...i do want to question what looks like a bit of reductivism--'nothing less than,' 'version of this same,' and so on there are some very new dynamics at work here, and it's a mistake to ignore them. what interests me is the specific manner in which orgs such as the WTO--there are *many*--appear 'as if from thin air.' shedding light on the *details* of their origins and operations can go a long way to weakening them, i think. that means asking the basic old questions: who, what, when, where, why, and, above all, the investigative axiom 'follow the money.'
t byfield
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You're right, it was reductionist, but primarily for the purpose of rhetorical clarity, naming the beast so to speak--and because of course I don't know the details. I also agree that there are new dynamics, particularly in regard to moves for total closure--an idea very much like monopoly practices, but say more pro-active. In other words, strategies backed up by law and government policy that remove or exclude any other choices except those determined by capital interest. Obviously I agree that getting at the detail is critically important.
The way I would want to see the detail developed is through a long series of news items that just unravel the bullshit, name names and organizations and all the networks of deals and screw jobs that must be in the blizzard of paper and correspondence between businesses between business and government and between one government agency and another--much along the lines of how the Vietnam strategies and their public faces were unraveled. Everybody forgets the Penagon Papers were already history by the time Ellisberg sent them to the NYT or the WP (I forget which now). These papers merely confirmed what the anti-war movement had been screaming for years.
At any rate, my interest would be of course the real jerk-off corporate pigs like those in the GE-Mexico piece. But I am also interested in the waves to come in the service sector--this is a real nightmare. Some of the basic plan is captured in Doug's forward on the WTO & health care:
[Correspondence to: Prof Allyson M Pollock (e-mail: allyson.pollock at ucl.ac.uk)
Abstract:
High up on the agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the privatisation of education, health, welfare, social housing and transport. The WTO ís aim is to extend the free market in the provision of traditional public services. Governments in Europe and the US link the expansion of trade in public services to economic success, and with the backing of powerful medico-pharmaceutical, insurance, and service corporations, the race is on to capture the share of gross domestic product that governments currently spend on public services. They will open domestic European services and domestic markets to global competition by government procurement agreements, dispute-settlement procedures, and the investment rules of global financial institutions. The UK has already set up the necessary mechanisms: the introduction of private-sector accounting rules to public services; the funding of public-sector investment via private-public partnerships or the private finance initiative; and the change to capitation funding streams, which allows the substitution of private for public funds and services. We explain the implications of these changes for European public-health-care systems and the threat they pose to universal coverage, solidarity through risk- pooling, equity, comprehensive care, and democratic accountability.]
When you consider this idea has to have been pushed by the giant health and drug industries, then you see that the nightmare of HMO's in the US is just the first step--the UK and EU are the next target. What a pig fest. When you add in the agricultural-biotech systems for food and feed, the banks and financial sector to the concept of 'services', then you really get some idea of what's in the works--not to mention media and telecommunications.
These sorts of government facilitated corporate plans really, really, need to be stopped--they are waay beyond the pale of piggyness. And so, I think steps have to be taken to systematically expose these plans to the public light--not after the fact, when of course the political and economic potency of the information has already been lost.
As regards DNS issues, I can't add anything, because I don't really understand the implications. It would help if you fleshed them out a little more.
Chuck Grimes