We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Reviewing Force Multipliers [an introduction to must-read materials]

by Maximilian Forte from Zero Anthropology and archived at Encircling Empire

The materials related to the book Force Mulitipliers are extremely important to understand for all people concerned about the direction that the US Empire in its unending search for profits and power seems to heading. The direction is impelled by the system of imperialist capitalism whose directors employ so many new instruments of deception and proxies which they describe as "force multipliers" as well as raw force more typical of earlier forms of capitalist imperialism. It is the new instruments which have been studied and revealed in detail by this author.

I spent a lot of time reading related materials and the original source (pdf format) from a new book entitled FORCE MULTIPLIERS: The Instrumentalities of Imperialism by Forte. The book can be ordered through Lulu Press for about $10 (incl. postage) or read online (I prefer a hard copy and ordered it). Probably the most efficient way of accessing his ideas is a 68 slide show presentation located near the bottom of this posted introduction--here is the direct link.

Here is the "Overview" or introduction from the second slide:
In the drive to accumulate ever more global power for the US state and its allies, both political and corporate, the quest for totalization [global domination] confronts the challenge of “overreach”. To operate using smaller efforts to carry larger loads, US strategists have devised what they call “force multipliers”. Force multiplication is about “leverage”: using partners and proxies in an expanding network. Forces are conceptualized in multi-dimensional terms. Anything in the world of cultural systems, social relationships, and material production can become force multipliers for imperialism: food security, oil, electricity, young leaders, aid, social media, NGOs, women’s rights, schoolgirls, democratization, elections, the G8, the European Union, NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, AFRICOM, development, policing, borders, and epidemics, among others.