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Nationalist / Corporate Power Struggle in the Global Economic Ecosystem

This is a follow on from the article Economic Metabolism, this will make more sense if you read that first if you haven't already. In that article I comment at one point that:

"The spread of the common currencies, whether non-conserved or conserved delimits the range of collective integration. For example, the spread of American culture as the common non-conserved currency and the use of the American dollar as the common conserved currency throughout the world is effectively the assimilation of the planet into the American organism and over time these conditions will inevitably result in the Americanisation of the planet." [FR]

And I quote examples of "Fragmentation and Assimilation. "exclusive use of a competitive programmed currency in a community tends to be destructive for the community fabric. This isn't theory. We've seen this happen at the tribe level, with the collapses of traditional societies. I've seen one happen myself in Peru among the Chipibo in the Amazon. That tribe had been in existence for thousands of years. When they started using the national currency among themselves, the whole community fabric collapsed in five years' time. The same thing happened here during the 19th century in the Northwestern United States and Canada, in the traditional indigenous societies. The moment they started using white man's currency among themselves, the community collapsed, the traditional fabric broke down." " [FR]

"Consider a small organism (analogous to an isolated tribe) that has its own coherent and healthy metabolic processes (systems of exchange) that are central to its healthy functioning and continued integration. Then this organism is swallowed by a larger organism and it is surrounded by the metabolic process of the larger organism. This foreign system of exchange invades and permeates the smaller system of exchange. There are now different biochemical messengers flowing around that swamp the smaller metabolic processes. The cells can no longer exchange meaningful signals in their own symbolic language and the flow of these signals diminishes (reduced interaction energy) whilst at the same time they must all adapt to the new symbolic messages which are in high concentration (high interaction energy) so new meanings are transferred between the cells thus changing the nature of their communications and interactions so the previously healthy organism is torn apart and assimilated into the larger organism." [FR]

First I'll comment on the metabolic power play between nations and then discuss the subtler interplay of corporations.

The metabolic effect of assimilation and integration most likely explains the recent rise of U.S. aggression against Iran. One of the primary metabolic fluids of the industrial complex is oil and at present it is inextricably linked to the U.S. dollar through "petrodollars", this is a mainstay of the supremacy of the U.S. dollar as the primary medium of exchange throughout the world and thereby secures America's metabolic supremacy over all other nationalist organisms.

Iran is threatening the supremacy of the U.S. dollar by accepting euros as payment for its oil, just as Iraq attempted to do in 2000 but the U.S. responded with devastating force and now controls Iraq's oil supply. But Iran's threat is even greater than Iraq's because it plans to open an international oil exchange (a bourse) whereby many nations can buy and sell oil in euros rather than U.S. dollars. This is an effective method of resistance to the American metabolic assimilation of the rest of the world. Also due to the instability of the U.S. economy it also poses a serious and potentially fatal threat to the internal metabolic stability of the American economy as a whole.

"It is widely speculated that the U.S. dollar has been inflated for some time now because of the monopoly position of “petrodollars” in oil trades. With the level of national debt, the value of the dollar has been held artificially high compared to other currencies. The vast majority of the world’s oil is traded on the New York NYMEX (Mercantile Exchange) and the London IPE (International Petroleum Exchange), and, as mentioned by Clark, both exchanges are owned by U.S. corporations. Both of these oil exchanges transact oil trades in U.S. currency. Iran’s plan to create a new oil exchange would facilitate trading oil on the world market in euros. The euro has become a somewhat stronger and more stable trading medium than the U.S. dollar in recent years. Perhaps this is why Russia, Venezuela, and some members of OPEC have expressed interest in moving towards a petroeuro system for oil transactions. Without a doubt, a successful Iranian oil bourse may create momentum for other industrialized countries to stop exchanging their own currencies for petrodollars in order to buy oil. A shift away from U.S. dollars to euros in the oil market would cause the demand for petrodollars to drop, perhaps causing the value of the dollar to plummet. A precipitous drop in the value of the U.S. dollar would undermine the U.S. position as a world economic leader." [FR]

On this subject there are other indications, I'll quote a brief passage from my latest e-book - I first discussed fractional reserve credit systems and the Federal Reserve system but I'm sure people here are familiar with that - so I'll get straight to the point that relates to Iran, global metabolic supremacy and other recent changes in the U.S.:

/quote/
In March 2006 in a more serious manoeuvre the US Federal Reserve stopped releasing its M3 economic data [FR] that indicates the level of fiat money printing that is occurring in the US. This means that "the entire world will lose transparency on the value of reserve holdings in dollars by other nations and major financial institutions." [FR] It was "a decision vehemently criticized by the community of economists and financial analysts, will have as a consequence to lose transparency on the evolution of the amount of Dollars in circulation worldwide. For some months already, M3 has significantly increased (indicating that money printing has already speeded up in Washington), knowing that the new President of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, is a self-acknowledged fan of money printing [4]... the American decision to stop publishing M3 aims at hiding as long as possible two US decisions, partly imposed by the political and economic choices made these last years [5]: . the ‘monetarisation' of the US debt . [and the] the launch of a monetary policy to support US economic activity. … two policies to be implemented until at least the October 2006 « mid-term » elections, in order to prevent the Republican Party from being sent in reeling. This M3-related decision also illustrates the incapacity of the US and international monetary and financial authorities put in a situation where they will in the end prefer to remove the indicator rather than try to act on the reality." [FR]

The artificial boosting of the economy so that the Republicans don't look too bad during an election is a clear abuse of monetary policy but even worse is the ‘monetarisation' of the debt: "The ‘monetarisation' of the US debt is indeed a very technical term describing a catastrophically simple reality: the United States undertake not to refund their debt, or more exactly to refund it in "monkey currency"."[FR] It is also using 'flexible' accounting to conceal the true size of its debt according to USA Today: "The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used... The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006. "We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting." [FR]

Furthermore, in the period from 1994 to October 2006 "foreign ownership of US assets skyrocketed an amazing 400% from $3 trillion to over $12 trillion… Foreign interests now own 46% of US Treasury debt, 26% of corporate bonds, and 13% of US corporate equities. Now nearly 100% of on-going borrowings by the government are funded by foreign interests.…Foreign interests also control a majority of US domestic industries such as movies, music, publishing, metal ore mining, cement production, engine and power plant production, rubber and plastics and are major owners of US industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemical manufacturing, industrial machinery manufacturing, motor vehicles, and electronic equipment and components…In addition, the US has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs over the last decade, real wage growth after inflation has been essentially zero, and personal debt has never been higher. (Data from Thomas Heffner EconomyInCrisis.org)" [FR]

In a 1993 speech in Congress on "The Bankruptcy of The United States" Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, (Ohio) addressed the House saying: "Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) "Hypothecated" all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve - in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a "beneficiary" of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their "subjects," the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System."

"In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend THE FEDERAL United States CORPORATION [emphasis added] all the credit "money substitute" it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn't have any assets, they assigned the private property of their "economic slaves", the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers."

Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the people have exchanged one master for another. ." [FR]

Prof. Carroll Quigley, a renowned macro-historian said: "The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..." [FR]

And more words from Woodrow Wilson, the president who signed the Federal Reserve Act into law and later regretted it: "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy." [FR]

These indicators suggest that some of the conspiracy theories that have been going around since the creation of the Federal Reserve are being proven accurate; that the Federal Reserve corporation was set up by international bankers to seize control of the US as part of a wider plan of global control. It has taken nearly a century, a great depression and numerous wars to eventually wear out the innovative spirit and vibrant economy that was 20'th century America. Via the gradual erosion of media independence, of public discourse, of education, of public morale, of governmental honour and transparency, of democracy, of the constitution, of the national conscience and finally of the sanity of the collective mind, the economic system is driving the nation into a frenzy and exhausting it in preparation for total economic takeover. This may just be an erroneous conspiracy theory especially if one places the blame on particular bankers, but if one considers the unbounded growth of the international monetary system, a system that is beyond the reach of any laws, and the fact that it is the metabolic 'engine' of the world and that the world is clearly, in countless ways forming a well defined ego, then this might just be the means by which the ego seizes control of what it sees as "its body".

In this scenario the US is not some evil imperial force but is instead a previously rich and vibrant society that is being attacked by financial predators and leeched by blood-suckers as it is struggling for its survival and creating further suffering and destruction for itself and other's in the process. The advice of Abraham Lincoln is: "The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity." [FR] The US regime seems willing to break any domestic or international law and even the laws of reason and justice but it remains bound by the laws of commerce; but it must eventually choose who its real master is, the people or the dollar.
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It cannot lightly break the laws of commerce because those are the laws of its own metabolic processes. Just as a person may decide to quit a drug but when their metabolic processes start demanding it and their mind becomes clouded with tension and stress and they become irrationally obsessed with their craving and their entire body is screaming out - then all too easily those metabolic processes override any decisions that the mind may have made. This illustrates the power of the metabolic processes and elucidates the validity of the famous quote by Meyer Rothschild in the 1700's: "Let me issue and control a nation's money, and I care not who writes its laws." [FR]

Given the above statistics I would suggest that the concept of nationalist identities has become largely redundant, except for propaganda purposes. There is an international financial metabolic process that has usurped all other power structures by leveraging the corrupt monetary policies that stem from fiat money printing and the disassociation of money from its original purpose and source of value - i.e. as a medium of exchange to facilitate human interaction and as a measure of the value of human effort, ingenuity and finite resources. It has become a tool of manipulative control and a runaway metabolic process that is invading and assimilating economies throughout the world. The U.S. economy is the main prize and U.S. culture has been its main vehicle of transmission throughout the world. It seeks to control the world but first it must control the U.S. and the corporate military/industrial/media/administrative complex is the main point of infiltration into the American nation.

Whilst the nationalist organisms struggle amongst themselves there is another player in that power struggle; they have all become infected by corporate viruses that seek to undermine the supremacy of nationalist power structures and create a world on their own terms, called a "free market". This is just evolutionary dynamics at work in the organisational ecosystem. Organisations are living beings that operate in higher-level ecosystems where we organisms are the bacteria who's activities sustain the ecosystem and who are the cells of which they are composed. Corporations are particularly virulent viruses that infest societies and spread. They are breaking down the old nationalist ecosystem and seek to restructure it into an environment that is optimised for themselves - what they call a "free market". Do a search for "global systemic crisis" [FR] to see more about the breakdown of the current economic ecosystem. Also see this [FR] article for another important factor driving the global economic system and that is driving us straight toward the edge of a cliff.

All nations have been invaded by corporate viruses to varying degrees, which now control their metabolic processes but the U.S. - being at the centre of the global economic system - has been the main target and the viruses are driving it into fever and hallucination. That nation is fighting for its life but in its delirium it locates its enemies outside itself when its greatest threat - its disease - lies within. It identifies Iraq and Iran as enemies and they are indeed threats to its delusions of global domination but they were/are just using their command of oil - the global metabolic fluid of the industrial complex - to protect themselves from economic/cultural/metabolic invasion. The U.S. needs to look within and heal its disease rather than strike out at perceived external enemies but the disease drives it to strike out because that strengthens the metabolic hold of the military/industrial/media/administrative complex, it creates a climate of insecurity and fear that can be leveraged to dominate the minds of the masses and more importantly it uses U.S. imperialism as a vehicle to spread the disease and infect the entire planet. The spread mainly occurs through economic/metabolic force but also by military conquest in some cases.

This spread of the disease is usually disguised in deceptive propaganda and uses American 'values' and the rhetoric of "Freedom and Liberty" as its cloak, but underlying this is the metabolic force of the international financial sector and the interests of the corporate sector. Whilst the U.S. is "actively promoting American versions of democracy and freedom in all regions of the world" [FR] this translates into spreading the corporate infection and imposing it by force when it is not accepted through manipulation.

For example, I'll quote from the #8 most important of the censored stories from 2006 on Project Censored: Iraqi Farmers Threatened By Bremer’s Mandates:

/quote/
[By] “imposing a new regime of low taxes on big business, and quick sales of Iraq’s banks and bridges—in fact, ‘ALL state enterprises’—to foreign operators.” This economy makeover plan, he claims, “goes boldly where no invasion plan has gone before. ” This highly detailed program, which began years before the tanks rolled, outlines the small print of doing business under occupation. One of the goals is to impose intellectual property laws favorable to multinationals. Palast calls this “history’s first military assault plan appended to a program for toughening the target nation’s copyright laws.”..

Norquist, the “ capo di capi of the lobbyist army of the right,” makes the plans even more clear when he responds, “The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election.” No, these things were to be determined by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the interim government lead by the U.S.

Before he left his position, CPA administrator Paul Bremer, “the leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority issued exactly 100 orders that remade Iraq in the image of the Economy Plan.” These orders effectively changed Iraqi law. 

A good example of this business invasion involves agriculture. The details of this part of the “market make-over” are laid out in the Grain website article called “Iraq’s new Patent Law: a declaration of war against farmers”.

“Order 81” of the 100 is entitled “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.” According to Grain staff writers, this order “made it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law.” Plant Variety Protection (PVP)... “is an intellectual property right or a kind of patent for plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety...”

Dovetailing with this order is a plan to “re-educate farmers” in order to increase their production. As part of a $107 million “project” facilitated by Texas A&M, farmers will be given equipment and new high-yielding PVP protected seeds. Jeremy Smith from the Ecologist points out that, “After one year, farmers will see soaring production levels. Many will be only too willing to abandon their old ways in favor of the new technologies. Out will go traditional methods. In will come imported American seeds.” Then, based on the new patent laws, “any ‘client’ (or ‘farmer’ as they were once known) wishing to grow one of their seeds, ‘pays a licensing fee for each variety’.”

Smith explains that “Under the guise of helping Iraq back on its feet, the U.S. setting out to re-engineer the country’s traditional farming system into a U.S.-style corporate agribusiness.” In that traditional system, “97 percent of Iraqi farmers used their own saved seed or bought seed from local markets.” He continues, “Unfortunately, this vital heritage and knowledge base is now believed lost, the victim of the current campaign and the many years of conflict that preceded it.”

Of course, this project will also introduce “new chemicals—pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, all sold to the Iraqis by corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill and Dow.”

As Grain staff writers point out, “over the past decade, many countries of the South have been compelled to adopt seed patent laws through bilateral treaties” with the U.S. The Iraqi situation, however, is different in that “the adoption of the patent law was not part of negotiations between sovereign countries. Nor did a sovereign law-making body enact it as reflecting the will of the Iraqi people.” Essentially, the U.S. has reneged on its promise of freedom for the Iraqi people. The actions of the U.S. clearly show that the will of the Iraqi people is not relevant. Paul Bremer’s 100 orders make sure it will stay that way. Grain argues “Iraq’s freedom and sovereignty will remain questionable for as long as Iraqis do not have control over what they sow, grow, reap and eat.” Palast says poignantly, “The free market paradise in Iraq is not free.”
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The corporate free market is only designed to be free for corporations - for that to occur all other freedoms must be eliminated, from people, from nations and all other competitors in the global systemic ecosystem. Only then will the corporations be free to graze upon humanity and the planet or "labour resources" and "natural resources" as they call them.

Another trend that has arisen during the Iraq conflict is the rise of corporate armies - fully equipped, highly trained, free from all national jurisdictions and entirely above any national or international laws. I'll give another quote from my latest e-book:

/quote/
These are the most visible thugs but there are also "companies like Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, and its civilian army." Plus "a myriad of armed security companies [that are being battle hardened where] private military contractors comprise the second largest 'force' in Iraq, far outnumbering all non-U.S. forces combined." [FR] These mercenaries "operate outside of the military command structure" [FR] "Even when contractors do military jobs, they remain private businesses and thus fall outside the military chain of command and justice systems." [FR].

Serious concerns are arising about the rapid increase and strategic use of private military firms (I quote on this at length because it raises details of a serious issue): "PMFs are businesses that provide governments with professional services intricately linked to warfare; they represent, in other words, the corporate evolution of the age-old profession of mercenaries. Unlike the individual dogs of war of the past, however, PMFs are corporate bodies that offer a wide range of services, from tactical combat operations and strategic planning to logistical support and technical assistance... Nowhere has the role of PMFs been more integral - and more controversial - than in Iraq... More than 60 firms currently employ more than 20,000 private personnel there to carry out military functions... The massive U.S. complex at Camp Doha in Kuwait, which served as the launch pad for the invasion, was not only built by a PMF but also operated and guarded by one. During the invasion, contractors maintained and loaded many of the most sophisticated U.S. weapons systems, such as B-2 stealth bombers and Apache helicopters. They even helped operate combat systems such as the Army's Patriot missile batteries and the Navy's Aegis missile-defense system... their jobs include protecting important installations, such as corporate enclaves, U.S. facilities, and the Green Zone in Baghdad; guarding key individuals (Ambassador Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, was protected by a Blackwater team that even had its own armed helicopters); and escorting convoys, a particularly dangerous task..." [FR]

"Problems can occur with PMFs' clientele... they have also been employed by dictatorships, rebel groups, drug cartels, and, prior to September 11, 2001, at least two al Qaeda-linked jihadi groups... they allow governments to carry out actions that would not otherwise be possible, such as those that would not gain legislative or public approval... the Bush administration has avoided such unappealing alternatives and has also been able to shield the full costs from scrutiny: contractor casualties and kidnappings are not listed on public rolls and are rarely mentioned by the media. PMF contracts are also not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. This reduction in transparency raises deep concerns about the long-term health of American democracy. As the legal scholar Arthur S. Miller once wrote, "democratic government is responsible government—which means accountable government—and the essential problem in contracting out is that responsibility and accountability are greatly diminished."... On both the personal and the corporate level, there is a striking absence of regulation, oversight, and enforcement. Although private military firms and their employees are now integral parts of many military operations, they tend to fall through the cracks of current legal codes, which sharply distinguish civilians from soldiers. Contractors are not quite civilians, given that they often carry and use weapons, interrogate prisoners, load bombs, and fulfill other critical military roles. Yet they are not quite soldiers, either. One military law analyst noted, "Legally speaking, [military contractors] fall into the same grey area as the unlawful combatants detained at Guantánamo Bay."... " [FR]

"when contractors commit misdeeds. It is often unclear how, when, where, and which authorities are responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and punishing such crimes. Unlike soldiers, who are accountable under their nation's military code of justice wherever they are located, contractors have a murky legal status, undefined by international law (they do not fit the formal definition of mercenaries)... Prosecuting their crimes locally can thus be difficult... As a result of these gaps, not one private military contractor has been prosecuted or punished for a crime in Iraq (unlike the dozens of U.S. soldiers who have), despite the fact that more than 20,000 contractors have now spent almost two years there [march 2005 - no prosecutions still in april 2007 [FR]]. Either every one of them happens to be a model citizen, or there are serious shortcomings in the legal system that governs them. The failure to properly control the behavior of PMFs took on great consequence in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse case. According to reports, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators involved were private contractors working for two firms, Titan and caci. The U.S. Army found that contractors were involved in 36 percent of the proven incidents and identified 6 employees as individually culpable. More than a year after the incidents, however, not one of these individuals has been indicted, prosecuted, or punished, even though the U.S. Army has found the time to try the enlisted soldiers involved. Nor has there been any attempt to assess corporate responsibility for the misdeeds. Indeed, the only formal inquiry into PMF wrongdoing on the corporate level was conducted by caci itself. Caci investigated caci and, unsurprisingly, found that caci had done no wrong." [FR]

"Brigadier General Karl Horst of the First Infanty Division became so outraged by contractor unaccountability that he began tracking contractor violence in Baghdad. In just two months, General Horst documented twelve cases of contractors shooting at civilians that resulted in six deaths and three injuries, and that's just two months and one general. They have not been prosecuted under the UCMJ. They have not been prosecuted under US civilian law. They have not been prosecuted under Iraqi law. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have their own motto: “what happens here today stays here today.” That should be chilling to everyone who believes that warfare, above all government functions, must be subject to transparency, accountability and the rule of law." [FR]

"The final dilemma raised by the extensive use of private contractors involves the future of the military itself. The armed services have long seen themselves as engaged in a unique profession, set apart from the rest of civilian society, which they are entrusted with securing. The introduction of PMFs, and their recruiting from within the military itself, challenges that uniqueness; the military's professional identity and monopoly on certain activities is being encroached on by the regular civilian marketplace... More important, PMFs compete directly with the government. Not only do they draw their employees from the military, they do so to play military roles, thus shrinking the military's purview. PMFs use public funds to offer soldiers higher pay, and then charge the government at an even higher rate, all for services provided by the human capital that the military itself originally helped build. The overall process may be brilliant from a business standpoint, but it is self-defeating from the military's perspective... Elite force commanders in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all expressed deep concern over the poaching of their numbers by PMFs. One U.S. special forces officer described the issue of retention among his most experienced troops as being "at a tipping point." So far, the U.S. government has failed to respond adequately to this challenge." [FR]

"Members of Congress tell me they've been stonewalled in attempts to gain detailed information about the activities of these private contractors. I think it's a disturbing commentary that I’ve received phone calls from members of Congress asking me for documents on the contractors, and not the other way around. In the current discussion in the Congress on this issue, what is seldom discussed is how this system, the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war... This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it." [FR]

The US administration's "failure to [adequately respond] thus far has distorted the free market and caused a major shift in the military-industrial complex... it is first essential to lift the veil of secrecy that surrounds the private military industry. There must be far more openness about and public oversight... [another] lesson is self-evident but has often been ignored: privatize something only if it will save money or raise quality. If it will not, then do not. Unfortunately, the Pentagon's current, supposedly business-minded leadership seems to have forgotten Economics 101. All too often, it outsources first and never bothers to ask questions later... Forget these simple rules, as the U.S. government often does, and the result is not the best of privatization but the worst of monopolization... Finally, more must be done to ensure legal accountability. To pay contractors more than soldiers is one thing; to also give them a legal free pass (as happened with Abu Ghraib) is unconscionable. Loopholes must be filled and new laws developed to address the legal and jurisdictional dilemmas PMFs raise. Laws should be written to establish who can work for these companies, who the firms can work for, and who will investigate, prosecute, and punish any wrongdoing by contractors. Because this is a transnational industry, the solution will require international involvement." [FR]

There are also some concerns within the private military process, as indicated by this memo by the US official in charge of regulating the security business in Iraq: "We are creating a private army on an unprecedented scale. ... It will be a force for good or harm depending on our insistance on the rule of law." [FR] Regarding the "insistence on the rule of law" it has already been mentioned that zero prosecutions have occurred so far in Iraq even though 6 employees were explicitly implicated in the Abu Ghraib atrocities and furthermore, due to "the difficulties security contractors were having getting licenses to import guns -- many of them turned to the black market which contributed to lawlessness." [FR] The controversies are causing some groups such as the US DoD to propose various schemes but so far it is just at the level of informal discussions [FR].

The rise of these "corporate thugs" and the blurring of the boundaries between government and corporate power are potentially a critical component of the rise of global fascism. It isn't endemic to any particular government or corporation but is rather a systemic phase transition in the nature of governance, power and the use of force. This provides a fertile space of lawlessness and loopholes within which the collective ego can grow and establish itself, eventually using economic power to wield a vast thug caste of corporate mercenaries that have sophisticated training, weaponry and logistical support. This could serve as a modern day global version of Hitler's Sturmabteilung, otherwise known as brown shirts or stormtroopers.
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There is a general trend of the erosion of accountable power structures and the rise of power structures that are not only unaccountable but often unknown and inconceivable to most because they exist and function in a systemic ecosystem that simplistic discourse cannot comprehend. This trend, if left unchecked, will result in humanity losing control and becoming a victim of the brutal monstrosity that it has created, which is ignorant and powerful, and is driven by insatiable craving and will rapidly devour the human spirit and the planet as a whole. The next major step in that direction is the haemorrhaging of America, the collapse of its economy and nationalist economies in general and the securing of the global corporate power structure that will metabolise the planet as a resource. This is the real meaning of "free market", a market place where economics overpowers all other metabolic processes, and its manifestations (corporations) are free to graze upon the planet and humanity as they please.

I am not 'anti' corporations or nations or any configurations that evolution decides to create - the point that I am making is that viruses, bacteria, organism, memes and organisations are all life forms, they are all complex adaptive systems or living systems. They all form part of a growing and evolving ecosystem in which each life form needs to find its niche and these niches keep changing. But for the sake of the health of the whole system we need to manage them sensibly. Not that we humans have an inherently privileged position but due to our high level of sentient awareness we can act as a stabilising mechanism. If we govern things solely for our own benefit that is an abuse of our power and we will be deposed by the evolutionary process but if we govern things sensibly we can play a vital role in the process and steer it in harmonious directions that will be holistically beneficial to us as well as all the various beings within it.

But the current situation has got out of hand, due to our negligent ignorance and narrow sighted agendas. Unless the economic metabolic processes are not radically changed an entrenched destructive cycle and global annihilation is a very likely future scenario. It is the direction that many of the current forces are pushing the world. But throughout humanity an even greater force is awakening - awareness - and this can cast economics aside with ease so long as people choose to wield it. Money is just an agreement in our minds - with a change of mind the entire economic system can vanish like a bad dream or be transformed into something that facilitates life rather than exploits it. Civilisation is a resonance of minds so whilst economics and politics and media and so on all try to manipulate and control our minds, it is we who hold the power. We are told that we are powerless through countless subtle messages but that is to prevent us from ever wielding our power, whilst the higher-level organisms usurp and harness our power. But through awareness we can see through the web of deception and penetrate the veil of delusion. We can create a whole new resonance of minds - a whole new civilisation. The conditions are becoming ripe - all that is required is a synergy of progressive minds that can spread and connect our minds into a new resonance.

A quote from a recent comment (Ego and Money) I made related to different economic systems:

/quote/
In answer to [the] question "if you throw out money and money systems what replaces them?" I'd say we need to think about what role money serves - it's a medium of exchange that facilitates interactions - if we are going to interact we need some medium of exchange but the type of medium influences the types of exchanges.

Abstract tokens such as gold and money tend to become disconnected from their original values and succumb to fetishist hoarding and manipulation for purposes of control - but the concept of "time-dollars" and other forms of complimentary currency that are inextricably linked with their true sources of value are probably much safer.

Also localised systems keep control within those systems rather than open them up to mass exploitation from some distant power structure that doesn't have the health of that system or even the holistic system in mind.

I think the best system is one based on a fundamental recognition of our interconnectedness where the medium of exchange is love; that is how a healthy family, group of friends or tribe operates, but that isn't likely to be possible on a mass scale any time soon, there is too much trauma and confusion in the current generations, so we need something in between for the time being.
/unquote/

Below is a quote from a comment I made earlier today titled "Synergy all the Way":

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About building synergy - I think that is one of the most central concerns. That's the role of the media in the corrupt discourse, i.e. to build and maintain synergy of minds and everything else stems from that corrupted communion of minds. Multi-billions of dollars and a century of research has gone into that and most of it is top secret, but it's easy to see it being used - so long as you're not caught in the trance.

On a deep level civilisation is really just a memplex or a resonance of minds, so no matter what else we do I think the core element of building a new civilisation is to create a new resonance of minds - a synergy.

I really think there is a phase transition happening where the cultural temperature is getting hot enough that small bubbles are forming on the bottom of the pot. People are dissociating from the corrupt mass synergy and little zones of progressive synergy are forming. They're popping up everywhere and starting to join together. These phase transitions tend to happen quickly so hopefully it won't be long before the whole cultural stew is boiling with progressive synergy.

The way to go, I think, is to keep an eye on the bigger picture but stay focused in building whatever little bubbles you happen to come in contact with - to connect with people and build a stronger resonance of minds by clearing out the corrupt ideas, the toxic memes, and finding and brainstorming more healthy and holistic ideas. Kind of meta-ideas that can bring other ideas into context and help to digest the vast information overload and transform it into holistic understanding that can effectively guide our collective activism.

This connects with the idea of doing away with money - it is just a medium of exchange to facilitate interaction, but it is one of the crudest mediums. A more fundamental medium is ideas - or memes - they spread and illumine our minds and merge together into vast memeplexes that can create whole civilisations. Money is really just a mechanism for exchanging gross physical energy and assets, but ideas are a mechanism for building bridges between worlds and integrating many minds into a collective synergy.

But love is the most rarefied medium of exchange, it is a mechanism for building harmony between worlds. I'd like to see an economics built on love - that would surely create holistic harmony - it works well in healthy families, groups of friends and tribes - I think eventually - it might take generations but - it could work on a mass scale.

But in the meantime, I think holistic ideas are a very important currency for the new civilisation - they are a way to generate new systems of exchange and interaction that can break out of the corrupt discourse and get this cultural stew boiling with progressive synergy.
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See The Gaian-Ego Hypothesis for more on the subject of a communal understanding or synergy of minds.

Here's another quote from a recent comment (Ego and Money) I made related to the root causes of these problems:

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About thinking outside the box, I am challenging others to think outside their box and to realise that the box maker is the ego. But the ego hates to ever question itself because in doing so it will realise that it isn't what it thought it was. It is the nature of the ego to always look elsewhere and never at itself. It is also a master of self-deception and obfuscation - it prefers to avoid the obvious reality and to wallow in its illusions until death. The whole focus of mysticism and especially yoga/meditation is to get the ego to look at itself - this destroys the illusions - it breaks open every box and the result is what people call 'enlightenment', which is nothing more than breaking out of delusion and dwelling in reality. It's nothing 'supernatural' its totally natural and healthy.

The symbol of three letters "ego" that we use in English is just a symbol for an underlying phenomenon. It is the perception of the self as an indivisible being instead of a vast civilisation of trillions of cells. It is also the perceived duality of 'I' and 'other' instead of perceiving the interconnected network of incredible complexity that binds all things in the cosmos. These false perceptions, false beliefs and unquestioned assumptions are a fundamental aspect of our psychology, they have little to do with the Greeks in particular. But they have a lot to do with the relationship between the 'I' and the body/mind in each of our lives and with the 'I' and the cosmos which the ego fails to comprehend and instead dwells in simplistic illusions that cause it to come into conflict with reality.

And I don't blame all our woes on the ego - I blame them on our disconnection from reality and our drift into delusion. There is a growing proliferation of delusions and the ego is just one of them although it is the deepest one. The root cause of delusion is ignorance and the most fundamental ignorance is commonsense realism (defined and explained in this article) and the ego is a product of commonsense realism. It is our first and deepest disconnection from reality that causes us to perceive the unity as isolated fragments. It causes us to misinterpret every sense impression in every moment of our lives, it distorts everything we know, every goal and agenda we formulate and every action we take. Whilst ever the ego holds power over the mind we have never known reality and have no idea what it is really like, all we do is operate within the context of the delusions that arise from the ego and that form the world that we believe we live in.

Commonsense realism is the root delusion and the ego is the product of that delusion. All the other delusions stem from this [see this article]. So sure we could cling to the ego and keep hacking at the branches whilst they keep growing back OR we could uproot the whole tree of delusion and get back to reality and finally discover what it actually is rather than just dwelling in commonsense realism and assuming that we already know it thereby simply remaining trapped within a state of fundamental delusion.

What I propose is the most fundamental kind of "human revolution" possible - to break out of our false and limited ideas about what humans are and to realise our true nature and our true connection with the cosmos. Not in terms of any dogma or belief but to get beyond all beliefs and connect with reality itself. This fundamentally changes the entire world in which we believe we exist and it totally changes the range of possibilities that we believe to exist within that world.

It is a profoundly revolutionary paradigm shift, which is why authoritarians (both religious and secular) have gone to such great lengths throughout history to suppress and demonise mysticism and to condition people's minds against it [We are taught that it is superstitious and impractical but it is truly rational and supremely practical]. This is because authoritarian/mechanistic superstitions rely on unquestioning belief in their delusional dogma and mysticism is open-minded reconnection with reality that is natural for all living beings and that destroys all delusion.

You don't need anyone else or any dogma or any church or any state or any products or services from any corporation - all you need is to look within because "you are real" and through your own reality you can connect with the reality of the cosmos because there is no separation - you are the cosmos in motion but you think that you're an isolated object in space. By always looking out through the senses and the mind you remain trapped within the conditioning that has been imprinted in the mind by the ego and the authoritarian superstitions. This conditioning filters and distorts every sense impression and every idea flowing through your mind. It constructs the entire 'world' that you experience within your mind and through commonsense realism we unthinking assume that that subjective 'world' is actually the objective world. Hence we come to effectively live in fantasy lands within our own minds where the ego, the media and cultural propaganda determines the nature of that fantasy land.

We generally remain oblivious to reality, acting in worlds that are constructed to suit our manipulators until we come crashing into reality blinded by delusion and we invariably get hurt. The way to avoid this is to wake up from the dream and to start connecting with reality itself by overcoming commonsense realism.
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Best wishes :)
John Ringland

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