7) What if corporations can hijack national identity? The nature of US debt and the reality of corporate empire building in the 21st century

I’d like to get stuck into the elephant in the room following my last post and my posts on Identity.  I have raised the possibility of a "US agenda" without mentioning many specifics or linking claims to groups with interests, and I've given out links to sites that address the sub-issues and sites that are arguably a bit sensationalist.  I've also touched on the fact that the issues governing running for office in United States are largely presented as cultural, religious and socio-economic.  Media propaganda, pop-culture, human nature and perhaps a little bit of spin-doctoring entrench these factors into western society and provide means through which this culture can be well managed in a not too sinister fashion. 

Regarding the heading of this post, of course the US is in Debt, but it doesn't matter if it can adjust the world and it politics or resources to fit its means.

In the colonial, pre-war and world war era’s empire building was based primarily on controlling the land and factors surrounding resources of value.  Nations would covet these valuable resources such as metal ore, minerals, precious metals and gems, chemicals, timber, coal, foods and fertile ground, marine and fishing related, peat, granite etc etc etc. Note that I purposefully left out oil and natural gas for now.

Nations often even invent political reasons to gain access to these riches.

In the cold war in the nuclear age, fear of global destruction was a new factor and tempered the earlier grab for riches with an ideological standoff and a battle for support and global sentiment became much more important.

Let’s appreciate one thing upfront: The United States with its corporate/lobby/governmental interchangeability has by far the most sophisticated, effective, successful and precursory methods of dealing in these matters.  Anybody who takes a superficial glance the illusion of financial difficulty the US is in has little appreciation for the reality of how the world works.

The Soviet VS USA battle to emerge as the world’s sole superpower has allowed the US powers to understand that threat of global destruction is too risky a situation to ever have to confront again, and this standoff needs to be prevented at all costs. How? Let me explain.

The emergence of China has long been anticipated, but China spent its most important development phase stuck in older economic attitudes discussed above, and that is reflected by its role in today’s global political stage.  Many have been surprised by US policy often facilitating this role, and the Chinese / American economic relationship based on debt and outsourcing of manufactured goods stimulated the Chinese drive for resources and manufacturing with cheap labour and well harnessed skills.  An increasing one dimensional economy depending on manufactured goods and trade has emerged.  The United States has been relieved of the need to control some types of natural resources and has managed through globalization to be the chief influencer of the world dollar based economic environment.  The fractional reserve method of money supply, forex and sophisticated western banking practices, now fairly global,  have ensured this.  One cannot make a case for a conspiracy in this regard as much as one can appreciate how US reaction has evolved with, facilitated or permitted certain Chinese policies regarding relationship with the USA on trade and foreign policy, and vice versa. 

What does this mean? This means that the US, and therefore the entire western world has become an essential customer for a China which is becoming increasingly dependent on the global marketplace to ensure its production and trade based economic model does not implode.  You don’t threaten your customer, you want your customer to prosper, and thus the Cold War scenario with China has been cleverly avoided, for now.  Managing China's relationship with Russia as the US puts the (lets face the inevitable) imperialist squeeze on the areas surrounding Russias Black Sea Crimean access areas of Ukraine, which have proximity to Russian oil, gas and gold reserves, will be fascinating to watch in terms of media spin wars in 2014/2015 RT/Fox News) 

This media clip makes a very good case for NATO blocking the Ukrainian gas pipeline to Europe (not the dedicated pipeline to Germany) to encourage hostile sentiment towards Russia.

Meanwhile the US drive around its one required resource, energy (oil, and the next big energy resource, natural gas http://www.naturalgas.org/business/demand.asp) continues because of the role that will played in future global policy.  I will get there in future posts.

Here is an excellent article by David Johnson on the issues surrounding fracking: www.toomuchtoomany.co.za/blog/2013/5/6/when-should-we-start-fracking-in-the-karoo

Take a look at the world’s oil and gas reserves and US military action and try and reconcile the given political reasoning with the energy reserves and the picture emerges very clearly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves

That is enough for now, in order not to lose anyone I will have to address other themes in future posts before finishing this theme. 

6) Conspiracy Theories

As I write this the United States is in the process of drumming up support for a Strike on Syria.  The reasoning offered is that the strike is necessary as a result of chemical weapons having been used by the Syrian government against it’s own people.  The difference between the few thousand dying by chemical warfare and the previous 90 000 dying by conventional weaponry isn't immediately apparent; perhaps the distinction will be clarified later. Before getting into this issue specifically or making comparison in the rhetoric used by George W. Bush previously in getting the support required for the invasion of Iraq (using non-existent WMD’s as his main selling point) I would prefer to take step back and look at the bigger picture.

The truth is that almost none of us understand what goes on behind closed doors in affairs governing world politics.  The issues themselves are certainly more complex and inter-related than the reasoning provided in the casual conversations I've been privy to. One thing does strike my as very relevant to the themes being introduced by this blog, that aspect is that many people appear very certain in their world view and align their pride and ego with a particular position.  Once the line is drawn in the sand the views and strong opinions invariably need to be defended and eyes are no longer open and free to process information clearly.  We become politically or ideologically aligned and begin to confuse our issues once we commit to a “side”.

I’m incredibly disappointed by this because I feel that the issues are not dealt with in a satisfying manner and the reporting via the already heavily politically aligned news networks reflects this polarizing stance.  Western political lobbying systems and corporate/political interchangeability have inherently built this element into the system even though no particularly sinister puppet master is required to pull the strings.

On the opposite side of the spectrum we have a collection of thematically interesting maverick perspectives that are either fervently supported or vehemently written off as crack-pot conspiracy theorists.  Many of the people or groups to get it wrong in the sense that they often claim to have all the answers or draw conclusions from incompletely formed or half true essential facts.  What has sent a chill down my spine is the fact that for every idea that turns out to be false, there is one that turns out to be true.  I have been following many of these theories for some years now, and while I am not a follower or supporter of many of these perspectives in the true sense, I have been struck by how much of it is verifiable or predicted in advance.  I lost a frustrating long argument in this vein recently with a well informed friend who predicted the “US Empire builders shopping list” as Afghanistan – Iraq – Syria – Iran – (in that order) in the early 2000’s.  He even went as far to mention political destabilizing movements in Libya, Egypt and Turkey.  It’s hard to completely dismiss the fact that something that resembles an agenda is a possibility.  It’s even more difficult to accept that the news “As Reported” is unfolding for the reasons we led to believe.

I’ll be getting stuck into some of these issues in my next post, but I’ll be following public attitudes closely to see if there is any maturing of public assimilation and processing of these ideas, and whether any balance or even perspective is appreciated over the taking of contrary positions without having all the information available to us.

As far as dismissing people wholesale as “crack-pots” or “conspiracy-nuts”, I do not, because for me some of these people do not have to be 100% on the money, just a kernel of truth is worrying enough.  There are those that have elements of such truths and the evidence is overwhelming yet pitted more often against spin and propaganda that evidence to the contrary.

In the meantime here are some links; each has something to offer, even in those cases where some have been exposed to varying degrees (often by unscrupulous attempts to discredit the sources due to the inherent agendas).  Add the awareness's to your mental arsenal without committing to them.  Use them as consideration points if you must, disagree if need. I do not advocate subscribing wholesale to any of them, but believe me, there is an important message in most of them if you are free to read and process without emotional reaction.  I must confess, have included one or two more extreme perspectives, just for fun:

• http://wikileaks.org/
• http://ronpaulinstitute.org/home.aspx 
• http://occupywallst.org/
• http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/
• http://www.ora.tv/offthegrid 
• http://www.thevenusproject.com/
• http://www.johnperkins.org/
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