Are We Being Destabilized?

by Loise Neville

Picture this scenario. In the late 1940s, a small country throws off its colonial master after WW II, proclaims itself free and elects its own political leaders. I shall call it " Little Na-tion." Little Nation isn't much: no big industries, no TVs, few cars, no modern conveniences, but its people have food and peace at last.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development-the World Bank, for short-contacts Little Nation's president and explains that the Bank had been created in 1944, along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), so that little nations could help their citizens have the good things other countries had. "We will lend you the money so you can modernize, bring in foreign business, and make your people more prosperous."

This sounds good, so Little Nation borrows the cash, and foreign companies put in hydroelectric plants for electricity, install telephones, and construct large government and office buildings.

But that expected foreign business does not come in immediately, and Little Nation, being agricultural, does not get enough money for its products to pay even the interest on the loan. Agricultural products sell cheap. Industrial products are expensive. The World Bank allows only 30 days after a project is operating for repayments. After 60 days, debtor nations are turned over to the collection agency-the IMF.

Little Nation now becomes Little Debtor. "We will help you," IMF declares. "We will give you credit for the money you owe World Bank for interest on the loan. We will pay World Bank and then you can pay us. That way you will still be in business. However, you will have to make some changes to be more efficient and have more money. You will have to raise taxes, cut wages, cut the value of your money so that foreign businesses will buy from you. Get rid of those inefficient small farms, start agribusinesses for a bigger money crop. Raise less food. Instead, buy your food from other countries. Most important, eliminate any "freebies" such as social programs that you give to your people. You cannot afford to waste money! Give foreign businesses inducements to move in." Meanwhile, if the borrowed millions of dollars are not paid off in three or five years, the IMF will come in and take all the money out of Little Debtor's treasury, leaving nothing to run the country with. These new rules have impoverished the people. Little Debtor has unemployed farmers, small businessmen who couldn't handle the inflation, and poor people with no state aid. So Little Debtor sets out to scrape up the cash to entice foreign businesses to come in. It cuts down forests to sell the lumber and make space for foreign cattle raisers; it provides toxic dumps for foreign industries. Everything possible is done to bring in cash.

Little Debtor's president complains about what the foreign companies are doing to his country, so they buy him off, give him a cut of the action. He becomes a rich man and has a Swiss bank account. If he spreads the money around to other political leaders, there is enough for them all to get rich.

The president is no longer a president; he is a dictator. Ultimately the people are forced to revolt in order to eat. "Put down the insurrection immediately; you're destabilized," the dictator is told. "If you don't, other measures will be taken. "Other measures" means the CIA comes in. The CIA is the means of U.S. "national security," meaning "financial security." It must keep Little Debtor's dictator in power.

The CIA's hired army and its war machine are efficient. Its media people tell the world they need to put down the Communist attempt to destroy the "democracy" of Little Debtor. Ultimately this little agricultural country is forced to sign the GATT agreement, which makes the IMF rules the official international law.

Multiply Little Debtor by all the small nations in the world, as well as the big ones, and you have the whole picture of the international financial community led by the IMF.

Does this picture have anything to do with you? You bet it does. In 1962 the IMF gathered together all the major nations of the world in the "Group of 10," sometimes called the "Group of 10 + 1," the 1 being Switzerland, center of the world banking community which had the final vote in any decision. Vote on what? On financial and political decrees for total world action. Only one group of the G-10 was public-the so-called G-7. The others in the G-10 were held in secret.

Advised by the IMF banks, it was the G-10 which created GATT-the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs-an agreement that the world banking community will control international business. Now all major nations, including our own, are under these IMF rules. This is what is creating conditions in the U.S. today and throughout the world, placing financial interest over the needs of the people, creating "corporatism," as Ralph Nader calls it. The corporation is the state and the state is the corporation, declared Mussolini. Another term for corporatism is "fascism."

The IMF with its new world economic order represents capitalism raised to the nth degree. Italy and Germany were the pioneers of this movement in the '30s. They failed because they took military action against other capitalist nations. The IMF was smarter this time. Agents of world finance convinced the powerful nations to accept corporatism, conduct economic warfare, overthrow the two large communist economies of the Soviet Union and China, using control of money as both the carrot and the stick to "stick it to" the big capitalist nations.

Now, suddenly we are told that the U.S -the richest nation in the world- is too poor to support its citizens, too poor to fund public agencies, too poor to offer adequate government health care, too poor to protect the environment.

The excuse? "We have to pay our bills. We have to balance the budget. We are in a recession. We have to make our corporations more competitive."

But the U.S. has never, in its history, had a balanced budget. The government has made no effort to pay its international debt by organizing tax rates so the rich will pay their share, and there has been no recession since 1987. The '90s have actually been a growth period, a high point in our economy.

Destabilization is economic and sociological malfunction of a nation: a large number of citizens being in poverty or unemployment, leading to social disarray and the possibility of citizen revolt. One step towards U.S. economic destabilization is the impoverishment of a large number of unemployed and underemployed citizens. Another step is bringing in drugs. During Reagan's administration the U.S. furnished military arms to the Contras in exchange for cocaine. The Senate Subcommittee on narcotics, chaired by Senator Kerry, was told that the U.S. government and the banking community were involved in supplying drugs for our own citizens. Drugged citizens will not organize politically and are likely to fund their habit by turning to crime. The drug trade continues to this day, filling our prisons. A further step is to frighten citizens into accepting added police, prisons, military control, and harsh unconstitutional laws and restrictions. This has been accomplished through the media's unrelenting focus on crime, followed by increased police and FBI surveillance and arrests in the name of apprehending criminals and terrorists. These inroads on constitutional protections discourage citizens from working together in democratic activism.

Is there any doubt that destabilization has begun in the U.S. today? Quietly, behind the scenes, the IMF is killing the world, including us.