A Journey into the Corporate Matrix

Or how American corporations want to run the world, and your life

It looks like IQs are dropping sharply again. Today Bush tells us all that the answer to the problem of the loss of manufacturing jobs is to get foreign countries to "play fair" in trade. The theory is that free trade between countries will allow US companies to export more US products overseas and create more US jobs in manufacturing. Unfortunately the average person is just dumb enough to swallow it as a viable solution - obviously Bush was when his advisors feed the idea to him. Alternatively he's not dumb at all, its just a clever ruse.

The reality is that US manufacturing jobs are being lost preceisely because of our own red, white and blue companies following policies that bring in the most green i.e. dollars. Sending blue collar manufacturing jobs and now white collar jobs service jobs (like call centers and overseas software sweatshops) to the country that offers the cheapest labor is now standard practice. Look at your typical "made in America" product and inside it you'll find a whole raft of "not made in America" components. If it ever even graced our shores it was more likely "assembled" in America and re-exported elsewhere. Even worse are the purely "marketed in America" products like Nike shoes or the 20% of US flags sold in the US that are actually imported from China.

Now I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with foreign trade, its merely that Bush's proposal is just yet another thinly veiled effort to grease the channels of international trade for the benefit of US corporations that actually care little if anything for the workers and society back home that labors, or not as the case may be, to support them. As we all know a US corporations primary directive is to accumulate wealth and power in the name of increasing its stock price. As a corollaries of the prime directive we have the secondary directive of not paying taxes since those impact its profitability, and the tertiary directive to avoid all costs associated with making its profit.

So when Bush talks about free trade he means compliance with and enforcement of NAFTA, GATT and WTO trade agreements and treaties. These force countries to compete in a worldwide trading space that plays by American rules which as we all know are rules made by US corporations. Therefore like a covert invading army US corporations are spreading their tentacles across the world in the name of "growth" while simultaneously squeezing the resources from all they touch for the maximum profit. As just mentioned this implies minimum payments of taxes and minimum cost of goods and responsibility for their side-effects.

The message that Bush is projecting is that American policies that fail day in and day out to produce a viable, safe, sustainable and above all fair, domestic economy, must be applied world wide for us to continue growing. By current rules our economy cannot survive when constrained to dominating its domestic market. The free trade agreements we have rammed down the throats of the world countries, and oppresive "loans for resources" mean we must be more agreesive in dominating other countries and watch out any country that tries to stand alone in the face of "progress".

Well guess what, try as they might the corporations in control cannot change the fact that USA Inc. has only 5% of the worlds population. It has two choices - attempt to hold the rest of the world in perpetual poverty, or let all countries attain our level of economic development and realize that eventually 95% of all the worlds consumer dollars will be spent in foreign shores. The latter would naturally put the USA way, way down the list in terms of dominant world powers. It would find itself in the same position as previous empire builders like Britain, France, Spain and Germany. China, the Asia-Pacific, India, Africa and Europe as trading blocs would all dominate the USA by a significant margin.

The only way for America to save face will be to ensure that America corporations are present and dominant everywhere and anywhere there are consumers. We can become the safe harbor of huge corporate fortunes that control what the rest of the world eats, breaths, thinks and believes. Basically Bush's America wants to project its power overseas by way of our corporations and ensure the dependency of every person on the earth, on USA corporations products from cradle to grave.

Yes I'm being alarmist, and I know to most reading this it will seem an extreme view. One that never wins converts to the cause to limit corporate power. However, ask yourself this:

When the sole criteria for success that the USA represents and promulgates is economic progress, and the sole measure of economic progress is growth of the economy, how can the USA hold its head up high indefinitely without indefinite economic growth?

The answer is that there is no way to achieve indefinite economic growth. The resources of this planet are limited. There is only a finite amount of energy extractable from its people and the resources in it. Even with industrialization of the entire planet growth cannot continue forever, and if we are not to denude the entire planet of natural resources (yes folks, thats called destroying the environment) then we must stop long short of the theoretical maximum. So why not just stop growing now? Why not stay home and develop and practice the policies that must ultimately apply in the end game situation? Why not stop spending $500 billion a year waging war against the rest of the world when we could be spending it on making peace with the rest of the world? Why wait until we crash into economic, environmental and social disaster? Do we, the natural people want to end up as dumbed down "consumer units" plugged into the "corporate matrix" in a perpetual cycle of consume-produce-consume. Is our destiny to be blissfully unaware of our freedoms, with all our hopes and dreams manufactured by external entities that care no-thing for our own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

People of America, people of the world its time to wake up and reclaim your sovereignty over your own destiny.