GLOBAL HEGEMONY - A LOOK AT THE BEAST

“I did a lot of talking during the business meeting,” I said to the woman standing before me. “It’s just so wrong. We make an excellent product, and we’ve stood behind it for 44 years.”
My boss was sympathetic. “Don’t think we haven’t tried and tried. We don’t want this to happen, but what can we do? The outfit in Malaysia can supply a similar product for less than half our cost.”

GLOBAL HEGEMONY – A LOOK AT THE BEAST

As you have no doubt heard, we are on the cusp of a new world, and most of us are either in denial or rebellion, or have our heads somewhere else.
• The inventions of the past 200 years
• The vast land to be claimed and tamed
• The noble experiment in self governance
• The ingenuity, resourcefulness and neighborly cooperation once so essential
• Individual success as the motivating force of a life…
... all this has changed. We don’t live in that world today. We face a different set of paradigms that need a different response. This new world is quite changed, and if we mourn for the old ways, I’m afraid that the crass and heartless expression applies here ... we will have to ‘get over it.’ What has changed is so all encompassing that there is no turning back the clock.

• This new world is corporation run.
• Greed is the motivating factor.
• The labor force resides mostly in undeveloped countries
• Skilled labor is losing or has lost its value and benefits
• International norms, banks, and trade agreements supercede national interests
• Work in developed countries is changing in character from production to service –
- Doctors service ill bodies
- Lawyers service people with complaints
- Teachers service children’s minds
- Clerics and managers service a wide array of insurance, public relations,
mortgage, travel, and investment accounts
- Distribution/fulfillment centers send goods on their way
- Lobbyists and journalists service the interests of their parent corporation
- Non-profits service their core issue and constituency
- Maintenance crews service grounds, buildings, equipment
- Bureaucracy grows

We are challenged to react to a situation that we hardly understand, purveyed by a sly government of whose actions we have little knowledge. We are challenged to develop a modus operandi, a philosophy to deal with a new and strangely monstrous world.

The starkness of the change begs a plethora of questions.
• How can we approach this monster?
• How can we wrap our minds around what appears to be incomprehensible?
• Can we influence anything at all? Affect any outcome?
• Can we inject any of our cherished human values into the new system?
• Can we tame greed?
• What is our personal value? Are we as individuals flotsam in the new world
order, our essential purpose being to use the services and bring home the
goods that keep the monster alive?
• Do we need a new chart by which to navigate our lives.. a new political
party?
• Is there any role for democracy? For compassion?

The brute facts of this new world are that a few corporations control almost everything. Some examples:
the world food chain Cargill, AGM, Philip Morris, Heinz
world oil reserves Shell, BP, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, French Total
world health supplies, aka Big Pharma Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyeth, UK GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Swiss Novartis, Roche, French Aventis
world seed stocks DuPont, Monsanto, Swiss Syngenta/Novartis, Mexico’s Seminis, UK Advanta, Dow, Delta and Pine Land, [source: Rural Advancement Foundation International]
world money & finance Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Bank of America, UBS, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of Scotland [source: Wikipedia]
world media AOL-Time-Warner, Disney, Bertelsman, Viacom, Vivendi, GE, Sony, News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch) [source: The Nation].

Keep in mind that mergers are occurring continuously, changing and usually reducing the players. A word about the current state of each of these activities:

* Industrial agriculture promotes mono-cropping, soil depletion, and heavy chemical inputs. Small farmers everywhere are squeezed out because factory farms in general run along soil destroying and animal exploitive principles, not soil building or humane animal husbandry. “The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.” Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation

* Battles are waged, regimes are changed, and environments destroyed in the manic pursuit of oil. Need I say more?

* Some of the most fraudulent research is done in support of new drugs while government regulators look the other way. Follow the money. Researchers obtain the results wanted by those who pay the bills. Negative results are fodder for the document shredder.

* Seed companies have one goal .. to patent every life form, including those plants and seeds used for centuries by indigenous farmers, and to replace farmers’ home-grown seed with expensive, genetically modified, patented ‘intellectual’ property.

* It is reported that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, working together, impose severe conditions upon borrowing countries, reducing them even further to poverty. Chief among the imposed conditions are the requirement to privatize [read: sell cheaply to international corporations] the country’s public utilities such as oil and gas refineries, electric generating plants, water resources, and to cut employment and reduce wages. [source Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.]

* Political news is so heavily censored that when something real gets through to us, we question its validity. Print media certainly suffers this censorship; some electronic media such as the internet clings precariously to freedom.

As is very obvious in this brief survey of a few important and fundamental aspects of our world, the new system is designed for short term manipulation and profit, not for long term sustainability. The new world dynasty cares nothing for the environment, nothing for the well being of the planet, nothing for the populations living here. Corporations see people [us] as pawns in their world chess game.

Previous dramatic changes, i.e. buggies to autos, cannons to rocket launchers, have been largely technical. Excepting the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, a relatively small percentage of jobs were discontinued. When the village hoop maker, wheelwright, or blacksmith went out of business, it was likely a 1-2 man shop, a different scale than when one manufacturer lays off hundreds at a time, and now that manufacturer may be going out of business, too. What we are seeing now is the emergence of a new ruling class that denigrates people in general. A greater percentage of us are falling into the position of having no more value than our buying pattern, or a cipher in account books.

It’s the pendulum swinging. The 19th century Robber Barons exploited labor in unbelievably cruel and uncaring ways. Gradually unions gained strength enough to bargain for a good wage, safety standards, and benefits. That time seems to be fading as we swing again to mega capitalism in the ascent. The difference between the 19th century and now is that it’s not an individual Rockefeller, Carnegie, or Mellon calling the shots. It is huge corporations linked to other huge corporations or subsidiaries in gigantic corporate chains that encircle [and strangle] the globe.

So what to do? Where can we turn for comfort? The major religious movements absorb and channel a lot of general discontent and anger. But some religion has also joined the corporate movement via mega churches, a worrisome development. Islam has attracted militant extremists who in my opinion are actually suffering the same political and economic alienation many of us are feeling, the difference being that their comfort lies with bombs and destruction. We do have this in common with bin Laden and his gangs, and that is a deep dissatisfaction with the values controlling the political/economic landscape. The terrorists in the Middle East don’t envy our democracy. They are trying to tell us that we are messing up, which we are.

If we are to preserve our ideals, to value all human life, and to create better and more compassionate societies, more caring communities, we have to get busy without delay. We must constantly carry the consciousness that we need to be very proactive as well as reactive in seeking the kind of world we want.

THE BIG THREE RESPONSE
There are three very doable things that will make a huge difference for our future. First, we need to remodel some attitudes starting with ourselves and working onward to our political representatives. To begin with we have to believe that we can make a difference. That confidence gained, there is a whole lot we can do to solve our own problems at home more peacefully and compassionately. We need to act from our highest moral convictions and see that those who represent us do also. Michael Lerner and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have the best handle on this task of bringing about a change in our national attitudes and adding other values to the current mix. Their 8-point covenant [not contract!] is quite comprehensive. The first covenant states: ‘We will challenge the materialism and selfishness often rooted in the dynamics of the competitive marketplace that undermine loving relationships and family life.’ Rotating shift work would be one example of such a family life destroying dynamic. Further covenants relate to
• personal responsibility in caring for each other as well as for
self-development,
• social responsibility of corporations,
• education that includes teaching the values of generosity, tolerance,
intellectual curiosity,
• health care in a broader context,
• environment stewardship with ethical consumption,
• foreign policy with a strategy of non-violence and generosity,
• separation of church, state, and science but without keeping all spiritual
values out of the public sphere.

When enough of us adopt a program such as this and speak with conviction to power, we will be heard. I believe speaking to power is absolutely THE duty of every person living in this country. If we don’t speak up for our values, and shepherd them into reality, who will do it for us?

Equally important is what message we send with our dollars. Actions convey concerns. I don’t purchase anything from Wal-mart, and I try to avoid anything made in China or other locations where cheap labor is exploited. I buy food items from as close to home as possible to reduce the major actual and environmental cost of transport and mileage. I don’t drink soda with its empty calories and toxic sweeteners. I research alternatives to prescription drugs; there are lots of healthier options and I always request that my doctor talk to me about alternatives. Good food, good diet is of primary importance to our mental and physical stamina and energy, and we will need plenty of both to tame the corporate monster that is controlling the world and devaluing our lives.

Another way to make dollars count is with modest donations to social justice, humanitarian, and environmental causes.

Finally it is critical that we educate ourselves. Fortunately we are not dependent on one source for this. There is a huge variety of books, and most of them can be found in local libraries. Here are some good ones:
The Left Hand of God; Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right, Michael
Lerner
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Greg Palast
Our Endangered Values, Jimmy Carter
American Theocracy, Kevin Philips
anything by Noam Chomsky

For those with internet access, the net is full of blogs. Some examples:
www.truthout.com www.democracynow.org
www.worldcantwait.net www.mediachannel.org
www.grist.org www.gregpalast.com
www.dailykos.com www.alternet.org
www.libertyforum.org www.opednews.com
Or Google ‘political blogs’

The real hard core truth is that ninety-nine percent of us feel disconnected from this new world that is rising around us. So why not join together and do something about it? Talk to friends. Invite neighbors in. Write a Senator. Send a letter to the newspaper. Find your voice. Sow seeds. It will make a difference, and that’s a fact you can count on. ****


“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever had.”

“It may be necessary to temporarily accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.”
Anthropologist Margaret Mead