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Our fate is in the hands of a class that considers risking Armageddon an acceptable part of their business model. Big oil companies ignore the dire consequences of climate change to maximize return on their investment in fossil fuels. The military-industrial-congressional complex risk nuclear annihilation and regional war, for profit and as an ‘economic development strategy’.The Doomsday Clock has been set to 100 seconds to midnight; the closest it has ever been.[1]Climate change, nuclear weapons, Big Brother surveillance states, and artificial intelligence; we are at an existential crossroads.Either we counter Big Finance’s control of politics and the economy . . . or not many of us humans will be around to see the end of this century
Climate crisis and nuclear weapons threaten life on earth, yet a climate denier is President and the bloated military budget includes a trillion-dollar investment in a new generation of nuclear weapons.
The Trump administration is a dangerous cabal of conmen, criminals, extremist billionaires, and far-right ideologues – but it’s not an aberration.
It’s the inevitable product of extreme parasitical capitalism which has created activist billionaires who manipulate elections and concentrated ownership of most major corporations into massive investment firms...
In 2017 Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, said Trump’s economic policies represented a “bucket list of things we’d like to see done.”
Although Fink was apparently poised to be Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury, when that didn’t quite work out,[14] he joined Trump’s business advisory group (later disbanded after the Charlottesville events). Trump was a client of Fink’s company before he was president...
War and almost war are good for the arms business.
The corporate leadership of both major American political parties willingly collaborates with the financial-military-industrial complex, pursuing policies that strengthen the empire. Both parties have waged regime change wars that destroyed whole societies...
Both parties are dedicated to a nuclear war strategy that is primarily driven by commercial interest.
It was the Obama administration that committed to spending about a trillion dollars for nuclear arms modernization over the next few decades. Trump built on that legacy.
Daniel Ellsberg, who was a nuclear war strategist for Rand Corporation working with senior levels of the U.S. military in the late 1950s and early 60s, told theAnalysis.news that “there would be no ICBM’s if it wasn’t for the profit motive” and that there is no national security rationale for not reducing the nuclear arsenal to a handful of weapons. Ellsberg says the current strategy is driven by the interests of weapons manufacturers.
Russia and the United States remain on a ten-second hair-trigger, where a mistaken blip on a screen could trigger war and nuclear winter. Ellsberg calls it “institutional madness”...
The corporate leadership of both parties won’t break the grip of the financial-fossil fuel complex over energy policy...
The problem is deeper and more alarming. The 2019 UN annual emissions gap report states that if all the countries that made commitments to the Paris Agreement fulfilled those promises completely, we are still headed for 2 degrees warming by 2050 and 3 degrees by the end of the century.[31]Say it again. If the Paris objectives are fully met, we hit almost unlivable conditions in 30 years and a catastrophic tipping point in 80. Within the lifetime of our kids...
The IPCC says the world must avoid hitting 1.5 degrees warming because once 1.5 degrees is hit, it might be impossible to prevent further warming, and even at that level, the consequences of extreme weather will cause terrible damage. So why is Mr. Fink still talking about 2 degrees? He’s just not serious about climate change...
The financialization of the economy and the political power of Wall St. has created the greatest inequality in history.
This massive accumulation of wealth at the top makes it very difficult for the very rich to want serious change. Day to day life for them has never been better. In spite of the scientific evidence of climate change, they continue to vote for the politics of the status quo, perhaps with some lip service to address the problem...
The richest 5% of Americans own two-thirds of the country’s wealth; at the top of the American economic summit, the richest of the rich now hold as large a wealth share as they did in the 1920s.Sixty percent of the .01 percent’s wealth, according to Forbes, is inherited. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, says “we are building an aristocracy of wealth as surely as any despotic regime in history.”
The Trump impeachment and the growing split in the political and billionaire class is driven by many factors, but it is primarily a fight over how to respond to rising anger over this vast economic inequality. People’s disillusionment is upsetting the status quo of both major political parties. This resentment is expressed as a demand for democracy and equality, but it is also taking the form of rising fascism...
Inequality grew at unprecedented rates under Obama with 95% of income gain after the 2008 recession going to less than 1% of the population. While Corporate Democrats may genuinely fear and oppose Trumpism and rising fascism, the Democratic Party’s policies while in power set the table for it...
If Sanders wins the nomination it will further spark a movement for a Green New Deal including economic and political democracy. But Wall St. will not easily give up their control of the Democratic Party, and as Sanders gains strength in the primaries, opposition to him will become more furious.
Witness the New York Times editorial board calls him over-promising and divisive (let’s remember who owns the Times, 93% by Blackrock and other institutional investors). Hillary Clinton launches ad hominin attacks (remember, Larry Fink was going to be her Secretary of the Treasury).
The 2020 U.S. elections are a pivotal moment in human history. Four more years of climate denial or halfhearted policy that won’t confront the fossil fuel companies and the financial giants that own them will undoubtedly mean we will cross the critical 2-degree threshold by 2050.
I’ve been told by those who know members of the billionaire class, that many believe they can escape the ravages of climate crisis. Some even think they can escape nuclear war, running to New Zealand or in some kind of protected bubble.
It’s a horrifying state of denial, but they are in such an unprecedented orgy of profit-making, they choose to believe fairy tales rather than accept a profound restructuring of society.
Climate change, nuclear war, Big Brother surveillance states, and artificial intelligence; we humans are at an existential crossroads.
Either we radically transform ownership so the commanding heights of the economy are socially owned and democratize how government power is wielded . . . or not many of us will be around to see the end of this century.
Alarmist? No doubt, but it’s way past time for being alarmed. Feel overwhelming? Yes, how can it not be? I look at my seven-year-old twins and wonder if we should be calling them ‘generation last’. When they are in their eighties, what will be left of human civilization? We have no choice but to act now.
Is a mass mobilization to save the planet and against war, on a scale not seen before, possible? Given what’s at stake, what’s holding it back?...
Can a demilitarized green new deal at a global scale bring all the threads of the solution together? What are the realistic steps that must be taken and what can be accomplished given the existing political conditions?
Daniel Ellsberg says we need a new political economy; we must convert military to green production or perish. Are we humans up to the challenge?
Please go here for the full article: https://theanalysis.news/commentary/the-lords-of-finance-own-the-media-arms-and-big-oil-and-threaten-our-existence-paul-jay-theanalysis/
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