. But to do so, we can’t pretend it’s just another measure. We have to recognize the stakes of the battle that we’re in. Our leaders are not surrendering America, they’re just selling it away bit by bit. But the results could well be the same.
5 comments:
In fighting WWII FDR drew a Lincolnian line between fascism and democracy by stating the Four Freedoms: principally, free speech, freedom of religion, full employment at living wages, and disarmament. If these pillars were present in the Weimar Republic they were certainly removed by nazification. The victory in WWII would have given FDR a mandate if he had survived. Unfortunately, like Lincoln, he lost the reconstruction posthumously. The alliance with the Soviet Union that might have permitted serious disarmament was reversed by Truman and the arms race. Without disarmament, the UN had no ability to block aggressive wars by treaty organizations like NATO. Full employment at living wage was a Humphrey-Hawkins idea that faded. Religious freedom was never protected with thousands of incidents against Black churches and now mosques. Free speech was laid to rest in 1976 by Justice Powell. The anxious now look at the judgments at Nuremberg and wonder if the US has crossed the line, however kindly and gently.
Exactly, Sam, right now Obama is negotiation three major trade agreements in secret, TPP, the Atlantic agreement and the Services agreement. These three will provide corporations with "corporate sovereignty" while undermining the sovereignty of governments and people around the world.
The current battleground for all three of these trade agreements if Fast Track trade authority. This battle will be fought over the next two to three months and if we stop Fast Track that will be the end of trade agreements for the remainder of the Obama administration.
And, this battle is bigger than the current agreements being negotiated, it would last for 7 years (4 years plus a 3 year option) that is an incredible amount of time for mega-corporations to cement corporate rule of the global economy and their dominance of all governments.
Get involved, join us in stopping Fast Track, see the slider on top of www.PopularResistance.org. We have stopped them for two years, one more time and Obama will be finished with corporate trade.
Thank you, Sam, for pointing out this enormous elephant in the room. For some time now we've been placidly accepting the idea that a private entity can supersede the laws of nations. Incredibly, the "tribunals" that have been set up under these corporate so-called free trade agreements claim to have the power to sue national governments for "lost profits" if said governments pass laws that protect the environment and in so doing prevent these corporations from doing whatever they please. Apparently our government has, in signing such treaties, given away our national sovereignty to the corporados.
What right does our government have to do such a thing? Can they just sign away our national sovereignty to whoever persuades them to do it? In what conceivable legal framework is such activity acceptable? Certainly it is directly contrary to the national interest (let alone that of the planet as a whole); surely it cannot be Constitutionally sanctioned. It's high time that a legal challenge was mounted against this fundamentally treacherous activity.
"The recent IMF loans to Ukraine with their dictatorial provisions are one more example of the world’s concealed great war, which is to say the massive invasion of nationhood by corporations. Far more dangerous than any current military threat,"
I think you are gravely under-estimating the threat of IMF loans. They a military threat. They are effectively a slow progressive coup d'etat against a government.
The country's military from being over taken or commandeered under the guise to improve the countries standing with the IMF.
I am the walrus?
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