If you are unfamiliar with the term you may be asking yourself what is globalization? Why am I speaking about this rather than important issues such as the global poverty, genocide in Darfur, or the war in Iraq? Globalization is corporate imperialism, the liberalization of trade between stronger and weaker nations supposedly for the "best interests of both". Unfortunately the reality is that the United States government inclines Third World economies to serve the interests of its elite by raping their natural resources, exploiting labor with starvation wages in sweatshops, accumulating the land, eliminating tarriffs, abolishing the minimum wage, etc., while keeping the country in debt so it has no choice but to bend to its wishes. This is modern colonialism, which the "old" system of became outdated when the cheaper method of neoliberalism came into wide use following Third World independence movements when the classic imperial powers were weakened in World War II. Once the target country is put into debt, then it has no choice but to open its oil fields, forests, people, etc. for the exploitation of multinational U.S.0based corporations in order to pay it off.

One must ask how does the other country so willingly accept to get into debt and what methods do imperialist western countries use to put them in debt? The leaders of these "third world" countries are supported and put into power by the Western governments for the purpose of opening their nations to transnational corporate exploitation. Transnational corporations would rather be under the laws of these puppet governments than the much more stringent laws of their domestic imperial nation, so thus more capital is exported into these countries. The World Bank/IMF, formed following World War II for the purpose of expanding neocolonialism, offers the target countries plans and ideas to help "modernize" and liberalize their economies (make their economies subservient to the U.S.’s) and display to them falsely designed possible results of economic growth if these plans were to be followed. This would involve putting the country in debt but the leaders are told that the economic growth as a result of the plans will more then make up for the debt. The plans usually do nothing but increase the gains of U.S.-based corporations, in which construction of entities such as dams, malls, roads, etc., are built to serve the rich in those countries and ultimately put all the money used to "modernize" the economy right back into their pocket. Unemployment, homelessness, sweatshop labor, extreme poverty, lack of public services, debt, starvation, etc., are the effects on the majority of the population in the puppet countries. The worst of it all is that when in debt, everything that the "third world" country does for the imperialist nation, i.e. giving over property titles and putting natural resources into the hands of multinational corporations, goes to repaying the debt that the U.S. had forced upon them.

Now comes the question on why should it matter since the people did elect that leader and it was the will of the leader to accept that deal and its consequences? The problem is that usually the leaders of these countries either, run on a completely opposite agenda then the "anti-imperialist" rhetoric they give during elections, have good intentions but are deceived by false hopes of economic growth, are forced to comply because the pressure put on them by such organizations as the WTO (World Trade Organization), or are assassinated if they don’t comply and replaced by a dictatorship through terrorist right-wing groups backed by the CIA and U.S. political support. That is right, it is well known, though not by the masses of the west, that failure to comply with U.S. economic interests has led to assassinations and coups backed by the CIA to overthrow or murder the current administration of the country, i.e. Arbenz of Guatemala, Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, Salvador Allende of Chile, etc.

Thus once under control, the puppet government will privatize basic resources, handing over the "property titles" of the nations' water, food, health care, sanitation, etc. to multinational corporations. An example of exploiting cheap labor is that workers in one area will work for less than workers in another area, causing a competition of who will work for the lowest wages. The competition becomes who will be the biggest corporate slaves and sell themselves for the lowest auction price, which results in a steady "race to the bottom" for crumbs at the master's table. Indigenous groups are forced off their land at the will of oil companies and farmers are forced off their lands by large farming corporations. The environment receives no protection and thus no mercy in the onslaught of all that stands in their way of higher profits. Everything from the oil, the lakes and rivers, the forests, the exotic animals within, the land of the indigenous natives, the food, etc. are included in the rape of natural resources to fuel the corporate machine.

Now I will present the answers of the questions from the beginning that can now be understood as to why I focus on this issue rather than these single issues. Global poverty is a direct result of colonialism which gave birth to its modern relative, neoliberalism, globalization, or covert colonialism, which has kept it constant and growing much larger in fact. The genocide in Darfur came through the Sudanese government, which is a puppet government to the economic interests of the U.S. Not to say the U.S. supported the slaughter, but it is an excellent example of the bloodthirsty dictatorships it supports to keep its economic interests intact.

Now on Iraq; Sadaam Hussein is another example of a bloody dictator our government had supported to "modernize" the economy of Iraq and direct its oil towards U.S. interests as it did with Saudi Arabia. The difference between Sadaam and most of the countries is that he rebelled against the economic imperialism and did not give in to privatization of the oil resources nor of the water resources which are a huge importance in that region. After many failed CIA assassination attempts, Sadaam invaded the oil rich country of Kuwait giving reason for a U.S. invasion. The U.N. economic sanctions applied after the war resulted in the starvation of over 1,500,000 Iraqis but were corporation-friendly, allowing such programs as oil-for-food to capitalize off of the starvation of the Iraqi people. Eventually Sadaam would be overthrown after many hypocritical, fixed, and false pretexts were concocted to support a war in Iraq. In the area of hypocrisy, the one of overthrowing a brutal dictator strikes the hardest in the fact that it had no impact to the willingness of U.S. military backing and corporate interests in Iraq when Sadaam was open to them at the height of his dictatorial genocidal massacres. Now oil companies are in a rush to gain control of the resources of Iraq but the Iraqi resistance has kept much of U.S. economic progress there at a check since it first began. If it were not for the strong insurgency the U.S. would have complete control of Iraq’s oil fields and be currently either at war with or assembling to go to war with another dissenter, Iran.