Reply #45: Summary 4: Why this matters now [View All]

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Certainly the environment matters, but a sick political system makes for sick environmental system. Fix the one and the other has a fighting chance.

International traders don’t just ship something 5,000 miles and hope someone will pay up when they get there. They get loans, credit, guarantees of payment ahead of time. No guarantee, no shipment.

And the guarantees are often arranged through the World Bank. Paul Wolfowitz is about to be approved as head of the World Bank. Paul Wolfowitz was the former Ambassador to Indonesia. It may be too late to stop his appointment, but it’s worth a try.

Tony Blair will be up for elections soon. He needs some sort of victory to help him along, and he's not going to find that victory in Iraq. Bush is screwing his buddy.

As I said before the items are manufactured largely in Brazil and China. China buys US bonds that fund the deficit and war effort. Cheap goods in the US imported from China helps keep manufacturers in the US from being able to compete. They lay off assembly line workers, they get rid of unions, unions that support Democrats.

The goods are sold through big box stores in the US and Europe. The big box store owners support Republicans.

If Indonesia and other counties with tropical rain forests can't earn money the honest way,they have to do it the dishonest way. Or they borrow from the World Bank and IMF. Big time.

Have you ever owed anyone big money and haven't been able to pay? You'll do anything to keep them from putting you out on the street or breaking your kneecaps.

And when they borrow, the WB/IMF own them. They force them to cut social programs, they force taxes cuts for the wealthy, they put the population into indentured servitude. Sound familiar?

People don't like indentured servitude. They'll put up with it for a while, but it gets old. They get angry. They support radical groups, like al Qaeda, who'll promise them anything. The US then sells the weapons that keep them humble. Humble that is until they figure out a way to fly a big plane into a tall building.

Then, in 2012, some kid from Georgia who just got out of diapers when bush was inaugurated ends up fighting another kid who doesn't have a job because the trees are gone and his village just got washed down a hill.

That's why it matters now.