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m.a. denne Observer-artikkelen til Gregory Palast
http://www.gregpalast.com/
Legg spesielt merke til dette avsnittet:
In a September 24 speech before the Institute for International Economics,
Trade Ambassador Zoellick laid the groundwork for a new McCarthyism aimed
at anti-globalization dissidents. "Terrorists hate the ideas America has
championed around the world," he said. "It is inevitable that people will
wonder if there are intellectual connections with others who have turned
to violence to attack international finance, globalization and the United
States."
Oddmund Garvik
http://www.globalexchange.org/fasttrack/observer101401.html
<<<<<<<
Inside Corporate America
The Observer (London)
October 14, 2001
By Greg Palast
After the attack on the World Trade Center, some enterprising hucksters
here in New York tried to sell little bags of ashes to victims' families,
supposedly of their missing kin.
The stomach-churning commercialization of mass murder didn't bottom out
there. Barely had the towers hit the ground when U.S. Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick proclaimed the way to defeat Osama bin Laden was to grant
George W. Bush extraordinary 'fast-track' trade treaty negotiating
authority. Ambassador bin Zoellick, speaking from what looked like a cave
on Capitol Hill, surrounded by unidentified Republicans, said Americans
had to choose: for free trade or for terrorism.
You'd think Democrats would blast Zoellick for this crude, heartless and
somewhat oddball maneuver to jam through Bush's big business agenda while
a nation mourned. But this week, war-spooked Democrats in Congress are
expected to vote to revive the moribund trade legislation. 'Fast-track'
gives Bush carte blanche authority to bargain a big expansion of the World
Trade Organization's powers in anticipation of the WTO confab scheduled
for Qatar in three weeks. 'Fast-track' also greases approval for a Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The announcement was followed by a disturbing CNN video tape of corporate
lobbyists dancing in the streets and handing out sweets to children.
In a September 24 speech before the Institute for International Economics,
Trade Ambassador Zoellick laid the groundwork for a new McCarthyism aimed
at anti-globalization dissidents. "Terrorists hate the ideas America has
championed around the world," he said. "It is inevitable that people will
wonder if there are intellectual connections with others who have turned
to violence to attack international finance, globalization and the United
States."
The implied evil link between opponents al-Queda and opponents of the WTO
came to him, he said, from New Republic Magazine. This is the same
journal, by the way, whose featured columnist suggested, "We should invade
their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Exactly what are the particulars of the US trade agenda for the WTO that
are supposed to make terrorists shake with fear? There are two holy grails
in Zoellick's trade crusade which go by the benign namesm "national
treatment in services" and "investor-to-state dispute resolution."
Want to keep the Royal Post -- pardon me, Consignia -- in government
hands, or air traffic control? Not a chance, says John Howard of the US
Chamber of Commerce. As Howard explained it to me, a WTO 'national
treatment' clause will take that decision out of the hands of pesky
parliaments, requiring government agencies to bid against foreign
operators.
Which brings us to the Machiavellian side of these trade proposals
(already promoted, by the way, by EU negotiators). Should Bechtel or any
other foreign corporation challenge the continued public ownership of the
London Underground, it will fall to Tony Blair to defend government
ownership. If you suspect Blair's minions might not argue too forcefully
before the disputes panel, you'll never find out. Unlike British and
American court proceedings, WTO tribunals are closed and secretive.
A Blair or a Bush or any potentate hostile to state-owned enterprises can
use a 'national treatment' rule as a sword in their jihad against their
own government's agencies.
The other codicil sought by fast-track globalizers, "Investor-to-state
dispute resolution," has already been deployed in the NAFTA zone. (NAFTA,
the North American Free Trade Agreement, is where US industry uses Canada
and Mexico for target practice to test trade weapons they will take
international through WTO.)
Investor-to-state dispute resolution allows a foreign corporation wronged
by violations of a trade pact to receive compensation from the miscreant
nation's treasury. It all sounds quite fair. In practice under NAFTA,
corporations have used the system to demolish local governments'
environmental and consumer protections. In 1997, a state government in
Mexico attempted to stop an American operator building a toxic waste dump
in an ecological preservation zone. A NAFTA disputes panel ordered Mexico
to pay $15.6 million (#10.4 million) to Metalclad for delay of its
polluting plan.
The most dangerous case comes before a NAFTA panel this week. Loewen Corp,
a big Canadian funeral home chain, is deeply unhappy about American tort
law. In 1996, a Mississippi jury ruled that Loewen breached a contract and
bullied a small operator as part of a schme to monopolize the industry and
raise prices. Rather than appeal the verdict to a higher court, Loewen
settled for $150 million -- then whipped around and demanded the US
government refund the sum and then some -- $725 million.
In LOEWEN V. MISSISSIPPI JURY, the Canadian operator demands that a NAFTA
panel overturn basic procedures of the US civil justice system as an
illegal barrier to trade. While the case is pending on the facts, the
disputes panel has accepted jurisdiction. That ruling in effect makes
NAFTA, not the US Supreme Court nor our Constitution, the ultimate legal
authority of North America. Small wonder that American and European
business chiefs are chanting "Disputes Resolution is Great!" outside the
walls of Doha, Qatar, as the WTO prepares for the ministerial meeting.
If Zoellick's statements on terror and trade sound a bit over the top, he
is only reflecting the Bush Administration's sense of panic over the Qatar
confab which, even before September 11, was heading toward collapse and
cancellation. WTO President Michael Moore failed to stampede less
developed counties into putting a new round of comprehensive trade talks
on the Qatar agenda.
Add to that the US President's lack of authority to negotiate, and who
would bother to fly to the Gulf state, especially now? Hence, Zoellick's
whipping skeptical Democrats about the head and shoulders with the Stars
and Stripes.
The Trade Representative had a second target in his trade-or-terrorism
tirade: the alliance of greens, populists and unionists who beat back
prior attempts at 'fast track' legislation even when Congress was in
Republican hands. Zoellick hopes to discredit this effective coalition by
wrapping the anti-globalization movement in bin Laden's turban.
Lamentably, Zoellick is getting a lot of help on his smear campaign from
befuddled souls within the anti-globalization movement itself. Bush's
trade chief quotes gleefully from an Earth Island Journal writer who took
the ill line that the attack on the Trade Center was some kind of
extension, if misguided and criminal, of the struggle against
globalization.
Bin Laden, born with a silver Rolls in his mouth and a stock portfolio to
rival any Rockefeller, hardly qualifies as a class warrior. Nevertheless,
Earth Island Journal's opportunistic hijacking of the mass murder to
promote its agenda is not exceptional. There's a horrific weirdness in
hearing both Zoellick and an unforgivable number of European Leftists
(friends who should know better) calling the twin towers symbols of
American capitalism.
EXCUSE ME, but until I began scribbling for The Observer, I worked on
Floor 50 of the North Tower -- which stood, among New Yorkers, as a symbol
of American SOCIALISM. These government-owned skyscrapers housed the Port
Authority, proprietor of subways, bridges and more, America's first line
of defense against the privatization jihad sweeping the rest of the
planet.
It is eery, anguishing and vile to watch Bush's free-market fanatics join
together with a self-absorbed element of the left to use this tragedy to
sell us their phoney little bags of political ashes.
Special thanks to Mary Bottari of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch for
expert explanation and nonpareil research material.
>>>>>>>
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