How Corporations Destroyed American Democracy - Chris Hedges.

A quote that was said in 1791 by “Thomas Jefferson.” If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

(Capitalism will never fail on its own, it will have to be pushed. The accumulation of capitali will never cease, it will have to be stopped. Capital class will never surrender its power, it will 

have to be dispossessed.)

The below video is a speech performed by American journalist, author, and war correspondent. Chris Hedges.

The video itself will probably not contain anything you didn't already know and covers the usual topics of the rise of the police state, the military industrial complex, the prevalent culture/celebrity society and the general systematic breakdown of American (and global) society.

Having said this, Hedges delivery is succinct. eloquent and, most importantly, truthful and makes for a great listen. 

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first “post-industrial” nation on the globe.  All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.  It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution.  It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes.  It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.  But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America.  Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone.  Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period.  The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little.  Do you know what our biggest export is today?  Waste paper.  Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us.  The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now  just a shadow of what it once was.  Once upon a time America could literally outproduce the rest of the world combined.  Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world.  If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things.  So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation?  We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable.  Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country.  But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them.  Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

19 FACTS ABOUT THE DEINDUSTRIALIZATION OF AMERICA THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.  About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2 Dell Inc., one of America’s largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November.  Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide.  So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States?  Zero.

#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6 As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output.  In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford’s new “global” manufacturing strategy.

#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing.  The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use.  Today it ranks 15th.

#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products.  Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.

#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it? 

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis.  It needs to be treated like one.

The first statement that I take exception with by Michael Snyder at the Business Insider is his opening paragraph where he states that “All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.” Mr. Snyder’s arrows are certainly sharp enough but I’d suggest that he needs to sharpen-up his aim instead of using the shotgun approach which disparages millions of Americans who have had no role or even knowledge of what has happened to their country.

I believe that it’s inherently dishonest not to mention that it has been Corporate America, the nation’s Elites, Wall Street criminals and corrupt politicians that have led the stampede to outsource our manufacturing capabilities and high tech jobs to foreign countries – not the American people in general. The population has been lied to, lulled into complacency by a corrupt, corporate controlled Mainstream News Media and politicians that have been too busy accepting “legal bribes” and kickbacks from corporate entities to even consider what the overall consequences would be to The United States as a whole as they systematically helped to destroy the greatest economy this world has ever witnessed. I also believe that it is so-called “Journalists” like yourself that help to perpetrate the lie that we as a nation have squandered the “wealth that our forefathers left us” without even a casual mention that the “wealth” you speak of has been stolen from Middle-Class America and redistributed to the top one to three percent of the nation’s wealthiest individuals,  and they still are attempting to privatize Social Security to rob and plunder what is left of our Senior’s retirement funds. As much as I enjoy reading the Business Insider I am extremely dismayed that you and your publication are also helping too perpetrate the myth that it was the entire nation in general that destroyed our economy and allowed our manufacturing sector to be outsourced to foreign countries – and I believe that you owe the American people a retraction for what I believe are glaringly dishonest statements that by omission of irrefutable facts, fail to place the blame where it really belongs!

In fact, as important as this Business Insiders‘ article could be to the American people, I’m sure that it hasn’t gone unnoticed to those that live abroad that our corrupt, corporate controlled Mainstream News Media is not disseminating these facts to the general population of the United States! Those that read theBusiness Insider are those with Internet connections and Wall Street personnel, upper-class Americans that are seeking financial advice, and those of us that write and maintain our own Blogs that are actively fighting against the fascist takeover of the United States.  Our Mainstream News Media wouldn’t tell the general public the truth if their lives depended on it without the blessing of their corporate masters. If the majority of the American public was aware of the facts presented in the above article you can bet that the outrage would be felt throughout the entire global community. If you have any journalistic integrity, you might consider writing a piece that details how America’s corporations and Elite’s have robbed and plundered America’s Middle-Class and wrought almost absolute destruction on our economy and severely compromised our national security – but understanding that it’s merely a hope that will remain unfulfilled, I’d be happy with a retraction and an apology to the American people. I also believe in being fair, and I did note that at the bottom of your commentary, you stated:

But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them. For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them.  Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

It is sad, and in fact, in my opinion, it borders on sedition and treason that the majority of the United States is not being told the truth. Those who control our Mainstream News Media should be tarred and feathered for their abject refusal to speak-up and at least attempt to tell their fellow countrymen the truth, but when they garner multi-million dollar salaries to report what the corporations ask them to report on, it speaks to the moral decay of those that used to be the first to alert the public to discrepancies and illegal actions of our own government. The MSM used to be one of the most important safeguards we had to keep Washington honest; now they are as much, if not more of the problem than the crooks whom are robbing America blind.

In regard our National Security, I have written on numerous occasions how outsourcing American jobs to China was compromising our national security and it’s only been lately that Washington has also mirrored these suspicions.  You can read these substantiated accusations by clicking on the “Wal-Mart”  Category at the top of the page. For several decades the Chinese have been the number one perpetrator of industrial/military espionage in the United States. The Chinese have an attitude that if they can steal an idea and/or concept they will do that first rather than attempting to purchase said technology. Last time I checkedChina had over three thousand documented “front companies” whose sole purpose was to transfer stolen and/or prohibited technology to mainland China. From an economic standpoint, the deindustralization of the United States and our fragile economy is also creating national security concerns of its own as well as Washington’s role in helping the Chinese to import technologies that were previously illegal and prohibited for China to possess:

China’s leaders know that they must lock up oil supplies at a time when the Western world can’t seemingly be bothered to understand that this is a zero-sum game. In other words, China views the global financial crisis as an opportunity to be exploited for economic gain and the security of its people, not as a problem to be solved. China understands the big picture, and even though we apparently painted it, the West doesn’t.  By scouring the earth for oil at a time when the West is hamstrung by the global financial crisis, not only is China able to strike more favorable deals at more favorable prices, but it’s locking up huge supplies of commodities for its own use for years, even decades, to come. In doing so – and this is the part of the equation so many experts don’t get – these resources are no longer available for our use here in the United States, which has major supply and pricing implications for this market.

Is it any wonder why China is making deals with American Presidents to obtain our ‘dual-use’ technologies?  During the Clinton administration, the sales of ‘sensitive technologies’ was transferred from the State Department to the Commerce Department.  Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown “opened the door to everything but the kitchen sink’, according to Softwar, Inc (2001):

The nineties, however, were quite different. The Department of State and the Pentagon approached the GAO in 1995 with a request to study the Commerce Department approval of dual use technology sales to China. The GAO report concluded that Ron Brown had more or less opened the door to everything but the kitchen sink. Secretary Brown’s Far East commerce trips corresponded with each new batch of approvals for dual use, advanced US technology. The assertions by Mr. Brown that the US products would be monitored behind the bamboo curtain were simply pipe dreams since the Chinese would not allow such follow ups.

In late February, 1996, the Chinese Warlords were finally able to buy their way into the White House when Wang Jun entered for a coffee with President Clinton. Wang would donate $690,000 to the Democratic National Committee in a quiet effort to reward those who have helped China. Wang, a son of the ruling class in China, had far more than a few checks in his pocket. Wang has also been accused of attempting to smuggle 2,000 fully automatic AK-47s to Florida drug gangs. Wang Jun’s history as an arms dealer is world renowned. It was Wang who set up the original delicate deal with Russia to buy the SA-10 Grumble. Wang was among a host of other unsavory characters to pass through the White House and leave a check. Wang’s credentials as a dealer in billion dollar weaponry were well established long before 1996. LINK

An issue that I find extremely disturbing is China’s development of their new Dong Feng 21D Missile which has been described as able to be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving (American) aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers.Let’s be realistic about China’s military buildup and what it means to the United States and its allies. The recent fiasco between China and Japan where a Chinese ship rammed a Japanese navy vessel was clearly an issue where the Chinese ship was in the wrong. Japan, in an attempt to deescalate the situation, released all of the crew except for the Captain – but that did nothing to calm the Chinese who seemed intent on punishing Japan for an incident that was being used to create nationalistic anger against Japan which is directly related to China’s claims about disputed territory in the China Sea(s). China has become extremely aggressive in regard their “One China Policy” in which they have annexed Tibet, have their sights on Taiwan, and are attempting to gobble-up territory that both South Korea and Japan have justified claims on themselves.

The United States with its once superior Naval power is likely the one factor that is holding China in check and the Chinese military has been working hard to develop weapons that are specifically designed to breach American Naval defenses which could eventually place Taiwan and Japan in extreme jeopardy. The constant crisis we have faced with North Korea’s Nuclear brinkmanship has at every turn been thwarted by China’s refusal to reign-in a country that could not survive without China’s constant financial aid. China would merely have to threaten to cut-off the aid to North Korea to force them to bargain in a meaningful manner but China instead allows the North to keep poking South Korea and the U.S. with a stick because it suits their military ambitions to have a close ally that is also nuclear armed that would side with China if a conflict were ever to arise.  There are far too many national security issues that deal with China to list in this short article, however, from those are are listed it doesn’t take a genius to understand that China, while they hold a huge amount of our debt and host most of America’s corporations to manufacture their goods are in reality, no friend to the United States. I should mention that China has also refused to allow their currency to be properly valued which also gives them an enormous trade advantage, another example of how China is using every trick in the book to retain their trade dominance over the United States.

I first began writing about the National Security issues that were being created by outsourcing our manufacturing to China in 2004 and no one listened. Our corporations as well as the government knew back then that China was the number one country that was conducting espionage in the United States, as did Corporate America, but nevertheless they continued to ramp-up the outsourcing of American manufacturing and high tech jobs to a nation that was actively committing espionage on an everyday basis on our country. What’s wrong with that picture? Would we have done the same thing for Iran or North Korea? No! In reality, it was pure unmitigated greed and most likely, millions of dollars in bribes from the parties that tended to benefit the most from destroying our own manufacturing sector – China.

When we take into consideration that Corporate America and the Elites have outsourced America’s lifeblood to foreign countries with absolute disregard for how it would affect our own economy and how it would significantly affect our national security, I believe that it belies any argument that they are innocent of destroying our economy and were simply attempting to garner more profits for their shareholders. Their Boards of Directors are some of the best financial minds in the world and they had to know of the destruction it would have on the American economy, the effect it would have on decimating our once vibrant Middle-Class and the extremely significant effect it would have on America’s National Security. In practical terms, Corporate America, the nation’s Elites, and corrupt politicians sacrificed our economy, forced millions of people to lose their homes and fall into poverty, and wrecked havoc on our national security – all in the name of pure unadulterated greed. Some of you may call it corporate malfeasance and political corruption. When we take into consideration the disastrous effect is has had on our people and the nation in general, I am hard pressed to categorize it as anything other than sedition and treason, and I believe that all of those whom are responsible for aiding and abetting the destruction of our economy should be prosecuted for the high crimes they have committed against the people of the United States.