I suppose it’s my own fault for watching television. It was, I don’t know, a month ago and I was watching “The West Wing” – I know, I have no excuse – and one of these White House jerks – the bald one – was leaking bile because he had to talk to anti-globalization activists, who, by the way, were portrayed as inarticulate and just plain wrong. At one point, grumpy bald guy said, “Globalization prevents war.” That was it. I turned it off and I refuse to watch anymore, I don’t care how often Marty Sheen marches with the farmworkers. I’m done.
It’s bad enough to have people like Tom Friedman at the New York Times constantly crowing about how no two nations that have McDonald’s have ever gone to war, now we have knee-jerk neoliberalism pouring out of the tee vee. No wonder it’s called the Idiot Box.
Globalization’s next big moment arrives in Quebec City in a week and a day, when representatives of 34 nations of the western hemisphere meet for the third Summit of the Americas. The summit is a negotiation conference for the Free Trade Areas of the Americas agreement, also known as the FTAA.
The FTAA is NAFTA on crack. It is a free trade pact that would include every nation in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean, with the exception of Cuba. The country most aggressively pushing the FTAA is the United Corporations of America, since it is American corporations that have so far shown the greatest profit from existing free trade agreements.
But do globalization and free trade prevent war? I’ll admit, that may be a possibility. At this moment, China and the U.S. may be taking a softer line over the spy plane incident because U.S. corporations don’t want to lose access to Chinese prison labor and the Chinese don’t want to lose access to Yanni CDs.
There’s more to quality of life than the absence of war. The FTAA expands on the principles of NAFTA and other trade agreements making it easier for capital – that is cash – to wash north and south over two continents. Under FTAA provisions advocated by the U.S., investors from one country have the right to claim compensation from another country if they feel that nation’s regulations harm their capital investment. Let’s say American investors buy a stake in a Bolivian tin mine, and that mine is required by Bolivian law to take steps to ensure mine wastes don’t contaminate drinking water for local people. If the U.S. gets its way, investors can go after the Bolivian government for compensation, because some of their God-given profits were frittered away protecting human health.
Speaking of drinking water, the FTAA includes language that would throw the services sector open to international competition. Those services could include health care, water and sewers, electricity – don’t cry for me, California – and even education. Now all that talk about school vouchers and privatizing public schools looks a little different, doesn’t it?
Removing restrictions from the flow of money effectively separates power from responsibility. Build schools in southern Peru? Sorry, can’t do it. There’s no money in it. Health care for Haiti? No, no there’s no profit there, maybe the White House Office on Faith-Based Initiatives has something for you.
While capital is surging across national boundaries, rights are not. The friendly government of Canada is turning Quebec’s old city into a fortress of concrete barriers and chain link fence and is deploying 5,000 police to make sure the national leaders never hear what their citizens think about their plans.
Here in Burlington, 40 miles from the Quebec line, rumors are flying about the border being closed and local police are laying in supplies of tear gas and pepper spray.
There may be some things worse than war, like living in a police state.
The Absence of War
I suppose it’s my own fault for watching television. It was, I don’t know, a month ago and I was watching “The West Wing” – I know, I have no excuse – and one of these White House jerks – the bald one – was leaking bile because he had to talk to anti-globalization activists, who, by the way, were portrayed as inarticulate and just plain wrong. At one point, grumpy bald guy said, “Globalization prevents war.” That was it. I turned it off and I refuse to watch anymore, I don’t care how often Marty Sheen marches with the farmworkers. I’m done.
It’s bad enough to have people like Tom Friedman at the New York Times constantly crowing about how no two nations that have McDonald’s have ever gone to war, now we have knee-jerk neoliberalism pouring out of the tee vee. No wonder it’s called the Idiot Box.
Globalization’s next big moment arrives in Quebec City in a week and a day, when representatives of 34 nations of the western hemisphere meet for the third Summit of the Americas. The summit is a negotiation conference for the Free Trade Areas of the Americas agreement, also known as the FTAA.
The FTAA is NAFTA on crack. It is a free trade pact that would include every nation in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean, with the exception of Cuba. The country most aggressively pushing the FTAA is the United Corporations of America, since it is American corporations that have so far shown the greatest profit from existing free trade agreements.
But do globalization and free trade prevent war? I’ll admit, that may be a possibility. At this moment, China and the U.S. may be taking a softer line over the spy plane incident because U.S. corporations don’t want to lose access to Chinese prison labor and the Chinese don’t want to lose access to Yanni CDs.
There’s more to quality of life than the absence of war. The FTAA expands on the principles of NAFTA and other trade agreements making it easier for capital – that is cash – to wash north and south over two continents. Under FTAA provisions advocated by the U.S., investors from one country have the right to claim compensation from another country if they feel that nation’s regulations harm their capital investment. Let’s say American investors buy a stake in a Bolivian tin mine, and that mine is required by Bolivian law to take steps to ensure mine wastes don’t contaminate drinking water for local people. If the U.S. gets its way, investors can go after the Bolivian government for compensation, because some of their God-given profits were frittered away protecting human health.
Speaking of drinking water, the FTAA includes language that would throw the services sector open to international competition. Those services could include health care, water and sewers, electricity – don’t cry for me, California – and even education. Now all that talk about school vouchers and privatizing public schools looks a little different, doesn’t it?
Removing restrictions from the flow of money effectively separates power from responsibility. Build schools in southern Peru? Sorry, can’t do it. There’s no money in it. Health care for Haiti? No, no there’s no profit there, maybe the White House Office on Faith-Based Initiatives has something for you.
While capital is surging across national boundaries, rights are not. The friendly government of Canada is turning Quebec’s old city into a fortress of concrete barriers and chain link fence and is deploying 5,000 police to make sure the national leaders never hear what their citizens think about their plans.
Here in Burlington, 40 miles from the Quebec line, rumors are flying about the border being closed and local police are laying in supplies of tear gas and pepper spray.
There may be some things worse than war, like living in a police state.