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A GUIDEBOOK: HOW THE WORLD WORKS AND HOW WE CAN CHANGE IT
(C) 2000, Richard K. Moore
http://cyberjournal.org
Chapter 1:
How does the world work today, and where is it headed?
a. Globalization and the West: a covert coup d'etat
b. Globalization and the third world: empire by another name
c. Kultur-kampf: enforcing the New World Order
d. Economic globalization: Robber Barons writ large
e. Decoding propaganda: matrix vs. reality
f. Capitalism's growth imperative and societal engineering
===> g. Elite rule and the Dark Millennium
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1.g. Elite rule and the Dark Millennium
"Because it is destructive of life and
spirit, the capitalist economy must be
considered a social pathology. Even its
apparent capacity to create vast wealth
is largely illusory, because though it is
producing ever more sophisticated gadgets
and diversions, it is destroying the life
support systems of the planet and the
social fabric of society. It is therefore
destroying our most important wealth. Its
institutions function as cancers that
forget they are part of a larger whole
and seek their own unlimited growth
without regard to the consequences."
- David Korten, 2nd Annual Feasta Lecture,
Dublin, 2000.
Permit me to summarize the perspective that has
been developed so far:
* Capitalism is a parasite on market economies
which greatly reduces their social benefit. It
functions by injecting a growth imperative
into those economies, compelling them to
provide investment opportunities so that
wealthy investors and banks can accumulate
monetary wealth. The growth imperative, since
it came into existence, has been the root
cause of imperialism and of warfare among
Western nations.
* Capitalist elites engage in a continual
project of social engineering, so as to create
ever more opportunities for capital growth.
Globalization amounts to a global coup d'etat
by these elites, and the establishment of a
centralized global regime. Essential
sovereignty is being handed over to an
elite-controlled bureaucracy whose sole agenda
is the promotion of capital growth.
* All societies are suffering from accelerated
exploitation, but the third world suffers
most. The militaries of the West - under the
guise of 'humanitarianism' - have been
harnessed to the task of compelling
third-world compliance with the diktats of the
regime.
* The nature of capitalism - and the existence
of the global elite, their regime, and the
coup itself - are concealed from the public by
means of sophisticated Big-Lie propaganda.
This propaganda is designed and distributed by
an increasingly centralized global corporate
media, and it projects a matrix reality which
is quite different from the real world. The
essential function of the mass media is to act
as an advertising agency for capitalism, and
to create support for whatever policies the
elite regime decides are necessary to promote
capital growth.
Armed with this perspective, there is a great deal
we can tell about what elite planners have in mind,
and where globalization is likely to take us. We
know, for example, that they must continually
create new opportunities for development projects
and investments. We can see the institutional
structure of their regime, and we know how they
intend to enforce its authority in the third world.
We can observe government initiatives as they come
along, and determine their actual motivation by
noticing how they serve elite interests. By paying
attention to the media's matrix reality - and
especially shifts in that reality - we can figure
out what new policies and actions are being
signaled. Let's consider a few examples.
Denigration of government
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When the Reagan-Thatcher revolution came along, the
media began for the first time to present the
institution of government in an unfavorable light.
"Government is the problem" is something many of us
already believed, but we had never before gotten
support from the media. This shift suggested the
following question: "Why do elites want us to
distrust government?" Part of the answer could be
seen in the actions of Reagan and Thatcher, as they
dismantled government programs and handed national
assets over to corporations. But that's not a
complete answer, because in previous laissez-faire
eras denigration of government by the elite press
was not part of the scenario. The anti-government
shift in the matrix in fact signaled a much broader
attack on national sovereignty, leading ultimately
to the WTO regime itself.
Civil rights and police states
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In the postwar era, which lasted until the end of
the 1960s, the matrix view of Western society was
characterized by the 'rule of laws not men'. People
in a democracy were expected to obey laws
voluntarily, and police especially were expected to
treat the law with the greatest respect. The matrix
showed us Old-West marshals and big-city cops who
were always honest and straightforward people, in
contrast to devious, conniving criminals. Respect
for law was supreme, and the Bill of Rights was
especially revered, in rhetoric if not in practice,
as the ultimate symbol of the 'rule of laws not
men'.
All this changed with the release in the early
1970s of the Clint Eastwood blockbuster, "Dirty
Harry." In that film "Harry" is a cop who is being
hamstrung in his efforts to apprehend an especially
repugnant criminal - one who buries young girls in
the ground and lets them suffocate. Harry's
superiors put all kind of constraints on him, out
of an exaggerated concern for 'rules' and the
'constitutional rights' of the criminal. The heroic
Harry risks his career and his life by defying his
misguided superiors and apprehending the bad guy.
Since that time, a very similar scenario has been
played out in hundreds of films and television
series. Always the perpetrator is utterly
reprehensible; always it is necessary to 'bend the
rules' in order to bring him to justice; and the
law-enforcement officials - though they have become
as devious as the criminals they pursue - are
always deeply noble in their hearts. This matrix
propaganda has created in the population an
exaggerated fear of crime, an acceptance of
heavy-handed policing, and a general feeling that
'rights' are a joke. Instead of the 'rule of law',
we now have a no-holds-barred war between conniving
criminals and conniving cops. The Bill of Rights,
instead of being revered, is blamed for hampering
the apprehension of criminals.
It is not difficult to understand the real-world
reason behind this shift in the matrix - if we
consider the realities of globalization. Just as
increased interventionism will be necessary to
compel third-world compliance with the global
regime, so will heavy-handed policing be necessary
to contain civil unrest in the West.
Globalization's ravages hit minority communities
first, and in such communities the police presence
increasingly resembles that of an occupying army.
In Seattle we saw the emergence of a broad-based,
non-violent, anti-globalization movement, and this
was met by a level of police violence that would
have been totally unacceptable in the 1960s. But in
1999 the public shrugged off the police excesses,
and this is what the "Dirty Harry" shift in the
matrix was all about.
The African Holocaust
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In the 1800s, in America and Australia, an open
policy of genocide was adopted to clear out the
native populations and make room for national
expansion and capital growth. Some natives were
massacred outright, by military units and settlers
alike, while others were moved to inhospitable
reservations where their numbers declined further
from disease, malnutrition, and subsequent
massacres. The natives were considered subhuman,
and overt racism contributed to the intensity of
the genocide. As recently as the 1950s Hollywood
was still turning out "Cowboy and Indian" films in
which "The only good Injun is a dead Injun" was a
common epithet.
Sub-Saharan Africa has today become a similar scene
of mass genocide, except that in this case the
program is covert instead of open. Racism has gone
out of style, forcing the adoption of new methods.
Famine, Civil War, and AIDS are the primary horses
of this apocalypse, and the matrix tells us those
are due to drought, traditional tribal rivalries,
and a primitive inability to follow sensible health
precautions. The reality is quite different. To
begin with, the best land and water sources are
used by large producers to grow coffee and other
export crops, leaving for local food production
marginal lands with inadequate irrigation. Drought
leads to famine only because the best lands and
water are preempted in this way to generate capital
growth for local elites and outside investors.
So far, we're talking about standard imperialism,
as it has been experienced in third world countries
for centuries. One might recall the Irish Potato
Famine, during which tons of food were being
exported daily from Dublin and Cork. Under
globalization, Africa has been subjected to new and
different assaults which together add up to a
systematic pattern of intentional genocide,
presumably aimed at turning Africa into a new arena
for intensive development.
Part of the story is told by Michel Chossudovsky,
in "The Globalization of Poverty - Impacts of IMF
and World Bank Reforms." He shows how IMF
"structural adjustment" programs and international
cartels have been used to ruin African economies -
removing local produce from international markets,
and creating markets for food imports. These
assaults have been a major and direct cause of
poverty, famine, social dislocation, and civil war.
Another part of the story involves the CIA,
U.S.-run paramilitary training programs, and a
plentiful supply of weapons on sale to all sides by
eager Western arms exporters. To track down the
details of that story, one might begin with William
Blum's "Killing Hope, U.S. Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II" and the magazine,
"Covert Action Quarterly." Needless to say, the
covert stirring up of conflicts is made much easier
against a backdrop of wrecked economies and social
breakdown. In classic military terms, one can see
the IMF playing the role of advance artillery, and
the CIA and military advisors following up with a
ground assault - with genocide being the battle
objective.
The IMF has proclaimed that $3 per year per person
shall be the total budget for health care in
Sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the U.S. and
the WTO are aggressively enforcing WTO rulings
which force African countries to buy expensive
proprietary drugs instead of cheaper equivalent
drugs from other sources. These two intentional
actions by agents of the elite regime create an
extremely dangerous health situation in Africa.
Without adequate training, drugs, or hypodermic
needles, health clinics become a spreader of AIDS
and other infectious diseases - and AIDS is already
spreading very rapidly.
President Clinton cries crocodile tears on
television over the AIDS crisis, and urges Africans
to educate themselves in preventative measures -
but he does not offer meaningful public-health
assistance. Meanwhile the media reports little or
nothing about the actions of the U.S. government,
the IMF, and the WTO, which contribute
substantially to the spread of the disease, and to
the overall agenda of genocide.
The Dark Millennium
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If the world continues on the course planned by the
elite regime, we will be entering a new era, an era
reminiscent of the medieval Dark Ages. Politically,
we are returning to absolute tyranny under an
elite, centralized regime - every bit as brutal and
autocratic as the monarchs and Popes of the
medieval period. Instead of a powerful Church and
sacraments, we have a sophisticated media matrix -
with the same ability to control people's minds and
persuade them to accept their fate. One of the
major differences between the medieval period and
globalization's Dark Millennium has to do with
economics - the medieval period enjoyed a more or
less sustainable and market-based economy, and in
it there was a place for everyone.
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Recommended viewing.
Cinema: "The Matrix", "Blade Runner", "Rollerball".
Television: "Law and Order", "The Practice".
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