Comment on Bush's "free trade" deal with Peru's elite
There is nothing wrong with genuine free trade, but the purpose of “free trade” agreements is to destroy genuine free trade, give monopolies to the rich, and reduce every aspect of human life to a source of corporate profit.
Over the past twenty years, “free trade” agreements have created a class of super-rich individuals and extremely powerful corporations. They have disrupted the culture and livelihoods of millions of people, forcing many to leave their homes, and driven many into severe poverty. NAFTA was one of the main reasons why so many millions of Mexicans migrated north to the USA.
On 4 December 2007 the U.S. Senate ratified the latest one – the U.S./ Peru Free Trade Agreement.
The main pusher was Bush’s Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who took over the World Bank in May 2007 after Wolfowitz resigned in disgrace. (Zoellick, like Wolfowitz, is a Jewish PNAC neo-con, and helped engineer the war in Darfur Sudan as part of the East African Oil Grab. Fellow Jew Rob Portman took Zoellick’s place as Bush’s Trade Representative.)
Over 50 percent of Peruvians live in poverty, while almost 25 percent live in extreme poverty, according to the U.N. All Peruvian labor unions were opposed to the “free trade” agreement, but Peru’s wealthy elite ratified the agreement on 28 June 2006, since it will allow Peru's wealthy to become even wealthier.
Patent and copyright monopolies generate vast profits for the elite. This is why U.S. corporate lobbies keep expanding “free trade” treaties. Such treaties allow the elite to impose monopolies on other nations.
The agreement makes Peru subject to U.S. laws on patents, copyrights, and “intellectual property,” thus preventing average Peruvians from getting life-saving drugs.
Nations that enter into “free trade” agreements must accept outside monopoly control over their production and distribution of all new technologies.
The RIAA champions “free trade” agreements as part of its campaign for a global music monopoly. RIAA head Mitch Bainwol (Jewish?) plus MPAA chief Dan Glickman (definitely Jewish) and Consumer Electronics Association CEO Gary Shapiro (ditto) are strong advocates of “free trade.” All three have pushed hard for expansion of their monopolies to other countries.
The agreement follows certain International Labor Organization standards, but there is no independent agency to enforce those standards. Representatives personally chosen by the neo-cons will deem whether labor standards are violated in Peru.
The agreement eliminates Peruvian laws against child labor, and will expose Peru’s subsistence farmers to crushing competition from subsidized U.S. crops. When NAFTA took effect in 1994, Mexican farmers could not compete on the global market with giant agricultural corporations subsidized by the U.S. government. Hence, millions of Mexicans migrated north. Now we can expect to see Peruvians come north to help change hotel beds and flip burgers in U.S. fast food joints.
The agreement also lets Dubai Ports World operate Peru’s ports. (Dubai Ports World operates ports in seventeen nations. )
Obama, Clinton, Romney and McCain support “free trade” agreements.
Huckabee supports “free trade,” but has doubts and questions. Edwards and Ron Paul oppose them. (Paul also opposes the North American Union.) Gravel strongly opposes them. The strongest opponent of all is Kucinich, who wants the USA to pull out of all “free trade” agreements, plus the WTO, IMF, and World Bank.
The elite tells American peasants that “free trade” agreements create growth in Latin America, and therefore create greater demand for American goods.
Elitist publications like Investors Busness Daily say that only “free trade “agreements can guarantee American “global competitiveness.”
In reality the agreements punish wage earners, but guarantee continued growth in corporate profits. They promote the “race to the bottom.” They transfer power to un-elected elites. They allow private corporations to own the seeds and the food that they create, plus the water and the infrastructure that carries it, plus the medicines and the hospitals that administer them.
Peru’s economy is not important to the USA. Exports by all U.S. firms to all the Andean nations totaled $8.3 billion in 2004, which is only 1 percent of overall U.S. exports. However the agreement is a neo-con swipe at Hugo Chavez.
The next major target is Columbia and Panama, whose elites are allied with Bush.
I hope at least one other person read the above post, because control of food and currency is where the real action is.
Guns and armies are just surface items.
The game is simple...
We cannot survive without food. Food and currency (not guns) are the primary weapons of the elite. In the bitter winter of 1788-1789, the government of King Louis XVI exported almost the entire French grain crop. The King allowed aristocrats (plus the landed elite) to get rich. The peasants starved. This triggered the French Revolution, in which the peasants rounded up the elite and sent them to the guillotine.
Today the elite (i.e., central bankers and mega-corporations) moves more carefully. One way they control the masses is through controlling the fertilizer trade. Fertilizer allows mass food production. Without fertilizer, we all die.
From 2001 to 2005, the government of Malawi — under pressure from the World Bank, plus the U.S. and British government— eliminated subsidies for fertilizer in Malawi.
This forced Malawai to export its diminished cash crops for foreign currency, controlled by the central bankers. The currency was issued as loans. The people of Malawai were forced to use those loans to buy food from subsidized French and U.S. farmers. The result was mass poverty and almost a famine in Malawai
Then Malawi’s president defied the World Bank. He subsidized fertilizer and seed, which lifted farmers from poverty, and nearly tripled crop outputs in two years.
The World Bank says this gives Malawian farmers have an “unfair advantage” – even though American and French mega-corporations get farming subsidies.
Loans and subsidies -- NOT GUNS -- are the West's primary weapon.
When the U.S. and French government subsidize farmers, the farmers can sell food cheaper than foreign farmers can. Foreign farmers are financially ruined. Then the World Bank / IMF comes in with loans, which increases foreign debt, and allows central bankers to control the currency in the foreign nation. The result is mass poverty, which forces foreign peasants to rely even more on farmers in the rich nations.
Central banks and mega-corporations work together to make the rich richer, and extend poverty throghout the world.
Under “free trade” agreements, only rich farmers in rich nations get subsidies. Everyone else must starve, and must use currency (loans) controlled by the central bankers.
According to a report in the New York Times last month, the United States has given Malawi $147 million in loans since 2002, of which $53 million went to help farmers in Malawi grow their own food. No money went for the Malawai fertilizer subsidy program.
Argentina bowed to the IMF, and dismantled its social agenda as instructed. The result was mass poverty. Chavez helped Argentina pay off its debt and get rid of the IMF.
The purpose of the World Bank is to make the rich richer. That’s why the leader of the World Bank is almost always a zionist Jew. Not so long ago, ore-rich regions of Africa allowed the World Bank to pump money into mining and other extraction industries. This allowed foreign investors to grab all the profits, while the natives were plunged into poverty.
All World Bank / IMF “help” is in the form of loans from the central bankers who control all currency. When the World Bank / IMF gives out loans, the corrupt rulers of poor countries get billions, and pass the debt on to the peasants. The debt forces the peasants to depend on the central bankers, and on giant corporations to make fertilizer, drugs, and so on.
The peasants must also sell all services and natural resources to foreign corporations for pennies. This destroys healthcare, food subsidies, social insurance, and other forms of social support. Only by challenging such market nostrums did Malawi’s political leaders preempt poverty, dependency on foreign food, and famine.
After the U.S. invaded Iraq, the U.S. imposed these same “free market” rules on the Iraqi people. Now the USA is squeezing out the food-rationing program, which could cause famine in Iraq, as I noted in a previous post. Famine will kill far more Iraqis than U.S. guns and bombs have.
If someone asks you, “Don’t you believe in the free market?” you must answer, “Sure, but only if it’s a truly free market, in which THE RULES APPLY EQUALLY TO THE WEALTHY AND THE POOR.
In the real world, “free market” agreements are designed to destroy the free market, and give all advantages to the rich.
AND energy...
you're right - that's what it's all about.
It's not as much about Power as it is about CONTROL - as the latter always leads to the former and the former cannot exist without the latter.
In fact, the so-called "power" that elites wield is not really theirs at all but the collective power that they harness from everyone else through CONTROL.
I wanted to mention, in an earlier post about currency, that whatever form it takes - fiat or commodity based - the most important factor in ensuring that it remains honest is to DE-centralize the control of its supply such that it can never again be monopolized.
Control is where it's at.
Standard Oil did it with refineries over a century ago - pinpoint the most vulnerable point in the production/distribution process and monopolize that first, everything else falls like dominoes - they've been doing it with everything else ever since.
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"Money" has no value - people do.
Yes, food, currency, and energy. Those are the three parts of the evil triangle. Actually food is a form of energy.
So… we might say that control is through (1) energy and (2) the medium of exchange (currency and information).
And yes, power derives from control. Monopolies have power because they control supply. Monopolies allow engineered shortages – including shortages of information.
What do monopolies ultimately control?
Human energy in all its forms.
Food,Energy,Currency,Information,etc are "just tools" its how they are used which gets them classified as good or evil.
Thats what AA probably means as well.