Pathocracy: It's Even Worse Than We Thought

Despite the highly touted success of the Paris Climate Agreement,  corporate and government leaders have secretly colluded to all but ignore its already rather tepid recommendations. The planet will be permitted to burn as the plutocrats burn through all its extracted wealth. The capitalistic cancer will consume the host, with no cares or worries that it, too, will inevitably die right along with the host. 

The massive fire in the oil sands town of Fort McMurray, Alberta prompting the evacuation of some 80,000 people, is only the latest metastasis.

Thanks to a leak by Greenpeace International, a proposed transatlantic "trade" deal (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States reveals the full ugly extent of just one of the corporate coups now under discussion by the global ruling class racketeers.

Because of the leak of these secret documents, the people's dissent against getting hurt, burned out, evicted, or even killed in the name of endless profits for a select few billionaires can only grow stronger. The leak reveals the full extent by which United States intends to complete the client state status of the entire European continent. "The way is being cleared for a race to the bottom in environment, consumer protection and public health standards", warns Jorge Riss, director of Greenpeace EU.

The proposed TTIP agreement essentially allows the US to veto any regulations by European countries that would protect citizens' rights over those of corporations. Before the EU partners can even propose a new regulation, they would have to submit to a vetting process by the United States.

 And then there are the odious, extra-national corporate courts which would have final say over any disputes. If a country persists, for example, in banning cosmetic firms from testing their products on animals, the firms would be able to extract monetary damages from the citizenry for failure to comply with animal abuse in the name of endless profits. If Europe continues its ban on genetically modified foods, companies would quite literally be allowed to yank the food from  the mouths of babes in retribution.

Four aspects of the attempted multinational coup are of particular concern, says Greenpeace:

1.The longstanding environmental protections enshrined in the 70-year GATT agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) appear to have been totally dropped, putting profits over the lives of humans, animals and plants. The Paris Climate Agreement is rendered a moot public relations exercise.

2. Not only do the leaked texts contain nothing about climate protection, among the proposals is a clause deregulating the importation of fossil fuels, even such polluting fuels as tar sands oil. This importation has actually already been approved, even as the Paris Climate Agreement was being inked. Pipelines for the transport of highly flammable fracked North Dakota oil have already been constructed. The oil is bound for Europe. When those "I'm an energy voter!" TV ads talk about energy independence, they don't mean that fossil fuels will be stockpiled in the US for future use. They mean that Exxon-Mobil will grow richer as it exports its toxic product to the far corners of the world. 

3. Rather than accept the current bans on the use of hazardous substances in Europe, the United States wants its partners to be more careful about using them. It simply calls for better "management" of such things as inserting potentially harmful growth hormone into food products. The typical neoliberal weasel wording of "benefits outweighing risks" is rife throughout the leaked document.

4. The  documents make it clear that the world is wide open for continuing capitalistic predation. Big business will get its way and be allowed to intervene in even the earliest stages of any regulatory legislation by any sovereign nation. The leaked papers confirm that such multinationals as Monsanto and Coca Cola and Nestle have all been given seats at the table, while the general public has been excluded from the process. As a matter of fact, some details of the corporate coup have been designated to remain top-secret for the next 30 years.  The pathocrats know their takeover will not be popular. They have already threatened to criminally prosecute the leakers of their diabolical texts.

Since some European leaders had already started to waver (because of public protests) in their support of the deal even before Monday's leak,President Barack Obama personally interceded on behalf of the corporate interest he represents. As War on Want's John Hilary writes, his trip to the continent last week was made, in large part, to cajole his counterparts into doing right by the plutocrats. He was greeted by street protesters in Germany, where public approval for the trade pact had plummeted to 17% -- before the leak.

"Oh, merde", you might imagine Obama muttering. "Après moi le Greenpeace déluge. And just when I was revving up my self-burnishing Legacy Tour into third (way) gear!"

But guess what? There are no worries here in the Land of the Free, where the sycophantic press are still raving over Obama's weekend standup routine at the White House Correspondents' annual orgy. Judging from the laughter, it was even better than the time he joked about attacking his daughters' potential suitors with predator drones. It was even more hilarious than the time Bush pretended to look for WMDs under his desk.

And talk about his exquisite timing. Less than two days later, Obama published a truly hysterical op-ed in the Washington Post, joking about that that other corporate coup known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The latest scuttlebut has it coming up for congressional ratification after the November election, when all the players can wash their hands of any accountability. The lame duck session is the truncated, but very rewarding, political version of the gap year. It's that special time when all manner of crap can be tossed at the public without pressure or fear of consequences. They're all spinning madly in the revolving doors between public service and cashing in, or between cashing in and public service.

Meanwhile, I'm so weak from laughing over Obama's op-ed that I can't even stand to parse the whole thing. But here are a few nuggets of comedy gold straight from the glib pen of the Pathocrat-in-Chief, as dictated by his corporate masters. (parentheses are simply my interpretations of his free-floating dialogue)

Today, some of our greatest economic opportunities abroad are in the Asia-Pacific region, which is on its way to becoming the most populous and lucrative market on the planet. Increasing trade in this area of the world would be a boon to American businesses and American workers, and it would give us a leg up on our economic competitors, including one we hear a lot about on the campaign trail these days: China.

(The world is nothing but a plunderful market opportunity for billionaires. Never mind that Democrats and Republicans alike are worried that Trump's trash-talking of China is supposedly endangering America's stellar reputation abroad.  Obama can trash-talk China even better, and in complete, cogent sentences to boot. He can diss Chinese wage slaves in favor of American wage slaves and still not be called out on his own classism and xenophobia. He's got the rhetoric, baby!)

This past week, China and 15 other nations met in Australia with a goal of getting their deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, done before the end of this year. That trade deal won’t prevent unfair competition among government-subsidized, state-owned enterprises. It won’t protect a free and open Internet. Nor will it respect intellectual property rights in a way that ensures America’s creators, artists, filmmakers and entrepreneurs get their due. And it certainly won’t enforce high standards for our workers and our environment.

(He will protect his ultra-wealthy Hollywood and Silicon Valley donors at all costs. And he will hilariously complain that China isn't enforcing the high standards for labor and environment at the same time he's making damned sure that Europe's own high humanitarian standards for labor and the environment will be crushed into corporate dust through his efforts.)

 Simply put, once the TPP is in place, American businesses will export more of what they make. And that means supporting more higher-paying jobs.

(Simply put, American businesses will export more of what they make... in low-wage countries. As in the Nike sneakers that they hope to make in 40 cents-an-hour Vietnam. That will support more high pay for the CEOs who already rake in about 350 times the salary of the average American worker.)

This agreement also strengthens America’s national security. When fewer people suffer in poverty, when our trading partners flourish and when we bind our economy closer to others in a strategically important region, America is both stronger and safer.

(Obama here displays his full allegiance to the discredited, but still popular, Reagan Revolution, a/k/a the Neoliberal Thought Collective. If corporations are allowed to become bloated to bursting, some of that offal will trickle downhill to the impoverished, rather than being "bound" up like a bad case of constipation. This will make the plutocracy even more nationally secure and comfortable than it already is. America is the plunderer that will bind its almighty power to the still untapped and appetizingly exploitable regions of the world.)

 I understand the skepticism people have about trade agreements, particularly in communities where the effects of automation and globalization have hit workers and families the hardest. But building walls to isolate ourselves from the global economy would only isolate us from the incredible opportunities it provides. Instead, America should write the rules. America should call the shots. Other countries should play by the rules that America and our partners set, and not the other way around.

 (You're screwed, proles. Obama speaks the unbelievable truth when he touts the "incredible opportunities" that all those lost, off-shored jobs will provide to the obscenely wealthy, who just can't ever get enough. They set the rules for the whole miserable world. If that makes you skeptical, says Obama, then tough shit. America has to be meaner than China. America has to be a winner, just as the affable Obama is a winner.)

 The ruling class racketeers and the pundits are still trying to wrap their heads around the sudden electoral success of nastiness, as personified by Donald Trump. Historically, the bought-and-paid for politicians have managed to keep their own pathocratic tendencies very well hidden beneath their jovial grins and folksy speeches. It's the only way to keep the mob under control. It's the only way to keep the people laughing instead of weeping... or demonstrating on the streets.

Donald Trump is now emerging as the exception to that rule. He's figured out that misery and anger love company. He's co-opting a good chunk of the mob through the old fascist ploy of dividing them in hopes of conquering them.

Hillary Clinton doesn't appear to have figured anything out yet. But it's early days. Give her time. She's only been a major power player for about 35 years.

Notes on Some Scandals

The Secret Service prostitution scandal in Colombia is not so much a scandal as it is a symptom. It is a manifestation of the long history of Yanqui arrogance and hegemony in Latin America. The elite imperialists of the United States have long viewed Central and South American countries as either Marxist enemies that must be ridiculed and punished (Cuba and Venezuela) or complicit and corrupt satellites (Nicaragua, Honduras). President Obama, following in the footsteps of his idol, Ronald Reagan, is busily establishing a coalition of the willing south of the border. He has been quietly building up our military presence in Colombia, site of more labor-related murders than all other nations combined. He is quietly using yet another corrupt regime as a base of operations for the expansion of the War on Terror.


Instead of fighting Al queda and the Taliban, we are in South and Central America to fight a phony War on Narco-Terror. Drugs are just one more excuse to flex American muscle, enrich American corporations and ignore and flout international human rights principles. The Drug Enforcement Administration -- much like the paramilitarized police forces within our own borders -- has been turned into a virtual Army, replete with high tech weaponry left over from Afghanistan and Iraq. The fact that the DEA is fighting a virtual war in Honduras, even assassinating members of alleged drug cartels, is not getting a whole lot of attention in El Norte. Charlie Savage of the New York Times did write a brief article on the Terror-Drug Fusion Wars last fall.


As a matter of fact, the corporate media as a whole have glossed over the horrors of life in Colombia and other repressive regimes and as true American government mouthpieces, have concentrated on the socialistic evils of Venezuela and Cuba, whose records on human rights are stellar in comparison. From the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):

What leads editors to discuss Colombia’s nightmarish human rights record with less alarm than Venezuela’s flawed but clearly superior record? The answer seems to lie in the relationship between the editors’ views and U.S. strategic thinking. Over the time frame of this study, U.S. officials have highlighted human rights concerns in Venezuela out of opposition to the populist policies of its President Hugo Chávez, which they see as threatening to U.S. interests. At the same time, officials have tried to diminish the gravity of Colombia’s human rights problems in order to sustain political support for a number of military, anti-drug and trade projects the U.S. shares with Colombia.   

(snip)

 Curiously, though government-linked Colombian death squads were in the habit of killing journalists, political activists and trade unionists over the entire time span of this study, virtually no editorials questioned the health of Colombia’s democracy, in stark contrast to the editors’ almost obsessive concern about the perilous state of Venezuela’s. Indeed, though President Uribe has been linked with death squads (Washington Post, 4/18/07), and former President Pastrana presided over a government with extensive death squad ties, the editors felt a need to insist time and again that the Colombian leaders were true and dedicated democrats.

The Obama Administration has been falling all over itself trying to justify approving the Colombian trade deal despite that country's horrible history of terrorizing its own people. As long as the government promises to try to cut back a tad on murdering trade unionists, then it's all good. Sound familiar? Just as banks can regulate themselves and factory farms can police their own filth and frackers can be relied upon to curb their polluting greed, Colombia shall be rewarded with no oversight and no penalties for non-compliance:

The Administration is asking worker rights advocates to believe that after over two decades of violence and impunity and other widespread violations that Colombia has now magically turned the corner on the basis of a Labor Action Plan signed in April.

As USLEAP* (US Labor Education in the Americas Project) and others have noted, the Plan has no enforcement measures and pressure for compliance will end as soon as the Colombia FTA is implemented. The Plan, which contains some positive features if fully implemented, must be given time to demonstrate concrete results in reducing violence and ending impunity, let alone addressing other long-standing obstacles to the exercise of basic worker rights. And there is not even a “Plan” to address violence against other human rights defenders or the negative impact that the FTA is expected to have on small farmers, Afro-Colombians and the environment.

Life in Latin American backwaters is cheap. So when Secret Service agents and military personnel hit the brothels and the bars the minute their jackboots touched Cartagena ground, they were simply exercising their rights as occupiers and conquerors. That they should objectify Third World Latina women forced to work as prostitutes to feed themselves and their children should come as no surprise. That they should expect to be secretly serviced for mere pennies should come as no surprise either. The only surprise is that somebody took the women's side for a change and the Americanos were exposed. 


It is of course also no surprise at all that our own politicians and pundits should concentrate on the symptom rather than the disease. The real scandal is a double one: the rushed approval of the Colombian free trade agreement, despite ongoing documented human rights abuses and murders of trade unionists, and President Obama's refusal to back down on his cynical War on Drugs. Corporate profits once again have trumped humanitarianism. Our Democratic president has pledged his allegiance to profits over people.

And how do labor leaders back home feel about this debacle? Well, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO is "deeply disappointed" in President Obama. But not so much that he will withdraw his endorsement for Barry's re-election. And here you thought that this story couldn't get any more disgusting.

* "The U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Chicago that engages a wide range of organizations and individuals in the U.S. and abroad to promote full respect for the rights of workers in Latin America. Founded in 1987 as the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project, the organization advocates for fundamental changes to U.S. trade policies, demands corporate responsibility, denounces violence against trade unionists, and conducts worker justice campaigns in the banana, flower, and apparel sectors. USLEAP seeks a global economy in which all workers, abroad and in the U.S., are treated fairly, paid a living wage, and respected by corporations and governments." Its website can be found here.