Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The US-Saudi war with OPEC to prolong oil’s dying empire

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, May 15, 2015

The US-Saudi war with OPEC to prolong oil’s dying empire

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from Middle East Eye.

There are signs everywhere that the directors of the US Empire are getting desperate to maintain control of their Empire which, with considerable efforts, has been slowly acquired since WWII. Such desperation heightens the ever-present threat of a major, most likely a nuclear, war breaking out either by accident or by design.

There is little doubt that the increasing triple deficits occurring in the US (national debt at over $18 trillion, ongoing annual trade deficits, and savings deficit) which appear to have no effect on the rich who over the past 30 years have gotten even richer. I suspect that's largely because their income is mostly untaxed because of many loop-holes in tax laws and hiding their money in off-shore banks. In other words the rich have been sticking all the debt financing needed to keep the US economy afloat on American workers. So far this has worked mostly because the world's rich capitalists like to stash their money in banks and investments of the most powerful nation, that is, the nation that has the most means of direct or indirect violence that can be used against other nations.

Since the US control all the major financing organizations like the IMF, World Bank, and numerous international US banks such as Goldman-Sachs and Citibank, they have used financing as a weapon against other countries that oppose US policies. Because the directors of the Empire have by far the biggest military and control of NATO, they can, and do, use the threat of violence against other countries that oppose US policies.

Now we see the growth of other countries led by China and Russia who are determined to stop US economic and military imperialism with increasing military, economic, and financial cooperation. This is leading up to a very dangerous confrontation that could end in a nuclear conflagration--unless we, the people of the world, can stop it.

In this article Ahmed reports on the US Empire's latest desperate attempt to weld an alliance directly with Saudi Arabia, the most backward regime on earth and the primary source of terrorist armies, as a means to increase their control over a major source of the world's energy and secure the backing of the US dollar.