G-20: Weapons of Mass Deception

When the G-20 meets during its bi-annual summit this Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, world leaders will unveil a 'new' agenda. While its purpose is nothing new, leaders plan to coordinate for the first time on an unprecedented scale foreign, domestic and economic policy. They will address a new global system of carbon-taxing, a nuclear arms reduction aim and the possiblity of a global financial regulatory system.

Each of these may seem upon their face as worthwhile and desirable goals. However, behind the kind facade, these efforts resemble nothing more than a dictatorial imposition of elite will upon the masses.

The corporate press is already lauding efforts to combat climate change and reduce carbon dioxide emissions on a uniform worldwide scale. Yet, it is evident that little of the discussion focuses on the actual crux of such measures promoted in climate change bills. For example, Congressman Henry Waxman (D) from California was able to push climate change legislation through the US House, still without Senate approval. In that bill, taxes based carbon caps for businesses holds as the main enforcer to combat the complex problem of climate change. Many have argued that the failure to posit a ambitious plan for real alternative energy source investment reveals the climate change bill to be simply another lucrative tax.

Meanwhile, international politicians argue that a carbon tax on businesses and in the near future a carbon tax on individual citizens worldwide could end the global warming crisis. But what they fail to admit is who will benefit from these carbon-ponzi schemes.

Yet it is some of the biggest players in the carbon-credit trading game who are the biggest polluters. Big Coa and infamous financier Goldman Sachs sits atop the ladder of favor to benefit from a proposed carbon trading system. In a July Rolling Stone article entitled "The Great American Bubble", Matt Taibbi reported that Goldman Sachs was set to be a forerunner in the cap-and-trade commodity market in which set price controls would guarantee profits. Taibbi writes that, "The new carboncredit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance."

Many well regarded free market economists critical of carbon-tax plans like Czech President Vaclav Klaus have labelled the global carbon tax system "as dangerous as communism" adding to speculation that cap-and-trade may be exploited as a method to ration goods and ultimately reduce the human standard of living worldwide.

Much has been made of renewed efforts between the United States and Russia to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons. Up until now, the rift in negotiations has been embodied by the propoosed Missile Defense System previously slated to the Czech Republic and Poland. President Obama announced last week he's now abandoning the Bush-era proposal enthusiastically supported by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Obama's move to reason on this bitterly polarizing and heated topic may well pave the way for significant reductions in nuclear weapons in a world of ex-superpowers and new giants. The latest from White House advisors entertained cutting deployable weaopns from the 2,000 range to a shrunken force of hundreds, a step obviously in the right direction, yet still short of the needs to secure a safe world. There was no mention of the over 12,000 nuclear weapons the United States possess which may not be deployed but are certanly capable upon request. And while the Russian-American nuclear negotiations may rekindle the grand days of old, the current political reality is left out as if its presence is an affront to logic.

With China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel enlarging their nuclear arsenals, not to include them in nuclear reductions due to "insignificance" is not only short-sighted, it is preposterous and dead wrong. And that's not to mention the steady recycling of nuclear weaponry by the United Kingdom and France. Meanwhile, finger pointing aboundind at North Korea and Iran will leave the biggest perpetrators unscolded and emboldened in their arms.

Most likely real reform in nuclear proliferation will be shirked and the demonly specter of nuclear annihilation will continue to hang over humanity for generations to come.

As for the creation of a new global financial regulatory system, these efforts like those above will only complicate rather than solve the real problem. After the unpopularity worldwide of state-run 'bailouts' and 'stimulii' cautious leaders at the G-20 Summit will be wary of public outrage over corporate welfare programs. This time they will guise their actions as necessary "regulation" needed desperately in a panic to insure the survival of the world.

Yet, actions taken to create a 'Bank of the World' and a new global currency will fall short of being considered as any achievement for the average citizen. For it was the very same advisors and financiers who carefully constructed and steered the global economic collapse. Those like the Federal Reserve Bank, whose non-disclosure of over $500 billion of taxpayer money handed out in "foreign credit swaps" only leads to more questions about what is really going on behind the screen.

It is thus important to keep in mind the pitched perception and the true reality behind this week's G-20 Summit. It is no celebrity ball, rather it is a series of secret meetings held between varied foreign heads of state, each advancing the G-20's own group economic interest and not that of its sovereign nations' citizens. There is no question that future global policy will be made in Pittsburgh, the real question remains, what actually is the plan and can they force the world to live with it?