Quite timely. Good points are raised about why average citizens both
don't and needn't bother to try. I felt that Hacker and Pierson,
although they know politics, are assessing today's problems mostly with
historical opportunities missed. What we have today is so tipped toward
the top 0.1%, so impossible to unravel in real time, that it's probably
best to draw up a different government altogether. How to accomplish
that is open to opinion, but however that might unfold, restoration of
citizens and environmental rights and the dismantling of rights of
corporations and powers of key government officials have to be addressed.
Yes, unions didn't push hard enough for taxation of
corporations--perhaps due to the concern that workers would in turn be
denied better wages and benefits, I'm guessing. But they did fight to
keep jobs in North America. They achieved a great deal in their day.
Unfortunately, the influence and numbers within unions waned, in large
part due to unfavourable tax and labour laws tabled and swiftly passed
by government insiders lobbied by corporations, as is pointed out. There
really was no one to protect the interests of small business, and all
others who didn't belong to a board or union. This was supposed to be
the task of government officials, checked by the politicians. That's
what they're paid for by the taxpayer. That the public fails to
understand the real world is a reflection of corporate controlled media
and education.
The average citizen has indeed been forced to rely on experts to ensure
they get a fair shake. Government inquiries all end up having overpaid
committees whose primary function, one too often learns, is to stall for
time or to allow for cover-ups. Overcoming complexities of corporate
law, which now rears its ugly head even at NGOs, shouldn't be the
responsibility of uninformed workers and voters. They should be able to
rely on government to act in their best interests, and should not have
to learn, often after decades of effort, that no one in government does
any such thing. Occasionally, some lawyer or judge will take personal
offense to corporate arrogance, but otherwise making a name for
themselves is usually a bad career move.
Today's public were outspoken in record numbers against the Iraq
invasion. No one listened. Every US house representative but one voted
in every law presented following 9/11. The UK had never seen such
demonstrations, but oil and greed won out. This was clearly a breach of
public trust. The public was ignored by those hired to do their bidding,
and the governments complacent, knowing planned peaceful demonstrations
would challenge nothing.
Demonstrators the world over are more subject to violent police
response, and everyone knows who gives police the orders and power to do
so. So, how are such powers dismantled peacefully when demonstrations
are made difficult and ignored? Egypt lost over 800 to the
demonstrations to try to remove essentially one man from power. In the
US, UK and Canada, the chain of command is so tight, and the reaction
from forces would be so disruptive, that we would be demonstrating for
decades, making little headway. Besides, with survival to pay for, to
get involved at any significant level of protest or attempt at change
translates to a threat to that survival. Demonstrating for a month means
you lose your job. In Egypt there were mostly jobless young
demonstrators. Now everyone there is yet to see real change.
Runciman's final paragraph was uncomfortably close to reality, and
touching on my point from before, in that true democratic action and
enforcement of laws already in existence take so much time to carry out,
the world has moved on, and it's easier to turn a blind eye. Well, the
top 0.1% are counting on that!
Since money is the currency for political clout, people don't actually
need to demonstrate--they just have to refrain from working, en mass.
Just enough to make a point. Without as much grease for the wheel, the
wealthy won't be so slick. But even more effective would be to withhold
taxes for reassignment to reflect sustainable values. A challenge to
organize, but if huge groups participated, they couldn't afford to
prosecute everyone, and government operational budgets would be
jeopardized. Perhaps from a platform of resistance and representational
tax distribution, a new sustainability party could take shape. Military
budgets could be slashed, especially overseas, to reduce friction,
offshore activity and encourage local industry. Wall Street forced to
repay the bailout and restore people to their homes, oil industry to
make restorations to Iraq, to the military budget, the environment, and
green energy initiatives. Homeland Security, dismantled. The Pentagon
and CIA to open its books, and also reveal their black budgets for
public scrutiny. Publicly funded private industry prison builds to be
eradicated, drug wars cut. Pot smokers released from jail, child
molesters and rapists put away--with therapy and education available to
all. Monsanto GM seeds, denied. Nukes denied. Chemical warfare, denied.
Fund well-rounded education, innovation, and cultural programs. Fund
environmental restoration. I can see it all...and somewhere down the
road, the key personnel of the Bush and Blair administrations, after
seizure of their entire fortunes and a decade spent in Iraqi prisons,
working soup kitchens with Wall Street crooks.
Natalia Kuzmyn
On 4/21/2011 2:42 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
A must read:
http://www.roubini.com/us-monitor/260858/musings_on_plutocracy
REH
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *D and N
*Sent:* Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:30 PM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
*Subject:* [Futurework] Secret oil war memos before Iraq invasion
Another example of industry hiring overseas.
In case any of you still felt there were noble intentions to motivate
the US and UK to invade Iraq, check out what's below.
Let's just hope FOI rights aren't revoked. As it stands, these memos
can take over a decade to acquire, and then, if you're lucky, it won't
be almost entirely blacked out. Unfortunately, prosecuting the real
evil doers is usually past the point of public outrage, too expensive,
and political will is never there to pursue fellow crooks. In this
case, there is no real Iraqi government left that would want to take
action if it could. I wish I were wrong about that. US and UK
taxpayers and military alike will remain amply deceived as the story
gets bumped from most mainstream venues. It's these issues that really
speak to the imbalance of power, when those who actually pay for vile
industrial/military ambitions grow too old, tired and debt ridden to
care.
Natalia
From the Independent, UK, April 19th:
The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil
executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from
oil companies and Western governments at the time.
The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot
Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just
before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held
talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP
denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair
described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".
But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very
different picture.
Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the
Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy
firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves
as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for
regime change.
The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush
administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was
being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with
US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.
Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on
31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be
difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way
if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government
throughout the crisis."
The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before
Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.
The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about
opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq
is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious
that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."
After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's
Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP
could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their
long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the
action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."
Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest"
in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more
important than anything we've seen for a long time".
BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing
contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make
the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the
Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the
Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.
Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over
five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at
least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP
and Shell in late 2002.
The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the
largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of
Iraq's reserves -- 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies
such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint
consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the
Rumaila field in southern Iraq.
Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost
decade, 2.7 million barrels a day -- seen as especially important at
the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output.
Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main
ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source
of oil.
Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on the Fire is published next week, said:
"Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had
no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that
give the lie to those claims.
"We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important
strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies
to give them access to that huge prize."
Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant
bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last
month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National
Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on
protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment.
*/www.fuelonthefire.com <http://www.fuelonthefire.com/>/*
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html
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