- Capitalism is about making profits for those who invest
capital into a successful business venture. That's what it's supposed
to be about. The Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines
capitalism as an economic, political and social system based on private
ownership of property, business and industry, and directed towards making
the greatest possible profits for SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATIONS AND PEOPLE.
Somewhere along the path of the American experience, from 1619-2003, the
definition of capitalism changed. Literally. The Cambridge American Dictionary
of English defines capitalism as an economic system based on private ownership
of property and business, with the goal of making the greatest possible
profits FOR THE OWNERS.
Note that success or failure of the company doesn't come into play in the
American definition of Capitalism. All that matters is making profit for
the owners.
By hook or by crook, make a profit. Buy the politicians to write the legislation,
live on pork barrel profits, and create demand by buying your own media
companies.
But there is a catch to the greatest party of all time - finite energy
resources. Oil and gas is running out, and production will peak in 2012.
This is a problem because if energy gets expensive, it is going to slow
down economic growth.
To keep the party going, the economy has to continue to grow faster than
the interest rate, because the party is being run on borrowed money, and
if interest exceeds growth - CRUNCH.
Another problem is fresh water. Billions of people have insufficient access
to fresh potable water. 99.5% of all our fresh water is used by industry,
not by people. This is VERY important to understand, so let me say it
another way -
If we were to add just 0.5% to the world's fresh water supply, marking
that water for human consumption only, we would double the fresh water
supply available for the subsistence of human beings, and could end death
from infected water-related sicknesses overnight.
The third major problem is the Western Democracies themselves. A democratic
government needs a power base - a voting bloc that keeps it in power.
Without that voting bloc, no political party can maintain power.
Under the current system, maintaining people in power is crucial to any
multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise, in order to ensure that no
legislation unfavorable to one's company is ever passed, and to ensure
that many laws or contracts favorable to one's company are passed.
These contracts are the lifeblood of the military industrial complex, the
insurance companies, and the FOCCED brigade (Finance, Oil, Chemical, Credit,
Energy and Defense), so they buy political representation by outspending
Joe Six Pack.
The penultimate problem emerges when capitalism, lack of resources, and
the compromises of democratic politics meet each other head onÉ
when the companies are threatened by international competition, energy
prices are rising, and the power base of the democracies feels its way
of life beginning to erode, people start to panic.
Panicky people do stupid things. Things like turning their back on compassion
for others in the quest for profit, or starting a war to secure the raw
materials needed at a cheap price to pump up the economy. The politicians
play ball with Wall Street, because without Wall Street's money they can't
get their faces on TV, because commercials are expensive. And because
of the way the electoral process works, the cycle never ends. The corporations
always get their way, because they can outspend Joe Six Pack on campaign
contributions.
They also get their way because it is easier to go to one corporation for
a million bucks than it is to go to a hundred rich citizens for that same
million bucks, at ten thousand a pop.
But eventually, things reach the point of no return. The old way of life
can no longer be maintained for the voting bloc, unless drastic measures
are taken at the expense of others. To keep his fifty million voters,
the politician has to appease a panicky, greedy, self-interested horde
that doesn't care to ask how their way of life is being provided, so long
as things don't change FOR THEM.
And thus begins the long walk down the road to Hell, paved eternally with
good intentions, unheeded warnings, and the tears of those who have gone
before.
In the early 20th century, Fascism was the rage in Europe, and popular
in certain American circles. Many American industrialists were in love
with Mussolini's ideas on fascism. Mussolini said that, "Fascism
should rightly be called corporatism, as it's the merger of state and corporate
power."
After the Nazi Party gained footholds in the 1932 elections and Hitler
seized power in 1933, Hitler was faced with serious economic problems.
The horror of his solutions for those problems will be forever etched
in human memory. Tens of millions died fighting the Nazis after Hitler
began his quest for Empire.
Adolph Hitler was a genius. An evil, psychotic genius, but a genius nevertheless.
His charisma and understanding of the modern media allowed him to implement
economic and political programs unmatched for their inhumanity to man.
Hitler understood that his power base must be kept happy. That meant putting
the lower class Nazis into middle class jobs, and giving the rich and middle
class Nazis as many perks and investment opportunities as possible in a
weak economy.
The way Hitler found to do this was to merge the government with the Military
Industrial Complex, by using a company called IG Farben to create lots
and lots of high paying jobs for Hitler's supporters, and crazy profits
for his financiers.
IG Farben ran a large number of Hitler's concentration camps, and enjoyed
a healthy government contract to do so. In exchange, Farben got to sell
the services of those in concentration camps to German companies. The
companies receiving this slave labor made great profits, forcing their
domestic competitors to follow suit.
It was a smashing deal for IG Farben. They ran the camps, then partnered
with other companies in making steel, weapons, vehicles, chemicals, rubber,
and other war materials, for which Hitler was creating a demand. Some
of IG Farben's partners were German, some were American, and some were
from other nations. George W Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was one
of Farben's business partners.
A quick google of 'PRESCOTT BUSH CONSOLIDATED SILESIAN STEEL' or 'VESTING
ORDER 248' will lead the curious to the details of the matter.
Slave labor and the confiscation of the property from German and Polish
Jews was a major factor in Hitler's early success. Without that labor
to fuel the military industrial complex, he couldn't have afforded as many
weapons - German labor was too expensive.
For Hitler, The IG Farben controlled prison camps were simply a function
of profitability. The camps helped Hitler stay in power and stay popular
by making comfortable lives for his supporters, and money for his financiers.
The camps helped him create an army the likes of which the world had never
seen, and to do it on the cheap.
After Hitler built his army, in November 1938 he took a shipment of 500,000
tons of Tetra Ethyl Lead, a fuel additive needed in the 1930's for combustion
engines to prevent engine knock, from the Ethyl Corporation, a subsidiary
of the American company Standard Oil. And then he want a-marching.
When Hitler's TEL ran out, the Nazi war machine should have stopped cold,
because modern combustion engines in 1942 couldn't run without lead in
the fuel. The war continued however, because William Farish of Standard
Oil was kind enough to provide the Nazis with the patent process to make
their own Tetra Ethyl Lead.
Even more shameful, in exchange for the TEL Patent, Standard Oil received
a patent from IG Farben for a new synthetic rubber process developed in
Germany. Standard Oil chose not to share this patent with the US Government
or the Allied forces.
To add insult to injury for Europeans, in 2001 George W Bush appointed
William Farish III, grandson of Standard Oil's William Farish, as Ambassador
to the Court of St. James. Bush appointed the grandson of a man who made
the bombing of London possible as US Ambassador to England!
American companies, in particular defense, steel, wire and cable, chemical,
and rubber companies, made billions of dollars during World War II from
government contracts, allied contracts, and even from trading with the
enemy. The financial centers also did extremely well providing loans
to allied nations to finance their military purchases for the war. The
Marshall Plan after the war ensured that Wall Street's bankers would be
repaid in full by both the Allied and former Axis nations.
The ultimate irony is that a large number of the vehicles, weapons, and
ammunition used against Allied Forces by the Nazis was being made by American
companies and financiers in partnership with IG Farben. Millions died
on the fields of Europe never knowing that it was their own people who
were doing them in, some of whom like Prescott Bush went on to use their
fortunes gained by trading with the enemy to become successful politicians
or business tycoons after the war.
It's time for the truth to be known by all. Rather than go further in
depth, I'd refer the reader to:
Loftus, John - The Secret War Against the Jews
-
- Higham, Charles - Trading With the Enemy
-
- Simpson, Christopher - Splended Blonde Beast
-
- Sutton, Anthony - Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler
-
- Chaitkin, Anton and Tarpley, Webster - George Bush the
Unauthorized Biography
FAST FORWARDING --
We come back to the present day.
Capitalism is like the ultimate game of Monopoly and Risk combined. Corporations
are able to overthrow Third World leaders time and again, and millions
have died since WW II in an endless cycle of conflicts. Conflicts create
demand for goods, which creates jobs, which stimulates the economy until
the next financial crash, when the cycle starts all over again.
-
-
- We are nearing the endgame, unless sustainable energy
sources become the norm within ten years. Per capita available energy
is depleting, operating costs are rising, the voting bloc's standard of
living is being eroded, and no one has yet implemented a long term renewable
or sustainable energy source to eliminate the need for all this alpha-male,
chest-thumping idiocy.
Rather than have to use their brains to do any actual thinking, the corporate
Pig prefers the traditional method of keeping business in the blackÉ
pork barrels. Buy good government, get that government to feed you pork
barrels, and then found think-tanks to write papers for the government
that give the government a reason why they should invade so-and-so 'for
the good of all humanity', in order to keep the party going.
So time after time, we watch the corporate controlled media demonize so-and-so.
Then we invade his country, kill millions, cheer, and buy defense stocks.
And somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, Jerry Falwell and his stock
portfolio say Amen.
And the bloc keeps voting GOP or Democrat, because either way, the game
continues, which ensures that the voting middle classÕ way of life
continues in the manner to which they are accustomed.
Eventually, the FOCCED brigade needs a war, because after a contract expires,
they need to re-supply the military in order to stay profitable. The more
war there is, the more stuff the FOCCERS get to sell. And the more they
sell, the higher the stock goes. The voting bloc's investment portfolios
start to breathe again, because good-ole Uncle Sam's in a buying mood.
But it's a false sense of security, because it's cyclical, and the good
fortune only lasts till then end of each contract. But with each new contract
and ever expanding operations, more and more money ends up getting wasted
on people who are used to taking way too big a slice of the pie.
It is like our own need to eat to maintain homeostasis. The more we eat,
the fatter we get, and America's growing obesity problem is an external
reflection of a society saturated in fat, greasy pork barrels.
Sure, we are bigger, fatter; and maybe a bit happier.
But are we HEALTHIER?
Or are we just fatter, requiring an ever-increasing supply of raw materials
to maintain our ever-increasing waistlines?
Naturally, all this pork comes at a cost. Programs for the poor, underprivileged,
and unemployed get cut. Many unemployed become homeless, and need shelter.
But Bush closed 50 homeless shelter programs in 2001; so basically, homeless
people have been FOCCED by Bush and Dick.
But hey, the homeless have great potential as a source of slave labor for
Wall Street! Once they get desperate enough to commit a crime, off they
go to a privately run prison, where their labor can be contracted out as
property of the Prison Corporation.
People are starting to notice the budget cuts coming fast and furious as
the military budget grows fatter and fatter, and Bush is starting to show
the same disdain for the poor and the economy as his father did. I would
imagine that the millions of newly unemployed since Bush took office have
noticed. It is going to cost him votes.
But Bush has some other problems. The stealing and dirty accounting at
Enron, Arthur Anderson, AOL, Worldcom, and a hundred other places, has
left the economy in a lurch. America's reputation has been smeared badly,
consumer confidence is low, and the market's depressed.
Bush's latest answer to the current economic crisis is both cynical and
infuriating. His so-called economic stimulus package was a 640 billion
dollar tax cut for his voting base. This helps the voting bloc, and also
the corporations, because the voting bloc will save money on dividend taxes
that will be reinvested in the stock market.
The more money that stays in the stock market, the faster the market grows.
That's the theory anyway. But when companies can't make profits, they
start looking for shortcuts, because quarterly losses translates to lower
share prices, and lower share prices increase the cost of doing business,
because borrowing money becomes more expensive.
It's a vicious cycle once energy, the thing fueling the economic bubble,
becomes scarce. We've been creeping toward this since the 1970's, and
have reached the point where there are very few untapped petroleum resources
left on the planet.
But not to worry, the Republicans and the Democrats have been working hand-in-hand
to secure YOUR middle class future. Republican and Democratic Presidents,
from Nixon to the present, created an entity known as FEMA, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, by way of Executive Orders. Through FEMA
Executive Orders, successive Presidents have been making FEMA more and
more powerful.
In 1995, Clinton approved the Federal use of Civilian Inmate Labor.
By 1996, CCA and Wackenhut, the two biggest players in the American privatized
prison industry, were using Civilian Inmate labor to subsidize operating
costs. The prisoners are paid as little as a dollar a day, or sometimes
not at all, with the Company keeping what is paid by the outside contractor
for the inmate labor.
Today, CCA and Wackenhut actually have manufacturing output deals with
the government for certain products that forces the government to let CCA
or Wackenhut match any bid from the private sector, and keep the contract.
The US General Administration Office (GAO) can't even buy certain products
from anyone BUT CCA or Wackenhut.
In 1980, the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America was formed.
They kicked off the Reagan Era by taking over the Hamilton County, Tennessee,
workhouse in 1981.
Richard Nixon, at his most oppressive, arrest-happy, and fascist, never
had more than 300,000 people in prison at any given time. During the Reagan
Era, thanks to a CIA created crack cocaine epidemic and racist sentencing
laws passed by Reagan and Bush, the US Prison population swelled from 300,000
to 2,000,000, and it continues to grow at an alarming rate.
The general consensus is that there are eight million people in prison
worldwide. Two million or more, 25% of the world's prisoners, are in American
prisons, even though America is only 5% of the world's population. Even
China, with four times the population of the US, doesn't have as many prisoners.
As many as 75%-85% of arrests in America are of white people. And yet
people of color make up 70% of the prison population, due to selective
prosecution, selective sentencing, and the inability of poor ethnic minorities
to afford good lawyers, where a middle class kid can afford good legal
representation.
Thus, Wackenhut and CCA have many hundreds of boatloads of slave labor
in their bellies, up for sale to the highest bidder. No labor code, no
unions, no minimum wage, discounted insurance costs, and a whole bunch
of other attractive selling points for the corporate use of civilian inmate
labor.
It's precisely the 'edge' America needs to keep it's middle class voting
bloc in the manner to which they're accustomed, by helping keeping American
goods and services competitive in the international arena during economic
crises, and by making the government a captive client of privately-owned
Prison Industry products, just like Germany was with IG Farben. It provides
job security, or a leg up, for millions of members of the voting American
middle class, just as it did for Aryan Germans.
So, we close our eyes to the more disturbing details of the Prison Industry,
which parallel another era. We turn our heads so as not to notice how
closely the American Prison Industry resembles the Nazi economic model,
and go back to sleep.
Since the Reagan Era, America has been building Prisons at a faster rate
than schools or hospitals.
- It's become a multi-billion dollar industry whose client
is the taxpayer, who ends up paying for his or her own eventual incarceration.
Why such determination by both parties to lock up poor, underprivileged
Americans?
One, it's good politics. A state politician wants to look tough on crime,
but also sympathetic to the conditions facing those in prison in states
where inmates can vote. So contracting new facilities gets good headlines
for the politician, as well as campaign finance money up the ying-yang
from the lobbyists.
Prisons add to a state's population, which adds to the amount of federal
money given each year. Thus, everybody from the local to State level likes
the idea of more prisons, especially if they can spend less on the prisoners
than the prisoner's per capita share of federal money. More pork for the
voting bloc.
Adding a prison means votes. The additional inmate labor helps local industry
get a competitive edge by side-stepping inconvenient things like minimum
wage. This leads to campaign finance money, middle class job creation,
and lots of angry, poor, mostly colored men and women in prison, whose
numbers are growing faster in the USA than in any other country.
If education were being pursued in America with half as much zeal as the
quest to build newer-bigger-better super-max penitentiaries, most of the
people in those prisons would never have ended up in court.
Convenient little circle, isn't it?
At the same time as Reagan and Bush the Elder were slashing education and
social services to the bone for the military industrial complex, they were
passing racist sentencing laws, and using CIA back channels to create the
drug epidemic in Black and Hispanic communities. With the sweep of a pen,
and a little help at the voting booth, Ronald Reagan took America from
1984 back to 1864 in the blink of an eye.
The result has been the creation of millions of middle class jobs in the
prison service industry for the GOP and Democrat voting blocs. The middle
and upper management demographic of these companies and the prison industry
in general is nearly homogenously White. And this minority of 100 million
dictates to 200 million others the way things are going to be, year after
year. Their actions also have dire consequences for five billion others
worldwide.
Thousands of small businesses thrive off supply contracts with the privatized
prison operators. Many more thrive off the labor supplied by the prisons.
The bottom line is, locking up poor people is a great way to keep the
voters fat and happy.
It's simply a function of profitability.
It's good for middle class voters and Wall Street, so it's great for the
politicians, even if it sucks really bad for a couple of million poor people.
But most of them don't vote anyway, so the politician doesn't care.
Do you?
You should, because we're on the road to Hell, and it may be too late to
stop it.
As energy becomes hard to acquire over the next decade, more and more rich
corporations will get panicky. And panicky people start wars. These
wars will kill millions, if not billions, in order to propagate an economic
model that we already know is tragically flawed and doomed to implode.
We all know what the Atomic bombs did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the
path Bush is pursuing, a nuke being detonated by SOMEONE is inevitable.
And today's nukes are many hundreds of times more powerful than Fat Man
and Little Boy.
With Bush at the helm, it's only a matter of time before a nuclear attack
by or against the USA becomes someone's function of profitability.
And all of it will have been for nothing more meaningful than keeping a
few ten thousands of people on the top of this dung heap we call planet
Earth, at the expense of everyone else. And only for a few more years
at that.
America needs to think long and hard about Election 2004, but even harder
about 2008 and beyond. Yes, Bush has to go in 2004. But to replace him
with a Democrat and then think the battle's won is stupid. ALL politicians
who've FOCCED the people, who support the prison industry, racist sentencing
laws, and pork for the military have got to go.
Paper entities should not be allowed to participate in campaign finance,
or should only be allowed to participate by matching their employeeÕs
campaign finance contributions. That way, the interests of ALL company
employees, and not just the owners and directors, would be represented.
But it's all a pipedream until that sleeping sixty percent of American
voters, who've become too angry, frustrated, and disillusioned by the system
to vote, decide to get off their disenfranchised asses and save the world,
by going to the polls on Election Day.
If they were to vote as a bloc, they would outnumber any Democratic or
Republican candidates best possible outcome to date by three to one.
Change IS possible. Peaceful change. But the world needs a little help
from the pissed-off, not-voting Americans. YOU have the power to change
the world.
Yes, I'm talking to YOU!
You have the potential and power to do more good than any other empire
in history, if you put your minds to it.
You have the power to fulfill the American Dream, for all mankind.
Power to feed the world. Power to bring water to the thirsty, by using
a small portion of our world water supply to provide water for human beings
instead of using that water for the manufacture of bombs. Power to heal
the sick, and make blind men see. Power to walk on Mars, and explore the
Solar System.
Power to end fratricidal wars of aggression for all time, by putting all
our resources into finding a sustainable, renewal energy source that could
make energy freely and easily available for all humanity.
It's time to say, "Enough is enough! No more blood for oil. No more
human lives lost to pad the bottom line. No more putting paper before
people. We, the People, have spoken. Now GET OUT OF OUR CAPITAL, and
find yourselves good lawyers, because you're going to need them at your
War Crimes Tribunals."
If one day soon the sleepers awaken, emerging on Election Day to vote with
once voice, one heart, and one mind -
Imagine all the people,
-
- Sharing all the world.
-
- You may say I'm a dreamer,
-
- But I'm not the only one.
-
- I hope some day you'll join us...
-
- And the world will live as one.
-
- --John Lennon
Or, you can choose to let the Bush family keep doing things their way,
at your expense, by not voting in 2004 instead of going down to a Polling
Station and demanding change.
Of the People, by the People, and for the People. Or more greed and insanity.
The choice is up to you.
And you.
And YOU.
Peace
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