Berkhamsted

Stop the War

BEYOND IRAQ, WHOSE POWER IS A THREAT : Beyond Iraq there is a bigger picture, with huge companies pursuing profit, regardless of its impact on ordinary communities

ECONOMIC POWER, A NEW IMPERIALISM: To see the big picture, the full impact of globalisation and huge multinationals has to be recognised - an impersonal greed and lust for power

 

EMPIRE IS NOT JUST MILITARY POWER

The Project for a New American Century, of power and global intervention, is rooted in money. It is economic power that enables the US to 'go it alone' and pursue its own foreign policy. It is economics that drives and directs that policy.

The huge corporations, many of which are wealthier than whole nations, now operate on a ruthless global scale. These corporations influence US administrations and have far more power than ordinary American people.

What we see today is the spread of huge, impersonal, patriarchal systems - spreading their economic tentacles across the globe - powered by the logic of profit, where community and selflessness are almost irrelevant.

Globalisation is the spread of a new empire, an empire which can plant factories and uproot them at will, using communities as colonies of manpower, but having no true stake in the wider lives of the ordinary people they exploit.

This spread of economic empire cannot be separated from the Iraq crisis, because it explains some of the seeds of terrorism, some of the hostility felt towards those who use economic power regardless of justice and decency.

Globalisation is the supremacy of a small minority of people, regardless of local democratic processes or the needs and interests of the vast majority.

The corporate giants are not answerable to democracy because they can simply uproot if they do not get their way. They come into communities, they use communities, but they can also discard communities.

It is the wealth of corporate America, in a hungry and impoverished world, which seems to many to steamroller the interests of ordinary decent communities.

"We CAN therefore we shall" is the imperative of these profit-driven organisations, who finance US politics, influence policy, and regard grassroots democracy as a side-issue which must be swept aside if necessary.

Because the driving force of these corporations is money and the power to make more money, human and personal issues become merely elements to be exploited or set aside.

Therefore, genuine democratic movements, and local democracy, and community interests, and the shared lives of ordinary people, often face real difficulties when faced with the growing economic empire which can effect people's jobs and lives so much.

Hypocrisy and false standards really concern many people all around the world, because the same forces that drive the Iraq campaign today also support and supported disreputable rulers in many other places, so long as this favoured corporate interests and upheld markets and the potential for profit.

There is a profound (and not unreasonable) concern that foreign policy is driven by money, and the need to maintain economic supremacy, invested in the huge corporations.

Globalisation therefore creates suspicion and hostility, because economics is an impersonal enforcer of empire, and creates compulsion upon communities which they are almost powerless to resist.

The fear is that in ignoring 90% of his own people, Tony Blair is actually upholding a global economic order which at other times disregards the poor, the disease-ridden, and the persecuted. 90% of British people want no attack without a second UN mandate.

But the vested interests who support George Bush want war now. In siding with them, Tony Blair seems to be putting the power of empire "We CAN, therefore we shall" before the democratic wishes of the people.

This fundamental democratic right of ordinary people to determine their lives and their futures for themselves is suppressed elsewhere in the Middle East, often with US compliance.

It was evident in other places such as Nicaragua.

Globalisation threatens the future of democracy (and the integrity of ordinary lives) because its economic expansion creates colonies and dependency, and takes away people's power to decide for themselves.

Without UN mandate, without international backing, without popular support of ordinary people, George Bush is about to intervene in Iraq "because he CAN". Similarly, without any of this backing, Tony Blair too is endorsing this impending attack.

Globalisation and military diplomacy go together. It is the logic of power. It is not a course which people of the world themselves have chosen. But Globalisation powers itself on money, not on the democratic will of ordinary people.

BEYOND IRAQ, WHOSE POWER IS A THREAT ?