April 25, 2000
Subject: Accounts of Police Brutality in Washington covered up by Press + WDC Protest Testimonies Site + The IMF & World Bank -Two Instruments Of National Destruction + Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See + The WTO : Five Years of Reasons to Resist Corporate Globalization
Hello everyone
Here is a compilation I've prepared today for you about the uncovered aspects of the street protests against the IMF and World Bank in Washington DC last week. Some of this material is very disturbing, I prefer to warn you. As a radio commentator was saying yesterday (and I'm paraphrasing here), we cannot help but being sympathetic towards the young people who peacefully demonstrated against the Big cold-hearted machine that is responsible for inflicting untold hardship and misery to hundreds of millions of defenseless people around the world.
After reading about what they went through, you'll probably feel likewise.
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
P.S. See also the beautiful story/picture below that Colette Fields
From: "Kerry Boytzun" <successmachine@home.com>
Subject: Accounts of Police Brutality in Washington covered up by Press
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000
FUNNY HOW THIS DIDN'T SHOW UP ON TV OR IN THE NEWSPAPERS
This is an actual account from Ty Lilja, a student at Bard University.
Read this! It will shock you.
---
Some of the people recieving this e-mail are old friends others are people I
haven't met. The information contained within, however, applies to us all.
During the DC protests the Washington police brutalized, lied to, and
usurped the rights of innocent protesters. This fact has been ignored by the
press and it is up to us to get the word out about what happened. I was
arrested at the 12th st protest on Saturday April 15 and I witnessed (and
experienced) all the events described. Please take the time to read this and
call you representatives and the Washington police to tell them what you
think of this kind of treatment of law abiding American citizens. This is an
editorial I wrote for my local paper describing the events. After the
editorial are some further accounts of police brutality. I cannot thank you
enough for reading this. If everyone knows what happened then the police
will be held accountable. Please forward this to as many people as possible.
* Ty Lilja
On the morning of April 15, I arrived in Washington D.C.- a place I'd always
wanted to visit. I did some sightseeing: I saw the Capitol building, the
Supreme Court, the White House. I stopped at the Lincoln Memorial, sat on
the steps and savored the view. I could see the mall stretching before me
and the great symbols of democracy all around me.
In the museum below the monument I came face-to-face with the words of one
of our greatest presidents and one of the most powerful advocates of
individual rights who ever lived. His words were engraved in stone: "I
believe in the people, and I believe in the ultimate justice of the people."
That morning I realized I agreed with Lincoln. I still do.
Later that day, the Washington, D.C. police violated my most basic civil
rights. I also had come to the city to express my concerns over the growing
power of the IMF and World Bank, as is my right in a democracy. I was
troubled by the lack of public accountability within these two organizations
and concerned about the stories I had heard coming from the Third World. I
had researched both organizations and determined that I wanted my country
playing no role within them.
On Saturday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., I joined a protest that was marching
peacefully down the sidewalk. Half an hour later we were surrounded suddenly
by club-wielding police (and not allowed to disperse), pressed together,
cuffed, and herded into school buses, where we remained all night with our
hands cuffed behind our backs.
I spent the next 13 hours on a school bus unable to lean back or move my
arms. Two other adults shared the seat with me, a seat designed for two
small children. Requests for legal council, a phone call, food, water, and
even trips to the bathroom were ignored. Every effort was made to mock,
humiliate, and punish us for our peaceful attempt to express our opinions.
Around 9:00 a.m., as the sun was coming up over Washington, I was moved into
a prison where my right hand was taken and cuffed to my left ankle, making
it impossible to walk or go to the bathroom. I was held there an additional
three hours before finally being let go with a $50 dollar fine and a
criminal record.
I hadn't slept at all. I walked from the prison in a daze. The night before
had been my birthday. I was now 19 years old. The vast majority of the
people arrested, myself included, trusted the police. We allowed ourselves
to be arrested passively because we believed that we had violated no laws.
We cooperated with the police as best we could because we believed that they
would respond in kind. The officer who put cuffs on me said it was the
easiest "lock down" he'd ever done.
You might think I was looking for trouble; but that was not the case.
Arrested with me was a 31-year-old doctor who'd just been passing through
the demonstration when he was trapped and arrested. He too was stunned by
the violations of his rights. He expressed shock that his tax money was
being used to pay for this treatment.
When an unjust act is committed by police anywhere it chips away at the
whole society. People grow up believing that their rights will be protected
then have to sit upright with hard plastic cuffs rubbing their skin raw at
3:00 in the morning and an officer telling them that "due process" and a
"speedy trial" means simply that they can't be held for months on one
charge. Our most basic requests were repeatedly denied. Every time we
asserted our rights we were mocked for it, and this damaged my faith in
democracy.
Our country cannot exist without the zealous protection of individual rights
and freedoms. Up until yesterday I could not understand why anyone, much
less a police officer, would take it upon themselves to usurp my rights. I
am proud to be an Eagle Scout, and I am a person who has always believed in
my country. Now I know that only a lawyer could have protected my rights.
Now I know that the police didn't care. It has hurt me beyond words.
Do I live in a stable country or a battleground? Are my rights really
guaranteed? Or are they worthless abstractions? I am sorry to say this, but
after Saturday night, it is hard to know if they really exist.
I choose to fight for my rights. A lawsuit is expected through the National
Lawyers Guild and the International Action Center, and I plan to participate.
But I believe it is equally important to tell my story to as many people as
will listen. If everyone in this country can know what the police did that
night to 600 innocent demonstrators, then I know that it will never happen
again. Because I still believe, like Lincoln, that justice in America can
only come from the people.
* Ty Lilja
This is another chain e-mail I received. I can vouch for the accuracy of the
facts.
IMF, World Bank Demonstrators Subject to Widespread Police Abuse
New Accounts Detail Gross Mistreatment in Jail and in the Streets
New reports of peaceful protesters beaten by police and U.S. Marshals,
denied food and water and stripped of their basic constitutional rights give
the lie to early accounts of police restraint during massive protests
against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Detainees have deen denied food, water, toilets, medical attention, and
access to lawyers. One instance was reported of an interrogator posing as a
member of the Midnight Special Legal Collective, the volunteer lawyers
representing the activists.
One non-violent protester had 3 ribs broken while he was arrested.
Another protester was beaten in the face and then loaded into a patrol
wagon, leaving a pool of blood in the street. A police official told the
drivers not to offload him at the jail but to drive him around for several
hours, and then to drop him off near a hospital.
At midnight on Monday, many activists still reported being denied food and
water. Some were arrested at 4 AM, 20 hours earlier. Rachel Weber, a
recent Harvard graduate from Boston, watched as one woman in her cell, who
has hypoglycemia, began to throw up from lack of food. Police denied
repeated requests for food or medical assistance.
One group of men was taken into a basement, put into a cage, and told by a
U.S. Marshall, "There are no cameras here. We can do whatever we want."
Anyone who looked up while the Marshall was speaking was punched in the face.
Another activist saw a U.S. Marshalls slam people's faces into a wall.
Jennifer Kirby, a housing advocate from Washington D.C., was part of a group
of activists who took over an abandoned home to protest unfair evictions and
social service cuts in the District of Columbia. "The police came in and
dragged us out of the house. As the police dragged the last person out of
the house, one officer was kicking him and saying 'stop attacking my foot'
and then all the police slammed him against a wall,saying 'stop attacking
the wall.' They dragged him into a six-inch deep puddle and left him in it
for five minutes while they kicked him," said Kirby.
Officers also used a variety of abusive tactics to pit activists in Jail
against each other and to break "Jail Solidarity," cooperation between
activists designed to ensure fair treatment by police. Black Echo a
spectator at the arraignment of several hundred activists, heard the
presiding commissioner Ringelle imply that if activists did not cooperate he
would place them with the general jail population, where they they would be
raped. "He told us 'For a day or a week or a month [Jail] is not a pleasant
place. People get sodomized. The inmates run the D.C. Prison.
In the prison, the weak are preyed upon," said Black Echo.
Another group of activists was also threatened with incarceration with the
general population, and told "they love to kill white boys over there, you
pussy-faggot protesters."
Detainees are taken into solitary confinement and lied to, told that they
are the last ones in jail, that they won't be released before their court
date in July, that they have no rights.
The Midnight Special Law Collective is asking all concerned to call as many
of the following numbers to help them in their efforts to gain justice for
the remaining 200 IMF/WB detainees. Giving no names, express concern that
detainees are being abused, and demand their immediate release.
All area codes are 202.
DC Mayors office: 727-2980
DC Chief of Staff: 727-2643
DC Public Advocate: 673-4421
Dept. of Correction: 673-7316
DC Chief Judge: 879-2770
DC Executive Officer Ulysses Hammond: 879-1700 Police Academy: 645-0055
(detainees held here)
Central Holding: 727-2894
1st Dist. Substation: 727-4655
Superior Court Chief Judge Eugene Hamilton: 879-1600
Clerk of the Court: 879-1401
US Atty. For DC: 514-2000 (insist on an investigation and
prosecution on abuses, civil rights violations, and homophobia)
Cell Blocks B & C: 727-2392
To those of you who have gotten this far I express my deepest
gratitude. By reading this and by telling people about it you are preserving
the rights of every American. It is only when such behavior by police goes
unoticed that it becomes acceptable. Thank you for not letting the police
get away with this.
My deepest respect,
Ty Lilja
P.S. Anyone with questions or comments feel free to write me at
TyLilja@hotmail.com
AND HERE IS MORE!
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000
From: Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon <isco@efn.org>
Subject: WDC Protest Testimonies Site (fwd)
You thought maybe the Washington DC protests went off without police
brutality? Maybe Seattle was an anomaly? Maybe world peace broke out?
Cruise through this to read what the snooze papers and mellowvision won't
tell you. (Hint: Pat Buchanan really isn't the spokesperson for the
International Monetary Fund/World Bank protests, despite what Fox News
Sunday might be trying to portray). Please pass this along, thanks.
You wanna find out what happened in DC really fast.
Spend the next half hour reading this top to bottom:
http://www.a16.org/a16_notebook.cfm
The IMF & World Bank - Two Instruments Of National Destruction
An interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Part One
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Interview and editing by Jared Jared Israel Jared Israel (4-16-00)
From: Emperor's Clothes www.tenc.net
Chossudovsky: When an IMF mission goes into a country and requires the destruction of social and economic institutions as a condition for lending money - this is very similar to the physical destruction caused by NATO bombing. The IMF will order the closing down of hospitals, schools and factories. That's of course more cost effective than bombing those hospitals, schools and factories, as they did in Yugoslavia, but the ultimate result is very similar: the destruction of the country.
The IMF has what is called the MAI - the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. It's the ultimate investment treaty. Signing leads to the economic destruction of the targeted country. Well, really, war is simply the MAI of last resort.
Jared Israel: What are your thoughts on the demands of the folks protesting now in Washington?
Chossudovsky: Well, lots of people have converged on Washington to protest the Bretton Woods system, the IMF and the World Bank. The question is: what are we fighting for? I suspect the dominant position among the NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations] is still that we need to reform these institutions, give them a human face, make them work for the poor and so forth. I think this approach, which developed from the "50 Years Is Enough" campaign against the Bretton Woods institutions is a mistake. And increasingly people are challenging it, questioning the legitimacy of these Washington institutions.
But still there's a lot of confusion. Some think the IMF and World Bank are playing contradictory roles, which is not so. And also there's a tendency to see these institutions in isolation. In fact they are simply two tools used by the Western elite to destroy nations, to turn them into territories.
Jared Israel: You think some people are fooled by the World Bank?
Chossudovsky: They believe the World Bank has adopted a humane approach, that it's involved in poverty alleviation whereas the IMF creates poverty. Or they even think there's a conflict between the two. That's nonsense. The World Bank is doing essentially the same job as the IMF; it merely has different responsibilities in the Third World. In a way, it is far more dangerous precisely because [of the fact that] its supposed mandate to alleviate poverty disarms critics. The simple fact is: Wall Street is behind both these institutions. They are run by bankers not sociologists.
Free Trade, brother of War
Chossudovsky: More important: a lot of people don't see the link to NATO. Very few of the organizations criticizing the Bretton Woods institutions opposed the attack on Yugoslavia. They didn't talk about it in Seattle and they aren't doing it in Washington now. They campaign against free trade, against the IMF, in favor of the Jubilee campaign to cancel third world debt, but not against war. But free trade and war go hand in hand. It was true with the British in the 19th century when they forced the Chinese to "freely" purchase opium and it is true today.
And there's a good deal of coordination between the IMF and NATO. You saw it in Kosovo. The IMF and the World Bank had set up a postwar economic plan including free market reforms well before the onset of bombing. [See note #1 at the end] They work together. If a country refuses IMF intervention, NATO steps in, or NATO and various covert agencies, and they create the proper conditions for IMF programs to be imposed.
Jared Israel: Very sharp point.
Chossudovsky: The countries that accept the IMF, like Bulgaria and Romania, they may not get bombed but they are destroyed with the pen. In Bulgaria the IMF implemented the most drastic reforms, IMF medicine, which decimated social conditions - pensions slashed, factories closed, dumping of cheap finished goods, elimination of free medical care and transportation services and so on.
And it's not just NATO. We see that in Central Asia and the Caucuses. Hand in hand with the imposition of IMF and World Bank reforms and privatization program we have not only NATO but also CIA covert intelligence operations - the institutions of war and economic management interface with one another at a global level.
So right now various countries are being softened up with regional conflicts that are financed overtly and covertly by the Western elite. The KLA is just one example of an externally financed insurgency. You see these manipulated conflicts especially wherever there are strategic pipelines, and they are linked to the drug trade and the CIA, covertly, then openly linked to NATO and official US foreign policy, and finally to the IMF, the World Bank and regional banks and private investors. Links in a chain.
Let's categorize these global institutions: you've got the United Nations system and peace keeping; they play a role and they are interfacing with NATO as well. Then you've got the IMF and the World Bank, and the regional development banks like the ADB, the Asian Development Bank, and so on. In Europe it's the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. These are the main arms.
Sometimes war creates the conditions, and then the economic institutions come in and pick up the pieces. Or conversely the IMF itself does the destabilizing, as they did in Indonesia. They insisted on cutting off transfer payments to the various states in the federation. Now that fractures a country like Indonesia which has 2,000 islands with a system of local governments. It is the geography of the bloody place. So they leave these islands to their own devices.
Do you see what that accomplishes?
Jared Israel: In other words, they insisted on cutting money that was supposed to subsidize local government?
Chossudovsky: Yes, for example for education and so on. By doing this - and incidentally they did it in Brazil as well - they destabilize the country because in order to have a country there must be fiscal coherence, a system of fiscal transfers. So in a place like Indonesia, each of these islands becomes a small state. And of course now the idea of going it alone becomes far more attractive to the many different ethnic groups. Of course they [that is, the planners] are fully aware of this - they have made it happen time and again. It took place in Yugoslavia; it took place in Brazil; it took place in the former Soviet Union where the regions are left to their own devices because Moscow doesn't transfer any money. Potentially it could happen in the United States as well. It is guaranteed to produce a situation of conflict, internal strife.
Jared Israel: Mutually unproductive conflict?
Chossudovsky: Yes because people are impoverished to such an extent that they start fighting.
Jared Israel: On every basis, especially ethnic.
Chossudovsky: Incidentally in Somalia there weren't any ethnic groups, but it worked there too. You don't need a multi-ethnic society to have divisions, to have Balkanization.
Jared Israel: And you're saying this is part and parcel of a plan for Empire?
Chossudovsky: I am saying this is recolonization. Countries are transformed into territories, colonies essentially.
Jared Israel: What distinguishes the two?
Countries vs. territories
Chossudovsky: A country has a government. It has institutions. It has a budget. It has economic borders. It has customs. A territory has only a nominal government, controlled by the IMF. No schools and hospitals, as those have been closed down on orders of the World Bank. No borders because the WTO has ordered free trade. No industry or agriculture because these have been destabilized as the result of interest rates of 60% per anum and that is also the IMF program.
Jared Israel: 60% per year?
Chossudovsky: In Brazil it's much higher. I'm looking at Botswana now. The interest rate is horrendously high.
Jared Israel: And this is imposed by the IMF?
Chossudovsky: They put a ceiling on credit. Do you see? So people can't get bank loans; it drives interest sky high and that kills the economy. Then they open it up to free trade. So the local capitalist enterprises have to borrow at 60% from the local banks and then they have to compete with commodities from the United States or Europe where interest rates are 6 or 7%. These reforms are essentially aimed at destroying local capitalism.
Jared Israel: So how do we fight this?
Chossudovsky: Not with a single-issue movement. We can't focus solely on the Bretton Woods institutions, or the WTO, or environmental issues or genetic engineering; we have to look at the totality of relations. When we look at the totality we see the link to the use of force.
Beneath this economic system lie the undercover features of the capitalist order: the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus and the links to organized crime including the use of narcotics to finance conflicts aimed at opening nations to Western control.
We have gone from gunboat diplomacy to missile diplomacy. In fact it is not missile diplomacy. It is sheer bombing.
Jared Israel: You said that part of the military intelligence apparatus is gangsters. I know that you have been writing material about how drugs is actually an economically powerful force.
Chossudovsky: Well it is more complicated than that. Because in fact the gangsters are the instruments of big capital. They are not - they don't overshadow the system in any way. The gangsters are people who can be easily used precisely because they are not responsible to anybody. So it is much more convenient.
Let's say you install Hacim Thaci [leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army] in the seat of government in Kosovo. It's much more convenient to have a gangster like this running a country than to have an elected prime minister that is responsible to citizens.
The best thing is to have an elected gangster, somebody like Boris Yeltsin, that's the best - get an elected gangster. We have elected gangsters in the US as well.
Why? Because elected gangsters are much easier to control than elected non-gangsters. But we must understand these gangsters are pretty obviously subordinate - when we say it is the criminalization of the colony, it is not true. It's the other way around. You are never going to have a situation where these gangsters will be given any power. The big ones perhaps... So there is a certain interpenetration of legal and illicit trade. But in effect illicit trade is always subordinate to large scale financial and business undertakings.
An important aspect of this is that the IMF creates the conditions for the growth of illicit trade and for the laundering of dirty money, all over the world. That is very clear because when legal economies collapse under the brunt of IMF reforms what are you left with? It's the grey economy; it's the criminal economy.
Jared Israel: And that encourages the development of forces that can be used to replace potentially responsible legal forces.
Chossudovsky: Yes and that type of collapse in legal economic systems creates also the conditions for developing insurgencies, destabilizing elected governments, closing down of institutions and transforming countries into territories which are then run as colonies.
Dear reader - this interview is continued. Part II will be posted as soon as the text is edited and laid out. - JI
***
Note # 1 "In Opening Kosovo to foreign capital" which you can read in full at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/opening.htm, Michel Chossudovsky writes:
"In occupied Kosovo under the mandate of UN peace-keeping, state terror and the 'free market' go hand in hand. The concurrent criminalisation of State institutions is not incompatible with the West's economic and strategic objectives in the Balkans. Notwithstanding the massacres of civilians, the self-proclaimed KLA administration has committed itself to establishing a 'secure and stable environment' for foreign investors and international financial institutions. ..
"In close liaison with NATO, the Washington based financial institutions had already analyzed the consequences of an eventual military intervention leading to the occupation of Kosovo: almost a year prior to the beginning of the War, the World Bank conducted 'simulations' which 'anticipated the possibility of an emergency scenario arising out of the tensions in Kosovo'. 1
"While the bombing was still ongoing, the World Bank and the European Commission were given a special mandate for 'coordinating donors' economic assistance in the Balkans'2. The underlying terms of reference did not exclude Yugoslavia from receiving donor support. It was, however, clearly stipulated that Belgrade would be eligible for reconstruction loans 'once political conditions there change'.3
"With regard to Kosovo, the World Bank rather than providing loans to rebuild the province's infrastructure has focussed its intervention on providing 'assistance in designing the reconstruction and recovery program' as well as so-called 'policy advice in economic management' and 'institution building' namely 'governance' 4. In other words, an army of lawyers and consultants have been sent in to ensure Kosovo's transition to a 'thriving, open and transparent market economy.' 5
Support granted to the KLA provisional government would be geared towards 'the establish[ment] [of] transparent, effective and sustainable institutions' 6. An 'enabling environment' for foreign capital is to be established alongside suitably devised 'social safety nets' and 'poverty alleviation programs'.
"Meanwhile, Yugoslav State banks operating in Pristina have been closed down. The Deutschmark has been adopted as legal tender and the banking system has been handed over to Germany's Commerzbank A.G which is the sole private shareholder in [Kosovo's] Micro Enterprise Bank (MEB) formed in early 2000 at the initiative of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) together with the Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), Germany's Internationale Micro Investitionen (IMI) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). [Thus the German] Commerzbank AG will gain control over commercial banking functions for the province [of Kosovo] including money transfers and foreign exchange transactions."7
[To check out the references in the above text please see the original at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/opening.htm ]
Order 'JUDGMENT'!
Emperors-Clothes has produced a film. Like one of the better emperors-clothes articles, Judgment! relies on evidence and thoughtful analysis. It proves that the British news station, ITN, fabricated images of a non-existent Serbian death camp in Bosnia in 1992. These images were enthusiastically spread by press and politicians. They created public opinion to justify NATO bombing of the Bosnian Serbs. Every Westerner should see this film. We urge you to buy one, show it to friends, get it on local TV stations, get it shown to unions, business groups, veterans groups, student groups, everywhere possible.
Let every citizen of every NATO country see this film. It needs no introduction. Its conclusions are irrefutable. Therefore it jogs the mind that has been fogged with lies. It jogs the mind to life, to doubt, to think.
The film is being distributed for $20.00 plus shipping. However, if you cannot afford $20, please send what you can afford. We want everyone to see this film. Some people are donating extra money, so it all works out.
To order "JUDGMENT!" go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/Film/astunnin.htm#BM1
To find out more go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/Film/astunnin.htm
FROM http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511848/ref=sim_books/102-7541743-0396022
Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See
by David McGowan
Paperback - 234 pages 1st edition (March 1, 2000)
Common Courage Pr; ISBN: 1567511848
Editorial Reviews
The author, David McGowan , February 13, 2000
What people are saying about Derailing Democracy
Rather than providing my own comments on this book, I thought that this space would be better used to present the endorsements that some of my mentors in the field of progressive journalism have provided: "It's the greatest book of the millennium" - William Blum, author of Rogue State: The World's Only Remaining Superpower and Killing Hope.
"A shocking revelation, a rich treasure of taboo information and criticism about the undemocratic repression, militarism and aggression perpetrated by U.S. elites at home and abroad. Every American should read Derailing Democracy" - Michael Parenti, author of America Besieged and History as Mystery.
"This book goes a long way toward derailing duplicity. David McGowan throws the usual media doublethink into disarray by shining a bright light on inconvenient facts and extreme hypocrisies. If you want to stay within the delusional bubbles provided by U.S. mass media, do not - repeat, DO NOT - read Derailing Democracy" - Norman Solomon, author of The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media and winner of NCTE's George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.
"Oh yeah! This sometimes surreal armory of facts, figures and quotes is as humorous as it is useful"
- Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis.
Customer Reviews
All too real
Reviewer: Derek Denny-Brown from Seattle, Washington April 10, 2000
I picked up this book just a block from where a few friends had been tear-gassed during the WTO 'riots', while they walked home from the grocery store. This book provides some excellent context for what I saw unfold in my backyard. It is also, chillingly full of hard numbers. It is a book which will disturb your sense of 'America, home of the free and the brave,' but for the best of reasons.
OUTSTANDING!
Reviewer: A reader from Las Vegas, NV March 23, 2000
Dave McGowan writes a brilliant book about the Media's hold on our lives. This is a must read for those concerned with what is happening behind our backs in this country.
Mindblowing
Reviewer: A reader from California, USA March 21, 2000
This is the most informative and useful book I have read in years. It is mindblowing (and very scary) to learn of the information that is not made available or reported on in the united states. It makes me very upset with the news media in our country that they choose to ignore these important facts. This is definitely a book that every american should read.
AND FROM http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583220356/ref=sim_books/102-7541743-0396022
The WTO : Five Years of Reasons to Resist Corporate Globalization (Open Media Pamphlet Series)
by Lori Wallach, Michelle Sforza, Michele Sforza, Ralph Nader (Introduction)
Paperback - 80 pages A Seven st edition (January 2000)
Seven Stories Press; ISBN: 1583220356
Customer Review
Concise, informative, and essential
Reviewer: John Caruso from California, USA April 21, 2000
This is a concise, informative book which provides an excellent overview of the major issues raised by the WTO (and similar organizations, present and future). Specific examples are provided to illustrate exactly why the WTO is so damaging in the areas of public health, food safety, the environment, the advancement of underdeveloped nations, labor and human rights, and many others. The authors have a strong case and they basically let the (well-documented) facts speak for themselves; if anything, they're surprisingly restrained in their evaluation. Economic issues aren't particularly sexy, of course, and I had expected this book to be dry. It was anything but. It's a brisk read, and it packs the maximum amount of useful information into its relatively few pages. If you were confused by the protests in Seattle and Washington and want to know what those people were REALLY shouting about--something you're certainly never going to get from CNN and friends--read this book. It's an essential guide to what are fast becoming the key issues of our time.
From Ron Paul's Liberty Study Committee
http://www.StopWTO.org/
A privileged resolution (H.J. Res. 90) directing the United States to withdraw from
the World Trade Organization was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on
March 6, 2000 by Representative Ron Paul and four other members of the U.S. House.
To read H.J. Res. 90:
http://www.StopWTO.org/bill.htm.
"Why the WTO is Bad for America" by Congressman Ron Paul:
http://www.StopWTO.org/whywtoisbad_033100.htm
Statement of Congressman Ron Paul Introducing H.J. Res. 90:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2000/cr030100wto.htm
"WTO Follies" by Lew Rockwell:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2000/cr030100wto.htm