Zeitgeist: Addendum Page #6

this role on a global scale.

The basic scam is simple:

Put a country in debt you

divide is own in disgression

- or through corrupting

the leader of that country -

than impose "conditionalities" or

"structual adjustment policies"

often consisting of the following:

Currency devaluation

When the value of a currency drops,

so does everything valued in it.

This makes indigenes resources

available to predator countries

at a fraction of their worth.

Large funding cuts for social programs,

these usually include education and healthcare,

compromising the well-being and integrity

of the society leaving the public vulnerable

to exploitation.

Privatization of state-owned enterprises.

This means that socially important

systems can be purchased and regulated

by foreign corporations for profit.

For example in 1999 the Worldbank

insisted that the bolivian government sell

the public watersystem of it's third-largest

city to a subsidy of the US-corporation "Bechtel".

As soon as this occured waterbills for

the allready impoverished local residents

skyrocketed.

It wasn't until after full-blown revolt by the

people that the Bechtel-contract was nullified.

Then there is trade liberalization

or the opening up of the economy through

removing any restrictions on foreign trade.

This allows for a number of

abusive economic manifestations,

such as transnational corporations

bringing in their own mass-produced products

undercutting the indigenes production

and ruining local economies.

An example is Jamaica,

which after accepting loans and

conditionalities from the Worldbank

lost it's largest cash crop markets

due to competition with western imports.

Today countless farmers are out of

work for they're unable to compete

with the large corporations.

Another variation is the creation of numerous,

seemingly unnoticed, unregulated, inhuman

sweetshop-factorys, which take advantage

of the imposed economic hardship.

Additionally, due to production-deregulation,

environmental destruction is perpetual

as a country's resources are often

exploited by the indifferent corporations

while outputting large amounts of deliberate pollution.

The largest environmental lawsuit

in the history of the world,

today is being brought on behalf of 30,000

Ecuadorian and Amazonian people against

Texaco, which is now owned by Chevron so it's

against Chevron, but for activities conducted by Texaco.

They're estimated to be more than 18 times what

the Exxon Valdez dumped into the Coast of Alaska.

In the case of Ecuador it wasnt an accident.

The oil companies did it intentionally;

they knew they were doing it to save

money rather than arranging for proper disposal.

Furthermore, a cursory glance at the performance record of the

World Bank reveals that the institution, which publicly claims to

help poor countries develop and alleviate poverty, has

done nothing but increase poverty and the wealth-gap.

while Corporate profits soar.

In 1960 the income-gap between the fifth of

the world's people and the richest countries,

versus the fifth in the poorest countries was thirty to one.

By 1998, it was seventy-four to one.

While global GNP rose 40% between 1970 and 1985,

those in poverty actually increased, by 17%.

While from 1985 to 2000, those living on

less than one dollar a day increased by 18%

Even the Joint Economic Committee

of the U.S. Congress admitted

that there is a mere 40% success

rate of all World Bank projects.

In the late 1960's, the World Bank

intervened in Ecuador with large loans.

During the next 30 years,

poverty grew from 50% to 70%.

Under or unemployment grew from 15% to 70%.

Public debt increased from 240 million to 16 billion,

while the share of resources allocated

to the poor went from 20% to 6%

In fact, by the year 2000, 50% of Ecuador's national

budget had to be allocated for paying its debts.

It is important to understand: the World Bank is,

in fact, a U.S. bank, supporting U.S. interests.

For the United States holds veto-power over

decisions, as it is the largest provider of capital.

And where did it get this money? You guessed it: it made it

out of thin air through the fractional reserve banking system.

Of the world's top 100 economies, as based on annual GDP,

Walmart, General Motors, and Exxon,

are more economically powerful than

Saudi Arabia, Poland, Norway, South Africa,

Finland, Indonesia, and many others.

And, as protective trade-barriers are

broken down, currencies tossed together and

manipulated in floating markets,

and State economies overturned

in favor of competition in global capitalism,

the empire expands.

You get up on your little 21 inch screen and

howl about America and democracy.

There is no America,

there is no democracy.

There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T,

and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbine, and Exxon.

Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about

in their counsels of state- Karl Marx?

They get out their linear programming

charts, statistical decision

theories, min and max solutions, and compute the price-cost

probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of

Nations and Ideologies, Mr. Beale.

The world is a college of corporations,

inexorably determined by the immutable

bylaws of business.

The world is a business Mr. Beale.

Taken cumulatively, the integration of the world

as a whole, particularly in terms of economic

globalization and the mythic qualities of "free

market" capitalism, represents a veritable

"empire" in its own right... Few have been able to

escape the "structural adjustments" and

"conditionalities" of the World Bank, the

International Monetary Fund, or the arbitrations

of the World Trade Organization, those

international financial institutions that,

however inadequate, still determine what

economic globalization means...

Such is the power of globalization that within

our lifetime we are likely to see the integration,

even if unevenly, of all national economies in

the world into a single global, free market system.

Jim Garrison

President, State of the World Forum

The World is being taken over by

a hand-full of business powers

who dominate the natural resources we need to live,

while controlling the money we

need to obtain these resources.

The end result will be world monopoly based not

on human life but financial and corporate power.

And, as the inequality grows, naturally,

more and more people are becoming desperate.

So the establishment was forced to

come up with a new way to deal

with anyone who challenges the system.

So they gave birth to the 'Terrorist'.

The term 'terrorist' is an empty distinction designed for any

person or group that chooses to challenge the establishment.

This isn't to be confused with the fictional 'Al Qaida',

which as actually the name of a computer

database of the U.S.-supported Mudjahedeen

in the 1980's.

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