"These corporations believe that nation-states are out of date—that global investors should reign supreme...freed from pesky government rules..."
There's a plan for one world government...
...but it's not guys in black helicopters, it's GLOBAL CORPORATIONS
March 1999
Edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer
Volume 1, Number 3
Hightower Lowdown
Copyright 1999
Last year in Paris a bunch of guys in suits met secretly to draft a document they called 'the constitution of a single global economy.' We called it 'NAFTA on steroids'-a stealth, ONE WORLD, WDI plan for a rogue world government. Their scheme was so butt- ugly that it couldn't stand the light of day, and thanks to grass- roots exposure and agitation, the suits have had to back away from any direct presentation of their 11 global constitution,' which they called the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI).
But this doesn't mean the MAI has gone away-it's just gone undercover. The new scheme by the global go-getters is to try slipping every single provision of the MAI into other trade agreements, using the World Trade Organization as their crowbar.
Who's doing this to us? The Clinton Administration for one, with the full backing of the GOP congressional leadership. With trade officials from the 28 other wealthiest nations on the globe, the U.S. Trade Representative negotiated for two years on this stinker. They were so secretive that U.S. Senators were completely in the dark until listeners to my Chat & Chew radio show got @radio-active' on the issue early last year and began calling them. The media was equally clueless. But the trade negotiators were not alone in Paris. With them in the drafting sessions were Exxon, Nestle, GM, Chase Manhattan, Credit Suisse, ADM, Nippon, Goldman Sachs, BP and the other global' giants that now proudly call themselves "transnational."
These corporations believe that nation-states are out of date—that global investors should reign supreme, meaning whoever has access to lots of money, ought to be freed from pesky government rules and regulations. The MAI is their idea, they were the force behind the surreptitious negotiations in Paris ... and they continue to push it today in their new shell game of "hide the MAI."
Okay, so what's it mean to us? One example: they want to ban any government anywhere from making investment rules that protect the economic, environmental and social needs of people.
Here's how things will look in the Brave New World these big businessmen are creating:
The Clinton Administration thought about demanding side- bar agreements to the MAI on labor and the environment. But the U.S. Council for International Business told Bill to forget that idea. "The MAI is an agreement by governments to protect inter- national investors and their investments and to liberalize investment regimes," said the USCIB President (notice how they like that word " "liberalize" when it means giving them the right to do whatever they want). "We will oppose any and all measures to create or even imply binding obligations for governments or business related to environment or labor."
All this, they say, will produce enough wealth to soften the hearts of dictators, make capitalists of child laborers, create a world of consumers all exporting to each other and give all of us pie in the sky when we die.
Hey, I was born at night but it wasn't last night; how about you?
This is nothing but Ronald Reagan's 'trickle-down' nonsense gone global. It's George Bush's gibberish about a New World Order. Then came Bill Clinton, who is to a real Democrat what near beer is to beer. He has led the Democratic Party-once the proud political home of working folks-into an unholy alliance with Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists to embrace NAFTA, GATR, V,ITO, AFTA, CBI, MAI and other initials that spell 'gotcha' in all the Romance languages. They sell these deals by using the high- minded rhetoric of Free Trade! Jobs! Exports! Growth! Prosperity! and other come-ons.
But every one of these trade agreements and structures rips more economic and political power out of our hands and conveys it on a silver platter to the elite club of international speculators, powerhouse bankers, corporate jefes, and other hustlers—men with smiling lips and squinting hearts.
© 1999 Public Intelligence,Inc. : www.hightowerlowdown.org
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
...but it's not guys in black helicopters, it's GLOBAL CORPORATIONS
March 1999
Edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer
Volume 1, Number 3
Hightower Lowdown
Copyright 1999
Last year in Paris a bunch of guys in suits met secretly to draft a document they called 'the constitution of a single global economy.' We called it 'NAFTA on steroids'-a stealth, ONE WORLD, WDI plan for a rogue world government. Their scheme was so butt- ugly that it couldn't stand the light of day, and thanks to grass- roots exposure and agitation, the suits have had to back away from any direct presentation of their 11 global constitution,' which they called the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI).
But this doesn't mean the MAI has gone away-it's just gone undercover. The new scheme by the global go-getters is to try slipping every single provision of the MAI into other trade agreements, using the World Trade Organization as their crowbar.
Who's doing this to us? The Clinton Administration for one, with the full backing of the GOP congressional leadership. With trade officials from the 28 other wealthiest nations on the globe, the U.S. Trade Representative negotiated for two years on this stinker. They were so secretive that U.S. Senators were completely in the dark until listeners to my Chat & Chew radio show got @radio-active' on the issue early last year and began calling them. The media was equally clueless. But the trade negotiators were not alone in Paris. With them in the drafting sessions were Exxon, Nestle, GM, Chase Manhattan, Credit Suisse, ADM, Nippon, Goldman Sachs, BP and the other global' giants that now proudly call themselves "transnational."
These corporations believe that nation-states are out of date—that global investors should reign supreme, meaning whoever has access to lots of money, ought to be freed from pesky government rules and regulations. The MAI is their idea, they were the force behind the surreptitious negotiations in Paris ... and they continue to push it today in their new shell game of "hide the MAI."
Okay, so what's it mean to us? One example: they want to ban any government anywhere from making investment rules that protect the economic, environmental and social needs of people.
Here's how things will look in the Brave New World these big businessmen are creating:
- No city or state could give priority to buying it's products from local suppliers or buying only Made-in-The USA goods, since foreign corporations could challenge such action as an infringement on their "free trade' rights.
- No government can ban beef injected with hormones, grain produced with genetically-altered seed, veggies sprayed with pesticides-no matter what local consumers prefer.
- No government will be able to ban the importation of a product because of how it was made even if it's carpets woven by children, toys made in China by prisoners in slave labor conditions, tuna caught with nets that entrap dolphins or lumber gathered by clearcutting rainforests.
- And if slave labor is OK, forge about protecting unions or workers' rights! That's just another plot to inhibit "free trade!"
- There will be no political restrictions allowed on investments, such as the bans on investing in South Africa which helped to dismantle apartheid there.
- When a government decides' privatize a public enterprise, foreign-owned corporations will have unrestricted "rights" to buy the assets. No priority can be given national buyers and no "special share arrangements" can be offered to local workers and communities to help them buy the company.
- Corporations will be able to bring these challenges, directly against our local, state, and national governments-yet our state and local governments will not be able to sue the corporations in these tribunals.
- The tribunals are elected by no one; they will meet, deliberate, and vote in secret; no record of their proceedings will be published; and there is no appeal.
- One of the courts authorized to hear these cases is the Inter- national Chamber of Commerce! These MAI provisions would rep- resent an astonishing corporate coup, giving completely undemocratic, private entities greater powers than our own elected bodies. It's almost incomprehensible that our political leaders would allow this . . . but they are.
The Clinton Administration thought about demanding side- bar agreements to the MAI on labor and the environment. But the U.S. Council for International Business told Bill to forget that idea. "The MAI is an agreement by governments to protect inter- national investors and their investments and to liberalize investment regimes," said the USCIB President (notice how they like that word " "liberalize" when it means giving them the right to do whatever they want). "We will oppose any and all measures to create or even imply binding obligations for governments or business related to environment or labor."
All this, they say, will produce enough wealth to soften the hearts of dictators, make capitalists of child laborers, create a world of consumers all exporting to each other and give all of us pie in the sky when we die.
Hey, I was born at night but it wasn't last night; how about you?
This is nothing but Ronald Reagan's 'trickle-down' nonsense gone global. It's George Bush's gibberish about a New World Order. Then came Bill Clinton, who is to a real Democrat what near beer is to beer. He has led the Democratic Party-once the proud political home of working folks-into an unholy alliance with Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists to embrace NAFTA, GATR, V,ITO, AFTA, CBI, MAI and other initials that spell 'gotcha' in all the Romance languages. They sell these deals by using the high- minded rhetoric of Free Trade! Jobs! Exports! Growth! Prosperity! and other come-ons.
But every one of these trade agreements and structures rips more economic and political power out of our hands and conveys it on a silver platter to the elite club of international speculators, powerhouse bankers, corporate jefes, and other hustlers—men with smiling lips and squinting hearts.
© 1999 Public Intelligence,Inc. :
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Monday, March 01, 1999
