US corporations and military planners welcome the ‘legal maneuver space’ Israel has opened up for them to profit from warfare that slaughters and starves civilians
Thank you for this; it made me feel sick to read, which it should.
Is it okay to share this link below, for anyone who's sick of being connected to Google specifically?
Since Albanese's report, I have realised I have had enough of being so dependent on Google's apps. I'm trying to get together people who are interested in helping each other switch away from Google's zillion apps and products. It feels long, tricky and boring to do on your own, but I think easier to do together. No pressure, but here's a letter I wrote about it: www.tinyURL.com/DumpGoogle.
Your articles provide a sorely lacking context that removes the soap over the eyes narratives which attempt to fog over motives with smokescreens. Thank you
"......Corporations are legally obligated to pursue profit and prioritise shareholder value over other considerations. Limitations on their freedoms to do so are near non-existent after waves of deregulation from suborned western governments.......Bakan observes that corporations are indifferent to the suffering or safety of others. They are incapable of maintaining enduring relationships. They lack any sense of guilt, or capacity for self-restraint. And they lie, cheat and deceive to maximise profits.......These psychopathic tendencies have been on show in scandal after scandal, whether from the tobacco and banking industries, or from pharmaceutical and energy companies.......Why would Big Business behave any better in pursuing profits tied up in the Gaza genocide?......Bakan addresses those who confuse his argument with a conspiracy theory. The psychopathic behaviours of corporations simply reflect the legal imperatives on them as institutions – what he calls their “logical dynamic” – to maximise profit and sideline rivals, whatever the consequences for the wider society, future generations or the planet...."
Regarding the above, actually here it is important to understand that actually there is
- nowhere that states legally HOW companies should balance duties to various stakeholders (shareholders, suppliers, customers, workers, local communities etc)
- nowhere that states companies must pursue short term profit over long term, or that defines paths to creating shareholder value
Those are things that PEOPLE say, to throw a blanket over any discussion of the specific CHOICES that THEY are making, in their roles of power in corporations, whether as management exectutives or as shareholder board members etc.
And that is the crux of the matter actually. Corporations are inanimate accounting abstractions, not living entities. Corporations are not "Psychopathic" and they dont have "tendencies".
People make these choices. People. Greedy, power hungry, amoral, psychopathic people.
People that will say what ever it takes to cloud issues. People that will lie. Or hide behind non-existent "corporate obligations" in order to try and avoid accountability for their own indefensible actions.
This is about human greed and amorality. The same greed an amorality, by which corporate boards approve completely financially unjustifiable salaries for executives.....the same executives that then implement amoral actions to enrich shareholders, at the expense of all other stakeholders.
As you see, its all down to human choices, power and greed. It's critical to remember that, and not buy a single word of the lie that corporations are animate or that they have obligations to maximize the profits of the next quarter. They arent and they dont, actually.
Based on much time in the big-corporate world, at the highest levels, for many years, I found this book to be both (scarily) accurate and helpful in understanding the one-and-many dynamics of how such individually evil choices roll up so as to seem to "animate" those soulless "corpii":
I think you’re right . Future wars are going to be increasingly divested of any moral responsibility. Drone warfare helps that, and automation will certainly divest us further from the consequences of warfare . We’re heading into a dystopian future if we’re not already there . It’s certainly dystopic in Gaza …
This disgusting tendency has been around since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S. has absolutely no regard for the human impact of its wars in the Middle East . They have engineered the absolute destruction of social and communal and societal stability in the Middle East and people in the west are unable to compute these changes hence resulted in massive population shifts …
Incredible that they think they can normalize this. There has been so much sustained outrage across so many different people, and such rapid shifts occurring in international relations.
I sincerely doubt that it's possible to sustain any kind of stable society when the abuse is this blatant, requiring more oppression, which will work right up until they lose control entirely.
"Albanese and the UN system of universal human rights that stands behind her, it seems, represent a threat to western profiteering."
And that's the root of all evils--then need to make profits at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents. No wonder so many have become sick of capitalism and want to shut down the military-industrial complex forever. It's time to take an ax to that root of evil!
What you reveal and describe appears to be a pathway to a new “ Dark Ages” one of continuous war, slaughter, Genocide even as we move towards the first half of the 21st century.
A new generation of empathetic humanitarian smugglers, helping to find and extract the vulnerable.
There appears to be no line to be drawn, the Genocide is not selective, men, women, children, toddlers and babies, all are victims in Gaza all will be victims of the new dark ages.
There is no front line, because this is total war.
I am 71 and I hate to think the world my family will inherit will be 1000 times worse than the worse of Nazi Germany or imperial Japan.
Is it possible that all this is
Just the Palestinian/Gaza boil finally bursting and that may be it is the end of this nightmare.
In a world of shrinking resources and growing climate chaos, such innovative technologies of subjugation are likely to have domestic, in addition to overseas, applications. Gaza is the corporate world’s laboratory, and a window into our own future.”
The first billionaires were American manufacturers who turned their normal business of making widgets to making weapons of industrial slaughter in World-War-1. What's written in this article is a logical outcome of war-making for profit.
Regarding Gaza becoming a Riviera for the rich, a poet has already been there:
Thank you for this; it made me feel sick to read, which it should.
Is it okay to share this link below, for anyone who's sick of being connected to Google specifically?
Since Albanese's report, I have realised I have had enough of being so dependent on Google's apps. I'm trying to get together people who are interested in helping each other switch away from Google's zillion apps and products. It feels long, tricky and boring to do on your own, but I think easier to do together. No pressure, but here's a letter I wrote about it: www.tinyURL.com/DumpGoogle.
Thank you Jonathan 👏👏👏
Your articles provide a sorely lacking context that removes the soap over the eyes narratives which attempt to fog over motives with smokescreens. Thank you
A shame Thanks for the detailed info
Excellent piece, as usual. Translated in French here : https://zanzibar.substack.com/p/le-genocide-perpetre-par-israel-est
Capitalism must fall. J. Cook’s outstanding post and the many, thought-provoking responses to it make the case for this. wsws.org/gaza
About this part:
"......Corporations are legally obligated to pursue profit and prioritise shareholder value over other considerations. Limitations on their freedoms to do so are near non-existent after waves of deregulation from suborned western governments.......Bakan observes that corporations are indifferent to the suffering or safety of others. They are incapable of maintaining enduring relationships. They lack any sense of guilt, or capacity for self-restraint. And they lie, cheat and deceive to maximise profits.......These psychopathic tendencies have been on show in scandal after scandal, whether from the tobacco and banking industries, or from pharmaceutical and energy companies.......Why would Big Business behave any better in pursuing profits tied up in the Gaza genocide?......Bakan addresses those who confuse his argument with a conspiracy theory. The psychopathic behaviours of corporations simply reflect the legal imperatives on them as institutions – what he calls their “logical dynamic” – to maximise profit and sideline rivals, whatever the consequences for the wider society, future generations or the planet...."
Regarding the above, actually here it is important to understand that actually there is
- nowhere that states legally HOW companies should balance duties to various stakeholders (shareholders, suppliers, customers, workers, local communities etc)
- nowhere that states companies must pursue short term profit over long term, or that defines paths to creating shareholder value
Those are things that PEOPLE say, to throw a blanket over any discussion of the specific CHOICES that THEY are making, in their roles of power in corporations, whether as management exectutives or as shareholder board members etc.
And that is the crux of the matter actually. Corporations are inanimate accounting abstractions, not living entities. Corporations are not "Psychopathic" and they dont have "tendencies".
People make these choices. People. Greedy, power hungry, amoral, psychopathic people.
People that will say what ever it takes to cloud issues. People that will lie. Or hide behind non-existent "corporate obligations" in order to try and avoid accountability for their own indefensible actions.
This is about human greed and amorality. The same greed an amorality, by which corporate boards approve completely financially unjustifiable salaries for executives.....the same executives that then implement amoral actions to enrich shareholders, at the expense of all other stakeholders.
As you see, its all down to human choices, power and greed. It's critical to remember that, and not buy a single word of the lie that corporations are animate or that they have obligations to maximize the profits of the next quarter. They arent and they dont, actually.
Based on much time in the big-corporate world, at the highest levels, for many years, I found this book to be both (scarily) accurate and helpful in understanding the one-and-many dynamics of how such individually evil choices roll up so as to seem to "animate" those soulless "corpii":
https://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp/0061147893
And this book helps explain that one:
https://nasb.literalword.com/?q=genesis+3
I think you’re right . Future wars are going to be increasingly divested of any moral responsibility. Drone warfare helps that, and automation will certainly divest us further from the consequences of warfare . We’re heading into a dystopian future if we’re not already there . It’s certainly dystopic in Gaza …
This disgusting tendency has been around since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S. has absolutely no regard for the human impact of its wars in the Middle East . They have engineered the absolute destruction of social and communal and societal stability in the Middle East and people in the west are unable to compute these changes hence resulted in massive population shifts …
Incredible that they think they can normalize this. There has been so much sustained outrage across so many different people, and such rapid shifts occurring in international relations.
I sincerely doubt that it's possible to sustain any kind of stable society when the abuse is this blatant, requiring more oppression, which will work right up until they lose control entirely.
"Albanese and the UN system of universal human rights that stands behind her, it seems, represent a threat to western profiteering."
And that's the root of all evils--then need to make profits at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents. No wonder so many have become sick of capitalism and want to shut down the military-industrial complex forever. It's time to take an ax to that root of evil!
The world is ruled by psychopaths. Always has been. History makes a lot more sense if one views it through that lens.
Doesn't mean it always has to be.
What you reveal and describe appears to be a pathway to a new “ Dark Ages” one of continuous war, slaughter, Genocide even as we move towards the first half of the 21st century.
A new generation of empathetic humanitarian smugglers, helping to find and extract the vulnerable.
There appears to be no line to be drawn, the Genocide is not selective, men, women, children, toddlers and babies, all are victims in Gaza all will be victims of the new dark ages.
There is no front line, because this is total war.
I am 71 and I hate to think the world my family will inherit will be 1000 times worse than the worse of Nazi Germany or imperial Japan.
Is it possible that all this is
Just the Palestinian/Gaza boil finally bursting and that may be it is the end of this nightmare.
So is Ukraine…..
In a world of shrinking resources and growing climate chaos, such innovative technologies of subjugation are likely to have domestic, in addition to overseas, applications. Gaza is the corporate world’s laboratory, and a window into our own future.”
Gaza is just a rehearsal along with the more surreptitious genocide in the OPT which will soon become full scale there too.
The first billionaires were American manufacturers who turned their normal business of making widgets to making weapons of industrial slaughter in World-War-1. What's written in this article is a logical outcome of war-making for profit.
Regarding Gaza becoming a Riviera for the rich, a poet has already been there:
see: https://joshuabondpoetry.substack.com/p/gaza-stripped
and: https://joshuabondpoetry.substack.com/p/eastern-riviera
and: https://joshuabondpoetry.substack.com/p/even-songly