American Capitalism Is Based on
Plunder
The plunder is getting worse
By
Paul Craig Roberts
August
19, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- American capitalism is based on
plunder. With the continental USA plundered,
American capitalism hoped to continue enriching
itself by plundering Russia as it did under
Yeltsin, carefully including the Russian
“Atlanticist Integrationists” in the spoils in
order to have support from the liberal,
progressive forces in Russia for stripping
Russia of its assets. But Putin more or less put
a halt to the American/Israeli rape of Russia,
although it still continues through the
neoliberal economics that Harvard brainwashed
into the Russian central bank and economics
profession. Brainwashed Russian economists are
the main reason Washington is able to punish a
powerful country such as Russia with economic
sanctions.
The
dependency of American capitalism on plunder is
the reason Washington seeks to overthrow the
people’s government of Venezuela. Chavez
established a reformist government in Venezuela,
one continued by Maduro. The reformist
government nationalized Venezuela’s oil
reserves. Instead of the profits being carted
off by the American oil companies, they were
kept at home where they raised the literacy rate
and lowered the poverty rate. American
capitalism wants the revenues back. Thus
Washington’s attack on Venezuela.
The
same for Iran. The Iranians were the first and
most successful in throwing off the yoke of
American imperialism. They overthrew the
American puppet, the Shah in 1979, and used the
oil revenues for the development of Iran instead
of the purchase of arms from the US
military/security complex. All of the propaganda
against Iran is part of the effort, supplemented
by sanctions, to regain control of Iranl’s oil
wealth and to shut down Iran as a supplier of
the Hezbolah militia that has prevented Israel’s
occupation of Southern Lebanon.
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Russia
and China are also targeted, and the governments
of both countries continue in their gullibility
to play into Washington’s hands. Both
governments permit American-financed Non
Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to operate in
their countries in open treasonous activities
against the governments. The ongoing street
protests in Hong Kong are a Washington operation
directed at undermining the reputation and
stability of the Chinese government. One must
wonder why the Chinese government sets itself up
as a target for Washington.
The
Pultin government’s toleration of American-paid
traitors resulted in the recent riots and
protests that the Russian police were pressed to
control. The Russian government investigated not
the protesters and their American financiers,
but the police for protecting public order in
Russia! The Russian police were criticized for
being “too brutal” in the Russian government’s
view in putting down the American organized
attack on the Russian government. A government
this confused has a low survival rate. Perhaps
the situation is different inside Russia from
how it is presented in the US media, but the way
it is presented in the US is the way the world
sees it. And it is not to Russia’s advantage.
Little
wonder Washington regards Putin and the Chinese
leadership as politiians who can be trifled
with.
Perhaps
Russia and China are so desperate for Western
approval that they prove how democratic they are
by permitting foreign orchestrated insurrection.
The Hong Kong youth waving American flags must
be unaware that the US is ruled by a smaller and
worse oligarchy than China.
The US
allows no foreign countries other than Israel to
finance NGOs dedicated to influencing the United
States Government. I am unaware of any Russian,
Chinese, Iranian, or Venezuelan NGOs that are
permitted to operate in the US. Who can imagine
Israel permitting Palestinian NGOs to operate in
Israel and stage street demonstrations and
riots. In the United States the President is not
even permitted to communicate with Russia
without being accused of being a “Putin stooge”
involved in a conspiracy to sell out America to
Russia.
Russia
has one economist who understands economics. His
name is Sergei Glazyev. Glazyev, the most
competent economist in Russia, understands that
Russia’s economic development does not depend on
foreign loans and capital from abroad. Loans
from the West are simply a way of ensnaring
Russia in the hands of external creditors, as
happened to Greece. According to a recent
report, Glazyev has been removed from his
position as an adviser to Putin. It seems as if
the pro-American Atlanticist Integrationists are
going to keep Russia down until Russia has to
submit to Washington for a bailout.
Awaiting the chance to resume explotaition of
Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China, American
capitalism in the meantime is going to plunder
what is left of the public’s lands—the national
forests, parks, monuments and wildlife refuges.
You can read about it below.
Trump
Regime Opens US National Forests to Plunder by
Private Timber Companies
http://www.addisonindependent.com/news/proposed-change-would-cut-public-input-green-mtn-national-forest
If a
proposed change in federal land use rules goes
through, the 90,000 acres of Green Mountain
National Forest that fall within Addison County
could see a lot more commercial logging, road
building and utility corridors — all without
environmental review or public input.
“Basically, the rules would take the ‘public’
out of public land management,” said Jamey
Fidel, Forest and Wildlife Program Director for
the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC).
At
issue is a proposal by the United States Forest
Service (USFS) to revise the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which is the
foundation of environmental policy making in the
United States. It requires agencies like the
USFS to analyze the environmental effects of
their proposed actions prior to making
decisions.
The
USFS proposal would drastically alter those
requirements by greatly expanding the number and
type of projects that would count as
“categorical exclusions,” which can be approved
without environmental assessments or impact
statements.
Projects the USFS would reclassify as
“categorical exclusions” include:
•
Commercial logging, including clear cutting, on
areas up to 4,200 acres at a time.
• Building new roads through the forest up to
five miles at a time.
• Reconstructing old roads through the forest up
to 10 miles a time.
• Bulldozing up to four miles of pipeline and
utility rights-of-way through the forest.
• Closing roads and trails used for recreational
purposes.
Adding illegally built roads and trails to the
official USFS road and trail system.
New
rules would also allow the USFS to bypass public
input on nearly every project decision.
According to estimates from a number of forestry
and environmental organizations, the proposal
would eliminate public and environmental review
from more than 90 percent of all USFS projects.
The Forest Service says it needs to do this
because, among other things, the agency has a
backlog of “special use permits or renewals”
that “are awaiting environmental analysis and
decision affecting more than 7,000 businesses
and 120,000 jobs.” [The jobs are not needed if
in fact the US has a full employment rate of
3.5% unemployment. ]
In
addition, such challenges as the recent increase
in wildfires are taking up more and more of the
agency’s resources and personnel. [In other
words, global warming is using up the agency’s
budget fighting fires.]
What
the USFS does not mention, however, is that
according to the Congressional Research Service,
the Trump administration has proposed cutting
Forest Service spending by nearly $1 billion for
fiscal year 2020, including a $654.4 million cut
in Wildland Fire Management.
“This
(proposed change to NEPA) is happening at a time
when the Forest Service is slashing its own
budget, and lacks the resources to evaluate what
it’s doing,” wrote Sam Evans in The New York
Times.
Evans, who works in the Southern Appalachian
national forests, went on to call the USFS
proposal “an attack on the very idea” of public
lands.
“If the
Forest Service has its way, visitors won’t know
what’s coming until logging trucks show up at
their favorite trailheads or a path for a gas
pipeline is cleared below a scenic vista.”
The USFS insists that the changes “meet both the
spirit and intention of the NEPA,” but critics
see the recent proposal as part of a larger
trend.
Last
December, after revoking permits that would have
allowed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to build
through parts of the George Washington and
Monongahela national forests, as well as across
the Appalachian Trail, the 4th U.S. Circuit of
Appeals rebuked the Forest Service for granting
permits that violated both the National Forest
Management Act and NEPA.
The
three-judge panel concluded that the agency had
“abdicated its responsibility to preserve
national forest resources.” Of particular note
was the way the Forest Service’s “environmental
concerns … were suddenly, and mysteriously,
assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline
company’s deadlines.”
IN THE
GREEN MOUNTAINS
In
Vermont, recent USFS projects in the Green
Mountain National Forest (GMNF) have sparked
concern among a number of environmental
organizations, including the VNRC.
“In the
past, when the Forest Service has undertaken
major projects on the GMNF there has been ample
opportunity (in accordance with the NEPA) for
public comment and involvement,” wrote VNRC
officials in a May 3 blog post. “VNRC has
participated in these opportunities and we have
enjoyed a collaborative relationship with the
GMNF.”
But
starting in the second half of 2018, the USFS
began limiting public comment on projects — one
to conduct even-aged timber harvesting on 15,000
acres in the southern half of the forest, and
another that would require dozens of miles of
new roads to implement 9,630 acres of timber
harvesting.
Altogether, according to the VNRC, “the Forest
Service is planning to construct 84 miles of
road (57 miles of new and temporary roads and
26.7 miles of reconstructed roads over the next
15 years) with no opportunity for public comment
on the environmental impacts of these
activities.”
The
Green Mountain National Forest is one of only
two national forests in New England. It was
established in 1932 in response to excess
logging, fire and flooding. As of 2011, the GMNF
covered 821,040 acres, nearly half of which was
federally owned.
More
than 18 percent of Addison County lies within
the forest.
The
Independent was unable to reach GMNF officials
for comment in time for this story.
Supporters of public and environmental review
see the proposed NEPA changes as an attempt by
the Trump administration to codify the Forest
Service’s recent practices.
And many of them are fighting back.
Organizations ranging from the National Audubon
Society to the Sierra Club to the National Parks
Conservation Association are urging concerned
citizens to submit a public comment on the
proposed rule changes.
The
deadline for commenting is Aug. 26.
“Please
make your comments specific and unique to your
concerns and relate your comments to a
particular national forest, like the Green
Mountain National Forest,” wrote VNRC officials
on July 25. “The Forest Service will lump
together (similar comments) and count them as
one comment, so please make your comments unique
to be counted.”
According to the Forest Service website,
comments may be submitted:
• online via https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=FS-2019-0010-0001 (Note:
This info has been updated from the print
version of this article.)
• or by mail to NEPA Services Group, c/o Amy
Barker, USDA Forest Service, 125 South State
St., Ste. 1705, Salt Lake City, UT 84138.
• or by email to nepa-procedures-revision@fs.fed.us.
(Note: This info has been updated from the print
version of this article.)
Reach Christopher Ross at
christopherr@addisonindependent.com .
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate
editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was
columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News
Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many
university appointments. His internet columns
have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts'
latest books are
The Failure of Laissez Faire
Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West,
How America Was Lost,
and
The Neoconservative Threat to
World Order.
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