Compassion for Industry
9th November 2007
It has to be said you won't find me often feeling sorry for the bloodsucking globalised creatures known as corporations, however I find myself in this unlikely quandary by proxy. In a national newspaper today it has been announced that the US administration is throwing its weight around with regards to industry. European businesses are being given orders to cease trading in any way with Iran, with an ominous caveat of or else. This ancient playground jibe relates to blackmail in the sense that European interests in the US will be compromised.
Quite how such influence on private capitalist interests can be wielded by so called financially liberal governments is bizarre to say the least, and not a little beyond the pale. We're talking about companies like BP, Shell, HSBC, Siemens etc whose tolerance of impending state control is usually fiercely contested backing down in the face of blatant financial fascism. If these companies have the right to rip all Europeans, Americans and Australians off, then they should have the right to rip off people in the middle east too.
The spineless European administrations rather than contesting this creeping imperialism are genuflecting towards the great super power and complying in earnest by encouraging their FTSE 100 companies et al to do as Old Sam says or they won't let us have our cough drops. You would have thought that with the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Iraq that the threat of a similar situation in Iran would have rattled some cages and contributed to resistance, as the heroic Jacques Chriac (never thought I'd write those words) showed in 2003. The European Union as a whole should stick a large two finger salute in Washington's direction and allow its own capitalist demons to decide for themselves which country they invade financially, and not pay attention to the ludicrous sanctions being placed on Iran at US insistence. Sanctions that clearly have worked so well in other areas throughout history: Iraq, South Africa, Burma (Myanmar) and Sudan but to name a few.
It's time to get rid of this yellow streak that runs down the heart of Europe.
