Bannana Repbulic

It's no surprise to many that Bush's "re"-election was shortly followed by a dizzying drop of the value of the dollar. Look next for the dollar being dropped as a reserve currency. Other countries have as reserves, instead of gold or silver, US dollars. This props up their currency, but with the dollar falling, it's propping up our currency. As we got dropped, well, our currency becomes more volitaile. It used to be, before Reagan, that it was fine to pillage other countries in the south, but our own had to be kept fairly stable. Then Reagan decided to throw a party for the rich and with our own stolen election in 2000, it became clear that we were now playing by the same rules imposed by us upon the third world. Patriotism is put on by politicians as a sham while they let de-nationalized elite and multi-national corporations pillage our resources for the benefit of a very few.

Which is why the buisiness community did not oppose Bush. Half did. Half did not. The half that supported Bush are on the side of third-worlding the US. They don't care what happens here. They want cheap labor and cheap materials. Or, they want to draw up policy to benefit them and nobody else. Take for example, Lockheed. The New York Times is reporting that "[I]n the post-9/11 world, Lockheed has become more than just the biggest corporate cog in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. It is increasingly putting its stamp on the nation's military policies, too." Lockheed has taken over many of the functions of government, "It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic." Lockheed is not a public company, although it is publically held. As in, it is not a utilitiy. It is controlled by it's stockholders, not by government. It carries out government functions and sets policies and in exchange, gets your tax money. "Nearly 80 percent of its revenue comes from the United States government. Most of the rest comes from foreign military sales, many financed with tax dollars. And former Lockheed executives, lobbyists and lawyers hold crucial posts at the White House and the Pentagon, picking weapons and setting policies." Lockheed it not accountable to anyone but it's stock holders. By law, any corporation which issues shares must put short term quarter-by-quarter earnings as it's number one priority. We're waging wars so that lockhhed can show a fourth quarter profit. "'It's impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockheed begins,' said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors government contracts." And the stockholders who are receiving our tax monies have reason to be happy. "The company's stock has tripled in the last four years, to just under $60." That's, of course, during Bush's tenure.

Our foreign policy is being dictated by these stock holders. And our domestic policy. "Does the Department of Homeland Security have the best tools to protect the nation? Lockheed has a host of military and intelligence technologies to offer. 'What they do for the military in downtown Falluja, they can do for the police in downtown Reno,' said Jondavid Black of the company's Horizontal Integration Vision division." When what you've got to offer is strength, then you sell strength as the answer to every problem. And this is how a police state comes about. Lockheed has clout. They have weapons. They can order the government to buy these weapons because they are the government.

When the government is run by a heirarchical system where those under it have no say and those owning it do no work, well, in the past, we've called that feudalism. When a police state is run for the benefit of corporations, in the past, we've called that fascism. I don't think there are any kind words to describe this fundamentally anti-democratic system. And, of course, how votes are counted is now a trade secret. Not of Lockheed (yet), but of other corporations.

The point of the system is the military industrial complex. Racism, homophobia, mysogony, fear, pseudo-theocracy are just side effects. They are fixtures that fit well with the system, which requires scapegoating and dividing and conquering to maintain power. Most of us would rather have nationalized health care than to purchase "robot soldiers and neural software - 'intelligent agents'" to kill our "enemies" in the third world. We are becoming the third world. The victims of our warfare-based society are the natural allies of the American non elites. Just as we are scapegoated, they are scapegoated. Fear of "them" over there is fear of "them" over here. Any alien other can fill in when needed. We are all the alien others. However, if we weren't being run by "a warfare company," we wouldn't need so much warfare. We would not require fear. We would not need to be constantly aware of how the other is plotting against us. At home and abroad. Fear of others abroad automatically leads to fear of others at home, which works out well when you are trying to see robot soldiers and spy sattilites to Reno Nevada.

Does Lockheed care if the dollar goes to nothing? Maybe. Maybe not. They have to put their first quarter profits first and those would be higher under Bush, so bush gets their vote, I surmise. They dictate policy and they, by law, cannnot look long term. Those with the power to make descisions at Lockheed must think short-term. They can't think about their children. And they are an enormously large corporation, which means, psychologically, anyone who works in large system don't personally take on blame for what their system is doing. They're just doing their job. Yeah, it's fucked up (maybe), but they're just one person. If they don't do it, somebody else will. Meaning that absolutely nobody is accountable. Most stocks are held by pension funds and whatnot. The people shoe money is invested get no say in how it is invested. The fund managers have to go for whatever stock is doing well or they lose their jobs. They might not agree with the system either (despite the wealth they accumulate), but they're just doing their jobs, investing pensions so grandma can eat. You don't want grandma to starve, do you? Even the sotckholders aren't accountable. Thousands upon thousands of peopel are participating in a system that they likely do not want to. Only a few people profit. Only a few people are indoctorinated enough to think that robot soldiers in Syria would be good for our country.

A general strike could stop the system in it's tracks, at least until they offshored all the production jobs. What irony to have our very important national security robots manufactured by our "enemy" China! Undoubtedly, war production jobs will move overseas. Can we stop lockheed?