Globalization is happening...


By Jean Grossholtz, 20 August 2003

Globalization is happening; fortunately more rapidly by those opposed to corporate takeover than by the governments and transnational corporations operating across national borders to take control of the economy of the world, from the peasant agriculture in Mexico to the oil resources of Iraq. They are attacking our local way of life and our relation to the earth in order to promote commodities and profits. Protests in Cancun, Mexico, and worldwide, including one in Springfield at Springfield Tech on Sept 13, will correspond with the 5th ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Springfield protest will focus around the four elements of nature and represent the areas that are under attack. Earth ? the environment and the food supply. Air ? clean air for all and the media air-waves for a truly informed public opinion. Fire ? non-renewable energy resources to be used for the common good. Water ? the sacred necessity of life, our common heritage, clean water for all beings??

read full article at: womenandlife.org

Where is Cancun? nadir.org

For lots of information on Cancun actions/meetings going on during the WTO meetings see: nadir.org

?What is a WTO ministerial?? ? a ?sharp and pointed introduction? from The Indian  Indian Economic Times, 18 August 2003 nadir.org

To see the draft of the text that the Ministers are planning to agree on at Cancun:
nadir.org

For good background articles on WTO issues see: nadir.org

For a listing of actions being planned around the world see: nadir.org

Call to Cancun... and Why You Should Come

From Starhawk, ecofeminist activist
Call to Cancun: Sept 1-15, 2003
The next ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization will take place in Cancun, Mexico on September 10-15.  From the 8th on, a huge mobilization will greet the meeting with creative protest and visions of alternatives. The governments involved in the WTO are going into this meeting with strong disagreements on key areas such as agriculture.  Many of the key elements that derailed the Seattle ministerial are in place--strong internal divisions, heavy opposition, and, we hope, a powerful presence of resistance in the streets.  Below is our report on some of the preliminary organizing we did in August in Cancun and Mexico City. If you can come to Cancun, do!

Read report at: starhawk.org

and: ?Why You Should Come to Cancun?
?On the agenda for this ministerial are some of the basic issues of life: food, agriculture, services. To simplify the complexities of tariffs and subsidies and all the rest of it, the vision put forth by the corporate globalizers is like a bad science fiction film. In their version of the world, no country will produce its own food, devote common resources to provide for human needs or the nurturing of the next generation. All food will be grown in large, industrialized farms for export, using chemicals and herbicides on patented, genetically engineered crops that are further packaged, irradiated, branded, and shrink-wrapped before being sold to you at your corner large corporate supermarket. Profit, not health or sustainability, will be the determining factor in agriculture as in every area of human endeavor?
Read the full report at:
womenandlife.org
l
For information and updates on Cancun:
Indymedia Cancun: cancun.mediosindependientes.org

To find out about mobilizations and actions, or for suggestions for organizing your own: unitedforpeace.org

(Scroll down to September 13 Global Day of Action.)

The Heat is on in Geneva
From Nicola Bullard, Focus on the Global South
?The heat is on in Geneva. With just four weeks to go before the 5th ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Cancun, Mexico, director general Dr Supichai Panitchpakdi is going to have to pull out all stops to avoid a Seattle-like meltdown.
It is just over 20 months since the Doha "development round" of trade negotiations was launched, and one can safely say that absolutely no progress has been made towards putting the "development" into the round??
focusweb.org

WTO-CANCUN:
Activists Want to Convert Conference into Battlefield
  By Marwaan Macan-MarkarBANGKOK, Aug 20 (IPS) -
Asian activists have set their sights on convertingnext month's World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting into a battlefield witha single aim in mind: destroying the relevance of this multilateral tradebody.For weapons, they will bring their newly sharpened ideas and razor-edgedmessages on why the Geneva-based WTO ''should be got rid of'' or ''pushedback''.
focusweb.org

Behind the Scenes at the WTO:

the Real World of International Trade Negotiations
 By Fatoumata Jawara and Aileen Kwa
 Zed Books, London.
?This immenselyThis important book on the politics of the WTO, which takes the lid off how the WTO really works, and what really happened before, at, and after the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha in 2001, on the basis of interviews with 33 Geneva-based delegates to the WTO and 10 Secretariat staff members.
This is the ammunition the critics of the WTO have been waiting for??
www.focusweb.org

Meanwhile, movement in the USA continues?

War?s byproduct is peace activism
By MARY CAREY, Staff Writer
Monday, June 9, 2003 -- Though the combat in Iraq is mostly over, many peace activists are as busy as ever, attending meetings on a broad range of issues they see as inextricably connected with the war. gazettenet.com

 
Homeland Imperialism: Fear and Resistance
 by Bernardine Dohrn
"The creation and cultivation of fear is one of the pillars of empire both abroad and within the imperial ?homeland.? And that fear is always accompanied by the threat of discipline, punishment, and violence. Every state uses violence to enforce its power against its enemies, but we must recognize that a major change has occurred. September 11, 2001 gave a green light for a full blown, and bipartisan, agenda of repression at home, as well as for the expanded imperial project abroad.

Yet it?s important when we talk of repression always to pair it with resistance. As we pile up the evidence of consolidated state power we must remember that a part of what has happened since 9/11 includes 2/15?that is February 15 of this year, when as many as ten million people around the world simultaneously joined to cry out against U.S. imperialism..."
monthlyreview.org

Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic, and child advocate, is director of the Children and Family Justice Center and clinical associate professor of law in Chicago.
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