Alliance for Democracy

​

​
  • Home
  • About Us
    • National Council and staff
    • Founder, Ronnie Dugger
  • Campaigns
    • Disarming Violence
    • System Change Initiatives
    • Public Banking >
      • Article: Money and Democracy
  • Media
    • Corporations and Democracy >
      • Archives
    • Justice Rising
    • Populist Dialogues >
      • Broadcast in your city
    • In the News
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Support Our Work
  • DisarmingViolence

Killing Hope for Global Peace: Corporate Takeover Of US Military And Foreign Policy

5/29/2024

0 Comments

 
There is no place in a democratic society for an opaque government institution, with an unknown budget, operating for the benefit of powerful corporations and beholden to no one except corporate investors.

by Jim Tarbell

In the early 1900s, after corporate money took over our political system, Wall Street corporate
lawyers became the chosen political appointees to run the US State and War Departments and later created the Council on Foreign Relations as a think tank to develop pro-corporate military and foreign policies.

In the second half of the 20th Century, the next generation of Wall Street lawyers developed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to serve the interests of their corporate clients and the multi-national corporate class.

Wall Street corporate lawyers Bill Donovan, Bill Casey and Allen Dulles worked to create the CIA. Donovan ran the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that morphed into the CIA, along with its staff of scions of American wealth. Casey served as Donovan’s right-hand man at OSS and served as CIA Director from 1981 to 1988. Dulles met Donovan at a Republican gathering of Wall Street lawyers and soon joined the OSS as a flamboyant agent in Switzerland.

After the war, Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles worked as members of the famously corporate/imperial Sullivan and Cromwell Wall Street legal firm. They carried on that work when President Eisenhower appointed Allen Dulles Director of the CIA, and his brother, John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State in 1953. Together they made the CIA a covert military operation to benefit their corporate clients. 

In 1953, the CIA overthrew the democracy in Iran for the benefit of the investors in British Petroleum. The next year, the CIA ousted the elected Guatemalan President Arbenz to benefit the United Fruit Company. 

As European colonial empires collapsed in the late 1950s, the Belgian corporation Union Miniere, that mined copper and supplied the uranium used in atomic bombs, hired mercenaries to break away the mineral-rich Katanga province from the Congo. Days before John F. Kennedy (JFK) became president, the CIA helped assassinate the Congolese President Patrice Lumumba, who opposed the Union Miniere's efforts in Katanga Province. As the Congo exploded in war, United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld worked to bring peace to the region, which caused Dulles to say, "Dag is becoming troublesome … and should be removed." In September 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash blamed on the CIA.

Trying to get control of the CIA, JFK forced Dulles to retire. The new CIA Director, John McCone, famed war profiteer and cofounder of the military industrial giant Bechtel, took oversight of the CIA out of the hands of the corporate lawyers and into the hands of the military-industrial-complex.

Bemoaning his lack of control over the CIA, JFK moved ahead to bring peace to the world. He
started pulling US forces out of Vietnam. He embraced a global peace where all nations “live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.” He built relationships with his political adversaries: Nasser in Egypt; Sukarno in Indonesia; and
Castro in Cuba. He also embraced “general and complete disarmament.”

Many movies and books on the assassination of JFK, implicate the CIA in his murder a few month after he made his Peace for All Time speech at the American University. It leads one to conclude that the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and, who both promoted global peace, may have been at the hands of the CIA. It also leads one to wonder how active the CIA and the military-industrial-complex are in shutting down all current efforts to bring about global peace.

The time has come to clear up all these questions. There is no place in a democratic society for an opaque government institution, with an unknown budget, operating for the benefit of powerful corporations and beholden to no one except corporate investors. We should terminate the CIA, open all its records for public scrutiny and make a place for global peace now!
​
(See Part 1 of this article here.)
0 Comments

Alliance-sponsored public banking campaigns advance

4/5/2018

2 Comments

 
The Alliance's three sponsored campaigns for public banks—the DC Public Banking Center, the Portland Public Banking Alliance, and Hub Public Banking—made progress this winter on democratizing finance in their cities and state.

In Washington, the DC Public Banking Center is keeping an eye on the request for proposals process for the city's public bank feasibility study, as well as continuing to reach out to constituents through a recent forum on “Banking for the Public Good, Not Private Profit.” The forum participants, including Alliance co-Vice chair Ruth Caplan, looked at what a public bank could do for Washington, the ethical concerns around the business practices of large banks, especially Wells Fargo, and the potential impact of a proposed revolving loan fund for environmental projects.

In Portland, public banking advocates have met with city council candidates and expect to have a majority on the five-person council who are friendly to the idea of a public municipal bank.

In Massachusetts, a bill to create a state infrastructure bank has been moved from the legislature's joint committee on Small Businesses to the committee on Financial Services, and advocates are mustering support for it from mayors, town managers, advocacy groups and citizens. Since the Finance committee's deadline for either moving bills to Ways and Means or asking for an extension on a decision is this week, proponents should know soon whether their bill has a chance of passage this term. 

The Alliance's campaigns were also part of the discussion at a recent strategy meeting on public banking, organized by the Public Banking Institute, which brought advocates from across the country together in Colorado. The vitality of many of these new campaigns is inspiring, especially those that have drawn a connection between municipal divestment from Wall Street banks and fossil fuels, and reinvestment in local economies and environment via a public bank.

Check out our public banking campaign page for more resources and links to individuals projects online and on social media.
2 Comments

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    August 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    January 2023
    April 2022
    March 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2015
    August 2015
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Categories

    All
    Afghanistan
    Boston
    Candidate Questions
    Corporations And Democracy
    Democracy
    Democracy Convention
    Fast Track Authority
    GrassRoots Institute
    Health Care
    Justice Rising
    Local Food
    Militarization
    Money In Politics
    NAFTA
    National Council Actions
    Peace
    Peoples Vote Must Count
    Portland OR
    President Obama
    Public Banking
    Public Health
    Ronnie Dugger
    Solidarity Economics
    System Change Initiatives
    Take Action
    Tpp
    Tpp Free Zone
    Trade Justice
    Washington DC
    Water

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.