[Peace-discuss] NfN notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

I wrote:
> Just a few economic notes this time; I think combined with earlier notes 
> there's enough to spur discussion on an upcoming News from Neptune. Have a 
> good show, guys.

I had a bit of time to add a couple more economic notes:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjVFfX4BtvI -- footage of Obama telling 
bankers to thank him, bragging of boosting oil production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx97wwHxznU -- commentary on above footage 
from Redacted Tonight.

Transcript of what former President Obama said in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjVFfX4BtvI

> Obama: You know, what, I know we're an oil country. And, we need
> American energy, and by the way, American energy production. You
> wouldn't always know it, but it went up every year I was president. And,
> you know that whole suddenly America's, like, the biggest oil producer
> and the biggest ga-- that was me people. I just wanted to...So, ha ha.
> It's a little like, you know sometimes, you go to Wall Street and folks
> be grumbling about anti-business, I say 'Have you checked where your
> stocks were when I came into office and where they are now?' what? What
> are you talkin-- what are you complainin' about? Just say thank you
> please. Because I want to raise your taxes a couple percent to make sure
> kids have a chance to go to school?





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPqmfPc5Zlo -- Canada's 'liberal' 
state-owned CBC praised Bolsonaro for "free market" and "investment 
opportunities".

The state-owned Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) is apparently in 
agreement with the Wall St. Journal which endorsed Bolsonaro and 
investments shot up on the day Bolsonaro was elected.

Funny how we're taught to believe state-owned media is questionable or 
dangerous by virtue of being state-owned when we're talking about RT 
(dangerous to the point of revoking capitol credentials and forcing RT 
offices to register under FARA), but other state-owned media is 
unchallenged in the context the BBC and CBC. Being state-owned is a 
distraction away from the real issue: which outlets challenge or echo big 
business values.

Related: 
https://files.digitalcitizen.info/corporations-prop-up-fascists/the-corporation-nazi-germany.webm 
-- a clip from "The Corporation" (one of the best documentaries around, and 
it's getting a sequel according to 
https://thecorporation.com/blog/breaking-news-sequel-underway).

This clip shows some history on how business leaders love a dictator. See 
"The Corporation" in its entirety 
https://archive.org/details/The_Corporation_ and get the 2-disc DVD set at 
thecorporation.com. I'm not connected to this movie in any way other than 
being a very satisfied viewer who recommends the movie highly.

I used this clip on 
https://digitalcitizen.info/2015/03/10/coca-colas-fanta-history-is-no-mistake-corporations-have-propped-up-fascists-for-a-long-time/

Here's a transcript of some of the dialogue from this clip of "The 
Corporation" to add some historical perspective:

> Howard Zinn: There's an interesting connection between the rise of
> fascism in Europe, and the consciousness of politically radical people
> about corporate power. Because there was a recognition that fascism rose
> in Europe with the help of enormous corporations.
> 
> Noam Chomsky: Mussolini was greatly admired all across the spectrum;
> business loved him, investments shot up. And similarly when Hitler came
> in in Germany, the same thing happened there. Investments shot up in
> Germany. He had the workforce under control, he was getting rid of
> dangerous left-wing elements, investment opportunities were improving,
> there were no problems; these were wonderful countries!

This same clip also covers how companies kept profits coming into their 
German offices during the Nazi government:

- Coca-Cola invented Fanta Orange to keep profits coming in during Nazi 
times when the ingredients to make Coca-Cola were embargoed,

- IBM leased, serviced, and sold parts for their tabulator machines which 
were installed on-site at the Nazi concentration/death camps. These 
machines (made before computers) could not be used remotely. They required 
on-site visits from IBM personnel to configure what the machines did. All 
of this activity meant IBM knew how their tabulator machines were being 
used and profited from the activity.

IBM later tried to distance themselves from this ugly history by claiming 
they had no knowledge of how their machines were used. But there's plenty 
of reason to believe IBM knew. As former IBM employee Peter Drucker 
explained to "The Corporation",

> Peter Drucker: You know, as it happens, I know that story. I discussed 
> it more than once with old Mister Watson [Thomas J. Watson, Senior, IBM 
> founder]. And I was around at that time. I'm not saying that Watson 
> didn't know that the German government used punchcards, he probably did 
> know. After all we had very few customers. Watson didn't want to do it 
> [go into business with Nazi Germany] not because it was immoral or not, 
> but because Watson, with a very keen sense of public relations, thought
> it was risky.
There's more evidence IBM knew what was going on: IBM is also not able to 
get away from surviving physical artifacts like Hollerith cards 
(punchcards) used at that time which we have today (Edwin Black, author of 
"IBM and the Holocaust" shows one in this clip), copies of code books (also 
shown in the clip) which describe how to interpret the punches on those 
cards. Last I looked into this, IBM did not allow Edwin Black access to 
IBM's archives for further investigation.

-J