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We live in a time of technological wonders. Technology, however, is not something just of itself, rather it comes loaded with revenue making deals for the vehicles that promote it. Think about the great choice of digital entertainment now available through all these streaming services. In the old days, we only had free to air TV offering limited content via broadcasting networks. Televised ads paid for these networks and programmes. Cable TV changed that and consumers paid a subscription fee and watched content ad free. Now, we get to pay those subscription fees and watch ads as well – how great is that! This is the progress running through Big Tech operations these days. The bean counters and CEOs are demanding ever greater ROIs to boost the share price. We were all promised better futures from these technological advances but instead we are saddled with higher fees and charges making our lives unaffordable. In reality, we have less now and are asked to pay more. American lies ruining lives, as ruthless business models exploit the citizenry.
American President Greatest Liar
President Donald Trump is the biggest liar this position has ever seen. Mistruths and disinformation come out of Trump’s mouth more often than anything else. The American people elected a convicted felon and abuser of women to the highest office in the land. What does that tell us about America? Nothing good, I assure you. The chaos and cruelty surrounding this President is there for all to see. The corruption and incompetence are duelling for supremacy, as we confer. Big Tech backed Trump to become President for the second time. This billionaire oligarchy knows no bounds in their greed to control the planet. Elon Musk, who has benefitted personally from government spending largesse to an extraordinary level, rode into Washington DC on a wave of attacking government waste. The irony was galling, to say the least. DOGE sacked thousands of civil servants and stole the social security data of millions of Americans. Big Tech seeks to profit further from taking over these last few remaining sacred cows by hook or by crook. American lies ruining lives.
Oily American Aggression
President Trump has started illegal wars with Venezuela and now Iran. Coincidentally, both of these nations are oil rich and were supplying China with its oil requirements. Venezuela appears to have been a pushover but Iran is a different kettle of fish. The world has received the greatest shock to the oil market ever seen, following the billions spent bombing Iran. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed to oil tanker shipping following the retaliatory strikes from Iran to the Gulf States. Israel is in the thick of this, by Trump’s side egging him on to attack Iran and firing its own missiles into both Iran and Lebanon relentlessly. Here is the thing, Israel is a nuclear armed state but not signed up to any of the international bodies overseeing these dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Israel illegally obtained their nuclear capabilities in contravention of the United States and international bodies on this matter. Despite this, it is Iran painted as the perennial bad guy over nukes. Iran does not currently have nuclear arms capabilities. Israel wants to be the undisputed military power in the Middle East. The US has tacitly gone along with this murky state of affairs for decades. All is not fair in love and war. Paying plenty at the petrol bowser? You can thank Trump and Netanyahu.
The Media Narrative Omits The Historical Facts
It may come as a surprise for some reading this article that there are nations who are aggrieved at American arrogance and double dealing. Countries and people who do not apathetically accept their place on the international food chain. China has risen powerfully by dint of hard work and application to a remarkable extent. Yes, there has been industrial subterfuge but do you really think that the US has played fair over the decades of its hegemony? Iran was the site of a CIA/MI6 coup, which overthrew the democratically elected government and installed a dictatorial Shah. This was an example of corporate business interests masquerading as foreign policy. This is what hegemonic powers do and fossil fuels have led the way in this regard. The US and the almighty petrodollar were born in places like Iran. The British had lost their BP/Anglo Iranian oil monopoly via nationalisation and they cut the American oil companies in for 40% on the back of this intelligence service driven coup in Iran. The later 1979 revolution, which saw the Shah overthrown and a theocracy installed with the Ayatollah at its head, was a direct result of the years of dirty games of American and British multinational corporations calling the shots in countries in which they operated. The simplistic narrative we now hear from the global media about Iran being the bad guy conveniently leaves out the historical roots of where we find ourselves. This is no accident, as it is the same story concerning the Palestinians in Gaza, narratives told which fail to appreciate the causes of conflicts and always paints the whiter skins as the good guys in any fight. American lies ruining lives for profit and power.
“The CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind the notorious 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, in documents that also show how the British government tried to block the release of information about its own involvement in his overthrow.”
“Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit their control over Iranian oil reserves. Upon the AIOC’s refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country. “
MAGA Means American Empire Building To Trump
President Donald Trump’s illegal forays into Venezuela and Iran give added meaning to his MAGA credentials. Make America Great Again under Trump clearly involves reestablishing via military force an American corporate empire. Controlling the vast oil reserves of Venezuela and disrupting China’s sources of oil from Iran and Venezuela are no accidents. The vanity of Donald Trump would be fuelling these actions but beyond that are power plays on the world stage as well.
One Nation In Australia Is Our MAGA
Far Right white supremacists are deeply embedded in MAGA and One Nation in Australia. Blame everything on foreign looking immigrants is the shallow solution for both these stupid groups. At times of national insecurity, caused by the chaotic and irresponsible actions of the Trump regime, it is easier to get more people to sign up to the blame game. Punching down upon those perceived as weaker folk is a favoured position of right wing politics. Whether it be refugees, immigrants, LGBTQI folk, or Indigenous peoples those on the Right scapegoat them for all sorts of reasons and especially economically. It is not that their strategists are too dumb to realise that it is the big end of town stealing the lunch of the working folk but rather that their oligarchical backers are the big end of town. These mining magnates and billionaires want to ride the xenophobic wave into power, where they will deregulate laws to make their profiteering even more wildly exponential. Pauline Hanson’s parliamentary voting record exposes her failure to back working Australians. One Nation is not a party for all Australians, it is about denying the plurality of multicultural Australia. It is, in fact, based on everyone assimilating to some regional concept of Anglo-settler Australia. It will make Australia poorer culturally and put power into the hands of white supremacists and their neo-Nazi fellow travellers.
American Multinationals Avoid Paying Their Fair Share Of Tax Downunder
If you have come this far with me, I would hazard a guess that you know that American multinationals operating in Australia do not pay their fair share of tax. Google (Alphabet), Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Uber, Pepsi, News Corp and others avoid paying their true corporate tax amounts in Australia by shifting profits to tax havens elsewhere via IP charges in the billions. These are accounting tricks designed to minimise tax requirements. American lies ruining lives.
“Corporate tax transparency data released yesterday by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) shows, once again, that multinational gas exporters are reaping billions from Australian resources while paying little or no tax.
ATO data reveals:
- Santos Limited has racked up a 10th straight year of zero corporate tax payments from a total of nearly $47 billion in sales.
- Darwin’s Ichthys LNG Pty Ltd paid zero corporate tax for the 6th year running, from a total of $43 billion in sales.
- Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) revenue has hit a 3-year low, down to $1.5 billion from a peak of $2.0 billion in 2021-22.”
- (https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/new-government-data-confirms-gas-exporters-continue-to-pay-no-tax/)
The ATO alleges Pepsi owes millions in royalty withholding tax and diverted profits tax over deals with the former Schweppes Australia, subsequently Asahi Beverages, for the 2018 and 2019 financial years.
“We say [to PepsiCo] ‘well, actually we think the payment is for something else. It’s in part, for a royalty for intellectual property … and should be subject to royalty withholding tax’,”
she said. “
American Power
Power around the place is actually held by a small number of people and the fossil fuel business has been at the forefront of this oligarchal power for many decades. Big American companies wherever they operate throw their weight around. Donations to the political parties in power ensure their voices are heard. The Big 4 accountancy firms have been doing the work of governments globally for decades and they are all American. Billions are spent each year with these firms and they design the tax laws in consultation with governments. Thus, it is a fixed game when you delve down into the detail of who is actually running things. Powerful people and companies hang out together and smooth the way for their interests. President Trump is not reinventing the wheel he is just making more of a shit show of everything. Trump desperately wants to make his mark on whatever he touches. Old white guys and their legacy fever.
My advice is to keep digging for information beyond the bland statements you hear from the media. Don’t accept the status quo. Research stuff yourself if you truly want to know what is going on. American lies ruining lives for ever more profit and power. There are no good guys in any of this. Trump shows us that at any rate.
“When people not directly impacted by war hear about conflicts happening elsewhere, they pay attention to what their political leaders tell them. The media, then, reports on what they have been told and the information they are able to gather themselves from war zones. Iran is being bombed by the United States and Israel. We have been told by President Trump this was because Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat. Iran has long been painted the bad guy by the world media. A Shia Islamic theocracy, who we are told, persecutes the personal freedoms of its subjects. In addition, Iran has been depicted as the sponsor of acts of terrorism around the world. The missile strikes against Iran by Israel and the US were not sanctioned by the United Nations – they are illegal acts of war. So, we get the words of a lying US president to justify the bombing of another sovereign nation. “
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of The AI Heresy; What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
©MidasWord
The AI Heresy: A Betrayal of Humanity – PDF
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