1. Bilderberg book due out Jan 2001 2. A Green Critique of Globalisation - Caroline Lucas MEP //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////////////////////// Power Elite Public Information Service - www.bilderberg.org/bilder.htm#pepis To bypass the search engines put in a link link to http://www.bilderberg.org PLEASE FORWARD TO NEWSGROUPS AND ANYONE YOU FEEL WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THIS INFORMATION This is an occasional (approx. 1 per month) email list as part of the campaign for press access to and public awareness of Bilderberg and similar elite meetings. See www.bilderberg.org/bilder.htm for more info. To subscribe or unsubscribe send me <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> an email with PEPIS in the subject header. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/ & http://www.egroups.com/messages/pepis \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Bilderberg book due out soon ---------------------------- I just found a Washington Post, 10 September 2000 article in which the following book is announced for January 2001. This would be most welcome as Bilderberg is the only private planning group about which no decent book exists... best regards, Arjen Nijeboer "Arjen Nijeboer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> New Book - 'Private Capacity' by Renata Adler The first serious study of the ultra-secretive Bilderberg Conferences and their role in the modern world. In 1954, a group of leaders of the Western World held a secret meeting in Holland that would lead to the formation of the Bilderberg group. That meeting included officials from the United States and from two countries, Germany and Italy, which were defeated in World War II, and which were participating for the first time on an equal basis with other European powers. Since that first meeting Bilderberg has included presidents, Prime Ministers, bankers, princes, tycoons, labor leaders, secretaries of state, NATO commanders, ambassadors, and others whose occupations are not widely known. Media barons and journalists are often invited. But only if they agree to keep secret who was there and what was said. Bilderberg has been characterized as an elite think tank or an International Establishment, an elaborate social and business network, or a conspiracy that actually runs the world. This book addresses, for the first time, the true history of the organization, its participants and effects. With a cache of Bilderberg archives, secretly turned over to the author by a few senior leaders of the Bilderberg, the book describes the organization, and discusses who has been involved and when. It shows connections that exist and connections that--despite rumor, and a virtual obsession of the extreme left and right--do not. It explains how Bilderberg has changed, and in what ways it may have changed the world. The author also analyzes questions raised by clubs, cabals, exclusive and secret or not-secret groups of every sort. About the Author Educated at Bryn Mawr, Harvard, the Sorbonne and Yale Law School, Renata Adler has had an unrivaled career as a reporter, novelist and short story writer. She was for many years on the staff of The New Yorker. She has also been the chief film critic of The New York Times. She won prizes for her novels, essays and short stories. She is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters. Her most recent book is Gone: The Last Days of the New Yorker. Hardcover - 288 pages 1 edition (January 2001) Public Affairs; ISBN: 1891620908 ============================================================================ ======================= from: 'Challenging the Free Trade Agenda' http://www.greenparty.org.uk/homepage/reports/2000/meps/enlargementreport.htm A Green Critique of Globalisation --------------------------------- Caroline Lucas MEP There is overwhelming evidence that economic globalisation is responsible both for growing social inequalities and for unprecedented environmental damage. For example, UNCTAD's 1997 Trade and Development Report concludes that globalisation in its current form is responsible for a dramatic increase in global inequality. In 1965, the average personal income in G7 countries was 20 times that in the seven poorest countries in the world. By 1995, the difference had become 39 times greater. Income inequalities and polarisation are growing within countries, with the income of the top 20 per cent of the population in most nations having increased significantly and disproportionately since the early 1980s. At the same time, contrary to the claims of some that globalisation automatically leads to poverty reduction, the 1990s ended with 70 million more people in the developing world (excluding China) in poverty than at the start of the decade. In reality, of course, the obvious beneficiary of globalisation is the international corporate sector. The growth and power of transnational companies (TNCs) is both enormous and unprecedented. The result is that 47 of the top 100 economies of the world are TNCs, 70 per cent of global trade is controlled by just 500 corporations, and a mere 1 per cent of TNCs are responsible for half the total foreign direct investment in the world. Their strength and mobility have been facilitated both by technological advances and by the progressive withdrawal of investment controls by governments and by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). By exploiting differences in social and environmental standards between countries in order to maximise profits, TNCs are able to create global production systems over which Governments have ever less control. Democracy in Europe is also further undermined, as global corporate giants disproportionately increase the bargaining powers held by TNCs, and thereby strengthen corporate dominance in political decision making. Corporate Control and European Integration Few realise the extent to which both the introduction of the Single Market and the wider ongoing process of globalisation have been driven and accelerated over the past three decades by the world's leading business elites. They share common aims, including global economic integration, deregulation, and an economic philosophy based on free trade and international competitiveness. They have lobbied for free trade agreements such as the GATT Uruguay Round (spearheaded by the International Chamber of Commerce), the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, promoted by the US Business Roundtable of TNCs, together with Canada's equivalent, the Business Council on National Issues) and the European Single Market and Single Currency agreements (led by the European Roundtable of Industrialists, ERT). Indeed, the ERT has been one of the main political forces in the European Union for over a decade. It was set up with the express intention of reviving European integration and shaping it to the preferences of European TNCs. The key to its success has been the financial power of its members and hence its ready access to decision makers, both at national and at European level. Founded in 1983, and made up of 45 highly influential captains of industry from large European transnational corporations, this little known organisation lobbied heavily for the EEC's 'internal market' in the 1980s, the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, and later the Single Currency. Together with UNICE (the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe), the ERT has also lobbied extensively for the speedy enlargement of the EU towards the East. For Western corporations, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe offer an enormous market waiting to be conquered, as well as a reservoir of skilled and lower waged labour. For the ERT, enlargement is essential: "It will bring great economic benefits. These countries will bring new people, a lot of skills, technology, education, know-how. They will bring material resources including land and energy, and they will bring markets for our products." UNICE is in no doubt that it is this latter aspect which it finds attractive. Its former Director General Zygmunt Tyszkkiewicz enthusiastically and unapologetically explains: "In the West we have mature markets. We are already consuming everything that we are able to consume. You cannot drive two cars at the same time. So we have a slow growth economy�To the East of us, we have around a hundred million people with sophisticated tastes who lack all the items we are already consuming. They need those items." Both lobby groups insist, however, that CEE countries undergo stringent structural adjustment prior to accession. National economic policies must be harmonised with those set by the Union, and markets must be fully opened to Western goods, services, and investments. In short, governments are expected to give up control over their own economies - spelling destruction for local businesses. And indeed these countries are now busy bringing their legislation into line with Single Market requirements, thus fulfilling the business groups' main objective: a harmonised market and liberalised investment regime for the whole of the European continent. Meanwhile, governments of the current EU member states have wasted no time in setting out the forthcoming opportunities for their own national businesses. The UK Minister for Competitiveness in Europe, for example, has recently written of enlargement in the following terms: "I want to be sure that British businesses are ready to seize the benefits. Competition from other member states for the commercial and other economic gains of enlargement will be intense. To be certain that your business secures the most from EU enlargement, you need to be aware of the opportunities offered, and how to exploit them." //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////////////////////// Power Elite Public Information Service - www.bilderberg.org/bilder.htm#pepis To bypass the search engines put in a link link to http://www.bilderberg.org PLEASE FORWARD TO NEWSGROUPS AND ANYONE YOU FEEL WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THIS INFORMATION This is an occasional (approx. 1 per month) email list as part of the campaign for press access to and public awareness of Bilderberg and similar elite meetings. See www.bilderberg.org/bilder.htm for more info. To subscribe or unsubscribe send me <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> an email with PEPIS in the subject header. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/ & http://www.egroups.com/messages/pepis \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
