The following was issued by friends of mine in Global Witness in the USA today. I reproduce it because I share their concerns. In fact, it feels very personal: this was the first form of country-by-country reporting to be legislated and now it's gone
In an extraordinary gift to Big Oil, the Republican-led U.S. Congress has voted to overturn an historic transparency law designed to stop oil companies striking corrupt deals with foreign governments.
In overturning the law, Congress has immediately sanctioned corruption by green lighting secret deals between oil companies and despots. These deals deprive some of the world's poorest people of oil wealth that is rightfully theirs.
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Given the President's massive conflicts of interest and his administration's broad attacks on regulation, it appears U.S. institutions are increasingly being abused to further the business interests of a powerful few. This is how corrupt dictatorships start.
The vote by the Senate early this morning comes just two days after Rex Tillerson, a longstanding opponent of the law while CEO of ExxonMobil, was confirmed as Secretary of State, and the day after the U.S. eased sanctions on Russia.
Today the U.S. Congress voted for corruption and threw away its global leadership on the matter. Read our response in full: U.S. Congress votes for corruption
Sincerely,
Corinna Gilfillan
Head of U.S. Office of Global Witness
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When the human race has destroyed itself I hope its successore will treat this poor planet more kindly, if its still here.
This is bad news but we must remember that this is also revelatory – this is what putting ‘America first’ looks like.
So yes – they will have their fun but they may also be sowing the seeds of their own demise by being so brazen. Those who yield power in such a way do not endure.
Mind you though – we are talking about the failed State that is North America.
Are you so sure? Because there’s every possibility that they will succeed. ‘The people’ have abdicated – the average person just wants to be able to go on living – can s/he afford housing, utilities, transport, food, entertainment…? If s/he can, then the Government can do what it likes. And, if ‘the people’ were to change their attitude, thus threatening the power of the big corporations, with whom would the Government and its military arm then side? With those who have supported it – and who would, by then, have built up enough experience of strategy and tactics to be able to take over the reins if necessary.
Jack London wrote a book called ‘The Iron Heel’, back in the early twentieth century. He expected this to come about by the nineteen thirties. It so nearly did – with Stalin, with Hitler – though not, of course in the United States. Or in the UK.
But it’s possible that it might be here very soon.
Sorry if I sound pessimistic. I’ve been watching the world since 1946 – 1956 when I really started taking notice. Hungary – Suez. I’ve been watching the decline of the UK and (truth to tell) of the United States, not only on the world stage, but in their psyches. And I’m frightened.
Many of use are frightened
I think that an entirely reasonable thing to be
The rider on my comment was that the USA is a failed State – it is seldom seen as one but it is.
How Trump can deliver something new to the American people when he is employing those whose own parties have disowned them for being too extreme has yet to be seen. However, knowing how crafty these people are I agree with you that it is a long shot. With Trump however, the privatisation of the American state is complete.
But just look at the swagger in this administrations’ hips – it may back fire on them because truth be told as the USA starts to rev up its power, the more states I see who are just fed up to the back teeth with them.
Trump will make friends………..and enemies.
Mrs Merkel is reported as dismissing the post Brexit tax haven option, saying, “we need tax revenues, we need a fair tax system, in order to make the necessary investments in our society.”
We heard a lot about ‘British Values’ and the need for them to be taught to our young people. Perhaps we should include ‘European values’ to counter balance the modern ‘American values.’
And so it begins, and we will follow.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/02/corporate-dark-money-power-atlantic-lobbyists-brexit
I’ve long be been worried. As I’ve mentioned before my father spent two years in Nazi Germany from 1937-39 doing his PhD. He had a prestigious Humboldt Scholarship and was split between the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He left Germany in July 1939 to return to Ireland.
He was sure that Fascism or some variant of it would return. It almost certainly wouldn’t be in Germany but could happen anywhere. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” was a phrase he quoted often.
I have for many years thought that the US and the UK (England) were the most likely countries where it could take hold. The US also has a twisted form of White Supremacist Evangelical Christianity to add to the unholy mix. I too am frightened
Yes – and let us not forget the Nazi lovers in the royal family and the establishment as well, who would have made the most of Hitler’s rule for themselves.
No different in my view to May and Fox sucking up to Trump.
I disagree with the headline – this extends far beyond pandering to the whims of a few massively rich (& corrupt) individuals & companies. Taken together with the repeal of other rules & regulations the headline should have been:
Trump Declares WAR on humanity
(actually Trump & the members of his administration).
In turn this raises the question: what are we going to do about it.
Step one could be to hit corporate Amerika were it hurts. Esso? buy from Esso – you are buying from the enemy. Ditto the other Amerikan oil & gas companies. Let’s extend this: you all have a gas & electricity contract with a supplier – tell them you will change to somebody that does NOT buy US gas. For example: Centrica buys fracked gas from Amerika – boycott Centrica.
Then we come to the USA and its Information Technology companies. Buy Apple – you support both congenital tax dodging and a US company with highly questionable sub-contractors. One of the reasons the racist South African white regime folded was due to an economic boycott. Perhaps the time has arrived for the same with respect to products from Amerika. Make the corporates squeal – make them realise the reaons for their squealing – let them “own” the problem – the problem being Trump & his ilk in the (sh)white house.
Much to agree with there
My Aplle days are over I think….
The problem is that unless a business has the FTM there is no guarantee of what they are up to in terms of tax, whether they are US UK or any other country. No point boycotting Apple if the alternatives are just as bad. Such a shame only a tiny number of companies have the FTM. No doubt when the regulars on here start their boycott it will make the MNCs sit up and notice. I’ll certainly think carefully when it comes to replacing my lap top in a couple of years time.
Look forward to hearing which brand you switch to Richard. Will you be boycotting selling on Amazon as well?
I can’t boycott selling on Amazon if I want to publish
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone started a conscientious consumer organisation – a bit like Which but where products are rated not for price and quality but for the morality of the supply chains that result in your purchase of them.
Richard: Your comment “I can’t boycott selling on Amazon if I want to publish” makes perfect sense but it indicates that the fight may already have been lost; that feudal serfdom is the best we can now hope for.
When Donald Trump proclaimed he was going to drain the swamp in Washington, I thought mmm… let’s wait and see. Now it’s become perfectly clear he’s simply carbonated it so all the chap floats to the top!
Terrifying times!
That should be crap not chap
Alternatively “scum” as in “the useless or toxic waste that floats to the surface”, with heavy emphasis on “useless or toxic”, and “floats”, given the propensity for mediocrities and buffoons like Trump and May to make it to the top.
It’s the world’s problem that we haven’t found a way of ensuring that this scum is properly dealt with as it deserves – eg, to be skimmed off the surface and cleanly disposed of.
Or better still, by ensuring the mix is already sufficiently refined to reduce the potential for scum to form.
Is Trump Opts for Corruption really news though? it’s more out in the open, or better reported, than previously but corruption has been at the heart of our so called democracies for decades now. On the previous article there is a very good comment from Robin Stafford http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/02/03/opposing-article-50-now-is-about-upholding-the-will-of-the-people-to-leave-the-eu-well/ where he talks about language and framing via the work by George Lakoff. I’m not familiar with that work yet but the concept seems straight out of Chomsky and manufactured consent, which I am familiar with.
What I’m taking from all of this is that we seem to be able to focus on specifics and symptoms but the root systemic problems never really get addressed. Framing has a lot to do with that, systemic solutions that were common conversation in my childhood are now met with labels like loony left and radical extremism. There’s not a one among us that hasn’t heard the term ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’, yet very few seem able to understand that money is imaginary.
I don’t see anything happening that isn’t predictable given a system that places profit and property ahead of people. We talk a lot about democracy but spend a huge swathe of our lives, education and work, in dictatorial structures or supporting them. We maintain a battlefield mentality of winners and losers and a belief that an adversarial approach is a good way of progressing.
As long as economic Darwinism is our central ideology, rather than a subservient tool for growth where it belongs, then corruption and dodgy politics aren’t going anywhere. The real question is how we can undo decades of drip fed propaganda that has demonised alternatives.