“It’s up to us. No one is coming to help us. If we don’t make the effort, no one else will. It’s time for the twilight of the idols. It’s time for a new dawn, a new humanity, a new world order. It’s time for the dawn of the Gods.”
— Adam Weishaupt, author
“Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.”
— Paul Valery, French poet and philosopher
“When devastating things happen, creativity and ingenuity often thrive.”
— Klaus Schwab
“The bipolar world of the Cold War is history. The new world order, however, is not the One World dreamed of by Wilsonian idealists. It is a Balkanizing world where race, tribe, culture and creed matter most, and democracy is seen not as an end in itself but as a means to an end – the accretion of power by one’s own kind to achieve one’s own dreams.”
— Pat Buchanan
“I believe that, owning to men’s folly, a world-government will only be established by force, and will therefore be at first cruel and despotic. But I believe that it is necessary for the preservation of a scientific civilization, and that, if once realized, it will gradually give rise to the other conditions of a tolerable existence.”
— Bertrand Russell
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
— H.L. Mencken
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the Nations will accept the New World Order!”
— David Rockefeller
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
— Lao Tzu
“History shows that epidemics have been the great resetter of countries’ economy and social fabric. Why should it be different with COVID-19?”
— Klaus Schwab
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
— Eric Hoffer
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
— Winston Churchill
You have heard the recent proverb “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Turns out that in practice, there is a corollary: “If you are going to fix something, it needs to be broken.” Think “Build Back Better”, as defined by Clinton, Biden, and Schwab (Klaus). The “build-back” part concerns me. Who is going to break it so it can be “built back”? Or maybe “it” is already broken? And what is “it” in this context?
Heavyweights like Clinton, Biden, and Schwab do not make statements (or slogans like this one) without carefully considering their words. They seriously plan to build back from something that needs fixing – something that is broken. What is broken exactly? Worse yet, maybe the target here isn’t yet broken. Maybe breaking it is Step 1.
To get the answer, it might be good to work backwards from what they are trying to do – i.e., to fix – to what needs to be broken (so that it needs to be fixed).
What is going to be Built Back Better?
Who better to ask than the United Nations Secretary General Gutteres. Unfortunately, he gives a not very hopeful response, albeit in late 2020. Basically, everything is broken – the whole planet. Worse yet, the folks responsible for the broken planet are us, and our nasty human activities. Probably shouldn’t have asked.
Here are a few “highlights”:
“In December 2020 the Secretary General of the UN Antonio Gutteres really fleshed out the global commons concept [emphasis added]. Speaking to an audience gathered at Columbia University, the pivotal academic institution in the development of technocracy, he said:”
“To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken [emphasis added]. … Let’s be clear: human activities are at the root of our descent towards chaos. … In this context, the recovery from the pandemic is an opportunity. … It is time to flick the ‘green switch’. We have a chance to not simply reset the world economy but to transform it. … We must turn this momentum into a movement. …”
“Everything is interlinked – the global commons and global well-being. … This means: More and bigger effectively managed conservation areas. … Biodiversity-positive agriculture and fisheries. … I have detailed an emergency, but I also see hope. … More and more people are understanding the need for their own daily choices to reduce their carbon footprint and respect planetary boundaries. … From protests in the streets to advocacy on-line… From classroom education to community engagement… From voting booths to places of work…”
‘We cannot go back to the old normal of inequality, injustice and heedless dominion over the Earth. … We have a blueprint: the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change. … Now is the time to transform humankind’s relationship with the natural world – and with each other.”
The “global commons concept” – another thing to worry about
The “global commons” is GPPP shorthand for everything. All life, all resources, all land, all water, the air, the stars, and all of us. Great. Now what exactly is this “GPPP” critter?
From the always helpful Wikipedia, on GPPP:
“GPPP. Global public–private partnership (GPPP) is a governance mechanism to foster public–private partnership (PPP) cooperation between an international intergovernmental organisation like the United Nations and private companies.”
Well, maybe not so helpful in this case. GPPP sounds pretty ominous to me, so maybe a more direct explanation is called for. Iain Davis in Off-Guardian.org has this to say: “What is the “Global Public-Private Partnership?”:
“The Global Public-Private Partnership (GPPP) Is A World-Wide Network Of Stakeholder Capitalists And Their Partners.”
“This collective of stakeholders (the capitalists and their partners) comprises global corporations (including central banks), philanthropic foundations (multi-billionaire philanthropists), policy think-tanks, governments (and their agencies), non-governmental organisations, selected academic & scientific institutions, global charities, the labour unions and other chosen ‘thought leaders’.”
“The GPPP controls global finance and the world’s economy. It sets world, national and local policy (via global governance) and then promotes those policies using the mainstream media (MSM) corporations who are also ‘partners’ within the GPPP.”
“Often those policies are devised by the think-tanks before being adopted by governments, who are also GPPP partners. Government is the process of transforming GPPP global governance into hard policy, legislation and law.”
“Under our current model of Westphalian national sovereignty, the government of one nation cannot make legislation or law in another. However, through global governance, the GPPP create policy initiatives at the global level which then cascade down to people in every nation. This typically occurs via an intermediary policy distributor, such as the IMF or IPCC, and national government then enact the recommended policies.”
“The policy trajectory is set internationally by the authorized definition of problems and their prescribed solutions. Once the GPPP enforce the consensus internationally, the policy framework is set. The GPPP stakeholder partners then collaborate to ensure the desired policies are developed, implemented and enforced. This is the oft quoted ‘international rules-based system.’”
“In this way the GPPP control many nations at once without having to resort to legislation. This has the added advantage of making any legal challenge to the decisions made by the most senior partners in the GPPP … extremely difficult.”
The GPPP has taken over the world while we weren’t looking?
Don’t know about you, but I had never heard of the GPPP until I started poking around for the current state of Build-Back-Better. They must have taken over the world while we were distracted by COVID and its consequences. Or maybe that was the plan?
In any case, it seems that Build-Back-Better has quietly morphed into the Global Public-Private Partnership – a world-wide network of stakeholder capitalists and their partners. Oddly enough, a recent post here had a look at stakeholder capitalism, while seems to be a thing these days.
This turns out to be a ‘great leap’ in some direction, or more accurately, in almost all directions. It might be worth recalling the origin and goals of Build Back Better:
“Building Back Better (BBB) is a strategy aimed at reducing the risk to the people of nations and communities in the wake of future disasters and shocks. The BBB approach integrates disaster risk reduction measures into the restoration of physical infrastructure, social systems and shelter, and the revitalization of livelihoods, economies and the environment.”
“BBB has been described in the United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction document, which was agreed on at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held on March 14–18, 2015, in Sendai, Japan. It was adopted by UN member states as one of four priorities in the Sendai Framework for disaster recovery, risk reduction and sustainable development.” The UN General Assembly adopted this document on June 3, 2015.
“BBB has its roots in the improvement of land use, spatial planning and construction standards through the recovery process. The concept has expanded to represent a broader opportunity by building greater resilience in recovery by systematically addressing the root causes of vulnerability. However, the term was actually first coined in Indonesia by the World Bank and BRR following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami in early stocktaking reports and briefing the UN Special Envoy Clinton. Specifically, the term was well used in both the preliminary stocktake of May 2005 and the Brief for the Coordination Forum Aceh and Nias (CFAN) of October 2005. Thereafter, the term caught global attention in 2006 during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami relief effort, where the UN Special Envoy.”
So, BBB started out as a response to a major geological catastrophe – the 2004 Indonesian tsunami – that killed nearly 250,000 people. Building back is a definite requirement in such cases; better is an even more ambitious and worthy goal.
Build Back Better becomes “build back bigger”
You just had to know that, with the UN involved, things would quickly move into the realm of grandiose, global visions. The most visible evidence of this scope explosion appeared in the U.S. in 2020:
“The Build Back Better Plan or Build Back Better agenda was a legislative framework proposed by United States President Joe Biden between 2020 and 2021. Generally viewed as ambitious in size and scope, it sought to make the largest nationwide public investments in social, infrastructural, and environmental programs since the 1930s Great Depression-era policies of The New Deal.”
“The [BBB] phrase was used in 2009 by former President Bill Clinton while referring to Haiti after the political upheaval and storms of 2008. It was reiterated by UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-Moon in February 2010 with reference to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.”
All of this led to the BBB “disasters recovery” concept being used by states, multilateral agencies, and NGOs (non-government organizations) for projects of a much broader and non-disaster-related nature. No surprise here.
The U.S. BBB agenda seems to have hit the rocks rather quickly. Austin Ahlman writing in The American Prospect (April 2022) that: “Build Back Better Dies … Again. In a final admission of defeat, the administration is rebranding its ‘Build Back Better World’ foreign-policy initiative, removing references to its failed domestic agenda.” Failed in large part because of huge costs involved.
The Biden administration is already plotting a so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” a rebranding of the Build Back Better disaster, with a $790 billion price tag. While the Fed is trying to tighten the money supply, the White House is determined to spend (print) even more.
Getting bigger and more inclusive
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. You just had to know that these folks would be among the GPPP players somewhere.
From the OECD on where the COVID response are headed:
“For the economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis to be durable and resilient, a return to ‘business as usual’ and environmentally destructive investment patterns and activities must be avoided. Unchecked, global environmental emergencies such as climate change and biodiversity loss could cause social and economic damages far larger than those caused by COVID-19. To avoid this, economic recovery packages should be designed to ‘build back better’. This means doing more than getting economies and livelihoods quickly back on their feet. Recovery policies also need to trigger investment and behavioural changes that will reduce the likelihood of future shocks and increase society’s resilience to them when they do occur. Central to this approach is a focus on well-being and inclusiveness [emphasis added]. Other key dimensions for assessing whether recovery packages can ‘build back better’ include alignment with long-term emission reduction goals, factoring in resilience to climate impacts, slowing biodiversity loss and increasing circularity of supply chains. In practice, well-designed recovery policies can cover several of these dimensions at once, such as catalysing the shift towards accessibility-based mobility systems, and investing in low-carbon and decentralised electricity systems.”
FYI: “GHG = Greenhouse Gas. A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect.[1] The primary greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and ozone (O3). Without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earth’s surface would be about −18 °C (0 °F),[2] rather than the present average of 15 °C (59 °F).” Without greenhouse gases, of course, there would not be any humans around to worry about the chilly non-GHG climate.
Climate change is of course central
You already knew this. Climate change seems central to everything at the moment – perhaps because climate affects virtually everything on the planet. And, as Antonio Gutteres stated, “…the state of the planet is broken.”
So, everybody who counts seems to agree, to varying degrees, that “everything is broken”, and therefore that “everything needs to be fixed”.
We now have the official answer to the question posed in this post:
- What’s broken? Everything on the planet (at least)
- Who says so? The great GPPP players and followers
- Who broke it? We did – us nasty people living on the planet
With the basic question answered, at least officially by the global officials, we can begin to think about what, if anything, us nasty planet-folks might be able to do about any of this mess.
What if anything might we do about our poor broken planet?
We broke it, according to the authorities, so maybe we should fix it. I don’t think so. “We” actually didn’t break it. Our governments in reality did this nasty job. So maybe they should fix it? No way!
The GPPP folks and followers (GPPP-F&F) have their own plans for a “fix”: Their way, for their benefits. In this context, we are largely impediments, or at best spectators, unless we agree to get actively onboard – their way.
Ummm … don’t think so.
There must be some way that we can begin to implement our own fix for our own benefits. Us nasty planet-folks, that is.
Our working context is that the GPPP-F&F gang, which seems to include most of the self-defined important people in the world, and which clearly has unlimited resources available (limited only by our ability to pay, of course). They appear to be moving ahead at full speed, ignoring us. Their end-goal seems to be a one-world government. How nice.
We have at least a couple of options as I see things:
- Let them self-destruct.
These GPPP-F&F people are not by and large smart people. They are probably intelligent, but smart is different, and is essential. “Smart” is really “wise”. Wisdom is in short supply in GPPP-F&F world. History is full of examples of such rulers and their followers self-destructing. The odds are pretty strongly in favor of our current bunch ending up similarly (as a post from quite a while back explains). - Go local and tribal.
This is basically creating a counterforce to globalism. We can’t fight them on their ground and terms. They are simply too powerful and too rich. They will continue to do their thing until they succeed, or it collapses. Which it will – collapse. The GPPP-F&F probably has well under 30% of the population as true believers (see my prior post). Globally, almost certainly far less. This means that at least half the global population or more is just going-along-to-get-along. Among them are the leaders we need right now.
Going local and tribal in practice
Briefly, going local in my mind involves building communities among nearby people who may be willing to step out from the crowds. But we need real leaders, not just cheerleaders and analysts. Easy to say, not so easy to achieve.
The GPPP-F&F folks are creating huge numbers of local groups, and providing these with substantial resources. Some groups will be strongly committed, but others will be mostly going along to get along. The latter may be a fertile target for infiltration and good-subversion.
Gaining leadership in existing, functioning groups is a non-violent way to splinter and redirect the group’s power and resources. It needs to be done gradually, assuming that we have the time to do so.
Us locals can’t fight these powerful organizations directly. We have to fight them on our own grounds and on our terms, but we can use at least some of these local organizations as a base for change.
Going tribal means in practice building associations with like-minded people. Kind of an extended family, but not related genetically, and often not geographically. These days, tribal in practice means communities, which are roughly defined as:
“A group of people who share something or interests in common. You can define a community by the shared attributes of the people in it and/or by the strength of the connections among them. You need a bunch of people who are alike in some way, who feel some sense of belonging or interpersonal connection.”
The internet today makes it possible to form and participate in communities with members worldwide. This also makes communities much harder for outsiders to control (unless they can block internet access).
Bottom line:
Well, that was a bit of an unexpected journey. From “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” to learning that, to at least the folks – GPPP players and followers – who rule the world or are trying to, the whole world is broken. Worse yet, the cause as they see it is us nasty planet-dwellers. So, they are going to fix everything, from the ground up where necessary. A one-world-government is envisioned and is right now under construction. But the track record historically of world dominators is dismal at best. They seem inevitably to fail, collapse, and crash-and-burn – leaving behind great destruction, pain, and suffering. This may well be in our near future unless we nasty planet-dwellers can figure out ways to break the planet-fixers’ machinery. Huge challenge.
Related Reading
Iain Davis writing in Off-Guardian.org has a lengthy article on the GPPP concept, plans, and status: “What is the ‘Global Public-Private Partnership’?”:
“The last 30 years have seen numerous GPPP’s form as the concept of global governance has evolved. A major turning point was the WEF’s conspectus of multistakeholder governance. With their 2010 publication (604-page pdf) of Everybody’s Business: Strengthening International Cooperation in a More Interdependent World, the WEF outlined the elements of GPPP stakeholder’s form of global governance.”
“They established their Global Agenda Councils to deliberate and suggest policy covering practically every aspect of our existence. The WEF created a corresponding global governance body for every aspect of our society. From our values and economy, through to our security and public health, our welfare systems, consumption, access to water, food security, crime, our rights, sustainable development and the global financial and monetary system, nothing was left untouched.”
“The executive chairman of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, spelled out what the objective of global governance was:”
“Our purpose has been to stimulate a strategic thought process among all stakeholders about ways in which international institutions and arrangements should be adapted to contemporary challenges … the world’s leading authorities have been working in interdisciplinary, multistakeholder Global Agenda Councils to identify gaps and deficiencies in international cooperation and to formulate specific proposals for improvement …”
“These discussions have run through the Forum’s Regional Summits during 2009 as well as the Forum’s recent Annual Meeting 2010 in Davos-Klosters, where many of the emerging proposals were tested with ministers, CEOs, heads of NGOs and trade unions, leading academics and other members of the Davos community …”
“The Global Redesign process has provided an informal working laboratory or marketplace for a number of good policy ideas and partnership opportunities … We have sought to expand international governance discussions … to take more pre-emptive and coordinated action on the full range of risks that have been accumulating in the international system.”
“By 2010 the WEF had taken it upon themselves to begin the Global Redesign process. They defined the international challenges, and they proposed the solutions. Fortunately for the GPPP, their proposals meant more control and partnership opportunities for them. The WEF sought to spearhead the expansion of this international governance.”
“In just one example, in 2019 the UK Government announced its partnership with the WEF to develop future business, economic and industrial regulations. The UK government were committed to supporting a regulatory environment created by the global corporations who would then be regulated by the same regulations they had designed.”
“The WEF do not have an electoral mandate of any kind. None of us have any opportunity to influence or even question their judgments and yet they are working in partnership with our supposedly democratically elected governments, and other GPPP stakeholders, to redesign the planet we all live on.”
“Stakeholder capitalism lies at the heart of the GPPP. Essentially it usurps democratic government (or indeed government of any kind) by placing global corporations at the centre of decision making. Despite deriving authority from no one but themselves, the leaders of the GPPP assume their own modern interpretation of the ‘divine right of kings’ and rule absolutely.”
“In January 2021, the WEF spoke about how they viewed Stakeholder Capitalism: ‘The most important characteristic of the stakeholder model today is that the stakes of our system are now more clearly global … What was once seen as externalities in national economic policy making and individual corporate decision making will now need to be incorporated or internalized in the operations of every government, company, community, and individual. The planet is … the center of the global economic system, and its health should be optimized in the decisions made by all other stakeholders.”
“The GPPP will oversee everything. Every government, all business, our so-called communities (where we live) and each of us individually. We are not the priority. The priority is the planet. Or so the WEF claim.”
