Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>(CR) >>This is the usual strawman paradox, constructed based on misrepresenting >>the "antiglobalization" position. As I pointed out in the past on this >>list, the appropriate term would be "anti-FG" (Friedman's Globalization, >>not to give Friedman too much credit, but to name a typical >>proponent).>> > >Yes, I agree that this is a rather silly remark of Amartya Sen (though it >contains a grain of truth in that the most violent protesters at Quebec >and >Prague, etc. would have undoubtedly have gone home to watch themselves on >the evening news programme of their TV sets that were made thousands of >miles away). > >But why Christoph, why do you then trot out the currently-fashionable >anti-globalisation argument? It isn't an argument, actually, but just a >slogan. And, what's worse, you've personalised with the use of Friedman's >name, thereby making globalisation easier to hate? > >Don't you understand that globalisation is one of the first things that >homo sapiens practised from the beginning? Here's a little story. I really don't understand why you in turn continue to repeat the dogma that the protests are against globalization, blythly ignoring the continuously repeated objections raised here and by "anti-globalization" advocates that >>>The Objections Are Not To Globalization, They Are To Corporatization<<<. You continue to construct your own strawman in return. And thus you continue to endorse the "globalization" movement on the basis that it is primarily a "free trade" action, when it is clear to me that freeing trade is just a minor propaganda point, and the key motive is the completion of global corporate hegemony. These guys don't really give a damn if trade is freer in the end, as long as corporations are fully in charge, fully above the law, and fully immune to any liability or prosecution for their abuses, jointly, severally, shareholders or corporate entities. If at that point, trade barriers become profitable for them, trade barriers will appear, and no one will be able to do a damn thing about it because the corporate cabal will be ruling the world, and doing whatever the hell they like. And all the international mechanisms supposedly in place to police "free trade" will in fact be in the service of the corporate hegemony, and perfectly out of reach of democratic action. You watch. If the corporate players suddenly perceive the profit advantage of a strategic trade barrier, that glorious flagship of "free trade", the WTO, will suddenly be falling all over itself to craft clever rationalizations why this apparent paradox in its mandate is a perfectly acceptable logical necessity, and of course you can bet your retirement that it will be utterly oblivious to whatever privations and suffering, right up to and including riot, starvation, and death, that its about face will cause. You might think I'm being hyperbolically cynical, but I'm just projecting from the fine examples of compassion and humanitarian responsibility already demonstrated by the sage and revered elders of the international financial governance community. Such a noble lot, so worthy of our admiration and aspiration. Every one a gem. [snipped a couple lines more than I meant to...] >thinking about -- just as (believe it or not) a significiant number of >worthy people within the WTO, IMF and World Bank are also trying to do. >Unfortunately, there are many groups (including multinationals, trade >unions, professional associations, and even groups within the WTO, IMF >and >World Bank, etc) who want to "protect" what they already have, and so the >arguments (and tariffs and corruption, and so on) continue emotionally >rather than rationally. There might be one or two decent human beings left here and there who have not left in disgust, like Stiglitz, at the moral bankruptcy of the gang of corporate lackies and hoodlums running roughshod over the world at the top levels of the international financial machine, but don't think for a moment they are in any position to make any difference other than to perhaps help provide an illusion of legitimacy over the greatest coup d'etat - the first coup de monde - ever committed. Feh. Yours in amiable discourse, I remain the serenely optimistic, reserved, circumspect and well-adjusted Pete Vincent.
