{"id":302498,"date":"2017-04-06T17:32:17","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T16:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=302498"},"modified":"2017-04-07T11:07:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:07:07","slug":"syria-monsanto-moribund-system-deceit-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/syria-monsanto-moribund-system-deceit-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"From Syria to Monsanto: A Moribund System of Deceit and Destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, as the dominant global power, the US rolls out its brand of unfettered capitalism across the world. US citizens constitute just five percent of the world\u2019s population\u00a0but consume<\/a>\u00a024 percent of global energy. Consider the consequences of a US-style model of \u2018development\u2019 if it were to be aspired to and copied throughout the world (which it is in places like India and China). The model is\u00a0unsustainable<\/a>\u00a0and based on the premise of endless GDP growth and endless supplies of (finite) fossil fuels to fuel it.<\/p>\n

Empire and oil<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US derives its prosperity from oil. It is able to consume goods and resources at such a high level because the dollar serves as the world reserve currency. Demand for it is guaranteed as most international trade (especially oil) is carried out using the dollar. US global hegemony depends on Washington maintaining the dollar\u2019s leading role.<\/p>\n

The international monetary system that emerged near the end of the Second World War was based on the US being the dominant economic power (after it watched and let its rivals destroy one another and become indebted as a result of their war efforts) and the main creditor nation, with institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund eventually being created to primarily serve its interests.<\/p>\n

By the 1960s, countries like Germany, France and Japan had become industrial competitors and the Vietnam War was bankrupting the US. Not having enough gold to support the dollar, rather than devalue the currency, Henry Kissinger\u2019s \u2018diplomacy\u2019 engineered an \u2018oil crisis\u2019 to boost the price of oil and Washington since then has been able to run up a huge balance of payments deficit by using the paper dollar as security in itself and engaging in\u00a0petro-dollar recycling<\/a>\u00a0and treasury-bond\u00a0super-imperialism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the transformation of the US into a global superpower was fuelled by its access to oil, the continuation of US global supremacy in the 1970s and beyond has been achieved on the back of oil.<\/p>\n

More generally, with its\u00a0control and manipulation of<\/a>\u00a0the World Bank, IMF and WTO, the US has been able to lever the trade and the financial system to its advantage by various means (for example, see\u00a0this<\/a>\u00a0analysis of Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil money in relation to African debt).\u00a0Washington will not allow its global hegemony and the role of the dollar to be challenged.<\/p>\n

The end of the age of oil<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for humanity and all life on the planet, Washington deems it necessary to attempt to prolong the age of oil, which is not too surprising given what has just been outlined. This is despite the fact that the decline in oil production\u00a0will break economies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the article \u2018And you thought Greece had a problem<\/a>\u2019 by Norman Pagett,\u00a0 the importance of oil to the modern era is stressed along with some of the consequences of the \u2018end of oil\u2019. Its main thrust is that countries like Greece are experiencing energy bankruptcy (not financial bankruptcy), which manifests as financial indebtedness, and that oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia are living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n

In the timespan of human existence, the article notes that the ascendance of modern industrialised man, thanks to oil, has been a short flash of light that has briefly lifted us out of the mire of the middle ages. But the trappings of civilisation have not altered the one rule of existence: if you don\u2019t produce food from the earth on a personal basis, your life depends on someone converting sunlight into food on your behalf.<\/p>\n

Destroy agriculture, or the resources to produce food sustainably (water resources, seeds, soil fertility, etc.), which is what we are doing (see\u00a0this analysis<\/a>\u00a0of India and the Green Revolution), and, according to Pagett, most people would starve. What we call modern civilisation in the age of oil is fragile. Pagett argues the only reason we became so wealthy in the last 100 years or so is because of the consumption of oil and the consumer products derived from it.<\/p>\n

However, oil is running out and becoming more expensive.<\/p>\n

In the coming years, we will thus need to place greater emphasis on reconnecting with nature, as we did previously, to produce our own food again and engage in meaningful production and social relations rooted in our connections with the land, seeds, the seasons, harvests and so on (see \u2018Monsanto’s Violence in India: The Sacred and the Profane’ to appreciate how these relations have been fractured or destroyed to suit the bottom line of corporate profit).<\/p>\n

Pagett notes that for the millions of homeless people living on the streets in our \u2018civilized\u2019 cities, civilization is over. With declining oil and higher oil prices, for them there is little hope of a return to prosperity. He also argues that Arabia’s gleaming cities in the desert are built on its oil. It sells oil for food. When the oil is gone, its increasing population will starve as it will no longer be able to buy in essential needs.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Greece is bankrupt. It can’t afford oil imports (like so many other countries whose debt is spiralling as a result). But it has arable land and water. It could have a future beyond oil.<\/p>\n

Then there is the UK, which has to import 40 percent of its food, and much of the rest depends on oil to produce it, which also has to be imported. Pagett says it is the end of the UK\u2019s oil age, but few admit to it being the end of a food age as well. It has been argued that the UK has only\u00a0100 harvests left<\/a>\u00a0because of the degradation of its soils due to intensive industrial farming.<\/p>\n

Pagett also looks at China\u2019s cities, the emptying of the countryside and its unsustainable GDP growth, largely based on a real estate boom to build its ghost cities. The more real estate that is built, the higher the GDP figures, the greater the mirage of \u2018growth\u2019. It has become a self-sustaining illusion.<\/p>\n

What happens when oil runs out or becomes unbearably scarce and expensive? What happens when you have placed all your eggs in oil-based consumerism and productive activities and have destroyed the very basis of traditional agrarian production, as is happening in India, which sustains life and is the genuine generator of employment? What will become India\u2019s 1.2 billion people with no prospects of making a living (see ‘India’s New Rulers Are the World Bank, IMF, WTO and Monsanto<\/a>‘)?<\/p>\n

Without oil, we could survive – but not by continuing to pursue the \u2018growth\u2019 model China or India are pursuing or the US has pursued.<\/p>\n

Without sustainable agriculture, however, we will not survive. And unsustainable agriculture based on chemical-intensive, oil-based inputs\u00a0goes hand in hand<\/a>\u00a0with the \u2018age of oil\u2019 model of \u2018development\u2019 we see in India and China.<\/p>\n

If the film ‘How Big Oil Conquered the World<\/a>‘ shows how a handful of powerful oil interests uprooted traditional beliefs, practices and societies to recast the modern world in their own image – as profound as those changes were – the end of oil could have even greater repercussions that humanity may not recover from.<\/p>\n

What is required is a different way of thinking from what we currently have:<\/p>\n

\n

“The root problem is the fact that our economic system demands ever-increasing levels of extraction, production and consumption. Our politicians tell us that we need to keep the global economy growing at more than 3% each year \u2013 the minimum\u00a0necessary for large firms<\/a>\u00a0to make aggregate profits. That means every 20 years we need to double\u00a0<\/em>the size of the global economy \u2013 double the cars, double the fishing, double the mining, double the McFlurries and double the iPads. And then double them again over the next 20 years from their already doubled state.” –\u00a0Jason Hickel<\/a>, writing in The Guardian.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

US Strategic Objectives and Agribusiness<\/strong><\/p>\n

How can we try to avoid these potential catastrophic consequences, not to mention what appears to be an increasingly likely\u00a0nuclear conflict<\/a>\u00a0with competing imperial powers such as Russia (or China)?<\/p>\n

We must move away from militarism and resource-gabbing conflicts by reorganising economies so that nations live within their environmental means. As Jason Hickel advocates, we must maximise human well-being while actively shrinking out consumption levels and ecological footprint. Indeed, Gandhi\u00a0foresaw this<\/a>\u00a0need and described modern societies as being based on a \u2018nine-day wonder\u2019 that could not be sustained given the rate of resource depletion.<\/p>\n

Key to this involves recognising the key role of agriculture: but not the kind of agriculture being imposed by transnational agribusiness corporations. We need a major shift away from the chemical-intensive industrial model of agriculture and food production, not only because ultimately we will have no choice, but because it has led to\u00a0bad food<\/a>,\u00a0poor health and environmental degradation<\/a>. The model is\u00a0unsustainable<\/a>\u00a0and has been underpinned by a resource-grabbing, food-deficit producing US foreign policy agenda for many decades, assisted by the WTO, World Bank, IMF and \u2018aid\u2019. For instance, see ‘Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia<\/a>‘ by Michel Chossudovsky and ‘Destroying African Agriculture<\/a>‘ by Walden Bello.<\/p>\n

US agribusiness is a tentacle of Washington\u2019s geopolitical objectives and is essential for colonising indigenous agriculture. The Green Revolution was exported\u00a0courtesy of the oil-rich interests<\/a>, and poorer nations adopted agribusiness\u2019s chemical-dependent agriculture that required loans for inputs and infrastructure development. It entailed trapping nations into a globalised system of debt bondage, rigged trade relations and the hollowing out and destruction of national and local economies.<\/p>\n

Whether it is Bill Gates facilitating the plunder of African agriculture for corporate interests, the World Economic Forum \u2018Grow<\/a>\u2019 strategy or the World Bank \u2018Enabling the Business of Agriculture<\/a>\u2019 strategy, the aim is to further restructure agriculture across the globe to serve the needs of Western agribusiness companies.<\/p>\n

What we see is the\u00a0capturing of markets and global supply chains<\/a>\u00a0for the benefit of transnational corporations involved in food production. We see the\u00a0destruction of natural habitat<\/a>\u00a0in Indonesia to produce palm oil. We see the use of\u00a0cynical lies<\/a>\u00a0to corrupt India’s food system with genetically modified seeds. We witness the\u00a0devastating impact on farmers<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0rural communities<\/a>. We see\u00a0the degradation<\/a>\u00a0of soils, health and water resources. And we also see the transnational corporate commercialisation and\u00a0displacement of<\/a>\u00a0localised productive systems.<\/p>\n

The current economic system and model of globalisation and development serves the interests of\u00a0Western oil companies and financial institutions, global agribusiness and the major arms companies.\u00a0These interlocking, self-serving interests\u00a0\u00a0have managed to institute a globalized system of war, poverty and food insecurity\u00a0<\/strong>and have acted to\u00a0devastate economies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How many more Syrias?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead of rebuilding highly productive<\/a> rural infrastructures based on small farms at the local level, the drive is to destroy indigenous agriculture and local economies and accelerate the treadmill towards disaster. We must contend not only with the lies and deceit of companies like Monsanto who claim to be serving humanity\u2019s interests, but we are also bombarded with the more wide-ranging propaganda that fuels the system of \u2018globalisation\u2019 which companies like Monsanto are tied to and fuel.<\/p>\n

Monsanto\u2019s whole business model is based on conquest<\/a>(epitomising the ethos of capitalism). It captures markets and key institutions, destroys competition and relies on the US government to maintain its profits and access to regions of the world. It, like \u2018corporate America\u2019 in general, relies on the US state to keep the neoliberal agenda on track by facilitating corporate imperialism (aka globalisation) and Washington\u2019s hegemony.<\/p>\n

We now have the situation in Syria where\u00a0deception once again trumps reality<\/a>\u00a0as the US seeks to gain support for broadening its military campaign to\u00a0balkanise Syria and redraw the map<\/a>\u00a0of the Middle East. Unfounded claims about Assad using chemical weapons are front page news,\u00a0mirroring similar baseless claims<\/a>\u00a0that occurred a few years back and mirroring the lie of WMD in Iraq. Millions are dead in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan as the US and its allies play out a continuation of a\u00a0modern-day \u2018Great Game\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We have Western politicians and the media parroting unfounded claims about the Assad government using chemical weapons and lying to the public about it as well as \u2018Russian aggression<\/a>\u2019. All for what? Pipelines, oil and gas. The \u2018war on terror\u2019 is a war for resources. It is a war for the benefit of Western capital. It is a war to prolong a dying age of oil, advanced capitalism and easy profits. And these wars and conflicts and the lies to justify them will only get worse as demand across the world for resources grows against a backdrop of depletion.<\/p>\n

Whether it is the US, India or China, the need of the hour is to recognise the bankruptcy of imperial endeavours to fuel a moribund system. It has already led to two major world wars. There will be no recovering from a third.<\/p>\n

The world is in the grip of a structural war against people, land, economies and ecosystems. It is being waged by organised, institutional criminal interests bent on monopolizing energy, food and violence across the globe. From\u00a0farmer suicides<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0failed Bt cotton<\/a>\u00a0in India and the\u00a0impacts of glyphosate<\/a>\u00a0in Argentina to war in Syria and beyond, theirs is a neoliberal doctrine of death and destruction.<\/p>\n

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, as the dominant global power, the US rolls out its brand of unfettered capitalism across the world. US citizens constitute just five percent of the world\u2019s population\u00a0but consume\u00a024 percent of global energy. Consider the consequences of a US-style model of \u2018development\u2019 if it were to be aspired to and copied throughout the world (which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1214,"featured_media":302501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-302498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}