228 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
228 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 7 Num. 91
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======================================
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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LEFTISTS BLAST BANKERS
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Media Blacks Out Precedent-Setting Affair
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By Warren Hough
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(*The Spotlight*, 05/27/96)
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Liberal and leftist groups from around the world met recently
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in Washington to attack free trade, the World Trade
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Organization, the international banks and globalism. The
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meeting was blacked out by the plutocratic media.
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+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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In a tidal wave of criticism, protests and calls to action
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against "international corporate tyranny," a coalition of major
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left-leaning reform groups, environmental movements and consumer
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alliances has declared war on the "unelected and unaccountable
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global elites who are seizing control of one-world governance."
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A manifesto issued by participants at the coalition's first mass
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rally in Washington extolled populist themes. It denounced
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internationalists and especially the Trilateral Commission as the
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"developers" of corporate globalization. Globalization, they
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insisted, would devastate fragile ecologies in the Third World,
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further impoverish its people through exploitation of cheap
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labor, and destroy traditional cultures and nationalities.
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It warned that the recently established World Trade Organization
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(WTO) demonstrated the sort of Rockefeller-sponsored agency
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"designed to serve as a global governing body for transnational
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corporate interests."
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At the three-day convocation which opened on May 11, speakers
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from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Friends of
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the Earth, the Center for Technology Assessment, the Sierra Club,
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Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, the Polaris Institute, and more
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than a dozen other generally left-oriented national organizations
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delivered incisive indictments of the International Monetary
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Fund, the World Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve as "amoral
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enforcers of the world's worst exploiters."
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-+- Coalition Split -+-
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Experienced observers of the coalition rally, held under the
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aegis of the International Forum on Globalization, were surprised
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to note that leading environmental organizations, among them the
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Rainforest Action Network, the Migratory Species Project, the
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Network for Safe and Secure Food and Environment and the
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*Ecologist Magazine* led the attack on the North American Free
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Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other globalist "free trade" pacts
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log-rolled by the Clinton administration.
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"Bill Clinton has been particularly crafty -- and successful --
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in dividing and confusing the opposition of these so-called
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Greens to NAFTA, the WTO and other so-called 'free trade' deals,"
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explained Mark Dowie, a scholar who is writing a book on
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environmental protection for the M.I.T. Press.
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But when Carl Pope, the youthful executive director of the
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600,000 member Sierra Club, rose to deliver one of the keynote
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speeches of the symposium, he left no doubt about where his
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movement stood now.
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"The Sierra Club has spent more money running newspaper ads
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criticizing NAFTA than any other topic in its history," Pope
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said. In spite of all that, the ill-conceived trade pact was
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adopted.
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What this means is that "Pat Buchanan deserves a more serious
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look," Pope declared. "In this year's campaign he ended up
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challenging globalization, confronting the World Trade
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Organization, lamenting the increasing inequality of incomes in
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our society, and challenging the role of Wall Street financiers
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in shaping our futures."
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In response, the "international capitalist-connected wing of the
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Republican Party led by George Will read him out of the party and
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rallied the conservative, the socially conservative, wing of the
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Republican party around Bob Dole, and that was the end of Pat
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Buchanan's presidential challenge," Pope related.
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What we should note, Pope said, is that Buchanan's campaign began
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with "locally rooted cultural themes that led him inevitably to
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challenge globalization" as an ideology and as a strategy.
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The strategy suggests that despite the Clinton administration's
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enthusiasm for "free trade and despite the adoption of NAFTA, the
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global economy is not really inevitable."
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Many of the global economy's most powerful promoters, and "some
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of its top advocates and beneficiaries understand this," argued
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Pope. "They know that the global economy is far from inevitable,
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and they are quite nervous, quite anxious, perhaps even petrified
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that the world may wake up and realize this."
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But if globalization is not the predestined wave of the future,
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Pope asked, "Why does it seem so irresistible, so overwhelming,
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and why is the public dialogue that surrounds it so one-sided" --
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that is, slanted in favor of free trade?
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The reason -- at least one key reason -- Pope explained, is that
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"we have allowed the advocates of free trade -- the economists
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and their allies and those who profit from it -- to capture,
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redefine and appropriate our language."
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By taking over terms such as "conservative" ("'Conservatives are
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for free trade,' we read all the time") and "liberal" (as in
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"trade liberalization," a term that suggests globalization means
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more freedom) or even "common market," a concept implying that
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international commerce will create new communities for people,
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the globalists have subverted all meaningful debate over free
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trade and one-world elites, Pope argued.
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-+- Fight For The Mind -+-
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One of the most important things that Americans must do now is to
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recapture the real sense of such concepts, especially the
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genuinely positive meaning of the words "protectionism" and
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"conservatism" urged Pope.
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Evidence that not just the meaning but the politics of
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protectionism and populism are gaining favor among "progressive"
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organizations long dominated by leftist notions of "international
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cooperation" emerged from talks and debates held during the two
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days of meetings and panel discussions following Pope's address.
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"Whether our main concern is the national economy or the global
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ecology, we are staring catastrophe in the face," said Jean-Luc
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Jouvet of Greenpeace. "I used to attend the [annual] meetings of
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the World Bank where we heard dulcet expressions of concern for
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the world's poor and its wildlife."
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"They were lies," he added. "There is no way any of us can
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ignore that reality now."
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Ralph Nader, head of the Public Citizen alliance, perhaps the
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most eagerly awaited speaker of the conference, cancelled his
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appearance with the explanation that bad weather had closed down
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Washington's airports.
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Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch,
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represented his group. She delivered a sharp indictment of the
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administration's "free trade frenzy" and of its most recent
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spawns, NAFTA and WTO.
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"NAFTA's effects have not just fallen short of expectations; they
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turned out to be the exact opposite of its promise," Wallach
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declared. "It would be one thing if it had not hit the bull's
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eye or even the target. But we can see now that NAFTA has shot
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us in the leg."
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To document her indictment, Wallach noted that "instead of
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creating 200,000 new jobs, as promised, NAFTA has led to the loss
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of 600,000 U.S. jobs so far."
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Moreover, American workers who were not fired "saw the sharpest
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drop in real hourly wages on record during the first year of
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NAFTA," she added.
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In Mexico, where NAFTA was promoted as the catalyst of a business
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boom, it has generated instead "deteriorating economic
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conditions, political instability, growing despair and rising
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social tensions," Wallach confirmed.
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The WTO, which was created to replace the old General Agreement
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on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) at 1993's negotiating session known
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as the Uruguay Round, has turned out to be an equally insidious
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instrument of globalized plunder, asserted Wallach.
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WTO's broad new powers over commerce will "override the domestic
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tax, health, food, product safety and anti-pollution laws of the
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U.S.," Wallach explained.
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This so-called free-trade pact will replace the World Bank and
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the International Monetary Fund "as the principal enforcer of
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global financial interests," she predicted.
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As recently as five years ago, "many of the people here were
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dreamy internationalists of one sort or another," said Willard
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Smith of the Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union, who
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represented the AFL-CIO at the conference.
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"But what we have seen of NAFTA, the WTO and international
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financial speculation has been a rough wake-up call," he added.
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"We will not just take a serious second look at Pat Buchanan, as
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Carl [Pope] said: I think quite a few of us will vote for him in
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the fall."
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+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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You may be unable to find The Spotlight at your local library or
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news dealer. To subscribe, phone 1-800-522-6292 (Maryland 1-301-
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951-6292). Note that I have no personal connection to The
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Spotlight nor am I compensated by them. I also neither
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necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or parts of the
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views expressed in The Spotlight.
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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