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| <nettime> The Battle of Seattle (5x) |
1............ Subject: [bytesforall] WTO vs. Activists: Showdown in Seattle
2............ Subject: WTO Seattle Indy Media Center
3............ Subject: WTO Sit-in open! - enter the virtual protest now!
4............ Subject: How Could This Happen?
5............ Subject: Seattle Media Coverage
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 01:47:24 +0600
From: partha <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [bytesforall] WTO vs. Activists: Showdown in Seattle
[orig to <[email protected]>]
From: partha <[email protected]>
<...>
WTO vs. Activists: Showdown in Seattle
-Naeem Mohaiemen, New York
Activists are calling it the "Battle in Seattle". On November 30,
representatives of 135 nations gather in Seattle for the 3d Ministerial
Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Hosted by the Clinton
Administration, this round is billed as the "millennial" round and intended
to be a crowning moment for the WTO. As the Conference approached, the WTO
became ensnared in one controversy after another. On November 23, WTO
officials failed to reach consensus on a draft declaration after 15 months
of negotiations.
But looming large on the streets of Seattle was a much bigger challenge to
the WTO, threatening to dwarf the disagreements among international
powerbrokers. The WTO conference in Seattle has become a catalyst for a
massive mobilization of activists from all corners of the globe. They see
the WTO as an unaccountable global trade body that threatens worldwide
human rights, labor unions and the environment. The activists who are
descending in tens of thousands on Seattle are broadly leftist and
progressive in orientation, but their micro-interests are diverse--
covering the gamut of environmental, economic and social justice advocacy,
labor unions, human rights activists, farmer unions, feminists, churches,
and anti-corporate agitators. The people who have traveled here from all
over the world to confront the WTO "power cabal" include organizers such as
India's Vandana Shiva, Mexico's underground rebel Zapatista movement, Anita
Roddick of England's Body Shop, Yash Tandon of International South Group
Network, Students for Free Tibet, and Sanjay Gopal of National Alliance of
People's Movements.
When Seattle was first chosen, one of the intentions was to locate the WTO
meet away from the traditional hotbeds of anti-WTO agitation. Europe,
already stinging from violent protests against Monsanto, Shell, Unocal,
McDonalds and other symbols of global corporate power, was considered
off-limits. Only a few months back, a French sheep farmer Jose Bove had
become a national hero when he attacked a McDonalds in Paris to protest
"American neo-colonialism". On June 18, London saw violent
anti-globalization protests, causing major property damage. Latin America
was equally volatile on this issue. Seattle, the home of Microsoft and
Boeing, was considered a safe meeting place for the millennial round.
The WTO organizers forgot to take into account two things. First, the
Internet allowed activists to organize on a global level, transporting
knowledge and experience from the European/South protests to Seattle.
Second, Seattle is one of the most heavily unionized American cities-- with
120,000 union members in Seattle and more than 400,000 members in
Washington State. The AFL-CIO national union body, already stinging from
what they saw as the Democrats' abandonment of labor issues in the effort
to "fast-track" WTO, mounted a heavy campaign focused on November 30. Throw
into this mix the demands of labor, environmental and human rights
activists from all corners of the globe, and you had a showdown that
threatened to shut down the entire WTO proceedings. So volatile was the mix
on the streets that
Seattle Council member Brian Derdowski told reporters the WTO meet was "the
greatest security risk this region has ever known." John Kinsman, a
Wisconsin dairy farmer travelling to Seattle to join the protest told The
Nation magazine, "I think they thought they could put this meeting in the
US and nobody would care. But they're going to find out that an awful lot
of us do care."
Inspired by the example of guerilla street theater, anti-WTO activists were
combining the traditional speeches, leaflets and seminars with more
alternative, "theatrical" forms of protest. Throughout November, an
"international caravan" of environmentalists, human rights workers and
women's rights activists from countries such as Bolivia, Israel, Tibet,
Panama and Nigeria had been travelling across America on its way to
Seattle. Along the way they stopped at 18 towns to host anti-WTO teach-ins
and train local grassroots groups. Caravan sponsor Michael Morrill told
reporters, "In India and Europe tens of thousands of people demonstrated
against the WTO. Seattle is where America will catch up." Reclaim The
Streets (http://reclaimthestreetnyc.tao.ca) was another activist network
that was organizing "carnivals of resistance": street parties with music
and dancing combined with a sharp political message. By using 12-foot
street puppets that represented various multinationals in the act of
destroying indigenous people and environment, the group was forcing
networks like CNN to give coverage to the dissenting voices. Other
media-savvy activists like AdBusters created sleekly packaged anti-WTO TV
advertisements, sending them out to organizations across the US to get them
aired on local television stations. Other grassroots organizations like
AgitProp were taking inspiration from Gandhi, staging "Direct Action"
events on November 30, including a call for people to "Walkout" from their
jobs or school to block the streets of Seattle. Seattle's fighting spirit
has spread to regional protests across the country. Here in New York, a
block away from my office, student protesters have besieged the immensely
popular GAP clothing store, protesting the company's policy of
manufacturing clothes in sweatshop conditions. The theme of all the
protests is the same, to draw attention to the WTO, so that it can no
longer continue its deliberations in conditions of semi-secrecy with no
accountability to democratic governments or people.
The WTO's militant free-trader Michael Moore has dismissed this opposition
as "grumpy, geriatric communists". President Clinton said, "Every group in
the world with an ax to grind is going to Seattle to demonstrate". But
looking at the position papers being circulated by activists, it is
difficult to be dismissive or patronizing about their concerns. Here are
just a few key issues that anti-WTO activists are focusing on:
1) Democracy & Sovereignty: WTO rules supercede domestic laws. Any laws
that place worker's rights, food safety, environmental protection and
cultural heritage above free trade can now be judged illegal by the WTO.
In the United States alone, California has 95 laws that are "WTO-illegal".
The state's ban on a poisonous chemical, methyl tertiary butyl ether
(MTBE), is already being challenged under NAFTA's "investor protections"
act. State laws such as the "Burma selective-purchase" laws, which attempt
to stop US purchases from corporations doing business with Burma's military
junta, would be in violation of the WTO. It isn't a far-fetched scenario to
imagine Bangladesh's attempt to stop dumping of toxic varieties of food
crop (as with the recent wheat case) being challenged by the WTO.
2) Environmental Standards: Under WTO, global companies will be incented
to open factories in locations where environmental law enforcement is lax,
so they can pollute in ways that would be unacceptable in their home
countries. Combined with World Bank and IMF pressure to pay off loans
through export earnings, this will propel LDC's into a "race to the
bottom", where countries will compete to have the most lax environmental
standards in order to attract the next Nike factory. A few years ago, the
World Bank's Lawrence Summers (presently US Treasury Secretary) was
engulfed in controversy for a memo in which he suggested that rich nations
export their polluting materials to poor countries, in exchange for
financial compensation. Now the WTO will indirectly implement Summers'
suggestion. As pressure mounts in the North to raise environmental
standards, polluting factories will gladly move their factories to the
Third World where they can continue business as usual. Bhopal is the most
extreme result of such a policy, but gradual long-term pollution is an even
more deadly, and invisible, killer.
3) Global Sweatshops: There is now a full-throttle campaign in the United
States and Europe against buying clothes that were made using sweatshop or
child labor. In the US, students have been particularly powerful on this
issue, launching highly effective campaigns that have bloodied Nike, Banana
Republic and many others-- forcing them to improve the nightmarish
conditions in their overseas factories. The WTO would make such campaigns
impossible, as they would be considered barriers to "fair trade". In this
effort, the WTO finds allies among the LDC's. Business lobbies within LDCs
have claimed that sweatshops are an essential price to pay on the path to
industrialization. Pro-WTO businessmen point at the US in the early 19th
century, when similarly brutal conditions existed in American factories.
But they fail to realize that, it was campaigns against these sweatshops,
mounted by American labor, that forced the modernization of these
factories. The WTO can enforce laws so that no such campaign, whether
international or domestic, can be waged against sweatshops.
4) Bio Piracy: The WTO's TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights) allows multinationals to claim patents for agricultural
and medicinal knowledge of indigenous people. Companies have already
secured patents for traditional medicines, human DNA and indigenous methods
of growing food. At a recent WTO Teach-In at New York University,
Panamanian activist Taira Stanley told students; "Scientists from the
[American-led] Human Genome Project have even come and taken the blood of
indigenous people and patented it, because we have immunities that you
don't." Similar patent claims have already been made for quinoa
(high-protein grain developed by indigenous Quechya and Aymara people of
Bolivia and Peru), fish-killing ingredient (Amazon), Una de gato
(indigenous medicine of Peru) and numerous other indigenous products.
5) Health: Genetically modified food is at the center of an intense trade
war between Europe and the United States. Monsanto's genetically modified
"Frankenstein food" has been the cause of widespread protests in Europe.
Emboldened by European opposition to Monsanto, LDCs have also blocked
attempts to market Monsanto products elsewhere, including Bangladesh (where
UBINIG and others opposed Grameen Bank's partnership with Monsanto). Stung
by criticism, Monsanto has withdrawn the "terminator" gene from the market.
But WTO could turn the tide in favor of the "Frankenstein" food-makers.
Recently the EU banned the import of artificial hormone-fed beef from
America. The US government, on behalf of National Cattleman's Beef
Association and Monsanto brought a case to the WTO, which ruled that the EU
had to allow import of the beef, or face sanctions.
6) Human Rights: WTO rules require all member countries be treated equally,
even if some are led by undemocratic governments. The "Free Burma"
campaign has already been effected by these regulations, making it harder
for individual countries to maintain boycotts against the military junta
for human rights violations. The long-running struggle for Tibetan freedom
from Chinese rule will also be hard-hit by the US success in securing a
deal to gain WTO membership for China. As one of the most powerful members
of the WTO, China will almost certainly block any attempts at making human
rights part of trade agreements.
The fallacy of the new mantra of "constructive engagement" through trade
with dictatorships is revealed if we pause to study the South Africa
example. A decade ago, the South African apartheid regime was brought to
its knees by a worldwide campaign of trade sanctions (endorsed by the UN
and the International Court of Justice). If the WTO rules had existed back
then, these sanctions would have been judged illegal, the Afrikaner regime
might well have lasted into the Millennium and Nelson Mandela would still
have been in jail. Now, substitute Aung San Su Kyi for Mandela, and it
becomes clear how much the world has changed in favor of dictatorships.
Today, under a new free-trade regime where it is difficult to enforce
global sanctions, China is unscathed from the human rights violations of
Tiananmen, prison labor in sweat shops, continuing crackdowns in Tibet, and
attacks against Falun Gong followers-- all because institutions like the
WTO preach "constructive engagement" through trade rather than sanctions.
In our neighboring Burma, the Burmese junta does not face any South
Africa-model sanctions. Thus companies like Unocal can freely invest in
Burmese gas pipelines in built using forced labor.
Because the structure of the WTO is byzantine and its far-reaching power is
so poorly understood, I encourage readers to do further research on this
topic. Some of the best resources are on the Internet, as listed below:
One World www.oneworld.net/campaigns/wto
Public Citizen www.tradewatch.org
Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy www.wtowatch.org
Mobilization Against Corporate Globalization www.seattle99.org
50 Years is Enough campaign www.50years.org
Seattle Anti-WTO Campaign www.seattlewto.org
Friends of Earth www.foe.org/international/wto
Turning Point www.turnpoint.org
Jubilee 2000 campaign for canceling Third World Debt www.j2000usa.org
Although the term "Anti-WTO" is loosely used to describe the diverse
coalition of activists who are protesting the present round of WTO talks,
anti-globalization is not a term that can be used against them. In fact,
in its international and multiracial nature, in its successful use of the
Internet to organize globally, this coalition is truly a global movement.
The anti-WTO movement recognizes that Globalization is inevitable and has,
in the past, often helped to improve the lot of developing countries. There
are many positive examples of trade helping to develop LDCs and also
fostering human rights (as with England's BODY SHOP). What the activists
are protesting is the WTO's attempt to de-link trade from demands for human
rights, democracy, environmental protection and the right to enjoy a
working wage. Above all, they are protesting the WTO's complete lack of
accountability to the nations and the people it effects directly. Michelle
Sforza (author of "Whose Trade Organization: Corporate Globalization and
the Erosion of Democracy") calls the organization "a slow-motion coup
d'etat of democratic governance worldwide".
Fed up with this "slow-motion coup", activists are calling for complete
abolishment of the WTO, to be replaced by a more accountable body. The
movement is focused on reducing the power of global corporations, and
making the capitalist market a subordinate part of society again-- so that
basic social values take precedence over the values of the market. The
real challenge for activists will be after November 30. Seattle has
provided a visible venue for organizing-- but after the "Millennium" round
is over, the WTO body will go back to closed-door sessions, away from the
public eye.
That is when activists will have to rise to the challenge, to keep this
movement going even in the absence of major, watershed events. Mark
Ritchie of the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy says "Seattle is
going to be a wake-up call. There is going to be a gigantic reaction to
what happens in Seattle, and we have to be ready to harvest it."
----------------||||||||||||||-------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 15:51:20 -0800
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: WTO Seattle Indy Media Center
PRESS RELEASE: Please print, post or distribute
CONTACT: Independent Media Center (206) 262-0721; fax (206) 262-9133
Showdown in Seattle: Five Days That Shook the WTO
In a Challenge to Multinational Corporate Power, Independent Media
Producers Rally to Make People's Voices Heard.
As the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial approaches, independent
video makers, radio producers, journalists, and activists are rallying
under the common goal of social and economic justice to challenge the WTO.
In an effort to reclaim media democracy, this unprecedented media
collaboration will make public the voices and concerns of tens of thousands
of people from all over the world who will gather in Seattle from November
29 to December 3. Simultaneously, it will offer to all media outlets
independent, non-commercial analytical and investigative programming and
coverage of the issues and implications surrounding multilateral
organizations such as the WTO and how it directly impacts the lives of
public citizens.
The Independent Media Center will broadcast directly from Seattle
(www.indymedia.org) a unique daily news and public affairs program. This
programming will contribute to a more educated and meaningful understanding
of the issues by your listeners and viewers. These grassroots and
independent producers will cover the daily counter-events, stage
demonstrations and debates, as activists from around the world,
representing labor, the environment, civil society, international law and
Indigenous Nations converge on Seattle to offer solutions and alternatives
to the current free trade organizations like the WTO.
WWW.INDYMEDIA.ORG The IMC in collaboration with these independent producers
will be offering the following: * VIDEO: Daily 60 minute satellite-cast
series collaboratively produced by BigNoise Films, Changing America,
Citizen Vagrom, Deep Dish Satellite TV, Paper Tiger TV and Whispered Media
(the series will consist of one 30-minute program covering the day's events
and a second 30-minute pre-produced program focussing on specific global
issues;
* AUDIO: Daily 27-minute program that can be broken into 3-5 minute
segments covering the day's highlights; several in-depth 30-minute and
hour-long interviews and field reports (perfect for cutting edge public
affairs programs); and 24/7 LIVE streaming audio from Seattle at
www.indymedia.org.
* WEB PAGE: Filled with late-breaking news stories and analysis, with
print stories and video and audio clips. This new and important organizing
effort in grassroots and independent media will bring your listeners and
viewers the voices, opinions and points of view that are likely to never
been seen or heard on commercial mainstream media. We hope your station
will take advantage of this opportunity and schedule this vital series into
your regular programming. This is a unique opportunity to allow your
listeners and viewers a chance to hear another side of the story and to
glimpse the powerful alternatives that will be discussed by national and
international leaders and organizations. We recognize this is a last
minute change in your programming, but this "Showdown in Seattle" will be
the most important event of the millennium.
Questions about programming or late breaking news, check out www.indymedia.org.
Independent Media Center: The Independent Media Center is a grassroots
community-based organization committed to public interest media. It is our
goal to illuminate and analyze local and global issues that impact
ecosystems, communities, and individuals; and to inform the public of these
issues through a non-commercial media perspective. The Center is founded
on the premise that the vital link between democracy, self-determination,
cultural expression and communication needs to be restored to its rightful
place in a democratic society.
Independent Media Center, 1415 Third Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101 (206)
262-0721, www.indymedia.org, [email protected]; Fax: (206) 262-9133.
-------------------|||||||||||||||------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:18:15 GMT
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (ME)
Subject: WTO Sit-in open! - enter the virtual protest now!
>X-Authentication-Warning: mail.gn.apc.org: Host trolly.tesco.net
[194.73.73.166] claimed to be trolley.tesco.net
X-Sender: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 22:05:11 +0000
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: the electrohippies <[email protected]
Subject: WTO Sit-in open! - enter the virtual protest now!
Mime-Version: 1.0
URGENT - JOIN THE ACTION NOW!!
==============================
PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR
FRIENDS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
WE NEED AT LEAST 5,000 PEOPLE ONLINE OVER
THE GLOBE TO MAKE THIS A SUCCESS!
----------------------------------------------------
the electrohippies collective
http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies/
THE WTO VIRTUAL SIT-IN
======================
THE E-HIPPIES WTO SIT-IN PAGES ARE NOW ONLINE -
COME AND JOIN THE ACTION!
http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies/action/index.htm
To coincide with the WTO's Seattle Conference, the electrohippies are
organising - as their first major virtual action - a 'virtual sit-in'. To
take part in the sit-in all you have to do is load the appropriate web page
and leave you computer online for a period of time; the longer the better!
The Action ----------
the electrohippies are organising a 'virtual sit-in' of the WTO's special
conference website. It is intended that this website will be the main
conduit for accessing information about the conference, and the events
taking place. By taking action against the conference server, and the main
WTO server, we restrict the PR staff at the WTO from spreading their global
corporate agenda.
To make this action effective requires thousands of people to be online.
However, because of the global nature of the organisation involved we hope
to be able to achieve this figure. This means that people will have to
consider the effect of different time zones this makes thing a little more
complex.
The sit-in will begin. . .
08.00 USA & Canada (Pacific time), 30th November
16.00 Greenwich Mean Time (UK/Ireland)
17.00 Central Europe
18.00 Eastern Europe
21.30 Indian subcontinent
00.00 Honk Kong/Singapore/Western Australia, December 1st
02.00 Eastern Australia
04.00 New Zealand
. . . and will finish four days later.
To take part in the action all you need is an Internet connection, and a
web browser. What people have to do is access the special web pages written
for the action and then stay on line as long as they possible can. For
those with 'dial-up' access to the 'Net that means staying on line as long
as you can afford, as often as possible, for the four days. If you cannot
afford to spend much time online then concentrate on November 30th (or Dec.
1st for those in the East). But we would like people to aim to go online
from 12.00 Pacific time on December 3rd (add 4 hours to the above timetable
for your local time) until the end of December 4th.
For those of you with constant connections to the Internet - such as
universities or corporations - the cost of being online isn't that
significant. Therefore we'd urge you to stay on longer with more
connections open. For those people with high speed dial-up connections or
those with constant connections a 'special' version of the action web page
is provided.
NOTE: THERE IS ALSO A SPECIAL EMAIL BASED ACTION BEGINNING AT MIDDAY, YOUR
LOCAL TIME, DECEMBER 3RD, AND CARRYING ON TILL DECEMBER 4TH. FOR MORE
INFORMATION POP BACK TOT HE E-HIPPIES SITE ON DECEMBER 3RD.
What is a 'virtual sit-in' --------------------------
A sit-in is where a group of people place themselves in front of some sort
of entry way, or inside a building, and remain there as a form of peaceful
protest. That's not easy to achieve where the Internet is involved.
Therefore we have to find a way of occupying 'space' in cyberspace.
This page has been developed from a similar facility - The Zapatista
Tactical FloodNet. This page is a less flashy but equally functional
alternative. The purpose of this page is simple. By accessing the WTO's
websites using the Javascript-based pages you are in effect accessing
repeatedly - as if you were pressing the 'reload' button on your browser
every few seconds. The ability of a server to handle these requests depends
on its bandwidth - that's the physical capacity to move data in and out.
For most servers bandwidth is split, and there is only a small proportion
of the bandwidth devoted to data coming into the site compared to data
going out (this is because much more data flows out of web servers than
flows in). So, constantly requesting information puts pressure on it's
weakest point - it's incoming bandwidth.
Using these pages to send multiple requests queues up requests to the web
server. Ordinarily this is not a problem. But, if the server is busy, or
there are many people across the world using this same site to do the same
thing, it starts to eat up the server's bandwidth. If enough people were to
do the same thing, it would prevent the server from being accessed.
Eventually, if maintained for a longer period of time, it would temporarily
crash the server.
So, you get the idea. If enough people use this page at the same time,
going for the same target, they'll gum up the server and prevent other
'ordinary' users getting access. What this page is then is a form of remote
cyber sit-in or cyber-picket - we occupy space in cyberspace!
Follow-up actions -----------------
The WTO action is the first electrohippies action. Others will follow on
different themes and with different tactics. Mostly these will be based in
the UK, and possibly Europe. If you would like to be put on a email list to
receive notices of when actions are due to take place then send an email to
[email protected], marked "FAO ehippies" in the subject line.
END
------------||||||||||||||||||||----------------
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 13:08:37 EST
Subject: How Could This Happen?
To: [email protected]
Comrades:
Today's NYTimes tells us that the "Turning Point Project" (a well-funded
coalition "fighting" the WTO) has spent over $100,000 taking out full-page
ads to rally support. In the same paper, today's full-page TPP ad, "This
Advertisement is #3 in Series on Economic Globalization" begins with the
following:
"INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT
"The World Trade Organization (WTO) is emerging as the world's first global
government. But it was elected by no-one, it operates in secrecy, and its
mandate is this: To undermine the constitutional rights of sovereign
nations. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? [emphasis added] What can we do?"
But, in the entire page of text (and in the pages of all the previous ads
they have run) there is not one word about *why* any of this came about.
It is not possible to figure out *what* to do without figuring out *why*
the situation developed in the first place. Is it?
So, why doesn't the Turning Point Project (or anyone else, as far as can be
told, who is marching in Seattle) dare to even try to address the obvious
question of *why*?
Could it be that they -- themselves -- are responsible?
I return your attention to H.G. Wells' 1928 "The Open Conspiracy" (the
underlying topic of my first encounter with the nettime crowd in Budapest
in 1996.)
The culmination of 20+ years of agitating for a "World State" (beginning
with Wells' 1902 co-optation along with Bertrand Russell into the
"Co-Effiecients Group"), this manifesto is simply the blueprint for the
WTO. Wells, the revolutionary socialist, was the god-father of the WTO.
As detailed in his companion 1929 pamphlet "Imperialism and the Open
Conspiracy", Wells' 1926 novel "The World of William Clissold" was a
fictional account of the means by which multi-national corporations would
become that very "World State", which we witness today. Clissold was a
fictionalized Sir Alfred Mond, the head of perhaps the world's first true
multi-national, Imperial Chemical Inc. (ICI), and Mond was slated to become
a leading "New Samurai" -- the name Wells gave to those who would run the
world in his 1905 novel, "A Modern Utopia."
(Footnote: Aldous Huxley's 1932 "Brave New World" is written as a counter
to "The Open Conspiracy." With "Mustafa Mond" serving as the "World
Controller" figure, introduced in chapter 3. Wells' 1933 "The Shape of
Things to Come" is, in turn, the counter to Huxley and also the blueprint
for ICANN -- via Wells' proteges Szillard/Dyson and Pugwash. The real-life
Sir Alfred Mond actually funded a short-lived magazine in 1929, "The
Realist", with both Huxley and Wells on its editorial board, where many of
these rival post-imperial utopian strategies were hashed out.)
And, what were the three organizing principles of the "open conspiracy"?
The principles by which you would know the "open conspiracy" -- even if the
participants didn't know what they were doing. They were: No war, no
nations and no growth.
Thus, 70+ years of "internationalist", "anti-war", "anti-nuclear" and
"zero-growth" organizing -- often lead by the very same folks who comprise
the Turning Point Project and others in Seattle -- have been merely
components of Wells' "open conspiracy." All of which leads directly to the
WTO.
Could it be that the "demonstrators" aren't really opposed to Wells' "World
State" and are really concerned that *they* seem to have no power in its
"senate"? Could they, in fact, wish to become a component of the "New
Samurai"?
Indeed, how could this happen?
Don't forget Kosovo.
This massive and catastrophic attack on national sovereignty was justified
entirely on the basis of "human rights." Who gave us the modern notion of
"human rights"?
Yes, H.G. Wells. As an integral structural component of the "open conspiracy."
In the appendix to Wells' last re-statement of the "open conspiracy"
themes, his 1942 "Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapible Conditions of World
Reorganization", Wells introduces his 1940 "Sankay Declaration of the
Rights of Man" as follows:
"The Rights of the World Citizen. The Soviet Constitution of 1936 will be
found at the end of the first volume of Beatrice and Sidney Webb's [these
are the two who co-opted Wells into the "Co-Efficients"] "Soviet Communism,
a New Civilization." It is a book every intelligent Revolutionary should
have available."
Yes, as stated by Wells, and as incorporated from Wells into the UN's
"Declaration" and the European Union's "Declaration", "human-rights" are
"communist" and "revolutionary", indeed. Comrades.
Cyber-comrades.
Which is exactly why multi-national corporations, those behind the WTO, are
aggressively gearing to use "human-rights" to shield themselves from
national sovereignty. What?
Yes, a corporation is -- legally -- an "individual." As an "individual",
corporations are to be afforded "human-rights." Thus, Britain, for
example, lacking a Bill of Rights, is expecting to have its *legal*
recourse against the actions of corporations very sharply curtailed when
the European "Declaration" takes full *legal* force.
Thus, "human-rights", designed by H.G. Wells to protect the "rights" of
multi-national corporations, in order to further the progress of the "open
conspiracy" towards a "World State", is directly behind the growth of the
WTO.
(Please re-post this note as widely as you see fit. Those who fear
understanding their own history are doomed to repeat it.)
INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT
How could it happen?
We have met the enemy . . . and it is (us),
Mark Stahlman
-------------------------||||||||||||||||------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 15:00:04 -0500
Seattle Weekly special WTO issue:
<http://www.seattleweekly.com/>
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# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
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