Europeans Still Need To Confront The U.S. Over Scuttling Iran Nuclear Deal

 "The truth is that the deal had frozen in place a huge reduction in Iran's capacity to pursue nuclear weapons. Trump's false assertion to the contrary comes at a high price, including a weakening of United States credibility in all of its future international negotiations, particularly with North Korea.  That collapse of the U.S. diplomatic reputation will also extend far beyond Trump; the fear that some equally erratic president might be waiting in the wings may take a generation to fade." -  David Goldfischer, 'Trump's Dangerous Decision On Iran', Denver Post, May 13, p. D1.)

 

Given that every sentient citizen now grasps the full folly of Trump's decision to back out of the Iran nuclear deal, including that the U.S. has now lost the moral high ground to Iran, e.g.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/ted-rall/79191/thanks-to-trump-s-perfidy-iran-is-now-on-a-higher-moral-plane-than-the-u-s

It ought to be incumbent on the European signees and their allies (e.g. China, Russia) to come full force to rescue the deal anyway they can, and trash or ignore all U.S. sanctions.  As reported by Michael Birnbaum in The Washington Post, 

"The European Union's chief diplomat took a defiant stance Tuesday after meeting with Iran's foreign minister and other top European diplomats to try to salvage the Iran nuclear deal following Trump's decision to withdraw the United States.   Federica Mogherini, who negotiated the deal on behalf of the European Union, listed a string of proposals that taken together may not be enough to convince Iran's leaders to hold to the deal but probably will be seen in Washington as a raised fist against U.S. policy."

To which I say, terrific!  Or at least I did - before reading the WSJ  article (Saturday, p. A7) that both Angela Merkel and  Emmanuel Macron had gotten cold feet about challenging the U.S. Trumpies about sticking to the Iran deal. But they need to know the betrayal and rejection of that policy was spawned by a cabal of  international gangsters, grifters, swamp parasites  and traitors trying to pass themselves off as a legitimate government. Trump, the chief 'don' of gangsters and uber traitor (which will be proven after Mueller indicts him for conspiracy with the Russians to undermine and steal a U.S. election) was behind the torpedoed deal - which destabilizes geopolitics on a level that his reptile base can't begin to understand.

That is all the more reason for the EU and allies  need  to have acted to bust the Trumpie Imperium in the snout, and demonstrate there is at least one credible Western side that remains committed. This even while Ms. Mogherini admitted the EU is "operating in a very difficult context" especially given Washington's (aka the swamp's) ability to "strike around the world because of the reach of the U.S. financial system".

But this is why the spectacle of Macron and Merkel throwing their hands up instead of fighting was so dispiriting. Macron himself, as reported by the NY Times Friday- has become a subject of derision by 55 percent of French citizens for his fawning display on his visit with the Dotard in D.C.. This included letting the arrogant swine remove "dandruff" from his suit coat in a display of alpha male supremacy. Most Frenchmen were aghast calling Macron a "serf", a "stooge", Trump's lap dog and worse. Had he no shame, no pride? Plus they regarded him as a loser for doing all the posturing and getting nada. He, above all, could have shown he did possess some few milligrams of testosterone by putting up a fight. (Most French poll respondents didn't believe his subsequent, hard hitting speech to the U.S. congress was good enough to overcome the image of a submissive little whelp to Trump's Top dawg earlier.)

As for Merkel, she has much more power in terms of the German economy - i.e. we know it will be carrying a large surplus forward through 2020. She could easily have committed to a more powerful Iranian deal without losing any face. But I suspect perhaps she's terrified of the rising German "Alt" party nationalists,  especially after the flood of refugees that poured in by Sept. 2015. So maybe by not taking on Trump in an Iran face -off she hopes to curry some favor with the new brand of German fascists.

Or maybe, taking the kindest interpretation, neither Merkel nor Macron knew there were remedies despite the EU having tried them before and succeeded -  with the U.S.  I refer, of course, to the EU's use of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to defy the U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1996.   The WTO ruled in the EU's favor and the Yankee imperialists had to back off. The world's rejection of the U.S. position - including Europe - meant the D.C. "swamp" wasn't able to dislodge the Cuban government and the Castros.  And yeah, I have a dog in this fight - namely with the U.S. in its Cuba posture - given it was the CIA -abetted terrorist Luis Posada, e.g.

Who was responsible for blowing up Cubana Airlines Flight 455  off the southwest coast of Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976, killing all 73 on board. I  was at the Paradise Beach with my five nieces when it occurred. We witnessed the plane come down, and wondered what the hell had happened – then watched in horror barely an hour and a half later as bloody body parts began to wash ashore.  See also the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uspkEV_fFzs

If you are not up to speed on the event. Certainly that act of terror is just as emblazoned in Barbadian neurons as the 9-11 attack for those in New York. Maybe worse,  since the scale of Barbados is radically smaller than New York, or the U.S. On a national scale of devastation, that Cubana Airline bombing took out a percentage of people equal to 0.03% of the total populace, while numerically as a % of NYC, 9-11 took out roughly 0.0001%. Thus, in purely proportionate numerical terms, Cubana 455 was much deadlier. But sadly, it's not on most citizens' radar - certainly not in the US Of A.

Anyway, that is why I fully backed the EU end around using the WTO of the then Cuban embargo. Not because I am necessarily a fan of the Castros, but because the Cuban nation suffered at the hands of U.S.-backed terrorists who've yet to receive their just deserts. 

The European governments have as much right now to protect their own companies and business interests vis-à-vis the Iran nuclear deal  -especially given France's Total SA and Airbus SE have billion dollar projects in the works that stand to be scuttled.   This despite the WSJ's  Dan Henninger recent caterwauling ('America's So-Called Allies' , May 16, p. A13) that the Europeans were "only in the Iran deal for the money they could get". To which my response was a pronounced, "Meh".

If the US. stood to lose such business does anyone believe it would stand idly by? Does anyone with more than air between the ears not believe it would jump at a similar nuke deal?  In addition, France's financial system still has $163 million in cross -border claims on Iranian banks as of the last quarter. - according to the Bank of International Settlements (WSJ, May 12, p. A3)

Another option would have been for the EU to draw up counter legislation to the U.S. and also order European companies to ignore U.S. sanctions, equivalent to the thumb in the eye of the Amerikkan Trumpie nationalists and warmongers.

Meanwhile, it's since been learned the U.S. "wants to restart nuclear talks with Iran" with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to "outline a new strategy today" (NY Times, May 19, p. A8).  This would be nothing more than a brain fart effort given it "is centered around a demand  that the European allies have already rejected."   What is this hare brained scheme? It basically entails putting indefinite limits on Tehran ever gaining access to nuclear weapons. (Whereas the deal just scuttled set a ten year limit).  The plan is hare brained because the Iranian hardliners had even barked loudly about the original deal and 10 year delay. SO why would they now accept an "indefinite" postponement? Fact is, they wouldn't,  and the Europeans know that too.

This is why the  Europeans -  perhaps with Russian and Chinese help -  need to do something to beat aback the Trump- Nazi cabal.  The WTO gambit seems like the best bet, combined with alternate legislation to neutralize the Trumpite treachery.  It's an issue of essential peace, not to mention saving the U.S. from itself - given it's being run by money pirates, conspirators and gangsters.  

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gareth-porter/79186/was-there-ever-an-iranian-nuclear-weapons-program

Americans Lost Faith In Democratic Institutions Traced To The Kennedy Assassination

One of thousands of 'Wanted for Treason' posters retrieved from Dallas streets on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Our civic decline and mistrust in government commenced almost from the instant of Kennedy's killing.

More and more articles, op-eds have been shedding light on the retreat of American voters from embracing democracy and democratic institutions and many even distrusting the voting process entirely. For reference, a Pew Research Center Poll barely a month ago showed the "trust in government" at 19 percent, compared to 89 percent in 1959.  Meanwhile, Gallup's research  has: Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low.

One article kept from The International New York Times, from when we traveled eastern Europe last September, stated that not only have citizens liked democracy less than they once did but also "the democratic game itself"  has been eroded. The level of discourse citizen to citizen has coarsened as well as the discourse within and between branches of the government itself.  We now see, for example, procedures like the filibuster - once reserved for extraordinary circumstances -  employed with regularity.

Most astounding to me was the observation (ibid.)

"When asked by the World Values Survey to rate how democratically their country is being governed on a 10 point scale, a third of Americans responded at the low end - 'not at all democratic"

Even more astounding and veering into the appalling - a recent public opinion poll showed that 43 percent of Republicans, 20 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents would support a military coup against the United States government under certain circumstances.

What has happened between 1959 and the present to degrade civility and political civic space to this extent? Writing as one who has lived those years and observed carefully the nation's political arc, I can put the down slide almost from the time of the Kennedy assassination, on Nov. 22, 1963. 

Most savvy and politically aware people, paying any attention at all, knew from the instant LBJ was sworn in (later on the 22nd) that he had had a hand in at least accepting a plan for the kill.  When he set up the phony Warren Commission,, everyone with  politically savvy eyes and ears could smell a rat, a ruse to cover up the bastard's tracks. With the  cover up's assistance of Operation Mockingbird, the metastasizing cancer of government distrust had begun its long and sordid track. As Steve Kornacki reported in his ‘UP’ journal on MSNBC, the morning of Nov. 23, 2013, the "fix" was in even before JFK arrived in Big D. Using tapes and media documents, Kornacki showed that Johnson was about to be exposed as an influence peddler in conjunction with the Bobby Baker scandal by LIFE magazine in its upcoming issue. Johnson knew this months in advance and also he had no choice other than to place his future fortunes with the several interests that wanted Kennedy dead, especially the CIA.

A paper trail of bank statements and payments was to have been included in the LIFE expose, and as Kornacki pointed out a Senate investigation would have ensured LBJ being dumped from Kennedy’s 1964 ticket.  In other words, LBJ had by far the most to gain from JFK’s assassination, since he’d then be next in line as President, and not have to face justice in the Baker scandal. What most don't say is that many of us were already aware of Johnson's nefarious background at the time and we didn't trust him.   Philip Nelson, whose book ‘LBJ – The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination’ – was even cited by former British intelligent agent and author John Hughes-Wilson,  observed (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

By 1984, LBJ's propensity to remove obstacles by murder was finally uncovered in a Dallas Morning News headline article, e.g.

Billie Sol Estes reported that Johnson had Henry Harvey Marshall, a USDA official in charge of the federal cotton allotment detail,  killed because he had attempted to link Estes’ nefarious dealings to the then Vice-President.  While Estes ended up doing prison time, he did have his say before a grand jury (which subpoenaed him)  In the follow-up grand jury investigation, Johnson, his one-time aide Cliff Carter, and ‘Mac’ Wallace were all deemed “co-conspirators in the murder” of Marshall.

But Johnson was only one sordid piece - or cog-   in the whole undermining tapestry that has ultimately led to the massive citizen distrust in government and the democratic process we behold today. It is part of the cancer I refer to as erosion of the nation's civility and civic space.  The fact is that enormous external forces were already afoot and wary of Kennedy's policies and genuinely liberal stances on multifold issues.  Stances which, if continued, would very well threaten those interests.

For example, we now understand today that much of the rancor and sense of rebellion has been initiated with global trade pacts like NAFTA.   We now also know that the hype used by the elites to pump up support has been more a matter of manipulation of citizen consent, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/69588/tpp-partner-jails-human-rights-blogger

But this incentive to spread a misshapen plan for global trade didn't just commence in the past 25 years. Nor did the aspiration for a genuinely fair trade system originate recently. In fact, the original importance of preserving a global trade network without sacrifice to private monopoly or multi-national power was first recognized by  John F. Kennedy in late 1962 and 1963. He made enormous efforts to stave off incipient private control of the globalization process. As Donald Gibson observes in his must-read monograph(‘Battling Wall Street – The Kennedy Presidency’, Sheridan Square Press, 1994, p. 113):

"John Kennedy declared the 1960s the decade of development. The Alliance for Progress, development aid, low interest loans, nation-to-nation cooperation, and some measure of government planning were some of the ingredients of that policy. Within a few years of Kennedy's death most of this had been abandoned. By the early 1970s, this type of effort and the optimism associated with it had vanished altogether."

The effect was that the task of implementing and governing economic adjustment was assumed by private markets. Power which has grown exponentially since the extirpation of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973. The causal undercurrents and ideology of corporate-state global domination have been well articulated by Gibson, even from before its emergence within ten years of the Kennedy assassination (which many astute observers tie in with financial elite interests) (op. cit. P. 75):

"Kennedy's ideas.. .his view of foreign aid and foreign policy, and his recommendations and actions in a variety of specific areas disrupted or threatened to disrupt an established order. In that established order, in place for most of the century, major government decisions were to serve or at least not disrupt the privately organized hierarchy."

Gibson goes on to point out that the vested interests within this hierarchy were similar to, "if not direct imitations of those of that older British elite rooted in inherited wealth and titles, and organized in the modern world around control of finance and raw materials." (ibid.)

It seems very plausible then, that the slaying of John F. Kennedy set the stage for a global Corporatocracy in which these same elite imperatives would be allowed to subordinate and dominate the interests and welfare of the masses. Imaginary? Take a gander at columnist Jay Bookman's view from his article "New World Disorder - Evident Here and Abroad", in The Baltimore Sun, 1998):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences. "

Let's be reminded here that Hitler's ascension, in particular, was spurred on by increasing dissatisfaction of Germans with the democratic processes of the Weimar Republic. A lot of insights have been gleaned by talks with my German sister-in-law, Krimhilde, e.g.

When I saw her earlier this year in Barbados we again talked about conditions before Hitler came to power.  Mostly, people were fed up. Fed up with the scarcity of key food items and also with the inflation.

"When a loaf of bread cost more than a week's wages it is serious" she said.

Hitler was viewed with suspicion, as Trump is now, but offered a plan, a way out, "Lebensraum"  - and Germans jumped at the chance to improve their lot. But it would mean trashing the Versailles Treaty which had been a millstone around Germans' necks.

With Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland, in 1938, the incineration of Versailles was finalized and Hitler and the Third Reich were well on the way to their ideal of expanded living space and resources.

After this diversion let's return to the global trade issue, and again, Kennedy's will to insist it be equitable. Gibson notes that the elite banking and financial interests at the time  (ibid.) "would have little tolerance for a president who interfered with their decisions or made their interests secondary to the needs of nations or of people in general."

One could say that by the time of JFK's assassination, the global tableaux had been set for eventual market domination of the world. With no other fearless national leaders to stand in the way (the last ones assassinated) the goal of worldwide subjugation of national interests to speculative capital, trans-national corporate control and personal debt could proceed apace. One merely had to await the right constellation of pro-market interests,  military consolidation and interjection, e.g.

www.tinyurl.com/CSI-Censor-1

and this was incepted in the Reagan years - reaching its culmination in the early 1990s via bi-partisan support of "Neoliberalism". 

The global trade plan was long range to be sure, but the elites had always been patient. Now they would exercise that patience and sense of noblesse oblige. Again, the payoff being a world of serfs delivered to them by their own governments. These governments themselves hamstrung by the unequal power of differing accords (i.e. GATT, NAFTA) over which they had little option other than to 'sign on'. Accords which could disembowel labor, its pensions and benefits, and lay waste to all social safety nets to protect the more vulnerable citizens. At the same time reckoning hard-won environmental laws as 'trade impediments' to be challenged in a world trade court (WTO).

Perhaps no more eloquent condemnation of this travesty arrived than from an op-ed by Ian McDonald, appearing in The Barbados NATION (Aug. 14, 1998):

Do we really believe for one moment that those who preach free trade and the inevitable triumph of market forces have anything other than their own increased wealth and aggrandizement in mind? Do we honestly believe they think the system they espouse is fundamentally a good one for all concerned? Are we so naïve as to think if, by any chance, the system were to operate against their interests, that they would not make sure it was changed or abridged to suit them? Are we so innocent and trusting that we cannot recognize bullying and crude self-interest when our noses are being rubbed in it constantly?"

Adding:

"We should cease making speech after speech accepting that our fate and the fate of the world, will inevitably be decided by impersonal, market controlled forces and the sooner we accept this the better off we will be. Instead we should be denying most strongly, in every forum available to us, that such a fate is inevitable... That instead the world deserves a better future than the one on offer from the ruthless money men and sleaze-ridden free trade marketeers, who are making this terrible bid to dominate the world."

 McDonald's writing flair exactly channeled the building rage against governments themselves for siding with elite interests to render them pawns. It prefigures today's rage and massive distrust in democratic institutions.  William Greider, in his masterful work One World Ready Or Not - The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, is blunt that the overall imperative is  ultimate abolition of all governmental, national social insurance systems - whether these be Medicare or Social Security in the United States, or the analogous systems in Germany or Barbados. In each case, the particular system to be replaced by a privatized entity able to generate individual debt, corporate profit and further income inequality.

Were there significant citizen efforts to thwart the march toward global corporate fiefdom?  Yes, and the most recent were by the young (mainly) protestors behind Occupy Wall Street.  However, once the Neoliberal security state had them in their sights, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html

The movement basically was neutralized.  Factored into this was how OWS protestors - exercising their first amendment rights- were targeted by rifles in Houston, in 2013, e.g.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the document obtained from the Houston FBI, said as received by David Lindorff (see also: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494 )

"An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles."

By now, with the justified citizen efforts pummeled, rage began to mount, and malignant distrust of all government institutions as well as the Constitution itself began to take hold. They only needed a spark, and that was delivered by Edward Snowden in 2013 when the first NSA files disclosing massive overreach were released. Among the findings:

" The following information was deemed  fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards."

There existed a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, were considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database in question could identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

The tragedy of the 20th (and now 21st ) century is the tragedy of the civic commons. The gradual erosion of civil society is largely fueled by the removal of civic space (as well as civic protest)  and hence the reality that citizen interests are eclipsed by corporate and market interests, either in pursuit of state (or corporate) power, profits or both. Thus, political influence is purchased via the power of the purse, for example in lobbying, or in the current cycle via Koch brothers infusion of money to defeat policies, candidates they don't want. These vermin then write the laws subsequently enacted to favor their special interests, whether bloated defense contracts, or absurd prescription drug bills that are really corporate welfare.

Again, this isn't occurring just in the U.S. (though it has been most rapid here) but all over the world, as the Globalists clear out public space to make room for their corporate power enclaves.

If you don't know why there's such anti-government (anti-establishment) rage as well as loss of faith in the democratic process then you haven't been paying enough attention. Thus, no surprise we've seen the dominance of corporate space over civic space, paving the way for citizens to emerge as corporate serfs and pawns.

The latest blow to citizen trust in the process and in government didn't arrive by way of the TPP, NAFTA or any other global trade pact but by FBI Director James Comey's announcement yesterday to revisit Hillary Clinton's emails, this now barely ten days from the general election. As Jennifer Granholm put it last night on Chris Hayes' show:

"You can't put something out eleven days before a presidential election that has an impact on the election...I'm a former federal prosecutor and the rules related to how a prosecutor or investigator is to act in the face of an election are really quite clear. You are to limit the impact on the election. But in this case there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on her part."

Indeed, the case was only re-opened because files were found on sex pervert Anthony Weiner's computer which was shared by Huma Abedin, a Hillary aide while at State.   In an interview on 'Smerconish' (CNN) this morning, Matt Miller - another former prosecutor - agreed that  yes, Comey was probably worried about the Rs using it to criticize him if he waited until post-election, but added "You know, that's too bad, but you suck it up!"

On Chris Hayes 'All In' Mr. Miller also noted:

"When the FBI conducts investigations like this they're not supposed to comment on them anyway and especially not so close to an election. There's a long standing practice at DOJ that they go out of their way not to say anything close to election day, usually defined within 60 days."

Alas, the damage may already have been done, we just don't know how much. What we do know is this latest episode isn't likely to elevate citizen trust in the democratic process - even as it fuels the furor of Trumpies now convinced he was right all along in his wild accusations about election "rigging". They would be well advised to worry more about how his election would spur this country further into the global corporatocracy and render them - and the rest of us - even more abject serfs.


See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/69590/that-was-one-fucked-up-fbi-announcement

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-american-decline-2-globalization.html

Caribbean Rum Producers Get Shafted In A Special 'Cliff' Provision

As more news about the special "fiscal cliff" deal manifests we're starting to see the first victims emerge, some of whom aren't even U.S. citizens. (We shall have to wait for the debt ceiling negotiations to see how many U.S. citizens- mainly of the middle and working classes, get screwed.) Anyway, under the headline '10 Curious Provisions in the 'Fiscal Cliff' Bill (Denver Post, p. 7A, today) one finds this at No. 2:

"Congress will levy an excise tax of $13,50 per gallon on rum imported to the United States. Most of the money is to be transferred to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to support THEIR (emphasis mine) rum industries. In 2009, this raised about $547 million"

Now this is just plain WRONG! Indeed, this is a blasted domestic rum subsidy that needs to be taken (by the non-U.S. protectorate Caribbean rum -producers) to the World Trade Organization.  Because what it does is flouts all the rules and principles of fair trade!

It is, in fact, an amped up continuation of the U.S. Government's selective application of a cover-over program which repatriates 98 percent of all rum excise duties (raised on rums sold in the U.S.) back to the producing U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the  U.S. Virgin Islands.   Estimates from 2010 put this unfair repatriation at $450 m, as reported in the Barbadian press. These offhand deals, made by the respective neo-colonial governments (of Puerto Rico and the USVI) and condoned by a whacky U.S. congress, have been struck with the likes of Bacardi and Serrales. It is galling to Caribbean governments which derive no similar special deals based on repatriating duties. (Hmmm......maybe they should! Cockspur rum is better than Bacardi anyway!)

Barbados Advocate News columnist David Jessop has pointed out, the U.S. congress has enabled the USVI and Puerto Rican development programs "to divert hundreds of millions of dollars to primarily provide a development program for the largest distilled spirits companies in the world". In Jessop's world:

"the U.S. - maybe wittingly, maybe unwittingly - is damaging one of the few competitive industries that Cariforum nations have and  which helps underpin the economic viability of small and vulnerable Caribbean states".

The issue is even more close to the hearts of Caribbean folk, since as Jessop has noted :


"Unlike the product of large, multinational distilling groups, the success of Cariforum producers does not result from artificial tax breaks, transfer pricing or subsidy. Instead it is an industry dominated by small local distillers whose product is export-oriented, brings much needed foreign exchange and adds value to primary agriculture.while providing signficant levels of tax revenues to governments struggling to deliver social programs"

Which is very true, since we know the Cariforum nations have one of the most progressive tax systems in the hemisphere, and unlike the faux democrats in the US of A, none of them would ever approve any form of unbalanced tax cuts, or any tax cuts, period.

In his piece from 7 1/2 months ago, Jessop concluded:

"This is why rum has always been a product worth fighting for as Europe knows to its cost and the U.S. is soon to discover".

Maybe now is the time to move beyond rhetoric and for the Cariforum nations to drag the big bully domestic run subsidizer to the WTO. After all, turnabout is fair play! (The U.S. dragged Caribbean banana producers in front of the WTO in 1998 for encroaching on United Fruit's profits!)

Does the Caribbean Really Plan to Take on the U.S. in the Rum Wars? Believe It!

One thing I learned very soon after arriving in Barbados for my Peace Corps service, is that rum is almost a religion. Rum distilleries- refineries (most expats call them 'refineries') are hallowed ground, as they are throughout most of the English-speaking Caribbean, and no sane human - American or other - would even think of arriving in Barbados, say, with a bottle of Bacardi's! 

First, rum refining comprises the largest remaining driver for the consumption of sugar cane that grows in abundance. Given the world's diminishing taste for sugar (including health reasons) the only large remaining outlets are for sugar-based ethanol, e.g. in Brazil, or for rum manufactured in the Caribbean conglomerate known as the "Cariforum nations".

Second, rum comprises the region's largest agriculture -based export industry - which generates $500 m in foreign exchange each year. Foreign exchange is what keeps all of these island states afloat, because without it, they'd not be able to afford the food imports.....and without the food imports, most islanders would descend to a level of malnutrition common to sub-Sahara Africa.

So, it was with more than the usual interest that an item appearining in the Caribbean press (Jamaica Gleaner, Barbados Advocate, Trinidad Guardian)  some 3 weeks ago, alerted Caribbean folk that they may soon have to wage a pitched battle with the U.S. ...over, yes, RUM!  Specifically, CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRoque disclosed in a news conference that the Cariforum alliance had begun a process which would eventually, if unresolved, lead to Cariforum hauling the USA before the World Trade Organization, WTO).

The source of the miff? The U.S. Government's selective application of a cover-over program which repatriates 98 percent of all rum excise duties (raised on rums sold in the U.S.) back to the producing U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the  U.S. Virgin Islands.   Estimates from 2010 put this unfair repatriation at $450 m.

These offhand deals, made by the respective neo-colonial governments (of Puerto Rico and the USVI) have been struck with the likes of Bacardi and Serrales. It is galling to Caribbean governments which derive no similar special deals based on repatriating duties. In effect, as one writer (David Jessop)  has pointed out, the U.s. congress has enabled the USVI and Puerto Rican development programs to divert hundreds of millions of dollars to primarily provide a development program for the largest distilled spirits companies in the world.

In this sense, the U.S. - maybe wittingly, maybe unwittingly - is damaging one of the few competitive industries that Cariforum nations have and in Jessop's words, "which helps underpin the economic viability of small and vulnerable Caribbean states". And this is on top of an already seething anger and distrust that's erupted since the (now deposed) French idiot Sarkozy remarked at an economic conference that Barbados' offshore banking is ignoble and abets criminals and it ought to be "punished" by the OECD.  Add in the rum fracas, and you have lots of West Indians ready to chew titanium at the offhand way they've been treated by the big Western powers.

The issue is even more close to the hearts of Caribbean folk, since as Jessop has noted :

"Unlike the product of large, multinational distilling groups, the success of Cariforum producers does not result from artificial tax breaks, transfer pricing or subsidy. Instead it is an industry dominated by small local distillers whose product is export-oriented, brings much needed foreign exchange and adds value to primary agriculture.while providing signficant levels of tax revenues to governments struggling to deliver social programs"

Which is very true, since we know the Cariforum nations have one of the most progressive tax systems in the hemisphere, and unlike the faux democrats in the US of A, none of them would ever approve any form of unbalanced tax cuts, or any tax cuts, period.

But isn't it chutzpah of the first order to believe a consortium of small island nations, can take on a Goliath like the U.S. allied with its powerful multinationals who have money to burn? Maybe not! Jessop again:

"This is why rum has always been a product worth fighting for as Europe knows to its cost and the U.S. is soon to discover".

Perhaps this will be the Cariforum nations' counter punch to the U.S. dragging it before the WTO over a banana dispute back in 1998. (The U.S, allied with Chiquita Banana, insisted that despite colonial history and associations, Europe had no right to pay Caribbean nations special, higher prices.)

In any case, this would be the perfect equalizer.

The Shredding of the Social Contract (1)

"We should cease making speech after speech accepting that our fate and the fate of the world, will inevitably be decided by impersonal, market controlled forces and the sooner we accept this the better off we will be. Instead we should be denying most strongly, in every forum available to us, that such a fate is inevitable... That instead the world deserves a better future than the one on offer from the ruthless money men and sleaze-ridden free trade marketeers, who are making this terrible bid to dominate the world."

Ian MacDonald, in The Barbados NATION, Aug. 14, 1998, p.8.

As this is being written a global cancer is spreading across the planet- engulfing whole populations in its wake, and destroying the cohesion of societies and the integrity of the natural environment. This cancer is inured to suffering and distress, whether of people or the planetary home and natural environment they inhabit. All it cares about is its own aggrandisement and accumulation of monetary wealth, capital at the expense of environmental sanity and labor fairness.

Students who've been highly educated and hold college degrees, facing massive loan payoffs? This global capitalist cancer could care less! The reason is that its essence and malignancy is dictated by debt, and the greater the debt and the more varied it is, the better -from student loans, to mortgages, to credit cards.

The enormous forces currently at work, fueled by manic speculation and debt, seek to re-shape geopolitical boundaries along dictatorial market-imperialist lines. Lines from which multinational corporations and capital govern and rule, rather than governments. The violent episodes of public reaction in Greece are merely at the surface of what lies in store for the planet, if we allow these maniacs to leverage control of our lives.

All these, in toto, bespeak an encroaching economic fascism that has now arrived under the face of the 'market' and multi national corporate hegemony, economic oligarchy- deploying financiers, investment bankers and creditors rather than stormtroopers. And dollar (or euro) signs instead of swastikas. One in which no borders, of any country, are impervious to the reshaping - whether in terms of mergers, downsizings, or progressive indentured servitude of the workforce, or sacrifice of hard-won environmental laws to stealth investment legislation sponsored by transnationals. A 'New World Order'.

In this blog and the next two in this series, I wlll examine in detail the core of the problems we are facing as a nation (or perhaps more accurately, segment of a nation) that still values social justice, upward mobility and equitable access to resources. I will also show what sort of beast the Occupy Wall Street protestors are confronting, and how this beast became what it is today - also why stopping it cannot be a localized strategy - but must be accomplished on a global level.

It was sometime during his presidency that former CIA Deputy chief George Herbert Walker Bush sounded the words "New World Order". He didn't have to amplify it or explain it, because those elitist enclaves that would wield its power knew already what it meant: citizen subservience to corporate "persons" rule, and economic fascism disguised as "free market" Neoliberalism. The aim? To deliver to this Neoliberal pseudo-free market artifact a world of serfs, some willing, some not so willing.

But Bush and others of his ilk knew the only way to achieve this was via a cancerous process called "globalization". This would become the great equalizer and enable impersonal market forces to remove freedoms and all hopes for economic mobility and security. Understanding this is crucial to understanding what the Occupy Wall Street protestors are up against, because in this sense "Wall Street" is just the visible tip of one small iceberg and agent for American ruin, but not the whole! The whole extends to the entire network of unaccountable central banks throughout the world, traced back to the Bank for International Settlements.

Most naive people, when they hear or see the words "New World Order", smirk and smile then think of some looney conspiracy theorist alone in his mom's basement churning out tracts on "black helicopters" and UN prison camps. But this is in fact the hyperbolic lunacy that the real New Worlders wish people to pillory: a deliberate exaggeration to conceal their own ambitions. In fact, this World Order doesn't require black helicopters or UN invaders at all, merely mobile capital that can wend its way across any borders and upend any social contracts at will by allowing capital to outbid the indigenous populace and its rights. The New Worlders know full well that in any competitive bidding war between capital inflows, it will be the one ensuring the fastest race to the bottom that prevails. And no one will be any the wiser.....because it's money via electronic trades and transfers.

Thereby, the workings of the global bond markets, for example, can reduce or remove from the world's social markets much of the freedom their own governments exercised in the past to pursue counter-cyclical economic policies. Thus, in the present era of low aggregate demand, the U.S. would have been able to pursue Keynesian stimulus policies - since we are in a balance sheet recession- and this could have pumped hundreds of billions in for public works to create new jobs. But.....the bond pirates have decreed austerity measures instead, so nothing is done to prime that pump that specifically can engender more jobs and we remain steeped in unemployment.

In effect, the bond marketeers, their rating agency allies and other more nefarious central banking interests, have forced governments worldwide to retreat into a pre-Keynesian world of minimal economic efficacy, even as their populations grow increasingly restive and furious. Governments like Greece (and the U.S.) are thereby left to wait out disruptive downturns in economic activity whatever their social and economic costs. And meanwhile, the one percent - including many bond traders, investment bankers and investors in hedge funds - conceive of ways to use credit default swaps to bet on government failures as their populations erupt.

By penalizing any government which attempts to employ a reasonable and rational Keynesian stimulus - such as has been proposed by Obama in his $447b jobs bill- the market forces (including their regressive political allies like the GOP and billionaire-funded "Tea Party") ensure that those same governments are forced to respond using only the disastrous and deflationary measure of expenditure cuts, including cuts to social benefits. Thereby the global bond pirates profit while populations become more destitute and insecure.

The global capital markets do even more than this: they effectively make any form of social democracy moribund. This social democracy embodies a hearty progressive taxation or deficit -funded full employment (i.e. at least at the 4% level) and healthy, consistent benefit levels - including for welfare recipients. But thanks to the global capitalist pirates, all of these are being unravelled at once! Taxes are now their lowest level for the wealthiest in more than a generation and more tax breaks are to come (if the Bush tax cuts are renewed), and deficit funding is anathema, while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are on the chopping block for an unelected, un-Constitutional super committee.

The problem is the existence of social democratic principles, and by extension social justice, cannot survive an open-global economy. Indeed, only within a closed economy can we see first hand if principles of social justice espoused in that country can work and persist. In fact, it is only within a closed economy that any kind of egalitarian spirit can even be remotely enforced. Meanwhile, in every case those "open economies" (the wet dream of the Neolilberal) undermine egalitarianism (including quality jobs for all) by virtue of the freedom of capital to march in and conduct impersonal bidding wars without popular consent. Worse, with no transaction taxes on this bidding, there is no accountability whatsoever! Because no costs are applied, not even ¼ a penny tax per trade, the bond pirates or multinational corporations can infuse as much capital as they want - or can bet on (via trading derivatives in credit default swaps) to bring a country to its knees. Meanwhile, if a nation does attempt to defend its citizens' labor rights vs. inflowing capital, the World Trade Organization or WTO can be appealed to on the basis of the impertinent nation enabling "trade impediments".

If then money or human capital can be allowed to migrate or move to wherever it wants on the planet, it will most often choose those places where labor and health costs are lowest, or the regulations that support them are minimalist. In this way it will maximize its profits and hence maximize its capital for further bidding wars elsewhere. This is a prime reason why millions of college educated Americans are out of luck on the jobs scene even when this recessionary period ends. With 2 billion competing, lower cost workers in China, India and Russia, there's no need to tap any but the cheapest labor - even for high grade skills!

The reason is that the Neoliberal lords of the "New World Order" and its mobile capital have declared their (students') labor comes at too dear a price, including the rights attached to their labor. Far preferable to move it to India, China or Mexico where capital impingements are not so great. The students, meanwhile, end up in a deeply leveraged quasi-proletariat which can easily be exploited for temporary labor when the need arises.

Finally, let us bear in mind that NO "free market" exists! It is a construct of the PR establishment and used to spread false consciousness, so that those caught up with no jobs and no prospects will tend to blame themselves as opposed to the rigged economic system. The fundamental attribution error.

How to know if a market is free or coerced? Charles Reich provided the test ('Opposing the System’, 1995, p. 22):

"A free market produces results that favor the health of society as a whole, because an essential balance is maintained. But in a coercive market, the balance is destroyed, the earning power of work and the standard of living of workers declines, and society as a whole is devastated while those with economic power gain an ever more unbalanced share of the nation's economic wealth"

This is exactly what we have with the top 1% controlling 57% of the nation's wealth, and 400 billionaires with the same monetary resources as 150 million fellow citizens!

Now, magnify this coercive market to the global scale and you have a global cancer! Ian McDonald again, writing in The Barbados NATION (Aug.14 1998):

"Do we really believe for one moment that those who preach free trade and the inevitable triumph of market forces have anything other than their own increased wealth and aggrandizement in mind? Do we honestly believe they think the system they espouse is fundamentally a good one for all concerned? Are we so naïve as to think if, by any chance, the system were to operate against their interests, that they would not make sure it was changed or abridged to suit them? Are we so innocent and trusting that we cannot recognize bullying and crude self-interest when our noses are being rubbed in it constantly?"

Author Willaim Grieder's take is equally pungent (One World Ready Or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, p. 401):

"It does not require great political imagination to see that the world system is heading toward a further dispersion of governing power so the closet dictator of the marketplace can command things more efficiently, from everywhere and nowhere. The historic paradox is breathtaking: At the very moment when Western democracies and capitalism have triumphed over the communist alternative, their own systems of self-government are being gradually unraveled by the market system. "


And further (ibid.)

"Like feudal lords, the stateless corporations will make alliances with one another or launch raids against one another's stake. They will play weakening national governments off against each other..... In that event, vast throngs of citizens are reduced to a political position resembling that of the serfs.... "


Next: How the Global Corporatocracy is already making serfs of us all - via permanent unemployment