Hi. Remember the shock of 6 years ago when the all powerful WTO was shut down in Seattle? Teamsters and Greens? The moguls who own the world changed tactics and coloring while pursuing the same end by any means necessary. Since then Latin America has changed dramatically, farmers and others throughout the world have developed their own strategies and we now see the bloc in peril and panic. Greider paints the picture well.
Whither the WTO William Greider http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=105865 The announcement from Geneva that the "Doha Round" negotiations for another global trade agreement is in "collapse" lacked high drama since impending failure was already clear to all but the most fervent cheerleaders for the World Trade Organization. Five years of sloganeering and media pep talks and clever maneuvering failed to persuade developing nations or even inspire much enthusiasm in advanced economies. This is very good news for peoples of the world, though you won't see the story played that way in the American press. In round-about fashion, the WTO's failure represents belated vindication for the blue-green movement that arose in Seattle six years ago and the Global Social Forum launched later from Porto Alegre, Brazil. These bottom-up political mobilizations offered an alternative vision for globalization – not dominated by the desires and dictates of multinational corporations but by ideas of popular sovereignty and common human aspirations that are shared by people in vastly different trading nations. That promising movement was eclipsed by the drama of 9/11 and war in Iraq, but it was never really sidetracked. Many individual countries have already revolted against the "Washington Consensus" and even establishment experts are beginning to acknowledge its failures. Defeat for them in Geneva is an important marker of progress for those who can imagine a different world. That assembly includes especially the poorer nations of the world, struggling to find their way in a complex game of economic diplomacy usually controlled by the corporate big boys. This time, the impoverished countries stood their ground. They did not take the bait and swallow the empty promises, though they were coaxed and bullied by the major industrial players, led by the US. That reflects both their courage and growing maturity. The essential deal offered the poor was, if they would accept the expanded domination of the WTO and its multinational sponsors, the rich nations would slash their lush subsidies for global agribusiness, leaving more market space for agricultural producers in developing nations. Many gullible editorial writers bought the logic, but not the poorer nations themselves. To believe that promise, you had to believe George W. Bush was going to sell out Texas cotton and Florida sugar and Midwestern grain or that Paris intended to dump the prosperous farmers of Normandy. The larger meaning of the Doha collapse is the growing rejection of the WTO itself as a trustworthy governing institution for the global system. It was created ten years ago and it's been down hill ever since, both for rich and poor nations. The activists of Global Trade Watch, arm in arm with other groups around the world, make this case persuasively in a new briefing paper. The demise of Doha, they argue, should restart the worldwide debate on new and more fundamental terms – more promising for people and less deferential to global capital. "Instead of pinning blame on specific countries, the focus of energy should be on how the world's governments can develop a multilateral trade system that preserves the benefits of trade growth and development, while pruning away the many anti-democratic condstraints on domestic policy making in the existing WTO rules," Global Trade Watch explains. "Much of the backlash against coroporate globalization implemented by the WTO is aimed at the damage caused by the comprehensive one-size-fits-all, non-trade rules comprising the majority of the WTO text." In blunt summary, the new approach means the following: Scale back the powers of the WTO so that human rights, environmental, labor and other public-interest standards can be adopted "as a floor of conduct for corporations seeking the benefits of global trade rules." In other words, bring other international organizations into the process, with power to enforce standards on everything from toxics to food security to worker rights. The system, meanwhile, must loosen its grip on individual nations and governments so they can develop their own domestic priorities on non-trade issues. "Countries must be free to prioritize other values and goals above what are sometimes countervailing demands of multinational corporations," the briefing paper asserts. This is an immense challenge and obviously difficult for brain-dead politicians to grasp and embrace. But it's also an exciting and promising new opening. Imagine that the collapse of the old order has occurred, though not yet acknowledged by its sponsors. "Another world is possible," as the activists like to say, and it has just become a bit more possible. *** BUSH'S HEIR CUT: AWARDS TAX BREAK TO SON OF AN ASTOR by Greg Palast The Guardian, Comment Is Free Monday, July 31, 2006 East Hampton, New York -- Anthony Marshall, the tabloids tell us, wouldn't buy his elderly mother her prescribed medicine, locked her poodles in the pantry and refused to buy her hair dye or her favorite make-up. His mom is Brooke Astor, the ultra-rich socialite, now frail, helpless and dependent on her son. While others merely gossiped about this tragedy of dogs and cosmetics, George Bush acted. In a deft maneuver at the end of last week, Bush rammed through Congress a massive reduction in the inheritance tax. As a result of the tax change engineered by the White House, Marshall stands to save $9 million on the $45 million he expects to inherit from his mom. George W. Bush could feel Anthony's pain. It's not easy being a child of incredibly wealthy parents. Indeed, as the President noted, "death taxes" are supremely unfair to those who've earned these millions. As Mr. Bush often mentions, he himself worked long hours his whole life to be born into a rich family. Our President recently told the Detroit Economic Club that, in an era of government belt tightening, "Spending discipline requires difficult choices." But this choice was easy as pie: the President chose to use our tax dollars to reduce the burden on the most deserving. And who could be more deserving than Barbara's kids? The President himself, who stands to inherit well over $76 million from his parents, will save at least $12.7 million. Talk about family values! This year, the President's budget eliminated the $255 paid to widows of social security recipients. But who needs a measly $255 when you're going to save millions on the estate you inherit? Here's how much your family will save, if your family is the Astors. Under current law, Anthony would have to pay the government 46% of his profits from his mother's death, after the first tax-free $2 million. Now, Anthony will get the first five million tax-free and the tax rate on the rest is cut in half. Altogether, this reduction in inheritance taxes will cost, oh, a quarter trillion dollars over the next decade -- $267 billion, to be exact. To pay for it, besides eliminating the $255 widow benefit, the President's "difficult choices" included taking $12 million from the federal traumatic brain injury assistance program and $119 million from housing for the disabled. The President could have used the quarter trillion to buy every displaced family from New Orleans a one million dollar home. But, he reasoned, their kids would just end up paying estate taxes on it when their parents kicked the bucket. The National Association of Manufacturers, the key lobby for the end of estate taxes, wrote every Congressman, "Why on earth should good, honest, hard-working people" -- like Durst, Marshall and the Menendez kids -- have to pay taxes while other Americans just slack it? Congress' vote last week would eliminate only 74% of the taxes on America's wealthiest. Our President is not satisfied. Mr. Bush will not rest in peace until we emulate one of the only nations on the planet without any death taxes, Saudi Arabia. There, our president could point to the example of the billionaire bin Laden family, whose scion, Osama, unburdened by estate taxes, has donated his entire inheritance to "faith-based initiatives." Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War." To find out more about the book and to read Palast's reports go to www.GregPalast.com *** http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3480 House GOP Ties Min. Wage Hike to Estate Tax Cut by Jessica Azulay July 31 - Having tried numerous other avenues to repeal a tax that affects only America's wealthiest heirs, the Republican leadership last week tied its long-sought estate-tax cut to the minimum-wage hike hungrily sought by America's poorest workers. The measure, introduced in the US House of Representatives on Friday, was passed on Saturday by 230 lawmakers - 196 Republicans and 34 Democrats. The Democratic leadership in the Senate vowed to kill the bill when it was their turn to vote on it, likely next week. "The Senate has rejected fiscally irresponsible estate-tax giveaways before and will reject them again," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said, according to the Associated Press. "Blackmailing working families will not change that outcome." The federal minimum wage, at $5.15 per hour, has stagnated for nearly ten years. The bill passed Saturday would gradually hike the lowest wage to $7.25 per hour by 2009. According to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, the modest wage raise would directly benefit an estimated 6.6 million people who are currently bringing home less than $7.25 per hour. The average wage increase predicted for those workers is $1,200 per year. The Center also estimated that current minimum-wage workers would see their yearly incomes go up about $4,400 to $15,100 per year, still less than the federal poverty level for a family of three. The other beneficiaries of the House bill would be the heirs of Americans who have more than $5 million in assets. The estate-tax cut would allow those heirs to keep an estimated $267.5 billion between 2007 and 2016 that would otherwise go to federal coffers, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. Opponents of the estate tax have been trying all year to ease the tax on inheritance. As previously reported by The NewStandard, the House leadership recently attached a massive tax cut for the logging industry onto an estate tax repeal bill in an effort to lure Democrats from timber-rich states to vote for it. The measure passed the House, but failed to gain traction in the Senate. This time around, with election-year pressure over the stagnation of the minimum wage growing - especially after raising their own salaries - some moderate House Republicans had asked to be allowed a vote on the measure. Democrats accused the Republican leadership of allowing a vote on the minimum wage only in conjunction with a choice on the estate tax in order to back them into a corner and choose between voting against a popular wage hike or for an unsavory tax cut for the super-wealthy. Advocates for workers called on the congressional leadership to allow a "clean vote" on the minimum wage without other amendments. "For the past decade, the minimum wage has remained stagnant at $5.15 an hour while prices at the supermarket and the gas pump have steadily increased, utility costs have soared, and politicians in Washington gave themselves eight pay raises," said SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger in a press statement. © 2006 The NewStandard. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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