Thursday, June 7, 2007

NEW AND IMPROVED EMPIRES



Speak of the devil!  Yesterday I wrote that empires don't have allies, and today John Perkins, author of the best-selling 'An Economic HItman" is on "Democracy Now" telling about that book and also his new book entitled "The Secret History of the American Empire".

If you can catch the program tonight, where it will be aired on many public TV stations, or on D.N.s website, or on any of the many radio stations it's broadcast on, you wont' be wasting your time.
You'll not only learn about economic hit men and what they do - which is particularly relevant at a time when congress wil be voting to confirm a new president of the World Bank.  You'll learn HOW the United States became an empire and what John Perkins thinks could still reverse a historical trend that led us into our present quagmire.

He believes the culprits - our vast army of CEO's, leaders of corporations who enjoy that status of "persons" are beginning to realize that they have to change the way they do business.  Instead of their primary concern being to make money for shareholders and themselves - it should be, like any legal "person",  to care about the healh and welfare of their employees, their consumers and the environment.

This has every chance of being a pipe-dream unless we somehow manage to elect a President who sees things the way Perkins does.  But at least it's a start in the debate about capitalism versus socialism.

Right now, President Bush is being met in Germany by vociferous crowds demonstrating against everything he stands for, illustrating the fact that empires don't have allies: the leaders gathering for the G8 summit are "allies" iin the sense that they obey our diktats instead of doing what their constituents want them to.  Ironicaly, the German demonstrators are telling him to "go home" - reviving the slogan used by European demonstrators after the Second World War.
At that time, we were simply seen as an unwelcome foreign presence.  Now, we represent specific policies that the Europeans - and others around the globe - condemn.  After many false starts, it was 9/11 that finally made John Perkins sit down and tell his story to the end: he realized he had been personally involved in creating the conditions that made an attack on our soil inevitable.
When governments fail to do the right thing for long enough, the people take over.  They are not bound either by the nicities of parliamentary debate - nor by the rules of war that armies are exected to abide by.  Having to pose as an ally of an Empire puts governments in just such a situatiion.

He believes the culprits - our vast army of CEO's, leaders of corporations who enjoy that status of "persons" -are beginning to realize that they have to change the way they do business. Instead of their primary concern being to make money for shareholders - and themselves - it should be, like any legal "person", to care about the healh and welfare of their employees, their consumers and the environment. This has every chance of being a pipe-dream unless we somehow manage to elect a President who sees things the way Perkins does. But at least it's a start in the debate about capitalism versus socialism. Right now, President

Bush is being met in Germany by vociferous crowds demonstrating against everything he stands for, illustrating the fact that empires don't have allies: the leaders gathering for the G8 summit are "allies" in the sense that they obey our diktats instead of doing what their constituents want them to. Ironicaly, the German demonstrators are telling him to "go home" - reviving the slogan used by European demonstrators after the Second World War. At that time, we were simply seen as an unwelcome foreign presence. Now, we represent specific policies that the Europeans - and others around the globe - condemn.

After many false starts, it was 9/11 that finally made John Perkins sit down and tell his story to the end: he realized he had been personally involved in creating the conditions that made an attack on our soil inevitable. When governments fail to do the right thing for long enough, the people take over. They are not bound either by the nicities of parliamentary debate - nor by the rules of war that armies are exected to abide by. Having to pose as an ally of an Empire puts governments in just such a situatiion.

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