Brian, You ask me to comment on John McMurty's third meta-principle.
This is what he wrote: "(3) Transnational corporations acting in concert through the WTO and its related supranational constructs prescribe to and are represented by financed national government parties which act in these matters solely on behalf of transnational corporate access to foreign markets and resources with no barriers." The first joke I heard when I arrived in New York on my way to Toronto in 1954 was "America has the best politicians that money can buy." I think it was a joke. Deprivation, low mortality, internecine conflict, have been around for a long time. Now, the philosophers of the new left have discovered it and cry WTO as if Free trade is responsible. For example, there is now a pharmaceutical lobbyist for every two congressmen. I think that this is the kind of thing he meant by this paragraph. He brings the WTO in I suppose to show he's one of us. Yet, all this legal corruption was there before the WTO. (Rather as the anti-globalizers blame world poverty and distress on globalization as if everything was sweetness and light in Africa and Asia before the attempt to break down barriers.) The problem faced by the WTO is that the US and Europe won't allow the third world to make a living. They refuse to drop their tariffs and other import restrictions. So it would make more sense not to protest the WTO - but to protest the tariff barriers. Not that you'll have much luck if you do that, because the tariff barriers are reinforced by those same corporations that the protesters dislike so much - even as they work for them. He continued the paragraph with: 'This private corporate rule over governments everywhere is evident from the general facts that no binding regulation yet protects any right but that of transnational corporate investors, and not one article of any already signed international covenant or treaty protecting human rights, labour or the environment is binding on any part of any one of these unprecedentedly enforced "agreements".' The protection of "human rights, labour or the environment" is a joke. If it were not, the various international bodies involved in these things could disband and go home. What happens when the WTO threatens the fat cats' tariff protected monopolies, is they scream "environment!" "labor!" "rights!"or anything else that will divert attention from their real purpose - to maintain their privileges at the expense of the people. He finishes up with: "Indeed, the Kyoto Treaty on climate-altering gases, the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting chemicals and emissions, the Basel Convention on transboundary pollutants as well as the entire body of established international solemn agreements and covenants on human and labour rights have been consistently overridden by transnational corporate practices or the explicit judgements of WTO trade panels." Mostly, they should be. These are all good things that suppose an ideal solution with no costs - a dream world. They are earnestly decided by people who have a vested interest in things like this, things often so utterly divorced from reality that they tend to the ludicrous. As I've reported here before, some 19,000 scientists and engineers have petitioned against Kyoto. As one clever person replied - they must all be paid by the oil companies. Obviously, anyone who dares to deny the Absolute Truth must be in the pay of the devil. How can one deny that the world is in a parlous condition? Yet, the problem with the McMurty thesis - at least after reading this summary - is that it will divert attention from the real threats to progress - the real dangers that face us. No solution to our deep troubles will even be approached if we are continually chasing after the latest chimera. I'll repeat what I said. It is beautifully written nonsense. Harry ________________________________________________________ Brian McAndrews wrote: >Harry, >My country truly must be going to the dogs. John McMurty, the author of >this beautiful nonsense, was recently appointed to The Royal Society of >Canada in recognition of his scholarly work. >Are any of his 15 meta-principles even remotely accurate? How about >number 3? Please carefully debunk his nonsense and help me see the truth. > >Thanks, >Brian > > > > >>Brian, >> >>This is beautifully written nonsense. I wish he had found something >>better to do with his education. >> >>Who are behind the institution of our 8,500 tariffs and umpteen >>non-tariff walls - the consumer? >> >>It's the corporations, who hate competition. The job of NAAFTA and the >>other free trade organizations is to seek to break down barriers erected >>between peoples. >> >>And they are opposed by the corporation fat cats, and the major unions >>eating from the same trough. >> >>And by propaganda filled "activists" who have never stopped shouting long >>enough to think about anything. >> >>Harry >> >>_________________________ > >-- >************************************************** >* Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator * >* Faculty of Education, Queen's University * >* Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 * >* FAX:(613) 533-6596 Phone (613) 533-6000x74937* >* e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * >* "Education is not the filling of a pail, * >* but the lighting of a fire. * >* W.B.Yeats * >* * >************************************************** ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
