WikiLeaks exposes Washington’s dollar diplomacy

[Donnachaidh]

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/dipl-f03.shtml

Secret cables obtained and revealed by WikiLeaks expose the ugly alliance between State Department diplomats and major US corporations to advance their interests in every corner of the world.

Only around 1 percent of the 250,000 leaked cables have so far been made publicly available by WikiLeaks, and the cables obtained by WikiLeaks do not constitute the most highly sensitive of US diplomatic communications. At the same time, the cables reveal countless day-to-day instances of the US State Department acting at the behest of US corporations.

In cables revealed by WikiLeaks, the interests of US corporations are treated as though they are identical to the interests of the US government. Behind closed doors, US corporate agents and diplomats work together as a team: the corporation’s economic clout is welded to the unspoken threat of involvement by the US government and military. WikiLeaks has performed a valuable service to working people in the US and around the world by dragging this nefarious combination, long kept hidden, into broad daylight.

According to leaked cables, in early 2010 a draft law in Russia’s Duma, or lower house of parliament, threatened to “disadvantage” US credit card companies MasterCard and Visa. Among other things, the law would have taken steps toward creating a National Payment Card System (NPCS) that would prevent MasterCard and Visa from collecting as much as US$4 billion in credit card fees annually.

More at the link --

[midnight]

1. Disadvantage the credit card co. from consumer gouging? What a concept...

[KansDem]

2. This, I suspected, was the real reason for "concern" about the leaks...

The whole "treason" angle, whether applied to Manning or Assange, was just a ruse to mask the fact that US corporations have been behind much of US foreign policy, with the US military acting as the "muscle."

Gen. Smedley Butler ("War is a Racket") summed it up in his statement, "It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

http://rationalrevolution.net/war/major_general_smedley_butler_usm.htm

[fasttense]

3. so our government acts on behalf of corporations and not what is best for American citizens.

No surprise there. American citizens are nothing but serfs to the corporate aristocracy. And our government helps the aristocracy to keep us in our serfdom.

[cutlassmama]

5. Yep. This needs to be brought out more.

[Chimichurri]

4. We are a Corporatocracy and have been for some time now.