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- Power corrupts.
- Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- Power is never relinquished.
- Power must be taken.
"Those who control the
world's largest market get to write the rules. That is as it always has been." - Lester Thurow
"A corporation cannot be ethical; its only responsibility is to
turn a profit."
- Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate
 Globalism and
Federalism
Houston Principles
Corporate Watch
One Company, One World?
Grazing
Mergers
Monsanto
Poor
Rep Rev
Welfare
World Trade Organization
WTO 2
Imagine a powerful corporation "renting" a WTO Member nation to pursue
its special interests — and kill a trade-based development policy — behind closed doors in Geneva to the detriment
of tens of thousands of people's livelihoods and the rented country’s own economic and security interests.
They Shoot
Humanitarians
Don't They?
10/28/99
HANOVER, N.H. (AP) -- Republican presidential hopefuls discussed abortion, health care and
taxes Thursday night in a generally polite campaign debate spiced by jabs directed by Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer
at the absent front-runner, George W. Bush.
The GOP event was interrupted briefly when an unidentified woman rose to demand a cut in military spending to benefit
health care and education. Moderators swiftly regained control of the proceedings.
"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the
capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation
of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy
of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized
political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely
financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate
from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect
the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists
inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus
extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective
conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."
- Albert Einstein
How America Got Rich
And how it is going to get even richer
by Walter Russell Mead, Worth Magazine
That we're rich there's no disputing. Just consider some numbers. Earlier this year (1999), Forbes reported that the U.S. has more than 200 billionaires;
even in 1997, according to the Bank of America, there were 11 million millionaires, and this group was growing
by 300 per month. More than 31 million people live in the 9.7 million households that have annual incomes greater
than $100,000.
American households own more than $39 trillion worth of financial assets. Combined real-estate holdings are worth
$9.5 trillion, secured by $3.8 trillion in mortgages. The total value of all stocks listed on the New York Stock
Exchange stands at $10 trillion. In 1997, Americans paid $733 billion in taxes (total earnings: $5 trillion) --
or more than the gross national product of the world's 83 poorest countries combined.
And the wealth-creating machine that is America -- the greatest the world has seen, clearly -- doesn't seem to
be slowing down. Since 1990, U.S. gross domestic product has risen from $5.6 trillion a year to $8.7 trillion,
an increase greater than the combined GDP of the world's poorest 113 countries. Last year, U.S. consumers -- less
than 5 percent of the world's population -- were responsible for almost half the total growth in worldwide demand.
The historic run-up in the stock market that began in October 1990 has seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average rise
from about 3,000 to over 11,000, and that increase has added an estimated $9 trillion to the worth of America's
companies.
Contrasting numbers from other parts of the world highlight our wealth. According to World Bank figures, 81 percent
of the world's population have an income that would qualify for food
stamps in the United States. Some 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than a dollar a day. The 50 countries
of sub-Saharan Africa, minus South Africa, have a total population of 571 million and a combined GDP of $198 billion
-- or about the gross state product of Virginia.
Our guy Gramm, our man Moore and the myth of powerlessness
by Molly Ivins
AUSTIN -- First, a salute to Sen. Phil Gramm, who's been trying hard for the
title of Meanest Man in the United States and now just may have earned it.
Gramm is blocking legislation that would restore food stamps for elderly legal
immigrants, one of the nastiest parts of welfare deform. This harsh and unseemly provision has provoked widespread
criticism and is causing elderly legal immigrants to flock to overburdened food banks. There was widespread bipartisan
agreement that the provision had to go -- 71 senators are pushing Majority Leader Trent Lott for a vote on it --
but Gramm is single-handedly holding it up.
You may think that action alone earns Gramm the Meanest Man title, but what
really puts him in contention is his rationale for cutting off food stamps to old, poor, legal immigrants. Follow
this carefully:
"The 1996 reform was a critically important step toward getting families
out of the welfare trap," Gramm said in an April 20 news release. "Reversing the 1996 reform would constitute
a new personal tragedy inflicted on the most vulnerable people among us."
You see? If we were to restore food stamps to sick, 85-year-old legal immigrants
who worked all their lives it would be a new personal tragedy for them, throwing them right back into the welfare
trap instead of letting them get right out there and compete for jobs, thus making them happier and better people.
Phil is doing this to them `for their own good.'
Texas has 121,000 legal immigrants who had been receiving food stamps before
they were cut off last year. Gramm said that restoring the food stamps would be "onerous and destructive."
Gov. George Dubya Bush is finding it somewhat onerous himself, since he had to come up with $18 million in state
money to cover disabled children and the elderly who are sick. He supports restoring the food stamps. Restoring
food stamps nationwide for 935,000 legal immigrants would cost $818 million, a tiny part of the $55 billion appropriation
for the Department of Agriculture that includes a proposal sponsored by Gramm to spend $43 million on research
to eradicate fire ants.
On a more cheerful note, Michael Moore's delightful documentary `The Big One'
is now playing in local theaters. Moore, who made the whacky documentary `Roger Me' a few years ago, made this
film about his book tour promoting his jolly jeremiad `Downsize This!' Wherever he went, Moore stopped to visit
local folks who had just been downsized, and he tried to talk to the corporate honchos responsible. The result
is one of those rare films with a working person's point of view and is a blow for Bubbas everywhere.
Moore doesn't take much seriously; he wants to change the name of the U.S.A.
to "The Big One" and our national anthem to `We Will Rock You.' But he does care about working-class
folks getting stiffed by international corporations awash in profits. His interview with Nike CEO Phil Knight is
priceless.
"Don't you care that there are 12-year-olds working for 40 cents an hour
in your factories in Indonesia?"
"They're 14."
Many people, including Knight, have undertaken to explain to Moore that he
just doesn't understand the imperatives of economic globalization. If he understood, you see, he wouldn't be troubled
by downsizing because, you see, even though the international corporations are hugely profitable, they must remain
`competitive,' you see? And anyway, it's all inevitable because of economic globalization.
In fact, of all the bull that's being sold about economics these days, the
myth that nothing can be done about economic globalization is the silliest -- and one of the most pernicious. Linda
McQuaig's excellent new book, `The Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy'
(Viking), takes a close look at this amazing con job. She recounts an exchange between an economics professor and
a journalist who finally inquires plaintively: "Is there some way we can stop this? Is there nothing we can
do to avoid this dark future?"
The economist snaps, "That question reflects the thinking of the machine
age."
McQuaig advises: "Hold it. Let's play that again slowly. This line is
more subversive than it first appears. [He] is saying it's not just that we can't change things, `but we can't
even think about the possibility of changing things' : to do so is to engage in old-style thinking. So, it's not
just that we're powerless to stop being pushed over the edge of the cliff in the new global world order. But even
to try to prevent ourselves from being pushed over the cliff is a sign of regressive thinking. The new way of thinking
. . . requires an acceptance of powerlessness, resignation to a world without solutions -- a world of inaction
and helplessness."
The myth of the inevitability of economic globalization is based largely on
the work of Milton Friedman, and easily the most underreported story of our time is that the current economy proves
Friedman flatly wrong. You probably would have heard something about this if the media weren't awfully busy reporting
on Monica Lewinsky.
Rational Nexus
by Peggy Prince
This "rational nexus" thing makes my blood run cold. I had never
heard of it before and would like more info. I know I'm preaching to the choir here but I have a few thoughts on
this anyway, so please grant me your indulgence.
This concept makes me think of the re-legalization of slavery. I know that
if Clinton hadn't pushed for the increase in the minimum wage that triggered a discussion by the Republicans on
whether a "minimum wage" was a good idea at all, their desire to abolish it, we probably would have no
minimum wage, now. They still might achieve their goal in the future. The Greens "living wage" proposal
is all the more important now.
Slave labor is practiced in many parts of the world and seems to be growing
in popularity. Corporations, through NAFTA and GATT, have driven wages through the floor and from Burma where the
oil corporations force whole villages to work for nothing, to Mexico where the maquiladora workers live in squalid
cardboard carton cities outside the factory gates, to America where prisoners are forced to produce goods for corporations
at slave wages...the examples are endless. We are in a major mess.
To see the Supreme Court codify the superiority of the rich and the concept
that the rich (a very small percent of the population) have created a NEED for the poor is, to me, obscene. I guess
it's always been that way, as I think about it, but to acknowlege it in the Supreme Court is like repealing emancipation.
If we take a look at the last "tax reform" bill that was passed and
touted as a great thing for the other 98% of us, we see that the rich were nodding and winking at each other the
whole time, 'cause they knew that it was REALLY a boon for them. The Republicrats love to talk about how people
should be able to keep more of their "hard-earned" money, but in fact, the cut in the capital gains tax
(money made on speculation in the stock market etc., not earned by any stretch of the imagination) was a huge bonus
for the rich.
Anyway, I'm sure you get my point, and I hope this "rational nexus"
stuff gets exposed for what it really is. "The poor will always be with us", gee we better make sure
of it, say the rich.
Peggy Prince, LANLaction@aol.com
"You see, here we're all equal, it's just that some are more equal than
others."
- Animal Farm
The Globalized Economy
(or else)
by Antonin Rusek
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Scripps Howard News Service
August 29, 1999
America is entering an unprecedented ninth year of economic expansion. The name of the game is global economy.
In America, this new world of globalization resulted in fast-growing productivity and also fast-growing affluence,
permeating all segments of society.
The first duty of the American government is to ensure the prosperity of the American people. In today's world,
this means full and unconditional global engagement aimed at the preservation and expansion of the global economy.
This, however, brings new and unfamiliar challenges.
Almost everybody in the world benefits from the global economy. But people seldom look only at their own well-being.
Modern communication and mass media bring the image of an American affluence to the world's masses - masses who
do not see their own progress, but see they are falling behind America, in relative terms.
Moreover, the global economy brings "global culture" and "global values" - practically speaking,
American culture and values. But this change undermines fabrics of many societies around the world. Change is often
perceived as discomforting - even if the majority eventually benefit. But if change is perceived as destructive,
it brings about a reaction aimed at the perceived "perpetrator" - the United States.
Finally, the advent of the global economy reduces the ability of states to act as engines of growth and facilitators
of economic development and equality. States are weakened and ruling elites are displaced from their traditional
functions. That opens the space for a semi-criminalization of political activities. Such a state is almost the
ideal base for transnational crime and terrorist syndicates which target the biggest beneficiary of the global
economy - the United States.
As the global economy encompasses more of the world, one may expect these processes to intensify. That means both
greater affluence in the U.S., and greater instability in the rest of the world. The biggest beneficiary of globalization,
the United States, is likely to become the target of all who feel dissatisfied with the new world.
In the foreseeable future, no one will challenge us in a traditional manner. We are the strongest and the most
technologically advanced. Challenges will come from a different direction. Non-state and non-military actors will
attack both the global economy and global American engagement.
All spectrums of methods will be employed, from disrupting computer networks and related economic activities to
terrorist acts employing biological, chemical and perhaps nuclear agents against American targets. This will occur
both inside and outside U.S. territory. The aim is to destroy the global economy and force the U.S. to withdraw
from the world.
The United States should respond decisively by destroying the attacker.
The problem is what to do next. To prevent the repetition - whether attacks on the U.S. and global economy are
undertaken with a connivance of semi-criminalized states or by non-state agents ignoring a weak state authority
- the United States would have to take over the administration and internal security of territories from which
the attacks were launched, to restore effective state authority.
But the U.S. lacks resources to do this on the requisite scale - especially if Russia, China or India become involved.
Then we will be the subject of repeated attacks and eventually be forced to give up and retreat into isolation.
Defeat is totally unacceptable. The global economy and its benefits are our manifest destiny for the 21st century.
But to fulfill its destiny, the U.S. must deal with situations the global economy and its associated changes create
for others.
We have to preserve and strengthen our ability to deal with individual challenges swiftly, decisively and by using
military means. But what we really need is a new policy.
We have to aim at strengthening states around the world - even if such stronger states could become our competitors
in the future. We can deal with organized, state-based challenges. It is the amorphous, non-state "asymmetric"
attack that is the biggest danger and challenge in the near future.
But the policy shift is only a part of the solution. Given the fact that it is the process of globalization that
weakens traditional states and facilitates non-state asymmetric challenges, the real goal is to formulate and execute
policies which will strengthen states and advance globalization simultaneously. And this is the biggest challenge
of the near future.
Antonin Rusek is an associate professor of economics at
Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA.
 
New York Times Books@barnesandnoble.com
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