Now we move into Phase 2 of American Foreign Policy. Once all the above has been put in place and the lucky country has acquired a U.S.-friendly despot as fairly elected fuhrer, with a loyal and heavily sponsored military to protect him, and once all the pyramid of high officials below him have been shuffled to fix the deck, then and only then can the aid money flow from the generous Imperialist who expresses such earnest concern for the economic progress of the lucky new U.S. client. So, in such a position of power, how is the aid actually given?
This brief definition of past and current practice by Noam Chomsky explains the West’s pathetic attempt to steal while appearing generous…
“Aid” – Money from the taxes of the people of the rich country paid to the dictator of the poor country. Repaid to the banks of the rich country by the taxes of the people of the poor country.
Check that statement again to see who the winners and losers are. Aid is how local dictators and foreign banks win. People don’t get aid, they pay taxes.
But as long as the people benefit from the actual Aid Programme of this dubious financial practice what does it matter? Beyond the pocket-lining that’s going on as described above, studies by Chomsky and Herman show that deterioration in human rights correlates with increase in US Aid. Why? Revenues run on rivers of blood.
The reign of terror destroys all ground-level organisations fighting for people’s land and rights and enables this stolen property to be granted to the foreign invader as concessions. The locals are written off as communists, huns, malay bandits, terrorists, fundamentalists, cultists, drug-runners depending on which convenient label presents itself to divest them of rights as humans. A Speculator literally means someone who looks around, looking about for an opportunity, looking to take control of something that belongs by ancestral right to someone else. This isn’t competition, this is stealing. The option for the real owners to speculate on the development of their own land is not available. Anyone who believes that the land belongs to anyone other than big, foreign Private Sector interests is a communist.
Beyond one person one vote democracy, we see the march of private sector government. A tiny minority of power brokers with an equal say to the population. Fashionable local decision making bodies are tri-partite – local/national government; private sector and community. The experience of communities is this process is a gradual process of dispossession.
In my own case in my own community, the Hulme Estate in Manchester, we were equal partners first in the overall development, then only in housing, then only “social” housing, then only design and management of social housing, then only design, then design except street layout, except number of units, except size, mix, budget, materials, contractors and so on down to the essential definition of community (local, resident population) decision-making power… “What colour would you like your bathroom tiles and kitchen worktops?” The chance to make a decision at last. Like most, I didn’t stick around that long. Some local people will engage in this process for a few backhanders and a little finance for their own personal projects. But even they are eventually betrayed and side-lined once they have alienated their community so much that they have no-one to stand behind them. And then comes their time when they too in turn are dispossessed by the Private Sector. Taking sides with crooks just doesn’t pay in the long term.
And then in the decision-making process, there remains only a bi-partite body. Our governing bodies as before and now the Private Sector. They are given our land for nothing in exchange for their money to develop it.
They were always there in the background, lobbying our government to favour them by attacking us. In the new public consultation procedures they are now only more visible and legitimised. This is the opposite of democracy where private unelected power makes public decisions.
And so the new owner of the land (the “investor”) having got the land for nothing can then receive aid from the taxpayers of his home country to extract the resources from the land (minerals, crops etc). Remember Nicaragua in the thirties – Rosita and Hanna took the minerals, United Fruit took the crops. The victims of dispossession starve and always a few resist to finally have a revolution forty years later.
Local thugs oppress their own people to sell out to the foreigner for a share of this loot (“Just doing my job”). This removes the people’s land and their subsequent ability to feed themselves. Thus the people are driven into the cities and the hands of exploitative employers who may employ women for less than men, and children for less than women. This ultimatum (“Resist and die or obey and be exploited”) depresses labour wages and conditions which lifts the profits and improves the investment climate still further, alongside the bargain concessions on land and resource extraction. Increasing GDP shows improvement for US corporations and local elite, while basic quality of life indicators (infant mortality, literacy, preventable diseases, life expectancy) indicate ever more distressing trends. Economic growth is the opposite of progress when the vast majority of the population do not participate in the economy nor share in the proceeds.