Fernando Guevara writes:

This is a free-standing continuation of my recent article. 

Whether the government owns the corporations (communism) or the corporations own the government (capitalism), the result for the vast majority of people is the same. 

It seems that most people agree that communism is not a good concept for bringing about democracy (people rule). Therefore, I will focus on discussing capitalism, because it appears that many still believe that democracy will result from an unregulated market, a “free” market. The belief that capitalism is the best system persists in spite of the fact that, in a pure capitalist system, only the market is free not the population. Capitalism in its purest form means that anything for which there is a market is for sale to the highest bidder. Whether a government is a system of unbridled communism or unbridled capitalism, we, the People, pay the price. Stated differently, we are the prize.

Unbridled capitalism will result in practices such as slavery, since there is a demand for cheap labour or, better yet, free labour. This provides complete freedom for the slave-owner, extinction of freedom for the slave. Slavery is abundant in many places in the world today, not least on cocoa plantations serving the huge world-market of the chocolate industry. For instance, Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey and Mondelēz have been in the spotlight as named defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC on behalf of eight former child slaves, originally from Mali, who allege that they were forced to work without pay in the Ivory Coast. They accuse the biggest chocolate companies in the world of aiding and abetting the enslavement of thousands of children on cocoa farms in their supply chains. Tenimba was 11 years old when a trafficker lured him from his home in Mali to a cocoa plantation in the Ivory Coast. He worked every day for two years with no pay, no medical care, and no safety measures. Today there are over 1.5 million child laborers like Tenimba, losing their childhood to supply cocoa to some of the world’s wealthiest brands, like Nestlé, Mars, and Hershey. The Washington Post has said that Nestlé, Mars, and Hershey pledged nearly two decades ago to stop using cocoa harvested by children, yet much of the chocolate that is sold still starts with child labour. So they have continued this production while being aware of the slave labour, at least throughout that time. I have boycotted Nestlé for a long time, due to their practices of dumping chemical waste, and their thefts of water, both practices affecting many communities in different countries. It was only more recently that I became aware of their slave labour. I have understood that Nestlé was making extreme profits, because I cannot recall having been to a small pizzeria or small franchise that did not have a waste-paper basket with the Nestlé logo on it. They must be wealthy to be able to give out these gifts to so many businesses in so many countries throughout the world. I should not be flippant in a context this serious, but I can’t help wondering if it is their sense of humour that causes them to give away waste-paper baskets for customers to remember them by. When I started to look into one of the world’s largest chocolate producers, Ferrero Rocher, typing in the search terms “ferrero rocher lawsuit” into the Microsoft Bing search engine, I got a number of hits/links concerning Ferrero’s allegations of trademark infringements, and disputed health benefits of Nutella. For instance, this. (In a number of trademark lawsuits, Ferrero was successful in preventing its opponents from using product packaging, even language, considered too close to that used by distinctive Ferrero brands. Ferrero was granted huge monetary awards in court; some cases settled in Ferrero’s favour).

(Ferrero, the makers of Nutella, was granted $28,000 for every repetition by its rival of the rival’s claim that its brand Choco was better than Nutella, because it lacked palm oil).

I also got hits like this: Ferrero made a confusing statement in 2019, asserting, at length, Ferrero’s non-toleration of participation in child labour, slavery, and other abuse, while offsetting its statement with disturbing ambiguities such as “Ferrero has committed itself to source 100 per cent sustainable cocoa beans by 2020, which we mainly do via the following certification standards: UTZ, Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade. We continue to be on track with our roadmap, reaching 77 per cent by August 2018.” They also mention their partnership with the NGO Save the Children. It is only through more persistent searching that one gets hits indicating that Ferrero itself might be using child slaves. This, in turn, is an indication of where the designers of the algorithms for the search terms at Microsoft Bing stand in the matter of slavery. 

Another frightful result of unregulated capitalism concerns the market of organ trafficking. In August 2021, Judicial Watch and The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) announced that they had received documents from the US Department of Health and Human Services that revealed that nearly $3 million in federal funds had been spent on the University of Pittsburgh’s quest to become a “Tissue Hub” for human fetal tissue, taken from fetuses or babies ranging from 6 to 42 weeks gestation. The documents were obtained following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has admitted that it together with the Planned Parenthood “abortion providers” is responsible for allowing babies to be delivered alive, and then killing them by cutting out their kidneys. In other words, babies were “aborted” after birth – not what most people understand as abortion. This was done because there was a demand for certain useful organs that could best, or perhaps only, be “harvested” from living people. For successful “harvesting” of kidneys, there has to be a continuous blood-flow, which means there has to be a beating heart pumping blood. Most pregnancies last 37 to 42 weeks. If a pregnancy lasts more than 42 weeks, it is called post-term (past due), according to this as well as the US National Institute of Health (NIH) itself. On August 3, 2021, Judicial Watch and the CMP announced that they had received disturbing public records from the NIH about government-sponsored fetal experimentation at the University of Pittsburgh, of aborted fetal organs after targeting pregnant women and fetuses based on race. Publicly available information demonstrated that the University of Pittsburgh hosted some of the most barbaric experiments carried out on “aborted” human infants, including exporting fetal kidneys across the US, and killing infants delivered alive for liver harvesting – funded by US taxpayer money via the NIH, and in particular Dr Anthony Fauci’s NIAID office. (Also see Center for Medical Progress v. US Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-00642). Fox News reported that the University of Pittsburgh’s application specified that it sought to “’develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples obtained throughout development (6-42 weeks gestation)’”. Fox continued: “[University of Pittsburgh] told HHS that it has been ‘collecting fetal tissue for over 10 years … includ[ing] liver, heart, gonads, legs, brain, genitourinary tissues including kidneys, ureters and bladders.’” In a PureFlix interview, former university employee Lori Kelly discussed a federally funded project with researchers seeking to collect bladders and kidneys from babies as late as 24 weeks into pregnancy. Kelly said that, as project manager, she worked to develop “’a pull-down menu of baby body parts for researchers to choose from’” to submit to the tissue bank, so they could send the body parts to them. 

According to Wikipedia, the international Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is a global non-governmental England-based organisation formed in India in 1952. It now consists of more than 149 Member Associations working in more than 189 countries. The IPPF states its broad aims to be promoting sexual and reproductive health, and advocating the right of individuals to make their own choices in family planning. IPPF’s member associations allegedly provide non-profit family planning services, sexual health and abuse prevention training and education”. The IPPF is financially supported by, among others, governments and foundations including the European Commission and the United Nations Population Fund for special projects. The IPPF often collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), among others.

David Daleiden, founder and president of the CMP, has noted that the following should face accountability for enabling partial-birth abortions and infanticide in the government-sponsored human trafficking of infants: US Attorney General Merrick Garland [who is presently slated to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, as the Justice Department faces a series of contentious issues]; former Attorney General, William Barr (to ascertain if he knew about the abovementioned practices and did nothing); Dr. Anthony Fauci (whose NIAID office funds nearly 60 per cent of NIH-sponsored fetal experimentation); FBI Director Christopher Wray; NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins [who has identified as an evangelical Christian and has said he was “troubled by abortion,” but who has recently announced his resignation]; representatives of the University of Pittsburgh, and Planned Parenthood. Apparently, there are a few additional names that should be on the list of organizations or people who need to be investigated to determine whether they were knowingly involved with organizations that conducted these practices.

Who owns the world, its resources and the people?

I have previously written that politicians, military corporations, “Big Pharma”, power companies, “security” corporations, the telecommunications industry and other oligarch corporate interests, as well as the media that serve them encourage wars from which they all profit. To be clearer, it should be added that banks and insurance companies are included under oligarch interests, as are various propaganda outlets (including some search engines). Further, what I have broadly referred to as “military corporations” includes clusters of para-military defence contractors and “security” corporations, such as G4S and Serco Group, who are huge in the for-profit private prison industry, which operates in both private and military spheres. Other examples of fused military/paramilitary/private/government/intergovernmental/supragovernmental oligarch interests are intelligence gathering (spying) agencies, such as the NSA, CIA, FBI, Verizon, Ericsson and other telecommunications companies. I have noted that civil and military spheres have gradually overlapped and that lines between civil and military institutions have become increasingly blurred. They are now at vanishing point. Regarding the expanding spheres of military, and regarding subservience to Israel, click here.So, are corporations like G4S and Serco some of the world’s largest para-military, or military, organizations? If so, whom do they represent? – The highest bidder. Any bidder. They are therefore, on all sides of every conflict. And to cover the unfortunate event that there is a temporary ceasefire, they are also present in private industries, schools, day care centers and private homes. “For your security.” 

(Listen to Serco’s own presentation of itself as probably the biggest company you’ve never heard of, starting at about 1 minute, 35 seconds, shown at the Open Mind Conference in 2016). The presenter brags that Serco is big in running immigration detention centers; traffic lights; trains; tests for drivers licences; that they are the largest air traffic controllers in the world; that governments all around the world outsource to Serco; that Serco has been running the UK’s ballistic missile system since 1964 and that it looks after Britain’s entire nuclear arsenal; that they will soon be the largest operator of private prisons in the UK; that they are very efficient at increasing prison capacity – in one prison they increased capacity by 20 per cent simply by putting beds in the toilets. In another Serco prison, boasts the presenter in a chirpy voice, a 14 year-old hanged himself after being assaulted by Serco guards, the UK’s youngest ever death in custody. The text “YOUNGEST EVER DEATH IN CUSTODY” appears as an advertisement on the screen (starting at 1:35:58). The presenter continues: “But, don’t think Serco aren’t good with kids. In Bradford they run all the state schools in the district… they’re the right company to keep us safe.” Since 1994, Serco has grown by 1200 per cent. About 85 percent of Serco’s work force are ex-public servants, who have the training and connections necessary for handling big government contracts. Serco has the contract for setting Greenwich Mean Time, says the presenter, who states that Chris Hyman [Christopher Rajendran Hyman, CEO of Serco Group plc 2002-2013] puts his success with Serco down to listening to God. A picture of a cross appears in the center of the picture.

This is hell on earth. But instead of being put away for life based on publicly available admissions of company conduct, Hyman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours “for services to business and charity”. 

It is difficult to demonstrate an exact hierarchy of the power clusters mentioned above, as ownership constellations are often very complex. It must also be taken into account that ownership and control is not necessarily the same thing. For instance, different types of stock might carry different voting rights within a corporation; the number of shares owned does not necessarily answer the question of how much leverage a certain share-holder has in the control of the company. Any description of stock ownership must take into account the types of stock; the amount of influence, or voting power, that the respective shares carry. 

While all the aforementioned entities and constellations feed each other, and feed off of each other, broadly speaking, mainstream media and politicians can be said to serve the other entities. Politicians, like the press, are mostly means/weapons in service of the powers that be; it is only in exceptional cases that they have strong sway in their own right. I believe it was Ole Dammegaard who likened politicians to tyres. He was right; when a set of tyres has been used up, the tyres are replaced with a new set, to run the same vehicle. That seems a fair description of the extent to which various “administrations” as well as most politicians differ. Near identical vehicle – similar tyres. That is why we are not going to change the system by their rules, but by choosing alternative forms of leadership. We must repossess our own lives. 

I believe that there is hope for doing so, and the following describes why.

A different system of government is possible, but not under the current rules

We are not going to achieve any new system of government by shouting our outrage in the general direction of the powers that be. We won’t achieve change by appealing to their better natures – most don’t have one. And most of them have signalled in advance (during their campaigns), in subtle or not so subtle ways that they will present no problems in terms of upsetting the current system. The only possibility of democracy – people rule – is through creating alternative systems where people and human values control, or balance, the unbridled forces of capitalism. In addition to there being direct democracy where people can participate personally in influencing specific community issues that affect them, there have to be representatives who truly represent the people on an overarching level, in a government that represents the country (or nation state, or whatever definition one chooses to use for the overarching entity). 

A system where un-checked forces of capitalism is offset by humanitarian concerns is sometimes referred to as a mixed economy. For a mixed economy to work, there must be a government of, by and for the people, and a strong constitution that protects those minorities that are not in themselves powerful. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address to honour the soldiers who had laid down their lives in the Civil War. In Gettysburg alone over 50,000 soldiers perished, in a three day battle that (together with Vicksburg) marked the turning point of the war. Although it is difficult to agree with Lincolns statement that the nation was conceived in liberty, it is easy to embrace his vision for the future, which was “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (There are several versions of the Gettysburg Address. Even Lincoln’s handwritten versions differ. The version of the Address that is inscribed on the battlefield monument is the last he is known to have set down, and the only one bearing his signature.) It would be nice if we could give meaning to Lincoln’s words, now written in stone at the battlefield memorial. 

Compassion, minority protections and representation of the governed are the outflow of universal human values. Greed, on the other hand, is not a value. A just constitution must not be used to protect special interests in the sense of protecting the strongest, or the richest, few against the demands of the less privileged, the majority of people. The majority of people do not carry a lot of clout in and of themselves, but together they can change the world and form governments that represent them in meaningful ways. 

Politicians in these new governments should be paid a pre-set wage and must only be permitted to own certain clearly defined property (such as family homes, vehicles, and reasonable, clearly defined, additional assets). They should not be permitted to play the stock-market or own shares in banks or insurance companies. Any ownership in corporate interests, direct or indirect, should be stringently regulated, in terms of what types of corporations they are permitted to invest in and how inherited funds should be treated. Further, the stock-value of any shares owned must be “weighed,” meaning that not only the number of shares count, but also the voting leverage that the stock represents in the company. Politicians’ remuneration should include retirement benefits. They needn’t pay taxes, because it would waste their time and focus, and complicate transparency of what they end up earning.  

Such a system would free politicians from worrying about making a secure living for themselves and their families after their terms end. But it would require a personality type different from that of almost every present-day politician. There are such exceptions to the rule of greed-driven politicians. I tend to call these exceptional politicians conscientious objectors; they refuse to take up arms against the people and are, instead, willing to serve the people. Notable UK conscientious objectors are Chris Williamson and Jeremy Corbyn, and in the US a notable exception is former presidential candidate, attorney, author and consumer rights advocate, Ralph Nader. His legacy is already huge, in ways that most of us don’t even know. He has influenced legislation in areas of automobile safety; consumer safety; the right to be informed (about exposure to unsafe chemicals and pharmaceuticals); the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); the Consumer Product Safety Act; the Whistleblower Protection Act and more. There are other conscientious objectors, but I wanted to name a few in order to show that the idea of a different type of society, a different type of leadership, a different type of government altogether is realistic; that it is not simply a free fantasy. We can dispel vacuous arguments that assert, for instance, that Ministers of Finance or high-level bankers must be free from taxes and must be free to trade against their own customers/clients in order to motivate them to do their job. Such arguments only prove that we are thinking the current governments’ preferred thoughts for them. We can change the current system that is, as Ralph Nader put it, one corporate government with two heads [the two party system] (An Unreasonable Man, at 1 minute, 22 seconds. This is a presentation of Nader; there is a two hour documentary about him with the same name). Nader continues: “… we don’t have a government of, by and for the people. We have a government of the Exxons by the General Motors for the DuPonts.” This 10 min presentation is well worth watching if you are looking for a reason to believe that a whole different world is possible.

Ralph Nader is a perfect example of the possibility of meaningful change of political leadership. Although the US was not ready to elect him president, Nader is living proof that it is realistic to have politicians of a different personality type than the personalities we are accustomed to seeing in politics; that it is realistic to expect politicians with sound sets of values – true conscientious objectors to the current system. While various sources state various amounts (non of them exorbitant) for Nader’s wealth and yearly income, from what I have been able to gather from official as well as personal sources, he allows himself a moderate income, lives in a modest apartment in Washington DC, and is rumoured to often use public transportation. I assisted, in a very small way, his run for President in 2004. My contribution was passing out leaflets and talking to people about the alternative he offered to the existing two-party system that, for all intents and purposes, I see as a one party system in which the “voter” is offered the chance to click “yes” or “no” to a few narrowly-framed questions. Moreover, the two parties are incrementally inching so close to each other that even the yes-or-no vote is rendered almost empty. Thus, Nader’s assertion that it is one corporate government with two heads.

One of the reactions I kept running into, while talking to people about the Nader alternative, was the objection that Nader was stealing the election from Al Gore, thereby bringing about a second term for Bush. While that argument was not unreasonable, as applied to that election, the bigger problem is that most people are so accustomed to a binary, linear, way of thinking that there is no perception of depth or alternatives in political discourse. Differences between “administrations,” as we customarily call Western tyrannies, are so minor that it is an insult to our intellects to advertise them as “change,” as is peddling them with meaningless slogans like “yes, we can” (Obama’s campaign slogan in 2008). It appeared to me, during Nader’s 2004 campaign and later, that many people actually fear their own reactions to the idea of meaningful change. And I’m not talking about people who don’t care about anything other than their own comfort – I am under the impression that many who do care about society are, nevertheless, afraid of falling from grace with their leaders.

We must be persistent in participating in community activities; spreading relevant information about what really impacts our lives – not just through regular media, but in schools and universities (that are under relentless attacks from special interest groups that do not stop short of terrorizing students, lecturers and Boards of Directors); peacefully assembling and protesting; boycotting goods and services from regimes and companies that profit from genocide, slavery and the vestiges thereof. We must meet on a personal level, as individuals with common goals of change and meaningful people-representation through our new governments.

If we want to give meaning to the “yes we can” motto, we should say: Yes we can reinstate Corbyn (and forgive him some clearly erroneous decisions in the past) and Williamson (etc) in the UK, and elect Nader for President in the US. 

I really think that now is the time – the present, the gift.