it's the economy... part 1

I think this topic has the potential of going sequential...

I'm merely your average idiot trying to understand what's going on. But hey, on the subject of "the economy" I get dizzy just trying to see which way is up. Here's what I've managed to glean so far about "the economy":

On the one hand we collectively give rise to it and on the other it totally controls us. Our jobs, our income, and in many ways our very lives, depend on the welfare of the economy. Yes, that's right, most of us now perceive that what's best for the economy is also what's best for our own welfare.

We often hear our Prime Minister talk about how he would even go to war "to protect our interests". Our prime "interest", he assures us repeatedly, is the economy. So, he's even prepared to murder hundreds of thousands or millions of "foreign" people, if that's what he thinks is good for our economy. You'll note that all of a sudden it's called our economy. We will kill them, destroy their infrastructure and property, and we will totally trash their economy in order to feed our economy.

In the 1940's it began to dawn on our great capitalist economic strategists that these relatively new economic systems called communism and socialism would quarantine themselves from capitalism. In other words, countries whose people chose socialist or communist economic models would deny access to, or govern the conduct of, capitalist business entities called "corporations".

What?!? You mean to say there were people who didn't want corporations to exploit their country for the great benefit of a few mega-rich shareholders living in far-off countries? Unbelievable! This was like waving a red rag (pun intended) in front of a raging bull. And the raging bull (the head of which was the U.S.)charged, and the Cold War began. And it was all about stopping the growth of communism and socialism in order to maintain and increase the capitalist corporations' sphere of exploitation.

As in all wars, propaganda ruled the day. Proponents of capitalism were lauded and proponents of communism and and socialism were vilified and demonised. The people in "The Western Bloc" were just as brainwashed as those in "The Eastern Bloc". Lies ruled supreme on both sides.

By and large, "The West" won after fifty years of conducting crippling sanctions, sabotage, dirty tricks, assassinations, organised coups, the installation of corporation-friendly dictators, and many wars which killed millions (they even convinced me to do some of the killing for them, gave me medals and free memebership to all sorts of veterans clubs, most of which are propaganda outfits designed to keep the veterans firmly brainwashed about the necessity and justness of the war they took part in.) And because capitalism won, it continued to write its own history very much in its own favour. More propaganda.

And now capitalism has morphed into trans-national mega-corporations, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, all working in concert to dictate the terms globally. We now talk of a global economy. And that's now become our economy.

So now it's in "our interests" to join the U.S. on its killing spree to demolish all opposition (which we now call "terrorism") to a globalised economy dominated by and giving free rein to the trans-national corporations who control American politics and through that, the American military machine. This is what our own politicians here in Australia (from both sides of politics) havs sold us into. And what for? For a few dolars more...

So, readers, how am I doing in my struggle to understand economics? All comments, hints, pointers and clues are most welcome. I'll rant more on this subject soon. There's lots to rant about...