Dear cj, Before we look at the comments of Bob and his list members, I'll show you those from cj readers. rkm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 Sender: Nisan Chavkin <•••@••.•••> Subject: RE: cj#733> Who is the enemy? How do we fight them? The MOVE fire bombing took place in Philadelphia, not Chicago. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 Sender: •••@••.••• (Joshua2) Subject: Re: cj#733> Who is the enemy? How do we fight them? Very nice piece Richard. I will only take issue with a few points. Joshua2 See the Website: Uderstanding the New World Order-- http://www.kreative.net/understandingNWO rkm: > I think this sums it up pretty well. The agenda of BIG MONEY is neither > liberal nor conservative, it is corporate. And the political battle of the > day is not between liberals and conservatives, it is between corporations > and the people. It is the nature of the human brain to catagorize. In the name of accuracy and clarity I strongly urge you and others to understand that the Corporation itself is NOT the correct focal point. It is the OWNERS of the corporations that are the problem. Described in class terms, it is the SUPER-RICH who are the engineers of the New World Order. Corporations are the tools for building the weapon. That weapon is huge amounts of excess capital. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: I agree corporations are the tools of the elite. I'd say we need to overthrow the power of the elite, and much of that will be accomplished by reform of corporations. Both the tools and the owners are oppressive. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ " the very concept of "home nation" is out-dated -- " This is a myth. While it is true that all flags are flags of convenience, it is still essential for a corporation to be tied to a nation state. One that it can control is good, but one that is powerful and controlable is even better. If this were not the case, then all corporations would be chartered in Boingo-Boingo. The reasons are simple - 1) The State provides a military to protect and project Rich/Corporate interests. 2) An intelligence service to provide intelligence, and destabilize regimes unfriendly to Rich/Corporate interests. 3) And a tax base for use as a private slush fund for the Rich ( for bailouts ) when their wild speculations fail. Part of this slush fund is donated to NWO agencies like the IMF, and World Bank for the same reasons. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: Here you miss the most important point of globalization: the dramatic shift in importance of the nation state. Japan, one of the most successful postwar nations, has very little in the way of military or intelligence services. As long as the Pentagon and NATO maintain their global hegemony, then corporations everywhere have their investments protected. And these forces are hi-tech intensive: they don't need massive popular armies to maintain control. I predict that all nations will be compelled to subsidize the Elite Global Force, reducing the unique current importance of the US and the EU. Your analysis of the importance of the state to corporations held up until 1945 only. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > We must all join together or we > won't have the strength to challenge the TNC's and the divisive mass-media > propaganda. And since we will be (take hope!) a MAJORITY movement it is > open political organizing we need, not clandestine guerilla groups. We > need to take the high ground on main street and force democracy on > Washington DC, not skulk in the hills. It will probably require both. But it is immoral to pick up the gun without exhausting other possibilities first. Martin King's movement in the 60's was not that effective until the threat of a violent black revolution led by the likes of the Black Panthers made it more desirable. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: violent revolution is simply not feasible. Not only would one be facing a ferocious "Domestic Storm" repression, but the societal chaos caused in our complex societies would be unacceptable (mass starvation, etc.) Your reading of civil-rights history is dead wrong. King's non- violent organizing gets the credit for whatever progress was made. And the Panther's weren't advocating violent revolution; they were advocating that people protect themselves from police repression in their communities. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 Sender: •••@••.••• (Jay Michlin) Subject: Re: cj#733> Who is the enemy? How do we fight them? Richard, You have *got* to be kidding, right? I can't bring myself to accept that you really believe this stuff. For example: >It is time for "liberals" and "conservatives" to wake up to the fact that >they BOTH share the same primary goals: restoring the Constitution, >reasserting national sovereignty, rebuilding the economy, and ending the >special-interest influence that has gotten us into this mess. The Constitution remains strong. Yes, it is under constant attack, as it has always been. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, right? Seems to me that the attacks today come equally from the religious right and the nanny left, each seeking to enlarge the role of government. I don't see anyone attacking the Constitution in an attempt to enlarge the role of corporations. As to national sovereignty, it is hardly threatened by corporations. Countries all over the world legislate substantial restrictions on what companies can do. In Japan you have to buy Japanese. In France you have to speak French. In Brazil you have to manufacture Brazilian. And ultimately all pay the price because no government can change the laws of physics, economics or human nature. Your problem with corporations is that they play the game according to those laws. Or at least some corporations do, and the rest fade away. If you don't like those laws, you have a big problem indeed. Rebuilding the economy? It's at an all time high in the US. Sure, distribution is not egalitarian and the high incomes of some at the top are annoying. But more people have more wealth than anywhere, any time. And it's hardly because of government programs. And finally, to the special-interest influence. You're 100% right there. But special interests include the medical lobby, the teachers' lobby, the labor lobby and the environmental lobby as well as industrials and corporations. You're right that special interests have an undue influence. But that's because the government has bestowed on itself the power to grant undue favors. I'd rather these lobbies fight it out among themselves in the economy than under the stilted and dishonest rules of campaign contributions. Yes, the US political system is in need of improvement, and this is not the first time. It has shown a remarkable ability to transform and renew itself over the centuries, most recently after the Watergate trauma. It is one of the few -- and perhaps the only -- system with this quality. The renewal is painful, messy and slow, but it happens nonetheless. It happens precisely because we *limit* central government, often to extraordinary extents. That is the genius of the Constitution. If you have something better to offer, I have yet to discern it. -jm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ No Jay, the Constitution does not remain strong. The Bill of Rights have been drastically and systematically undermined by exploitation of the issues of crime, drugs, and terrorism. And sovereignty itelf -- the very essence of constitutional nation-hood -- is being sold out by the bi-partisan traitors in Washington. This is not a cyclical phenomenon; it is a unique historical event, and not easily reversed. You comment that sovereignty is "is hardly threatened by corporations" is preposterous. It isn't simply "corporations", as Joshua2 pointed out, it's the economic elite, the unregulated and volatile international financial system, the globalist bureaucracy (WTO, IMF, et al), _and_ the corporate system. You can see the loss of sovereignty in an extreme form in the Third World, where increasingly the IMF dictates micro-economic policy to debtor nations. The effects aren't as grotesque yet in the First World, but considerable sovereign rights have already been signed away by GATT and it's only a matter of time before the globalist rule-setting gets into high gear. We have already seen US and European policies reversed by the the WTO in a few cases, including: (1) EU was forced to import US hormone-fed beef; (2) the EU was barred from subsidizing bannana growers in the Carribean. Given your belief in laissez-faire economics (which you call the "laws of phyisics"), you probably applaud an ending of subsidies, but that's not the point: the point is that constitutional governments no longer have the sovereignty to make their own decisions. I suggest you read William Greider's "One World Ready or Not" and Martin & Schumann's "The Global Trap" to get an update on what's happened with sovereignty since about 1973. As for the laws of physics, free-market economics, etc., it's all a sham theory, sold to justify corporate domination. What such policies have always led to, and where they are heading this time as well, is to the formation of huge monopolies and to economic instability. We've been through all this before, and decades of regulatory reform were required to undo the abuses and achieve stability. All that history has simply vanished from media-defined reality, in true Orwellian style. >But more people have more wealth than anywhere, any time. And >it's hardly because of government programs. Real wages are declining; poverty is increasing; systematic unemployment is a conscious government objective; what prosperity there is doesn't have a stable base. As for "government programs", do you have any idea how important the GI Bill and the Marshall Plan were in building postwar prosperity? We've all benefitted from numerous government programs. Internet was the result of a government program. Your "physics aware" corporations are happy to exploit inventions, but they let the government pay for most of the research. There is no renewal likely from the current crisis: globalization is a one-way street. Any nation that tries to re-declare its sovereignty, after globalism is firmly in power, would be treated the way the Confederacy was when it sought to exit from what it _thought_ had been a voluntary union. The limits on government power have been largely removed. Besides all the erosion of the Bill of Rights (see cj#738), there are all the EXECUTIVE ORDERS which are in effect (cj#686), making martial law deployable at a moment's notice. I can see the consistency in your world view, but you pay the price of ignoring most of reality. rkm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 Sender: Bill Michtom <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: cj#733> Who is the enemy? How do we fight them? I have multiple problems with the interpretations in this letter, as well as areas of agreement. I will comment as they "come up." Richard K. Moore wrote: > >From reading Truth In Media, and from many other current publications as > well, I often get the impression that "liberals", especially as represented > by Clinton, This is the first problem. Clinton is not a liberal in the USA sense of the word. He is in the service of private enterprise not, as US liberals are supposed to be, the mass of the population. Thirty years ago, Clinton's politics would have put him no farther to the left than a Rockefeller Republican. And he would have been recognized as such. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: Agreed, which is why the world "liberals" above is in quotes. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > It is time for "liberals" and "conservatives" to wake up to the fact that > they BOTH share the same primary goals: restoring the Constitution, > reasserting national sovereignty, rebuilding the economy, and ending the > special-interest influence that has gotten us into this mess. 1) Unless you consider rebuilding the economy the redistribution of wealth down instead of up, there is no rebuilding to be done. The economy has been booming - for the wealthy - for years. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: The economy is sick. Not even government is adquately funded, nor schools; there is too much unemployment and poverty; corporations and the wealthy are not paying nearly enough tax; the medical industry is run in a counter-productive way: all of these I consider part of rebuilding the economy. The first step, of course, is to extract ourselves from the sovereignty-destroying "free trade" treaties and to effectively regulate foreign-currency transactions. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 2) National sovereignty has never truly been a goal of those in power. It is a sidelight - if the USA is on top, that is nice - and a way to keep the population going along with a corporate agenda - it's for the good, old USA. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: Before 1945 the strong nation state was the power-base of coporations; afterwards that changed; this all by itself represents a cataclysmic shift in fundamental power relationships in the world system. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 3) "Conservatives" are very much the people who have pushed this agenda - at least since the advent of Reagan. The major change I've seen over the last two decades - from Carter on - is the end of any pretense of a party representing - at any level - the interests of the non-wealthy. 4) Special interests are the same people who encouraged state governments to bring in the National Guard to shoot down strikers around the turn of the century, who hired the Pinkertons to do the same more privately, who brought us the Teapot Dome Scandal of the '20s, the attacks on the Cubans since the 60s, and the S&L debacle of recent memory. > Liberals and > conservatives are NOT enemies -- and they need to rise above their > differences and work together for their common survival. This, unfortunately, I would agree with. Liberals, "especially as represented by Clinton," are indeed not enemies of the conservatives. Clinton fought *hard* for GATT and NAFTA. This was done *with* the support of the corporations and against the best interests of working/middle class USA. He did not even *attempt* to fight for a single-payer health plan, just some grotesque version of the privately-run disaster we already have. > They're using the age-old strategy of tyrants: divide and conquer. I certainly agree with you here. > [T]he political battle of the day is not between liberals and > conservatives, it is between corporations and the people. > This was not always the case. Prior to 1945 there was a close bond between > a nation and its industries and the two were generally counted as one in > calculating the strength and wealth of nations. > The people, > corporations, and the nation -- their interests were in fundamental > harmony. The Third-World may have been exploited, but at least the First > World was relatively sound. This strikes me as ahistorical. What "close bond" existed between the corporations and the people during the Depression? Were banks *not* foreclosing on small farmers? Who truly took the brunt of the Crash - the mass of the population or the Rockefellers, et al? And how can you toss off the exploitation of the Third World as something somehow peripheral to the "relative soundness" of the First World? Without the Third World to exploit, there would be no First World. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: The close bond was between a "nation and its industries", not between "corporations and the people". Strong industry meant a strong nation, which meant it could control an economic sphere of influence and defend its "interests". There was a great deal of suffering, and I find as many faults as you do, but by and large First-World citizens were damn glad they were where they were, and not off in some bananna republic. I was against elite domination then, and I'm against it now -- but at least in the strong nation state we have the legal right to change things; under globalism democracy is effectively discontinued. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > Nations and industry can no longer be counted as a single entity And looking back on who helped the Nazis before (and sometimes during) WWII, they never have been. Profit is all. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: A valid point; also Krupp used to sell weapons to Germany's enemies, forcing Germany to upgrade repeatedly. There was no doctrinaire loyalty, but still WW II was primarily a test of the industrial mights of the various parties. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > This power grab by TNC's -- and the transfer of sovereignty to their > centralized bureaucracy -- is what GLOBALIZATION is all about. Again, there has been no power grab, merely a continuation of an on-going process. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: I disagree. Before 1945, elite power was exercised by dominating the national political process -- and there was considerable political give and take. Under globalism, elite domination is being permanently built in; this is a radical transformation, not a continuation of the old process. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > It amounts to the replacement of democracy by a modern corporate variety of > feudalism. This is confusing a political system with an economic one. One of the major victories of the folks in power is the conflating of capitalism and democracy. They are not only not the same, they are in conflict. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: Right, capitalism and democracy are not the same. As for confusing political and economic systems, that's my main point about globalization: it is primarily a political revolution, while the media-official party line calls it only an economic program. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > It has always been corporations . . . that carried out the > imperialist exploitation, not nations themselves. The nations simply > provided a free security service. I see this, too, as somewhat ahistorical. The Dutch East India and the Hudson's Bay Companies were *licensed* by the Dutch and the English, respectively, to carry out the imperialist aims of the home countries. And the security service the countries provided was not "simple" at all. The US military, for example, spent major portions of the 19th and 20th centuries occupying large portions of Central and South America. The US created Panama so that they wouldn't have to deal with the Columbians who, up until the US intervention, "owned" the isthmus. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: One can look at these events from various perspectives. The way I see it is that private investors sought profit in imperialism, and governments supported them in various ways. Many of the American colonies (eg, Pennsylvania) were privately owned corporations. You might say governments and investors were partners in imperialism, but the investor profit-potential was the engine driving the whole affair. A good read is Buckmininster Fuller's "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth" (short). @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > As in > the Third-World today, the major role of all governments will be to > maintain public order and to seek to be "competitive" in attracting > corporate favors. What this means is police-state governments and no > worker's or consumers rights (and no Constitutional rights). This, too, has always been true (see the National Guard comment above). The difference, once again, is the evolution of capitalism which will require a more visible and more frequent military presence in the service of control. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: You can take a purist position, and say government's are always repressive. But globalism is a revolutionary change, not an evolutionary one, and if you miss such distinctions you'll mis-judge current political reality. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > The only problem the TNC's still need to solve is how to arrange for >"security services" as First-World nations are weakened and > disenfranchised. My guess is that they will create yet another > TNC-dominated bureaucracy -- perhaps to be called the World Peace > Organization (WPO) -- which will somehow be given control over NATO and > Pentagon hi-tech (low manpower) weaponry. What is the expansion of NATO but this very idea already being implemented. Who is "protected" by NATO other than the arms manufacturers who provide the materiel for NATO at a huge cost to our and other nations' budgets. The US is already in service to the military manufacturers at a level that is greater than all other industrialized countries combined. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: I agree that NATO, in cooperation with the Pentagon, is already the beginning of an official global force; but I imagine its structure will be eventually "rationalized", ie, internationalized, in some diabolical way. Yes, arms manufacturers are beneficiaries and eager lobbyists for militarism, but I don't see them as being the prime movers of geopolitical affairs. First comes the political agenda: maintenance of a stable global investment realm; second comes the military strategy: maintenance of low-grade level of instabilty, justifying a hi-tech US+NATO force, which ultimately delivers the desired stability; only third does the economics and politics of the arms industry come into play. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > We need a revolution of a new and different kind, a revolution that > responds to this unprecedented state of emergency. Though unprecendented, it is not unforeseen. Marx called it over 100 years ago. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: Those with that fortunate insight seem to have not been acting on it. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ And the way to fight it is indeed to bring the many together to fight the few. That requires, however, a different understanding of the problem than I think, Richard, you are offering here. It also will not find allies among the "conservatives." @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ rkm: What we need is a correct understanding, which I'm constantly striving for, in dialog with others. I challenge you to respond with arguments that take into account current reality. As for allies, several of my articles have been received very favorably on conservative lists and print publications. Recently, I've gotten intentionally provocative with them in order to open up a dialog (same as here.) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ I do agree that many of those who find comfort in the milita movement are the natural allies of the people who some identify as liberals. But those who are liberals in the sense of Clinton or Carter or almost any of the Democrats of today are part of the problem, not part of the solution. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 Sender: •••@••.••• (Joe Ferguson) Subject: Re: cj#733> Who is the enemy? How do we fight them? Hi Richard, Excellent! - Joe Ferguson @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - PO Box 26, Wexford, Ireland www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal (USA Citizen) * Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig * ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ To leave cyberjournal, simply send (from the account at which you're subscribed): To: •••@••.••• Subject: (ignored) --- unsub cyberjournal
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