Jennifer is Jumping Ship…The Ship of Fools that is….
I have to admit that the past few months have been a revelation for me in many ways. Right before the November elections, I went to hear Cindy Sheehan speak at a local event. I was so excited, it looked as if the Democrats would take Congress and maybe even the Senate. I had volunteered for hours on end with MoveOn.org, and the TJCoxx election campaign. I made so many phone calls to strange peoples homes I thought for sure I would loose my voice. While I was at the event Cindy made a bold statement that took the wind out of my sails…it was, in many ways, like the loud scratch on an old vinyl record playing "We Are the Champions" by Queen after a 200 pound dog had made the needle jump wildly by knocking into the record player. "After the November elections, I will not quit! I will not quit until it is no longer profitable for corporations to make money off making war and murder! I will not quit until the Military Industrial Complex in this country has been dismantled!" she said with great conviction.
I thought to myself, "No, no Cindy, everything will be ok…the Democrats are here to save us!" I mean really, what the fuck was she talking about? I left that day deeply disturbed. I was certain for so long that all America needed was a Democratic something and then the real criminal George W Bush could be brought down. Months later, I now know I was wrong, dead wrong.
Numerous news articles and blogs are written daily about such topics as the "War on Terror," the war in Iraq, immigration, the crappiness of the Bush administration, and the economy. For every news article and opinion, shared one common thread seems to be missing from the debate, one question that is never asked by the media or the people of the United States…which corporate entity benefits from these policies?
I used to drive myself absolutely bonkers trying to figure out the logic of US policies. I would run questions over and over again in my head…like, "Why do we stay in Iraq when it increases terrorism?" or "Why do we continue to give support in the form of arms sales to the Sudanese government when we know genocide is being committed?" or "Why do we renounce others for failing to follow the Geneva Conventions when we don't follow them ourselves?"
The questions rattling around in my brain stopped their movement and hung on to those few sentences spoken by Cindy Sheehan on that day, "After the November elections, I will not quit! I will not quit until it is no longer profitable for corporations to make money off making war and murder! I will not quit until the Military Industrial Complex in this country has been dismantled!"
I have written extensively on the absolute hypocrisy of Bush administrations claims. If you have not noticed yet, Bush likes to cite "The War on Terror," human rights, international law, and Democracy, when it is convenient and ONLY when it is convenient. Usually, he likes to cite it when he is attempting to rev up support for more military aggression, more human rights abuses, or more US lawlessness. The truth, as I have learned, is that what he is really advocating are the how to's of corporation expanded profits.
Human rights abuses around the world are no longer motivated by simple racial differences or political divide, they are committed by corporations and a powerful US government that is complicit in perpetrating them.
I thought today, just for kicks we would take a look at some of the winners and the losers in today's American Fascist State…let me make myself, clear, I do not use the term Fascist lightly.
I thought that perhaps we should start with Condoleezza Rice's favorite company, Chevron. Prior to her service in the Bush Administration, she enjoyed a comfortable salary sitting on the Board of Chevron. Shell, is a subsidiary of Chevron.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, a human rights activist advocating on behalf of communities located in Niger Delta, a part of Nigeria where Chevron has been drilling for decades stated, "Oil exploration has turned Ogoni into a wasteland: lands, streams and creeks are totally and continually polluted; the atmosphere has been poisoned, charged as it is with hydrocarbon vapours, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and soot emitted by gas which has been flared 24 hours a day for 33 years in very close proximity to human habitation. Acid rain, oil spillages and oil blowouts have devastated Ogoni territory. High-pressure oil pipelines criss-cross the surface of Ogoni farmlands and villages dangerously."
Well, I guess Condi Rice really has nothing to worry about now regarding all of this environmental degradation, you see while she sat on the board of Chevron, Ken Saro-Wiwa along with ten other human rights activists were executed. I suppose that is handy considering that recently, Amnesty International, reported that Chevron "security" continues to murder anyone who opposes the rape of the Niger Delta. But this situation can not be laid solely at the feet as our illustrious Condi Rice, no, she has an accomplice. His name is Bill Clinton, you might remember back in 2000, he made a trip to the Nigeria in support of arming and training this oppressive regime. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! states, "With President Clinton's trip to Nigeria, there is a great deal of protest over the US deal-making with the Nigerian military; a military notorious for its human rights abuses. But Clinton's visit is just the most recent move in a series of efforts to bolster Nigeria's armed forces. And, though Clinton will not be traveling there, many human rights activists are concerned that US training and weapons will be used against the people of the oil rich Niger Delta."
Here is what I find most interesting, regardless of the oppression, murder, rape, torture, pollution, and health issues raised by its business practices, no president to date has condemned Chevron, not even Bill Clinton. Could it be that Cindy had a good point? Even after the Democrats won, we and everyone around the globe is still screwed in favor of corporate profits?
Next, I think we should take a look at one of Donald Rumsfeld's favorites, Dow Chemicals. This is a great bunch! The list of war crimes this cooperation has committed makes Bill O'Reilly's propagandized statements pale in comparison. In fact, the list is so long, I will only be able to name a few, but if you would like to read more on their crimes, you can read the book "Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical and the Toxic Century".
Dow Chemicals, with the help of Ronald Reagan and Donald Rumsfled, made a killing during the 1980's brokering deals with your favorite criminal and mine, Saddam Hussein, selling him the chemicals needed for those damn Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Guardian reports, "Rick Francona, an ex-army intelligence lieutenant-colonel who served in the US embassy in Baghdad in 1987 and 1988, told the Guardian: "We believed the Iraqis were using mustard gas all through the war, but that was not as sinister as nerve gas. They started using tabun [a nerve gas] as early as '83 or '84, but in a very limited way. They were probably figuring out how to use it. And in '88, they developed sarin." On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by Iraq. However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war. In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations. Mr Rumsfeld has said that he "cautioned" the Iraqi leader against using banned weapons. But there was no mention of such a warning in state department notes of the meeting. Howard Teicher, an Iraq specialist in the Reagan White House, testified in a 1995 affidavit that the then CIA director, William Casey, used a Chilean firm, Cardoen, to send cluster bombs to use against Iran's "human wave" attacks. A 1994 congressional inquiry also found that dozens of biological agents, including various strains of anthrax, had been shipped to Iraq by US companies, under licence from the commerce department. Furthermore, in 1988, the Dow Chemical company sold $1.5m-worth (£930,000) of pesticides to Iraq despite suspicions they would be used for chemical warfare."
Just for good measure, I thought we should take a look at the media coverage that Saddam's crimes warranted while they were happening. According to FAIR or Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, this story only reached America media a handful of times and even when it was mentioned, it was a rosy picture of love between the US and Saddam indeed. And yet, during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, how many times did the Bush administration invoke pictures of Kurdish civilian victims and their demise by these same Weapons of Mass Destruction?
A report published in 2004 by the University of Maryland's for International and Security Studies shows that United States media outlets mentioned Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction a total of 270 times. More alarming is the time frame that these stories were published in.
The dates?
October 11, 2002 through October 31, 2002. In one twenty day period American media consumers were told about Iraq's WMD program 270 times before the invasion compared with the roughly 3-7 times during the years that the crime was occurring!
I wonder if the media could be complicit in these war crimes by letting Americans know facts only on a need to know basis. Iraq is a great example…Americans don't need to know when Dow is making a huge profit, but they do when beating the drums of war.
Dow has a few other war crimes on its list…environmental degradation, the poisoning of entire populations, and of course that time-tested favorite, Agent Orange. With this chemical, the most toxic chemical known to science, Dow proudly, "disabled and sickened soldiers, civilians and several generations of their offspring on two continents." And yet, this corporation is still allowed to operate freely in the United States with no government accountability or condemnation coming from any White House officials since the war's beginning to date.
Other corporations making a killing off the killing are those corporations providing "security" throughout the world. According to CorpWatch, "The U.S. State Department awarded DynCorp a multimillion-dollar contract to advise the Iraqi government on setting up effective law enforcement, judicial and correctional agencies. DynCorp will arrange for up to 1,000 U.S. civilian law enforcement experts to travel to Iraq to help locals "assess threats to public order" and mentor personnel at the municipal, provincial and national levels. The company will also provide any logistical or technical support necessary for this peacekeeping project. DynCorp estimates it could recoup up to $50 million for the first year of the contract." This corporation is responsible for some of the most horrid of crimes, from environmental degradation to child sex-slave trafficking. And it has not been just the Bush administration that has been kind to DynaCorp, Bill Clinton lobbied heavily for a blank check from Congress to continue to fund the "dirty" war in Columbia whose main victims were, one more time, innocent civilians. It appears that the "Destroy it to save it" chant does not follow party lines. According to the Center for Public Integrity, the United States has systematically ignored any record of human rights abuses when determining it's allies in the "War on Terror." It appears as if the US policy is now to arm and train, no questions asked. And who are the winners with this policy? The Arms Trade Resource Center reports the ten biggest war profiteers, are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Halliburton, L-3 Communications, BAE Systems, United Technologies, and Science Applications International Corp.
William D. Hartung, issued a report in May of 1995, the power of the weapons industry is outlined in graphic detail of how the US has sold its soul to the devil in order to continue to fund this insatiable animal. Hartung states, "From Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, it has been an article of faith for executive branch policy makers that U.S. weapons exports are only made to responsible allies who use these systems for legitimate defensive purposes. This report puts that thesis to the test by documenting U.S. weapons deliveries to 50 current ethnic and territorial conflicts. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington, official U.S. government data on arms transfers provides overwhelming circumstantial evidence that U.S.-supplied weaponry is at the center of many of today's most dangerous and intractable conflicts" with the small amount of information provided, Hartung showed that, "In a number of volatile areas the United States has been the primary supplier to governments that are involved in ongoing conflicts. In Turkey (76%), Spain (85%), Israel (99%), Morocco (26%), Egypt (61%), Chad (27%), Somalia (44%), Liberia (40%), Kenya (25%), Pakistan (44%), the Philippines (93%), Indonesia (38%), Guatemala (86%), Haiti (25%), Colombia (28%), Brazil (35%), and Mexico (77%), the United States has been the primary supplier of imported weaponry in the most recent five year period for which full data is available."
It is not just arms sales and private contractors that are robbing us blind of tax dollars. Caterpillar, a UK run company states in its Code of Worldwide Business Conduct, "Caterpillar accepts the responsibilities of global citizenship." and, "must also take into account social, economic, political and environmental priorities."
Sounds nice on paper doesn't it?
Unfortunately, Human Rights Watch claims, "Caterpillar betrays its stated values when it sells bulldozers to Israel knowing that they are being used to illegally destroy Palestinian homes," and in a letter dated October 29th encouraged, "the company to cease all sales to the Israeli military of the D9, as well as parts and maintenance services, so long as the military continues to use the bulldozer to violate international human rights and humanitarian law." Amnesty International notes that not only are these pieces of heavy equipment being used for the illegal destruction of homes, but for the destruction of agricultural lands, infrastructure and schools
as well. Regardless of this companies compliance in these crimes, neither the administrations of Clinton, Bush, or Blair have condemned them for their actions.
Gee, that is strange isn't it? I could have sworn this is called being an accomplice to a crime.
Isn't that illegal?
One more cooperate enemy, and then I will let you go. One company, among many that profited from NAFTA, or the National Fair Trade Agreement is Monsanto. For a frame of reference to the political debate regarding immigration, the one argument you will rarely, if ever here, is that the implementation of NAFTA, has anything to do with the problems facing the economy of South America today or immigration in the United States.
However, according to the Food First Institute for Food and Development Policy, "In the first year of NAFTA, over 700,000 Mexicans crossed the border into the United StatesMexico and Central America still come to the U.S. looking for work—many of them farmers or their able bodied-children. From 1994-2004, 1.3 million smallholders went bankrupt. After 13 years of NAFTA, a million immigrants from each year."
Perhaps we need to reconsider our "free" trade policies abroad if we would like to actually frame the immigration debate realistically.
After reading this massive blog, checking all of my citations and learning the facts, I bet you are asking yourself, "How could this happen…and right under our noses?"
It seems the United States Government has had a very close friend that has filled our minds with mush and fed us loads of crap. The media, yes, the media, our trusted friend for information has turned its back on the public in exchange for profits. The FCC has been complicit in its attempts to control what you see and hear. From imaginary WMD's to the number of Iraqi civilians dead to the inevitable "justified" war with Iran.
Americans are slopping up the bullshit by the bucket loads, blaming those damn Republican, Leftist, Neo-Con, Liberal, Moderate, Democrat, Socialist, Right-wing, Secular Progressive, Nutcases. The funny thing is, we have all been fighting each other so much…the corporate elite have run away with our cash cow…and they are laughing hysterically.
Why?
Because the entire time you thought it was the Republican, Leftist, Neo-Con, Liberal, Moderate, Democrat, Socialist, Right-wing, Secular Progressive, Nutcases, who were screwing up the country, it was actually the people that stand to profit from all this chaos and bloodshed. In fact, I can still hear them laughing now. I don't know about you, but I am jumping ship from this two-party crap and the only candidate that will earn my undying support had better speak to the issue if corporate control in a substantive fashion. I have better things to do with my time than support some corporate hack that thinks they have fooled me into believing they are one of the "good" guys again.
You can identify these people easily, they are the ones with the most campaign money to spend, and it makes no difference which political party they fall under, this has been a systematic abuse of power. And you know what?
"After the November elections, I will not quit! I will not quit until it is no longer profitable for corporations to make money off making war and murder! I will not quit until the Military Industrial Complex in this country has been dismantled!"