Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Surveillance in the Service of Corporate Rule
03 Jul 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

It should now be clear to everyone that “the advent of al-Qaida did not give rise to the U.S. surveillance regime.” 9/11 was merely a pretext for American state lawlessness. “The U.S. was already treating the whole planet as if it were occupied by enemy peoples.”

Surveillance in the Service of Corporate Rule

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The greatest fear of the capitalist is a world in which the game is not rigged in his favor.”

The logic of imperialism is that, ultimately, the Empire enters a state of war with everyone in the world, without regard to nationality, social system or reasonable possibilities of threat. Every capitalist yearns to achieve monopoly, to corner all markets, all the time. The capitalist imperial state is the political expression of the monopoly capitalist class, whose ambition is to dominate and profit from every aspect of human existence. Far from thriving on competition, the greatest fear of the capitalist is a world in which the game is not rigged in his favor. The state’s job is to ensure that the fix is always in. Governments controlled by capitalists are obligated to subvert, literally, the entirety of the rest of the planet.

Therefore, it should surprise no one that the United States spies on the citizens, governments and businesses of every nation on earth, including the home population, which is potentially the most dangerous population of all, if for no other reason than proximity.

The U.S. corporate media narrative, which is identical to the narrative of the corporate state, is that 9/11 was a kind of crack in time, the beginning and end of things, the equivalent of the divide between BC and AD. But the advent of al-Qaida did not give rise to the U.S. surveillance regime. The opposite is true. The international jihadist network was given birth by the Americans and their minions in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, at the turn of the Eighties. If U.S. rulers really believed Muslim jihadists posed a serious threat to American empire, Washington would not be in its fourth decade of arming and financing the jihadists, who serve as both foot soldiers and pretexts for U.S. militarism and fascism.

“U.S. complaints of Chinese industrial espionage were simply a diversion from America’s own criminal behavior.”

In the June 27 issue of Counterpunch, indispensable political thinker William Blum republished parts of an essay he wrote in the year 2000. Titled “The Inalienable Right to Snoop? Eavesdropping on the Planet,” the piece reminds us that PRISM, the National Security Agency’s omnivorous mechanism for worldwide data mining and the mapping of human social networks, is a direct descendant of the pre-911 NSA system called ECHELON, launched in the 1970s. By the late Nineties, it had become clear to the Europeans that ECHELON was largely preoccupied with stealing trade secrets from European companies, and passing them on to favored American enterprises. German wind power technology wound up under patent to American rivals. French Airbus lost big contracts to U.S. outfits. A 1998 report of the European Parliament found that the U.S. was using its control of encryption software for wholesale industrial espionage against its purported allies. French military intelligence concluded that Bill Gates’ Microsoft was virtually created by U.S. intelligence agencies. 9/11 was still years away, but the U.S. was already treating the whole planet as if it were occupied by enemy peoples.

In this light, it should have always been obvious that U.S. complaints of Chinese industrial espionage were simply a diversion from America’s own criminal behavior. The global surveillance regime is a creature of a moribund empire that not only cannot compete, but refuses to countenance the very idea of fair competition and the rule of law. Osama bin Laden was always a sideshow on the road to American global dictatorship.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130703_gf_PRISM.mp3

More Stories


  • Mumia Abu-Jamal's Health Emergency: The Only Treatment is Freedom
    The Jamal Journal staff
    Mumia Abu-Jamal's Health Emergency: The Only Treatment is Freedom
    17 Mar 2021
    An interview with Ricardo Alvarez, Mumia’s “movement” doctor. “The most important point of advocacy is for the release of all our elders in COVID prisons.”
  • More Surveillance Won’t Stop White Supremacy -- It Will Target Activists of Color
    Anoa Changa
    More Surveillance Won’t Stop White Supremacy -- It Will Target Activists of Color
    17 Mar 2021
    Violence from people of color and other marginalized groups – or even simply fear of such violence -- is dealt with immediately and with the harshest of consequences.
  • The Somali Election Impasse in Historical Context
    Abdirahman A. Abdalla
    The Somali Election Impasse in Historical Context
    17 Mar 2021
    Somalia’s current corruptionist comprador bourgeoisie has no independent socio-political base and is therefore totally beholden to Western imperialist interests.
  • Who’s Afraid of Hugo Chávez? Race, Empire, and Chavismo’s Revolutionary Subjectivity
    Lucas M. Koerner 
    Who’s Afraid of Hugo Chávez? Race, Empire, and Chavismo’s Revolutionary Subjectivity
    17 Mar 2021
    What is it about Chávez and the national-popular movement bearing his name that is so threatening to the US Empire to this day?
  • Can We Listen to the Voice of the Haitian People?
    Mireille Fanon Mendes France
    Can We Listen to the Voice of the Haitian People?
    17 Mar 2021
    The West’s treatment of Haiti confirms that white supremacy has still not abandoned its plan to impose a racially racist, violent, capitalist and imperial world order.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us