I like the succinct way this guy has put together a video about as a complicated a subject as "corporatism". For an in depth treatment of it, there’s a book by Canadian author John Ralston Saul.  It was the first one I had come across dealing with the malicious nature of corporatism.

Here’s a lawyer laying bare the machinations going on in the halls of government, machinations intended to take away our liberties. Remember what you learned about the year 1215, and the signing of the Magna Carta.  The kings of old are back!

I was just having the same conversation I’ve had a thousand times before, this time with a colleague, about the strange way it seems that modern societies never seem to be able to learn from history. We can see the same genocidal crimes being perpetrated over and over, decade after decade. We have some of the masterminds, like Robert McNamara in Fog of War , admitting the mistakes and imploring present day leaders not to follow in their footsteps, but to no avail. We ask ourselves, how can this be?  Why does history repeat itself? Perhaps it is a grand conspiracy of elites who employ a Hegelian dialectical method (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) when they model the geopolitical process in a constant game of right versus left, capitalism versus communism, democracy versus tyranny, good versus evil.  There is good reason to believe that this is so.

My colleague pointed to the philosophical writings of Ernst Cassirer, who asserted that, “the Fascist regimes of the 20th century were symbolised by a myth of destiny and the promotion of irrationality.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Cassirer ) So world leaders seem to be caught up in a drama of unfolding historical events, unable to break free of the ideological matrix because their Western democracy is seen as an ultimate Hegelian synthesis. It is seen as the defeat of irrationality: the only logical path and system for (global) society. I remember reading a book in university by Francis Fukuyama called The End of History and the Last Man .  In it, he drew upon Hegelian philosophy to argue that western capitalist (read: neo-liberal economic) democracies were the final and ultimate stage of historical development.  To him, there was no higher achievement than what these shining examples of human history had achieved.  It was no wonder to me that he could have his head so deeply buried in the clouds when I learned years later that he was a affiliate of the Neoconservative thinktank known as the Project for a New American Century .  In that document, members proclaim the need for the US to assert itself by all means necessary as THE global military power, and to increase defense spending to that aim.

Trapped in their ethnocentric, ideological prison, world leaders such as Fukuyama envision an antagonistic world of dualisms on the one side of which is democratic process and rational thought, and which has to be defended (read: forced down everyone’s throats), and on the other side any dissenting view.  Hence, we have an ideology that gives birth to a kind of Frankenwehrmacht, a whole miscellany of rogue “defense forces” and ministries of propaganda, thinktanks and lobby groups, bureaucracies of ’security’, which in turn manufacture a history more palatable to Western tastes.  The chaos we all see and disagree with ensues, with very few dissenting voices.

I believe Erich Fromm identified the source of this destructive ideological zealotry and its concomitant acceptance by the majority of developed-world bourgeoisie.  A humanist and psychological theorist, he pinpointed, “automaton conformity, authoritarianism, and destructiveness” as three key psychological mechanisms that are utilized in individuals who turn away from the responsibility that freedom entails.  People turn to these escape mechanisms because it is easier to lose oneself, be controlled or damn it all to hell, rather than face up to the “hard work” that freedom requires. These think tank partisans have never had the courage to face responsibility for the cost their ideology extracts from the global citizenry. Pundits of this kind always claim that their ideologies have improved the standard of living of people everywhere, and their message dominates the airwaves, because of the monopolization of media.

And herein lies the malevolent aspect of this untenable situation.  Aldous Huxley, in the interview posted previously, said that children are ideal targets of propaganda, not only for the purposes of “branding”, but because once they are, in a sense, “brainwashed” through advertising and media manipulation, they will be “ideology-buyers” in their adult life.  And so we see an escapist philosophy engendering a society of diversion-seekers, a pseudo-democracy which cannot function because the populous is fascinated by the spectacle, the brand, the product. Marx called it “commodity fetishism”.  It has eroded any real democratic foundations that might have existed before.  The commodity in this case is the minds of people, and they’ve been infected with ideology.

But, there is a cure found right inside the disease. Like the Sword of Damocles, technology hovers over us like a UFO, threatening to sweep away our freedom in a grand act of legislation on Internet control or biometrics, or as Zietgeist contends, RFID chip implants, or so the controllers and Alex Jones would have us think. But actually, in technology lies our immunization to these corporatist machinations.  It is already undermining the grand schemes of the elite. As the late, great Marshall McLuhan said in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man , “the effect of any kind of technology engenders a new equilibrium in us that brings quite new technologies to birth.”  That new equilibrium could be the awakening of a biological device within us, a new brainwave.

The question is, will people just passively sit back and watch as technology is used against them, or will they adopt it and use it to their advantage? Take these extreme sport base jumpers.  What new insights are they afforded as they put technology to use?  What new environments have they brought into being?  Are they “automaton conformists”?  Are they victims of the modern ideological propaganda or are they forging their own perspectives?  What’s going on in their brains as they soar as no man has done before?  Perhaps the ideologies of yesteryear will prevail on our weak consciousnesses, but somehow, after I watch this,  I really doubt it.

Author and great mind, Aldous Huxley, was the son of Thomas Huxley, the English biologist and advocate of Darwin’s theories in the Royal Society. The Huxleys were a very well-connected family and were most probably privy to the goings-on in the elite inner circles of the day, which are probably the same families that sit on the top of the heap today as well.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is one of my personal favorite classic distopian novels.  The novel is best read in conjunction with Orwell’s 1984 .  This is essential reading regarding the psychological underpinnings of the corporatist hegemony we all live under today, which makes abundant use of propagandist techniques in advertising, television and film.  In this interview, we can see that he was one of the first to recognize the menace of "subliminal advertising", a "device" which very few even know about nowadays.

I keep going back to the 1950s, a period that seems to have been pivotal in the formation of all that was to come even until now. Late ‘53 and ‘54 in particular seem worth ruminating over a bit: covert, CIA-funded Operation Ajax installated the Shah in Iran;  CIA-orchestrated Operation PBSUCCESS removed democratically-elected Arbenz from Guatemala; the first Bilderberg meeting in the Netherlands; continued hydrogen bomb tests in the Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, in the Soviet Union and in the Nevada desert; RCA’s first TV; first transistor radio; McCarthyism and the Red Scare etc. etc.

This interview distills the best of what was being publicly debated about technology at that time. He is still relevant today due to his insights with respect to how new technologies present a danger to individual freedom.  He was also a pioneer of thoughtful experimentation with hallucinogenic substances, and rightfully saw a connection between them, technology and modern society.  That connection never seemed to be carried all the way to fruition, however.  Even in this interview, he seems to sense the importance of psychotropic drugs without being able to clearly state what that importance signifies, only that it may have some positive relation to individual freedom.  In this conversation, they are addressed as "devices", like technologies, that in some way hold the key to either serving to repress freedom or enhance it.

Here is the 1958 Mike Wallace interview:

The military-industrial complex is strongly rooted in Canada.  You can see that first hand at CANSEC 2009, Canada’s largest military arms bazaar, which will be held this spring at Lansdowne Park, May 27-28.  Many of the companies who will be hawking their wares there are involved in the manufacture of Anti-Personnel Cluster Bombs, Fragmentation Bombs and Phosphorous Bombs as well as making components in weapons systems that deliver the following:
  *  Nuclear Weapons
  *  Depleted Uranium Munitions
  *  Anti-Personnel Cluster Bombs
  *  Anti-Personnel Landmines
While I recognize that war itself is often outside the bounds of “legality”, (this is the argument I’ve heard many pro-war apologists make), there is a history of international dialogue and agreement on the fact that many of these weapons are inhumane and should not be manufactured in the first place.   But, Canada is deeply involved in the military-industrial complex and many Canadian companies profit handsomely from the death these weapons reap.  As a Canadian, I am strongly opposed to the weapons industry.  If you read this and give a damn, let everyone you can know about CANSEC 2009 and go to http://coat.ncf.ca/ to learn more about this issue, as well as why and how to oppose the industry.  Many Canadians have yet to be educated about the real consequences of this industry and how deeply involved our country is in the aggressive occupation of foreign lands.  On several occasions when I was younger I had the opportunity to go see an “air show”.  I was too naive to know what that would be about, but thankfully, I never went. This is what I would have seen, and I would have been just as foolish as the folks in this video.  Now, I know better and intend to let others know too. Take a look if you’ve got 30 mins.

Listen to William Black call it like it is – fraud – and the bank CEOs knew it all along.

I don’t know why it took me until I was in my mid-30s and halfway across the planet from my home to come to understand “economy” (and the sham, anti-science that it is nowadays), but it did. I think alienation from familiarity made me look at things in a new light. Which is why I especially like this brief presentation on how international finance, or what Salbuchi calls “extreme capitalism”, has literally hit the wall. His perspective, coming from Argentina, is appropriate. His country has already been there and done that, as he suggests.

What we need is more ‘internationalism’ (shared international vision) and less globalization (imperialism in sheep’s clothing). We need to share perspectives to see the reality as it really is, not only as we can see it through our own cultural lenses. A case in point is the current situation in Taiwan. The former president is facing hard time for money-laundering, embezzlement and accepting bribes. It’s probably not covered much in the West. But, democratic principles are still upheld in some places in the world, and even those who occupy high offices are held to account for their actions. The same can’t also be said of those who ran western financial schemes which have impoverished millions and threaten the stability of societies worldwide. With more internationalism we should see less of this kind of extreme capitalism.

In the second part, Salbuchi suggests that a new gold-backed, global currency will be introduced, and it will entail a plan to preserve the wealth of those at the top of the pyramid. There will be two kinds of gold: official gold, stamped with a bar code or RFID chip, worth around 30 000 an ounce, and a kind of proletariat gold for the rest of humanity, worth around 1500 an ounce. Reason being, the elites and bankers want to preserve the wealth they’ve accumulated over that last 30 years from plundering the planet and privatizing third world productivity. They want to preserve the plunder. “Privatize profits and socialize losses.” If that does come about, gold will still be a good investment, especially for those of us in foreign countries, since the only currencies that will probably be able to trade 1 to 1 will be the big 7 (or 20?). Anyway, it’s the only way to preserve your savings regardless, and possibly make a 50% profit when the day of reckoning finally arrives.

But, as Salbuchi suggests, this plan will probably fail, mostly because of the Chinese, since they really own the bulk of the debt, and therefore the so-called “wealth”, since the whole system is “debt-based”, based on fiat currency, and unfortunately, the fiat currency is kept afloat through the sale of US treasuries. Those treasuries are looking less and less secure, as talk is bandied about re: a new global currency. So, if they don’t think of a plan that will include the Chinese (and other countries with clout), it’ll come down to fist a’ cuffs, like it did in 1914 and 1939.

John Perkins was the first author I read who discussed the specifics of the IMF “structured adjustment programs” (SAPs), which indebted the Third-World countries to the World Bank and other international banks, and which today continues to keep them impoverished. If you watch the second video by Michel Chussodovsky, you’ll see that it seems the latest round of G20 talks seem to be doing the same thing all over again – heaping more debt upon the Third World in order to bail out the corporate bankers. If that’s true, then the educational work Perkins is undertaking is in vain: the corporatists are still up to their old tricks. But, I still really appreciate the work he’s doing to reveal the corruption and try to open up a way out.