Economics, Ideology, Freedom and Illusion, Part II

Continued from http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3000

http://www.wvwnews.net/downloads/audio/john_young/jy20080116.mp3

After George W. Bush won his first Presidential bid, the New York Times ran an article describing what would become of Clinton administration officials:  

“From the Clinton administration, top prizes are Defense Secretary William S. Cohen; Samuel R. Berger, the national security adviser; Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart E. Eizenstat; and two former lobbyists, John Podesta, the White House chief of staff, and his deputy, Steve Ricchetti. Just this week, the Boeing Company announced it was hiring Thomas R. Pickering, a departing under secretary of state, for its Washington office. In making the trek from Congress to the lobbying firms clustered on K Street in downtown Washington, many of these departing officials will be following a well-trod path. Already such marquee names as former Senators George J. Mitchell and Bob Dole are employed by the lobbying powerhouse of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand, which represents such giants as Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Brown & Williamson Tobacco. ”Anyone who has been in the Congressional leadership or had high-profile positions in the administration and who have had experience working the business community are going to be very attractive,” said Robert S. Walker, chief executive of the Wexler Group, a major lobbying firm and a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania.” (16)

A 2005 article from Public Citizen put the matter in more quantifiable and qualitative terms:
“People used to run for Congress to serve the greater good and help the public … now Congress has become a way station to wealth. Members use it for job training and networking so they can leave office and cash in on the connections they forged as elected officials. No wonder the public is cynical about whose interests lawmakers are protecting in Washington. Lobbying has become the top career choice for departing members of Congress. … Forty-three percent of the 198 members who have left Congress since 1998 and were eligible to lobby have become registered lobbyists.” (17) The corruption is beyond description. You see, in a capitalist system, the majority of the wealth is held by people known as capitalists. These are the folks who have the concentrated wealth necessary to fund major political campaigns. Politicians want their share, and they get it. Politics started in this country as an avenue of temporary service to the country, and has ended as a nearly naked pursuit of power, personal advantage and personal enrichment. America’s first legislators left behind productive and profitable enterprises in order to serve for a short time, and then returned to their communities where they had to live with the results of the legislation they had formulated among the friends and neighbors it had affected. Today, many of our legislators actually get a raise when they go to Congress, and they walk out of the legislature straight into a career paying millions of dollars a year as a kickback for the service they provided to special interests while they were supposed to be serving US. Our federal legislators no longer live near us and are effectively insulated both from the effects of their actions and the people they adversely affected with their corrupt behavior. The feedback loop of disapproval that served to keep them honest in the past no longer exists, and they see themselves as a different class of people altogether from those they serve. But rather than a natural aristocracy such as what Jefferson envisioned, they are more like parasites that need to be removed from the body politic before they kill us.

Of course, the interface between capitalism and democracy also nets special legislation that corrupts the free market.  

In July of last year, the House of Representatives passed the 2007 Farm Bill. Along with all the usual corporate subsidies and miscellaneous dreck and pork spending that such bills usually contain, this bill contained some very special provisions intended to assist certain large agricultural corporations, Monsanto in particular. This language was a federal pre-emption that prevented states from adopting more restrictive laws and regulations on food than those imposed by the Federal Government. The provision in question states: “no State or locality shall make any law prohibiting the use in commerce of an article that the Secretary of Agriculture has inspected and passed; or determined to be of non-regulated status.”

Most people are blissfully unaware of the fact that Genetically Modified Organisms, particularly corn and rice, have entered the food chain. The most common modifications are those that employ patented bacterial genes that change some of the core metabolic compounds in soy, corn, rice, and other crops so that they will be immune to certain common herbicides. Other modifications include splicing bacterial genes into corn so that the corn will make its own insecticide for common pests such as corn ear worm. Theoretically, such advances make farming much less labor intensive, and therefore less expensive.

Clearly, however, changes at the genetic level of crops that splice in genes from an entirely different form of organism and that change the enzymes used in critical metabolic pathways change the nature of a plant substantially, and the resulting product should be extensively tested before being used as food by people or animals. Studies that have been suppressed indicate that many if not all genetically modified plant products can have serious health effects. According to Jeffrey Smith:  

“Rhetoric from Washington since the early 1990s proclaims that genetically modified (GM) foods are no different from their natural counterparts that have existed for centuries. But this is a political, not a scientific assertion. Numerous scientists at the FDA consistently described these newly introduced gene-spliced foods as cause for concern. In addition to their potential to produce hard-to-detect allergies and nutritional problems, the scientists said that “s23The possibility of unexpected, accidental changes in genetically engineered plants”might produce “s23unexpected high concentrations of plant toxicants.”GM crops, they said, might have “s23Increased levels of known naturally occurring toxins, . . . appearance of new, not previously identified”toxins, and an increased tendency to gather “s23toxic substances from the environment”such as “s23pesticides or heavy metals.”They recommended testing every GM food “s23before it enters the marketplace.”But the FDA was under orders from the first Bush White House to promote the biotechnology industry, and the political appointee in charge of agency policy was Monsanto’ormer attorney—er their vice president. The FDA policy ignored the scientists’warnings and allowed GM food crops onto the market without any required safety studies. From the few safety tests that have been conducted, the results are disturbing— animals fed GM diets show damage to virtually every system studied. Reports from farmers are even less encouraging—usands of sick, sterile and dead animals are traced to GM feed.”(18)

I’m going to give you another long quote from this article in order to demonstrate that Genetically Modified foods are a cause for concern. The author continues:

” … the cells in the pancreas of mice fed Roundup Ready soy had profound changes and produced significantly less digestive enzymes; in rats fed a GM potato, the pancreas was enlarged. In various analyses of kidneys, GM-fed animals showed lesions, toxicity, altered enzyme production or inflammation. Enzyme production in the hearts of mice was altered by GM soy. And GM potatoes caused slower growth in the brain of rats. In both mice and rats fed Roundup Ready soybeans, their testicles showed dramatic changes. In rats, the organs were dark blue instead of pink. In mice, young sperm cells were altered. Embryos of GM soy-fed mice also showed temporary changes in their DNA function, compared to those whose parents were fed non-GM soy.”(19)

Obviously, animal studies do not necessarily translate for humans, and few if any human studies have been done on the effect of Genetically Modified foods. But as noted in the quote above from Jeffrey Smith, the fact that such studies haven’t been done is the result of political rather than scientific motives. The point I am making here is that, in the absence of human studies and the presence of a vast body of research indicating potential risk from genetically modified foods, Americans should at LEAST have a right to know if the food they are eating contains such ingredients. That is where this preemptive legislation comes into play.

Under federal law, only one type of food is guaranteed to be free of Genetically Modified organisms; and that is food carrying the “USDA Organic” label. In addition, food produced by a Certified Naturally Grown farmer is GMO-free, but this is by virtue of a private agreement rather than by law. That’s it. Anything else you eat can contain GMO food; and under federal law, food producers are under no obligation to inform you as to whether or not their products contain it. Many state legislatures were becoming concerned, and were poised to require that foods containing GMO ingredients be labeled so that we would at least be aware; and this federal preemption effectively prevented states from protecting us.

Who benefits? Mainly, but not exclusively, the Monsanto corporation. Naturally, they have shown their … appreciation … to Representative Leonard Boswell who inserted the federal preemption into the farm bill in the form of a PAC contribution to his election fund.(20)

That’s not all. The federal government is also funding two new full-time positions in the country of Jordan. The purpose of those folks, according to the job descriptions, is to research how to short-circuit the regulatory process in Middle-Eastern countries in order to gain acceptance for the importation of United States grown GM crops.(21) So your tax dollars are funding employees whose sole purpose is to advance the interests of particular corporations. Does that sound like a “free market” to you? It sure doesn’t to me. This is the sort of meddling in foreign nations that gives our country a bad name.

The reason for creating these jobs is because the nations of Europe reacted swiftly to completely ban the use, growing or importation of genetically modified crops. This has stuck in the craw of the corporations that own our legislators. Even now, the United States government is trying to use the World Trade Organization in order to force our cousins in Europe to eat these crops. A Wikipedia article contains a synopsis of the matter that also points out just how powerful unelected and unaccountable global regulatory groups are becoming:

“In May 2003, after initial delay due to the war against Iraq, the Bush administration officially accused the European Union of violating international trade agreements, in blocking imports of U.S. farm products through its long-standing ban on genetically modified food. Robert Zoellick announced the filing of a formal complaint with the WTO challenging the moratorium after months of negotiations trying to get it lifted voluntarily. The complaint was also filed by Argentina, Canada, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, and Uruguay. The formal WTO case challenging the EU’s regulatory system was in particular lobbied by U.S. biotechnology giants like Monsanto and Aventis and big agricultural groups such as the National Corn Growers Association.

EU officials questioned the action, saying it will further damage trade relations already strained by the U.S. decision to launch a war against Iraq despite opposition from members of the U.N. Security Council. The US move was also interpreted as a sanction against the EU for requesting the end of illegal tax breaks for exporters or face up to $4 billion in trade sanctions in retaliation for Washington’s failure to change the tax law, which the WTO ruled illegal four years ago.”(22)

Is this a “free” market? Is forcing our brethren in Europe to ingest potentially dangerous products against their will “free trade?” Can you see how incestuously intertwined our government has become with large corporations? And, most importantly, can you see that all of this is at the expense of the fundamental principles of self-government and republicanism that underlie our form of government? Aren’t you outraged, as well, that the WTO had the authority to rule ANY American tax to be illegal?  

If you want people to feed you high fructose corn-syrup and cover it with artificial cherries, that’s fine. You can get that right off the television or talk radio most of the time. But if you are listening to me, you are going to get hard-core analysis that leaves the emperor of postmodern ideologies naked. Capitalism, as it is practiced today, has no relationship to freedom in the way our nation’s founders understood it. It is nothing more than a man-made ideological sham used to trick you into supporting rule by an oligarchy. And it IS rule. Our legislative process is corrupted and OWNED by people whose names we don’t even know. Their interests are NOT our interests. They do not share our fate and they don’t have to live with the consequences of their actions. We do.

What I’ve told you today reveals a very dismal future. But things don’t have to be this way. Listening to everything I described today could leave you feeling depressed and hopeless. But there IS room for hope, plenty of it, and there are already mechanisms in place that we can use to bring both politics and economics back to sanity if we are willing to stand up and make our voices heard. We have a lot more power than you think, and the rulers of the status quo depend upon a combination of illusion and leverage to effectuate their plans. That leaves them extremely vulnerable on a number of fronts, and there are effective ways to exploit those vulnerabilities in order to secure a bright future for our people and all of humanity.

We exist at an intersection of past and future. The time in which we exist is the product of the application of human Will. The future is also the result of the application of human will, and is NOT fore-ordained. At any moment in time, we encompass both the past and the future, and can embody the best of the past in a new historical context. We cannot and should not attempt to re-create the past, but what we can do is learn from it and apply our highest ideals in today’s context in order to reclaim the future for our posterity. Rather than a nostalgia for the past, we should have what Benoist calls a nostalgia for the future.

This brings to mind something important that I need to point out. The status quo didn’t just magically pop into existence. Rather, it is the culmination of millions and millions of individual decisions. Most of those decisions weren’t made by some other ethnic group, but were actually made by our own ancestors. It is important that we understand why they made the decisions that they did so that we, as leaders, can manifest a better future.

I’ve pointed out today, in very strong terms, the psycho pathologically evil nature of our politicians and economic captains. I think I have pointed out the corruption and wrong doing in a sufficiently unambiguous fashion that you have to accept that we are dealing with people who are incredibly evil –sufficiently evil that they really have no place in our society and should be jailed or exiled at least. You must accept this fact, because our ancestors didn’t and couldn’t.

It is a fact of nature that most of us assume that other people have motivations and goals similar to our own. Because we don’t have psychopathic traits, we don’t expect to see them in others and so when we are back-stabbed, it takes us by surprise. While we can acknowledge the potential existence of such people in an intellectual sense, it isn’t quite real to us. This is what our ancestors did, and what far too many of our people do today. Because we simply can’t conceive of such evil, we look for any possible excuse to avoid reaching such a conclusion. We can’t afford to do that any longer. Failure to identify and label evil, and to exact justice upon the perpetrators gives it license. And evil people, given license, will kill the innocent and destroy entire cultures. We MUST withdraw that license.

Likewise, as a whole, we are vulnerable to shame. We care what our neighbors and coworkers think of us, and you can rest assured that the ruling oligarchy has no compunction about using that fact against us to control our every utterance and behavior, just as they did for our parents. We must distinguish between the metaphysical and man-made, and understand that shame is inappropriate and counterproductive when it it is serving the interests of an artificial ideology. The ruling oligarchy, of course, has no shame. These are people who will brazenly take bribe money from the Chinese government and declare it legal because there was “s23no controlling legal authority.”We have to understand that they feel no shame and so aren’t subject to normal social controls, and therefore must be handled in a different fashion. If our ancestors had simply realized these two things, we would be dealing with a different reality today. But there is one more thing.

Multicultural societies of multiple religions, hundreds of languages and who knows how many races by their very nature must shove everything that is most important about human beings –their culture, their spirituality, their ethical and bio-cultural core –out of the public sphere in order to pursue harmony. What is left is only the materialistic aspects of humanity; and the only way to judge people in such an environment is on the basis of wealth. Never mind the fact that this generates the sort of bizarre upside-down-world in which a drug-addled basketball star can earn millions of dollars while a classical scholar is stuck at a convenience store at minimum wage; the fact is that a dollar earned through machinations spends just as well as a dollar earned by inventing a new technique to save lives. As a result, the way that our culture confounded wealth with virtue created an environment in which psychopaths could find themselves held in reverence and awe.

We need to re-establish, first for ourselves and then for our wider culture, a greater emphasis on what we are –and a lesser emphasis on what we have as a way of assigning moral virtue. There IS a natural aristocracy among us, but it is based upon noble character. If our ancestors had felt more confident about asserting themselves in this regard, we would be in a very different country today.

In order to exploit the vulnerabilities of the enemies of our people and all of humanity, we need you. We have modeled European Americans United as a system of distributed responsibility and effort, rather than top-down-driven where the people at the top represent a choke point. My friend and colleague Frank Roman has been calling members, and I’ve been calling members. Based upon our members’ interests and skills, we are currently organizing teams for effective action. If you are not already a member, it’s time for you to join. Don’t tell me that you’ll join once everyone else has done the hard work of building and achieving. This isn’t a condominium that we build for you, maintain and invite you in. This is a community, and you will reap from it proportionately to your own efforts and contributions. So if you aren’t already a member, go to our website at European Americans United dot Org, download our application and send it in. This is an important step toward becoming a part of the solution for our people’s future.

Already, some of our membership has access to members-only online tools for organizing their cooperative efforts; and soon ALL of our members will have that access. We’re gearing up and getting organized. A number of our special projects are moving forward. We’re adding people to existing projects, and starting new ones. The future is bright, and it will come about as an exercise in our will to nobility as applied to the post-modern context. You owe it to yourself to be part of it.

This has been John Young with European Americans United. Thank you for joining me again today.

(1) Deutschman, Alan (2005), Is your boss a psychopath? Fast Company, July 2005 pg 44
(2) ibid
(3) ibid
(4) Board, B. & Fritzon, K. (2005), Disordered personalities at work, Psychology, Crime and Law, Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 17-32.
(5) Russell, H. & Beigel, A. (1990), Understanding Human Behavior for Effective Police Work, 1990
(6) Harrington, A. (1972), Psychopaths, Commentary, October 1972
(7) Rand, Ayn (1961) , The Virtue of Selfishness
(8) Buchanan, Patrick (2007), Day of Reckoning, pp195-196
(9) ibid. pg. 214
(10) Weisman, Steven (2007), “A Fear of Foreign Investment,” New York Times, Aug 21, 2007
(11) Hunter, D. (2008), Duncan Hunter 2008 Announcement Speech
(12) Marx, K., Engels, F. (1976), Collected Works, Volume 6, pg. 465
(13) Where are they Now? USA Today, Feb. 12, 2007.
(14) http://www.thirty-thousand.org/index.htm
(15) Kelley, M. (2007), Ex-Lawmakers find work with lobbyists, USA Today, Feb 21, 2007
(16) Wayne, Leslie (2000)  THE 43RD PRESIDENT: SECOND CAREERS; Lucrative Lobbying Jobs Await Many Leaving Government Service, New York Times December 16, 2000
(17) Public Citizen, July 25, 2005, “Members of Congress Increasingly Use Revolving Door to Launch Lucrative Lobbying Careers”
(18) Smith, Jeffrey (2007), Genetically Modified Foods: Toxins and Reproductive Failures
(19) ibid.
(20) http://capwiz.com/thenation/bio/fec/?id=252&cycle=2007-2008
(21) Corroborated tip forwarded from anonymous federal source
(22) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_war_over_genetically_modified_food#Official_US_complaint_with_the_WTO

2008-01-16