A multi-lateral
world can not be stopped, as the giant is playing out its
last trumps in case it has any left. Emerging countries are
becoming emerged countries. There have not been many signs
of awareness of this evolution of the geopolitical reality
from President Obama, but rather a continuation of the
Neocon imperialism, which will, if allowed a free rein, lead
the planet to disaster. It will render the environment
unlivable and thus destroy the way of life of the billions
of people all over the world. With the environment in ruins,
there is just no way back. The corporations whose greed is
responsible for the current situation do not seem to realize
or care about the direction in which they are steering our
planet.
The Free Market
was set up with unilateral power for the giant in the West
and unheard of wealth for the very few as its unique goal.
The tools would be the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the World Bank, which were working on the single track of
stealing the national resources of the greatest number of
countries possible and squeezing money out of financially
strapped nations by lending their governments money at a
high interest rate. The ultimate condition for the nations
in dire economic straits, was always the cutting back on
social services, devaluing the national currency and
increasing taxes on the already half-strangled people, thus
starving the beast. Such is the ever-present major strategy
of these Washington henchmen; the super-tools for U.S. world
domination. And, of course, along came the accumulation of
further wealth to add to the already astronomic wealth of
the corporations. Madness! To what end?
Countries which
had previously enjoyed a fairly good standard of living, but
had gotten squeezed by the Free Market economy, free trade
agreements, such as NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA
[2] and bilateral agreements, saw their relatively
comfortable lives wither away, such as many Asian nations in
the nineties during the Asian financial crisis
[3]. Poor 3rd World nations were suddenly
rendered more impoverished than ever before, having their
national resources taken over by the multinational hydras.
Wherever the heavy boots of the IMF and the World Bank get a
foothold in a financially troubled nation, they manage to
suck the blood out of the nation's resources and their
financial independence.
Free-market capitalism can not
possibly go along with true democracy. The concepts
represent opposite poles in the running of the economic
systems of the world. The most outstanding mark of run-away
capitalism is its denial of any civic and human rights to
the working people. Privatization, which is the principal
gospel of this decadent world order will eventually make us
pay for the air we breathe and the polluted water we drink.
If national elections are allowed
to survive in order to make for a semblance of democracy, it
is only because they have no real meaning the way they are
run today. They constitute no real danger to the system that
is running the world since they are strictly controlled by
corporations that are hand in glove with the imperialists.
They are part of the system.
And yet, a majority of U.S.
citizens are under the impression that their votes count for
something in the running of internal and external politics.
They seem to be slowly waking up, however, to the fact that
their opposition to the ongoing wars and the tax cuts for
the wealthy count for nothing.
The creation of the lone
superpower
At the end of World War II, with
Europe exhausted and virtually powerless as a commercial
partner, the U.S government saw clearly that they would have
to shore up the war-damaged European countries in order to
create a market place for their newfound wealth. The Great
Depression was over at last thanks to the boost to the
economy that the war had brought to the nation. Now the U.S.
needed commercial partners. So the Marshall Plan was born.
Later on came the Hollywood Superman Ronald Reagan and as
his megalomaniac and expansionist plans for the country were
set in motion, the kernel of the Neoconservative movement
was simultaneously taking shape.
During all this time a handy
bogeyman was created in the Communist fiend. From the
McCarthy era in the fifties to the Kennedy fiasco of the Bay
of Pigs attempt to invade Southern Cuba in 1961, to the
horror of the Vietnam war, to the criminal meddling in
various Central American and Latin American countries, it
was always the Communist threat that served as a pretext for
invasions of countries that stood in the way for U.S. power
and expansionism. Those countries that could not be bought
up or propagandized into cooperating with the Empire were
simply invaded and taken over. A blaring exception was of
course the great embarrassment of the Vietnam War, when no
country was ever taken over. But that didn't even teach the
imperialists a lesson. The people, yes, but the psychotic
neocons, no. If anything, the lesson drawn by the neocons
from that insane war was on the contrary that the U.S. had
to show the world that it was still the Lord of the planet,
including outer space.
Invade, crush, kill and take over
national resources was the trademark of U.S. foreign
policies. Until the Soviet Union imploded and the vastly
overblown propaganda about the giant in the east that was
threatening to end the supremacy of the number one
superpower finally became open for all to see. Ever since
the end of World War II, with a powerful boost given to it
by the Kennedy brothers, the Communist scare has been
hovering over the Western world, based on a minimum of
reality but above all hysterical propaganda. It was the
octopus that was spreading its tentacles all over the world.
If the Soviet military power was in fact impressive, it was
because they put all their rubles into the arms industry and
neglected the well-being of their people.
Fear and eternal war are the
capitalist tools
When the Soviet Union
disintegrated, the U.S. suddenly found itself bereft of a
handy target to blame the evils of the world on. A new enemy
had to be created and we all know how the "War on Terror'
came about, based on the absurd theory, touted hysterically,
that the Muslims were now all set to take over the Western
world. Al Qaeda may well have been a creation by Washington
but, as could be expected, it then became a reality
[4]. Continuous war is of the essence to a superpower to
sustain the fear that is necessary to keep the people in
blinders. Hysteria and ignorance are the sine qua non for an
eternal war. Non-stop propaganda is also a major tool
without which the slogan "Pax Americana' would have been a
laughing stock from its very creation. And of course the
mass media played the game since they were being paid to do
so.
Fear was the tool that was needed
in order to fool the people of the world and draw a veil of
emotional blindness over their minds. What made the creation
of this visceral fear and anger at all possible was of
course the attack on the World Trade Center and the
following 9/11 hysteria. Without this enormous propaganda
tool, the major wars that have followed, the total contempt
for U.S. citizens' constitutional rights and the U.S.
Constitution in general would have been just wishful
thinking by the neocon thugs.
Of course we can't know how much
longer the "lone superpower' is still going to be breathing.
It is now on life support and we can only vaguely guess what
the world is going to be like after the colossus stops
breathing. No words of reconciliation to the rest of the
world by President Obama will save the shipwreck that is the
United States of America.
What arrogance, what hubris, to
believe that the United States would be able to create the
millenary Reich where all other nations would be willing
allies, due to the propagandized "cultural, moral and
military superiority' of the Master behemoth. If not allies,
they would become subdued and subservient because they would
have lost their internal strength, as was the intention with
Iraq, Afghanistan and probably now also with Pakistan. The
Empire was going to appear so unbeatable that no other
nation would ever be able to go against their formidable
power. They were to be God on earth and everybody who looked
into the shining light of their claim to divine power was
going to see that resistance would be useless.
Wait a minute haven't we seen
this before? It seems to be a lesson never learned that even
an Empire is bound for a swift fall when the winds turn and
the scales fall from the eyes of the people in the rest of
the world. And, as is perfectly obvious, the hubris was not
born with the Neocons plotting in the underground during the
Reagan presidency. It goes all the way back to the cruel
near wiping-out of the native American population. Nobody
can stand against the superpower. It is the bearer of
God-given authority to rule the continent, to rule over
war-torn Europe, to rule over the Americas, to rule over the
resource-rich countries, to rule the world.
The psychopaths who created this
absurd fantasy should by all rights be the first victims of
the downfall of the Empire. In the long row of history's
empires, has there ever been one that so misjudged the power
of national pride and the firm decision by the invaded
people to go on running their own nation, running their own
lives on territories that had been theirs for millennia?
Asia is coming together
The world is changing however. We
will find out one day if it is already too late or if there
is still a chance that people and the environment might be
saved.
Asia is organizing to become
increasingly independent of the West. They are creating
their own economic cooperation organizations, such as AFTA
[5] (ASEAN
Free Trade Area), born out of ASEAN, the
"Association of
Southeast Asian Nations', a"geo-politicaland
economic organization of ten countries located in Southeast
Asia, which was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia,
Malaysia, thePhilippines,
SingaporeandThailand".
This organization now includes ten countries located in
Southeast Asia.[6]
The AFTA project was launched in 1993 with the objective of
creating a Free Trade Area in eastern Asia. It undertook
some bold measures during the Asian financial crisis in the
nineties, which clearly showed up the need for mutual
economic interdependence
between Southeast
and Northeast Asia.
In
November 2001 an ambitious plan was submitted to create a
regional bloc. It recommended that East Asia would move from
a region of nations to a cohesive regional community where
collective efforts would be made for peace, prosperity, and
progress. They identified the following sectors for
cooperation: economic, financial, security, environmental,
social and cultural.
[7]
China, the next superpower?
China's economy is the
third-largest in the world and it is the biggest holder of
U.S. Treasury bonds. It is the top owner of U.S. government
debt and it is also one of the "emerging nations' that can
be said to have already emerged. It is now in a full-fledged
position to become a superpower. The day the United States
of America declares bankruptcy, China will probably be ready
to take over in conjunction with other developed nations.
Right now, China is giving Obama
the cold shoulder. It is a fact that trade with the U.S. has
recently picked up, but basically China is economically so
much ahead of the former superpower that they can well shrug
their shoulders at the hypocritical demands that Washington
puts forth. Who is to urge China to respect civil rights and
to diminish pollution to save the environment? Or to
convince China that there should be more equality of living
conditions? Washington's hypocrisy knows no limits.
Obviously we can not be looking
forward to a world where one inhuman superpower would be
replaced by another one. We are not blind to the kind of
life we would be living under Chinese rule. But such a
thought seems so far from realistic that the solution we
have to look forward to as a new World Order would rather be
a multi-lateral organization where no one power would have
too much influence over the rest of the world.
As for the other emerging
nations, such as India and Brazil, they still have a way to
go. A low quality of education, an average low standard of
living, faulty healthcare, a sadly insufficient fight
against pollution and contempt for human rights are among
the major problems for these countries, as well as for
China. However, the United States could well be pointed to
as equally lacking in every one of these areas. There is
also a horrifying lack of equality in all these countries,
but then again, the richest country of them all, the U.S. of
A. shares the guilt of these only relatively wealthy
countries.
Latin America Is Gathering
Strength
In another part of the world,
there is Latin America that is currently fighting for its
independence from the Empire. The birth
of
Mercosur, the Common Market of the South, took place on
March 26, 1991. Since its creation including Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Venezuela also joined on 17
June 2006. Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador
and Peru
currently have associate member status.
Panama
and
Mexico
have also announced their intention to join Mercosur.
On
the other hand, Venezuela has also initiated ALBA (a
symbolic acronym since alba means dawn), Venezueal's answer
to imperialist free trade agreements ("Bolivarian Alliance
for the Americas' or "Alianza
Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América'),
which, to begin with, comprised Venezuela and
Cuba. Later, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua have joined the
alliance. Some islands in the Caribbean are also members.
Honduras became a member in August 2008, but, interestingly
enough, after the coup in June 2009 to overthrow President
Manuel Zelaya, its membership was withdrawn.
"On December 16, 2009, the Honduran congress met to withdraw
the country from the
ALBA, claiming a "lack of respect" from Venezuela since
the country's joining in 2008, citing in particular
Hugo Chavez' remarks about a potential invasion of Honduras
to restore
Manuel Zelaya
to office, after he was removed on 28 June 2009 in the2009
Honduran coup d'état. Withdrawal from ALBA was ratified by
the
Honduran Congress
on January 13, 2010.
Economic relations with Venezuela continue, including via
Petrocaribe.
Mercosur and ALBA are the Latin
American answer to NAFTA, CAFTA and FTAA, the U.S.-
sponsored so-called free trade agreements, which are for
anything but free trade, constantly raising trade barriers
against foreign nations for the profit of the United States.
Conclusion
The United States, the lone
superpower is no more. The sooner the leaders realize this,
the softer will be the fall when the giant finally breaks
down. Barack Obama gave Europeans and many others some kind
of hope for a change of path by the callous behemoth. But no
such thing has happened and no such thing will happen. Only
the downfall of the Empire can now save the world. Unless it
is already too late.
Are we seeing the emergence of
another kind of New World Order, one of less arrogance, one
of multi-lateral cooperation? The world is crying out for a
new order where life-and-death issues will be handled by all
the world's nations and not trampled on by one greedy
colossus that imagines it is the monarch of the planet.
[2] La Riva/Puryear: Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA,
WTO, IMF, World Bank. Also see
NAFTA/FTAA/CAFTA page
[3]Asia's financial crisis - There is no basis for
the claim that the Asian financial crisis was due to
a lack of sound economic fundamentals. The
currencies of the affected countries were forcibly
devalued and their financial systems were brought to
ruin by the activities of speculators. The crisis
has, however, revealed one glaring weakness: the
absence of a lender of last resort for the region.
(by Chandra Hardy)
More about the Asian financial crisis at
Third World Network
Scientists will use
the gravity field information from the two satellites to
X-ray the moon from crust to core to reveal the moon's
subsurface structures and, indirectly, its thermal history.
GRAIL's principal
investigator is Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in Cambridge. Zuber's team of expert
scientists and engineers includes former NASA astronaut
Sally Ride, who will lead the mission's public outreach
efforts. Up to five cameras aboard each spacecraft will
allow students and the public to participate in GRAIL’s
mission of lunar exploration. Each GRAIL spacecraft will
carry the cameras to document their views from lunar orbits.
The
truth is. No one knows.
Cash
is hard to come by these days. So it's
not unusual to see barter arrangements
between taxpayers. 
