We are at a crossroads. Nobody is satisfied with the nightmarish world we have yet nobody takes any action to provide something minimally acceptable.
The capitalism model has morphed into the corporatist model
As I predicted when I was twelve years of age, the capitalist model has morphed into a corporatist one and the inevitable result is that corporations, and not noble ideals, are now at centre stage of policymaking. Let us take a look around us at Parliaments, Senates and Congresses, with lobbyists darting in and out of offices asking for favors. Let us take a look at NATO, the world’s largest military organization, which is no more or less than the cutting edge of the Banking, Arms, Resources, Finance and Food lobbies (the BARFFs), led by the FUKUS Axis (France-UK-US), behind which the corporations line up waiting for contracts to be doled out, often without a public tender.
The heart of these powerful groups is the US corporations, which control and constitute the government in Washington DC and which colonize the agencies which carry out its policies, the POTUS being the puppet which provides a degree of legitimacy to the entire scam. In turn, the so-called “allies” (Poodles) are expected to follow suit and do their tricks when called, in return for a pat on the head and the label “friend” or in one case, “special relationship” despite what is muttered behind closed doors.
In return the Poodles make cooing noises and have a collective orgasm while those receiving favors and money to carry out the favors laugh all the way to the bank. Some even invade sovereign states, based on lies (Iraq), murder civilians, blast the faces off kids, stand by while Chief Poodlemaster builds torture and concentration camps, and side with terrorists who send the African State with the highest Human Development Index (Libya) back into the Stone Age, crawling with Jihadi groups and studded with slave markets. Some act as free public transportation agencies for lunatics from the four corners of the Earth to wreak havoc and destabilize countries such as Syria, destroying complex societies in which diverse communities had been living happily side by side for thousands of years.
Some deport entire populations from islands in the Indian Ocean (Google up Chagos Islands), gas their pets, I repeat, gas their pets, and give the islands to Chief Poodlemaster. All this in the name of corporative interests, all of these outrages in international law, to favor private vested interests and this practice has become the heart of international policymaking, which affects us all.
To justify or whitewash these acts, or to sweep them under the carpet, those who perpetrate these horrors have to create a THEM to justify the US and so look for an ogre somewhere. Russia is a nice big one, and so is China but these are a bit too big and will be left until tomorrow. For today, it is Iran. Watch this space.
How it works
How does it work, as regards implementation of policy? They goad, they prod, they tease and provoke, maintaining a demonology in an aggressive media campaign, telling lies and making false claims and repeat these ad nauseam until a gullible and, anyway, disinterested public believes them to be reality. “It must be true, I saw it on television”.
Russia is a wonderful example. We have so-called credible sources – Prime Ministers, Presidents, government ministers, senators, congresspeople, broadsheet newspapers, TV stations, making repeated skewed and biased references to incidents, creating an image which in fact did not happen. “Russia invaded Georgia” (No, Georgia attacked Russian peace-keepers and murdered them. Russia replied with a very measured response). “Russia attacked Ukraine” (No, the West orchestrated a Fascist coup in Ukraine in which groups of thugs chanted Death to Russians and Jews and committed massacres against Russian-speaking Ukrainians after ousting the democratically elected President. Someone’s son then became big walla-walla in the Ukrainian energy scene. Ask Biden). “Russia attacked Syria” (No, Russia is defending the Syrian government against terrorist groups, including ISIS, which raped nuns and beheaded little girls before and after raping them and after forcing them to watch their parents being tortured to death. These are the darlings of those accusing Russia). And so on.
All the time, they create waves and waves of tension, hoping that the victim will react and make a mistake, at which point they seize upon it. Look at how they committed the crimes of murder, terrorism, sabotage and subversion against the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries, which produced an alternative Social model to the Social Terrorist model, which provided free and excellent public services to the citizens, depriving the corporations their profits. What happened? An necessary increase in internal security was met with the accusation of creating a police state and any reaction against waves and waves of murderers, terrorists and saboteurs was turned into a Hollywood movie about freedom and democracy or some such nonsense. In the midst of this, some with political ideas were caught up in the melee.
The gullible are duped
The gullible are easily duped when surrounded with the same stories day after day with carefully chosen buzzwords such as “freedom” and “the Free World” (has anyone asked what that means?) Take a look at the sheer marketing effort which goes with this: Reference to the President of the United States as Joe Biden or the Prime Minister of the UK as Boris Johnson (two words) and the President of the Russian Federation as Putin (one word), or even Vlad (conjuring up images of Dracula, or Vlad Tepes). Ditto “Saddam”, “Assad”, “Gaddafy”.
Did anyone inform the public that “Gaddafy” took the world’s poorest country and turned it into the country with the highest Human Development Index in Africa? Did anyone inform them that “Assad” enjoys generalized sympathy and popularity in Syria and that his popularity rating is higher than the Prime Minister of the UK’s? And look what happened to Iraq when “Saddam” was removed. He ruled the country twenty times better alone than all those who came after him.
So we see how they operate. And now, why? Well imagine what resources are housed in the subsoil of Russia and the seas surrounding it. You name it, and it is there, and a lot of it. This explains color revolutions, this explains subversion, trying to create independence movements, this explains the creation of “Leaders of the Opposition” who are in fact nothing of the sort, but rather figures on the fringes of Russian society. Before Navalny, it was Kasparov. Neither of them are the leaders of anything and would never garner more than a handful of votes. The Leader of the Opposition is the leader of the second most voted party, in any part of the world, and this is the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The western approach is paramount to calling Arlene Foster of the DUP, the Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom or some obscure figure nobody has ever heard of, the same in the USA.
Had this approach to policymaking got us anywhere, collectively, there might even be a reason to defend it, or at least to cast a nod in its direction. But let us take a look around us.
What we demand
Education, which should be the building block of tomorrow’s global society, is patchy, even in so-called developed countries. Gender equality does not exist. People are still smothering themselves in cow dung to protect themselves from Covid, people are still raping babies to protect themselves against AIDS, people are still cutting off the clitoris of young girls so that they will never feel sexual pleasure and therefore will not “misbehave”.
The majority of the population in “civilized” countries has no idea how the electoral system works, they have no idea which party represents what, no idea what policies are, in the European Union, very few understand what they are voting for when it comes to choosing their MEP (Member of the European Parliament). People come out of school without understanding how to set up a company, what their rights are, how to fill in a form, or even in some cases how to understand a text.
The chasm between the haves and the have nots is growing wider by the day. With Coronavirus-CoV2, there is an enormous gap between countries as regards access to the vaccine and even in this area, business interests are at play, with countries preferring their citizens to die rather than use the Cuban or Russian vaccines, which are excellent, just because the United States of America warns people not to go against the policy that Washington dictates.
The corporatist approach which has become the modus operandi of the West is a unilateral approach controlled by one puppet master, Washington. However, being totally out-dated, it is doomed to failure. The approach is based upon former policies of imperialism, colonialism and aggressor-grabs-all as these countries have become thieves, stealing resources, freezing bank accounts, seizing assets.
The moral high ground, which never existed, has now gone with the free Internet because information can flow freely and their foreign policy has been totally discredited. Nobody believes a word they say, despite the media barrages and even their blind supporters are starting to say that there are always two sides to every story. Attempts to turn a blind eye to revolting criminal acts such as Israel throwing Palestinians out of their homes and giving them to Jewish settlers are viewed with increasing hostility and today it is clear that Washington simply does not care any more about trying to justify its acts and those of its allies. Biden’s claim that Israel has a right to defend itself is ludicrous, especially as he says nothing about the continuous Israeli policy of stealing land and homes and its total disrespect for human rights.
The massacres which Biden does not mention
Another example, Brazil, where a President who claims that Covid is just a little sniffle and who allows loggers and illegal miners to destroy the Amazon rainforest and violate the rights of its inhabitants (indigenous people are being massacred as we speak if they try to protect their lands. Did your media tell you about that?) Have you heard Biden speaking about that?
The alternative would be to create a modus operandi more in line with what people were expecting at the turn of the century with the advent of the new millennium. This is a multilateral world in which the provocations stop. No action, no reaction. It is a world in which international law is respected and has a proper forum for regulation, a world in which all countries pull together with a sustainable plan to eradicate poverty, in which the richer countries help the poorer ones without plundering their resources. It is a world in which the focus is on education for all, it is a world which respects human rights in all countries, not only a few, a world in which sovereign nations also respect the sovereignty of others rather than interfering. It is a world in which resources are pooled to create a better world for all.
Common goals
Surely, there are common goals and common values which should be basic birthrights for everybody: gender equality, the right to a decent wage, to work, to education, digital inclusion, the freedom to travel anywhere without being murdered, kidnapped or robbed, respect for indigenous peoples, cities free of drug addicts, opportunities for people to develop their skills in the professional area or in their leisure time, the list can go on and on and on.
We have the means, it is called the United Nations Organization. But what happens? When it comes to the crunch, Washington and its Poodles ignore the Organization, rendering it emasculated. And they carry on as before.
But here we are once again, with the West mouthing off about Russia with constant provocations and bad will, mouthing off about China and yet saying nothing about Bolsonaro and Israel. Is this the best we can do in 2021?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at timothy.hinchey@gmail.com