Is Corruption Inherent in Any Organization?
The FIFA World Cup Organization is starting to get exposed for what it is – a corrupt little inside network in Zurich. The world’s governing body for soccer inhabits the land of caviar and stretch limousines as a tax-free pretend a non-profit organization that is all about profit. The Zurich-based group stands to rake in $4.5bn from this World Cup alone this time, which far exceeds its initial expectations. It is let the good-times roll in Zurich. They cut deals that have been questionable with allegations of bribes but they are then demanding deals that the enjoy tax-exempt status from a country to get the event. All the corporate sponsor deals go to them and broadcasters from networks. They then head for the next tax-free junket.
Brazil also is preparing to host the 2016 Olympic Games. However, what has unfolded with the Fifa setting the agenda for greedy, corrupt and loathsome economic behavior, what is emerging is a true social disaster. As people are starting to realize the extent of corruption within Fifa, many are starting to call for its extermination. The question that emerges is corruptions simply a cancer that surfaces from ANY organizational structure be it government or private sector?
Fifa’s demands are more akin the strategies attributed to the mafia. Ever since 1998, there has been nothing but scandal after scandal. The latest has been the allegations of vote-purchasing for the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
In Brazil, the riots are pervasive. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 61% of respondents felt hosting the World Cup would be a bad thing for their country. The claimed World Cup benefits for Brazil have many people wondering where is the beef. Normal businesses are finding they cannot sell World Cup stuff because that is revenue for Fifa.
Then there is the key to this debate in Brazil that is domestic oriented – the spiraling costs of building new stadiums across the country to host matches during the World Cup. That was supposed to cost the taxpayer in Brazil $3.5 billion, but they have seen the costs jump to $4.2 billion. Of this $4.2 billion, which has been funneled into 12 stadiums when Brazil only needed eight to host the tournament, has people really mad. There’s a stadium in the Amazon jungle city of Manaus, which will host four matches and doesn’t even have a first division soccer club to play in it after the World Cup.
This is starting to appear more like a corruption feast both run in Zurich and in Brazil. The protests are demanding that all this money could have instead been spent on education, social programs and road improvements. Protests have riled Brazil for months in opposition to this approach to the World Cup by Brazil and FIFA. In 2013, riots marred the Confederations Cup, a tournament that is basically a test run for the World Cup. Sao Paolo subway workers are on strike. More demonstrations will likely follow.
Meanwhile, Brazil has failed to come through with many of the infrastructure improvements that the country promised FIFA to gain hosting rights for the World Cup. Capital projects remain unfinished.
Corruption just seems to be inherent in any organization public or private. It is part of human nature.
Brain-Dead Foreign Policy – Destabilizing the Middle East – Feeding the War Cycle
The War Cycle is doing what it was intended to do. I have warned that this is going to be much worse that the previous cycles building in intensity and broadening to a global perspective. It appears that the economic decline and abuse of government has led to massive tension and this will be manifest in both civil I have reported that the US funded these very rebels and the whole Benghazi Affair was about killing the diplomat for being an arms dealer. The whole idea was to overthrow Syria to get a pipeline into Turkey to compete with Russia. This was the entire brilliant idea and the Saudi government believed it could control these people. This is out of control and what is emerging is a whole new Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is a religiously driven militant group that is taking over city by city carving out a new Islamic State implied by its very name.
The sad truth about American foreign policy is starting to rise to the surface. Might does not make it right. This is what Saddam Hussein kept religious fanaticism in check. The glaring lesson of the war is that American ground invasions destabilize the Middle East, instead of stabilizing it. The 100,000 Iraqis who perished, the 4,500 American soldiers killed and the $1 trillion spent and the unfunded healthcare of the veterans is all coming home in a dramatic way. We have seen the sweeping militarization of American foreign policy that has destroyed the image of the United States outside the nation. Instead building bridges to peace, all the American restraints upon force have failed us setting the stage for a much more dangerous world with a far weaker stabilizing force politically.
The United States foreign policy is simply brain-dead. Dick Cheney lied about just about everything to do with Iraq. This has been nothing but corruption from the start right down to trying to put a pipelines through Syria. They sent no troops in to help Ukraine because there was no money on the table. Gaddafi, Hussein and Assad all kept order in place and the separation of church and state. We are now seeing in the aftermath the consequences of meddling into the affairs of other nations for profit.
ISIS is becoming a proto-state that is its own sovereign entity in the mind of its forces. The brutal brand of Shariah law enforced by ISIS includes beheadings and amputations. It appears that they are turning away from trying to overthrow Syria and instead are just carving out a new country from both Iraq and Syria.
While the official story has been attributing their funding to the seizure of banks, this does not explain their arms to seize the banks. That funding came from the USA and Saudi Arabia. This is the bread-dead foreign policy that is coming back in spades. The more people play demigod with power grabs and manipulations, the greater the chaos they are creating that will only set up forces that will confront the very people who have funded such groups.