All the rich people, all the politicians, all the business people tell us that "Globalism" is wonderful. Globalism is here, it's now, you can't fight it, we'll all benefit from it. But that's just a lie, intended to fool the citizens and prevent them from standing up to fight against this terrible force. "Globalism" means that a few powerful and rich people from all around the world pool their money and work together to take over and control the world. They take everything in their new "Global" institutions called Corporations, and the average person gets nothing.
"Globalism" is just another word for Corporate Dictatorships. Corporations run everything from their secret meetings with their secret hidden shareholder groups, they exist only for the purpose of maximizing profit, they do not answer to any government or any group of citizens, they now have private military and mercenaries like Blackwater to do their killing for them, and they will kill if necessary to continue their quest to take all the money for themselves, and to dominate the world. They're a lot like Fascists.
What is a Corporate Dictatorship? It is the dominant form of governance and control in the world today. Although territory is still divided up into what we call "nations," the fact is that the major international corporations have bribed so many politicians in so many governments, have overthrown democratic governments and set up puppet military dictatorships, and have taken control of so much of the military and police forces of the world, that the corporations are the "real" governments. The corporations own most of the resources, take most of the money, dictate what will happen inside countries including deciding what countries will be invaded, they own the media and strictly control what information is or is not made available to the people, and they decide which people will be murdered, who will get a job, who will eat, who will starve, who shall live and who shall not.
It does not matter what country you go to: they are all controlled by the multinational corporations. Which, in turn, are owned by a small group of very rich people from almost every country in the world. The Bushes and the bin Ladens, the Clintons and the Saudi Princes, the Queen of England and the President of Nigeria, the Russian Mafia and the Mexican drug lords: they are united in one thing, which is that they are rich, they pool their money in offshore private (and secret) Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds, secret Swiss Banks, and they work together to take over more and more of the world.
There is no such thing as patriotism or loyalty to country in this group: they only want money. 2% of the people of the world own 50% of the assets of the world. They have everything, they want more, they use their wealth and power to grab more, they will kill to get more, and most of the world has nothing. These people are destroying the world not just by inequality, but by dumping poison and destroying the earth and water and air everywhere they go. They don't care.
Corporations bribe politicians to get them to do what the corporations want. They bribe the politicians in the United States: they all take money and sell their votes. Both parties do. It's public knowledge. The war in Iraq, for example, was supported not just by the horrible people in the Bush Administration but also by many Democrats in Congress. Those who did not "support" it also often did not speak against it. But why? Because they receive bribes and kick-backs from the Oil Corporations which wanted the U.S. to invade Iraq so they could steal its oil. And they receive bribes and kick-backs from the Military Defense Industry that makes billions off of wars.
So "our" politicians, the ones who knew this war was unlawful, knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Queda -- "our" politicians too often said nothing against the war. They just took their bribes and kept their mouths shut. Both of the major political parties (Democrat and Republican) are owned by the Corporations, although there are individual politicians who have integrity and do try to work to help the people of this country. They are in the minority.
In other countries the Corporate Dictatorship is more open and brutal than in the U.S. The Corporations sometimes hire mercenaries to overthrow the existing democratic government and install a puppet government in its place. Sometimes the puppet government will consist of people who have spent their lives working for the corporations. For example, Hamid Karzai, the head of the puppet regime in Afghanistan, used to work for the California-based Oil Corporation named UNOCAL. http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html Then the corporations get the puppet government to sign an agreement saying the corporation can take all the resources of a country, and pay a few pennies to the government. The politicians take the money, the corporations take the resources, the people starve.
When people say "why is Africa so poor, why are the people starving," you need to understand that the western countries and corporations did just that: they go in, install puppet military dictatorship governments, steal the resources, pollute the country so that nobody can survive, and the people are left with nothing.
The people are disregarded. It is a Corporate Dictatorship because only the wishes of the corporation are enforced. It is often brutal and murderous, because the Corporation hires private mercenaries like Blackwater, or pays enough to the local government to simply get them to use their police and military to kill anyone that tries to stop the Corporation from stealing the resources.
Remember reading about the European Explorers? The Kings or Queens would finance these men to go out in ships to other countries and do what? Kill the people and steal their wealth. Sometimes they went in search of fountains of youth, but more often there were more practical things on the shopping list like precious metals and jewels. Any country that had these resources was quickly declared to "belong" to the Europeans who had sponsored the "Explorers." Any local who tried to stop the Europeans was murdered, and all the wealth of the "discovered" nation was stolen and sent back to Europe.
Well it's basically the same thing today. Except today the Kings and Queens are really just rich people who hide their identities behind the Corporate form. Actually groups of them from all countries in the world get together and combine their money in things like secret Hedge Funds, or Private Equity Funds. Those Funds are used to support "Explorers" (Corporations) in going into countries and stealing their resources, bringing back incredible wealth to the already rich people in these small groups. People who remain hidden, who don't want the rest of us to know who they are.
How many of our politicians, for example, receive millions of dollars from Corporations while they are in office or after they leave, or through their spouses or children, and hide it away in private Hedge Funds or Equity Funds off-shore? We know for sure that when Bill Clinton left office he was given almost a billion dollars from Corporations and from foreign countries who apparently profitted from the policies he adopted while he was President, such as the Globalism-Is-Us doctrine which has so enriched the Corporations and impoverished the citizens. Do we think he's unique? He was a civil servant, well-paid by the Corporate masters. And as a result of the Globalism (Corporate Dictatorship) policies that Bill Clinton put into place, with "free" trade treaties and policies, millions of jobs have been taken out of the United States, millions of Americans have been thrown into poverty, and the Corporations just keep getting richer. Thanks again, Bill.
Many of our national politicians, when they leave office, are immediately given cushy jobs as "consultants," or "advisers," by the Corporations. Because they belong to the Corporations, they sold their votes for years and they sold out the American public.
When the U.S. invaded Iraq, we were just letting the oil corporations use our military to go into Iraq and seize its oil. Everything that has happened since then, all the stories, all the killing, all the lies, all that "God-made-me-do-it" babble from Bush, everything that has been uncovered, has not changed that central fact: we went in there as a private security force to let the Oil Corporations steal Iraq's Oil. Period. The real terrorists in this scenario wear suits and sit in boardrooms for major oil companies.
The U.S. military is also saturated throughout the world to put some drug growers and dealers out of business to the benefit of their competition, while somebody gets a big cut of the world drug business. The biggest recipients likely are sitting inside corporate board rooms, probably on Wall Street, counting up the hundreds of millions they make from the cocaine and heroin trade. The U.S. is not in a war "on" drugs. We're in a war to help one side control the drug business and profit from it.
Identify the most valuable resources in the world, and you will always find the corporate dictatorships own and control the trade in the resource, use the military and police to enforce that control, and kill anyone who tries to stop them. Raise your hand if you really think that some dude named Jose who lives in Tijuana gets most of the money from the world drug trade? Not.
The Corporations control enough countries, have enough mercenaries, enough weapons and missiles and airplanes and governments under their control, that they are in effect a global Corporate Dictatorship with tentacles spread around the world. The corporations are big, and wherever they go they create puppet governments, corruption, torture and oppression and extreme poverty for the people. And murder. Don't forget murder.
Nigeria is a good example of the Corporate Dictatorship. This week Shell (of the Royal Dutch variety) agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a lawsuit against Shell based upon their colluding with the military dictatorship of Nigeria in the murder of a local citizens' group which opposed Shell in its efforts to steal all of Nigeria's oil and leave the people destitute, the land polluted.
One of the people murdered by the Nigerian dictatorship was a well-known writer named Ken Saro-Wiwa who, along with other citizens, engaged in peaceful protests against the Corporate Dictatorship and theft of their nation's resources. He was killed for opposing Shell in its quest to steal everything from that country. The claims in the lawsuit included crimes against humanity, and human rights abuses. Shell actually spent 13 years with a team of sophisticated big-city lawyers fighting that lawsuit and trying to get it thrown out of court. Only when they were finally faced with a trial did they agree to settle.
What happened is that Mr. Saro-Wiwa and some other citizens engaged in peaceful protests against Shell. The government arrested them, held a ridiculous military tribunal trial like we do in Guantanamo, the stalinist definition of anti-democratic and illegal proceedings. They were found "guilty" by the dictatorship's military tribunal, and were executed. Eight men, murdered. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6364435.ece
According to the lawsuit, the corporate dictatorship Shell was annoyed that the citizens of Nigeria were protesting the destruction of their environment and theft of their resources by Shell. Shell didn't want the bad press. So Shell demanded the puppet government clamp down on Mr. Saro-Wiwa. Even after Mr. Saro-Wiwa and others were arrested on bogus charges, Shell's management intervened in the military tribunals to ensure that these men would be found guilty. And would be murdered by the government. According to the lawsuit, Shell's management met with Mr. Saro-Wiwa's brother at one point and offered to let him go free, and to live, if he would agree that he would stop organizing the citizens of Nigeria to protest Shell's theft of their resources and destruction of the environment. Keep that in mind the next time you pull into a Shell gas station. Proceed with caution, they play rough.
The Center for Constitutional Rights was one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in Nigeria in the lawsuit against Shell.
There are many groups inside Nigeria who are organized and fighting against the Corporate Dictatorship. Violence has increased as have kidnappings and sabotage of oil equipment. Last year Chevron, the U.S. oil company, was cleared by an American jury of involvement in the 1998 shooting by Nigerian soldiers of protesters who occupied an oil barge belonging to the company. I wonder why Chevron wasn't "tried" by a Nigerian jury, and wonder if the outcome might have been different if the Nigerian people got to vote on that one. Last month Nigerian militants bombed a Chevron pipeline in the region. 
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6459634.ece
The people of Nigeria are desperately poor despite the fact that their nation is rich in resources. So what should happen in Nigeria? The people should go get every politician and insider who has made so much as a penny more than their salary over the past 50 years, seize their assets, and redistribute the money to the citizens of Nigeria. That would be the right and fair thing to do. And sue the oil companies, get money to clean up the environmental disaster they have created, cap off the oil, create their own national oil company, and only take such oil as can be done consistent with environmental safeguards so the people can live.
Amy Goodman also writes about this in her article titled "Chevron, Shell and the True Cost of Oil" (June 3, 2009), at the following link:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090526_chevron_shell_and_the_true_cost_of_oil
Finally, here is an excellent piece about the corporate dictatorship in Nigeria by the oil corporations, their puppet military dictatorship and goon squads of local thugs that they use as "muscle" to enforce their rule. It also shows the severe poverty of the people of that country who receive nothing while their resources are stolen by a European corporation, and their environment, and ability to survive, are destroyed by the corporation simply dumping oil on the land and in the water. It certainly provides a different perspective on the whole silly "eeke, there's pirates in the water" stories we've heard from the media recently. This was run on Current TV. Find Current TV on your listings and start watching it. http://current.com/ They've got some great reporting.
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