CAPITALIST TENTACLES & FRONTS

ERIC SCHECHTER—And so we have lots of protest demonstrations, urging the public to get involved, urging the government to make policy changes. And this political issue, like most political issues, is dominated by vested interests. Peace demonstrations are not heard over weapons companies; healthcare demonstrations are not heard over insurance companies; and climate activists are not heard over fossil fuel companies. What most of these demonstrators have not yet understood is that money is influence, and so the only way to end rule by the wealthy class is to not have a wealthy class, and that will require a very different economic system. In sum, capitalism has got to go.

“What’s infuriating about manipulations by the Non Profit Industrial Complex is that they harvest the goodwill of the people, especially young people. They target those who were not given the skills and knowledge to truly think for themselves by institutions which are designed to serve the ruling class. Capitalism operates systematically and structurally like a cage to raise domesticated animals. Those organizations and their projects which operate under false slogans of humanity in order to prop up the hierarchy of money and violence are fast becoming some of the most crucial elements of the invisible cage of corporatism, colonialism and militarism.” — Hiroyuki Hamada, artist

JOSEPH THOMAS—In yet another sign of waning Western hegemony, the Southeast Asian state of Vietnam has begun the long-overdue process of reclaiming its information space from US tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google. 

TONY CARTALUCCI—Behind the growing momentum of this “climate action” movement is a myriad of corporate-foundations – notorious for their support of regime change around the globe, the protection and promotion of corporate-financier special interests, and the co-opting of legitimate causes ranging from human rights to now concerns over our collective impact on the environment.

PATRICE GREANVILLE—For well over a century now the savage capitalist way of life—make that “the American Way of Life”— has dominated and grotesquely misruled healthcare in the United States, its abuses by now legendary.  Big Pharma, a key component of the notorious triad comprising doctors, hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry, has long exploited its de facto and virtually unchallenged monopolistic position to extract superprofits from a disorganised and profoundly misinformed public, a public with no real representation in Congress, nor in most state legislatures.