Global governance glitch
– Part 2
Editor's note: This is the second of two parts of Henry Lamb's commentary explaining the relationship of the political left and the political right to global governance efforts. Click here to read Part 1.© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
Among the non-governmental organizations at the core of the protests against the World Trade Organization, and other international financial institutions, are: People's Global Action Network, and its Continental Direct Action Network, the International Forum on Globalization, the Global Exchange, the Rainforest Action Network, and the Foundation for Deep Ecology. There are hundreds of other non-governmental organizations affiliated in one way or another with these, who act in concert to protest or promote the events or issues dictated by the funders.
These are the organizations through which the funding flows for the protesters to train and travel to Seattle, to Genoa, to Washington or wherever they can disturb a meeting and distort the media. Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute, reported in the Washington Times (August 7, 2000), that Doug Tompkins, founder of the Foundation for Deep Ecology, provided $200,000 to both the International Forum on Globalization and to the Rainforest Action Network.
These organizations claim to be non-violent and to promote only civil disobedience. The fact is, however, that at these meetings, a hard-core group of protesters who wear masks, are armed with hammers and other tools, and go about systematically breaking windows, destroying property and, sometimes, looting.
They have been extremely effective in distracting media attention away from the meeting being protested, and at disturbing these meetings by blocking entrances and storming the corridors. They are serious about reversing what they perceive as capitalist-dominated development and U.S. influence in international financial mechanisms.
These protests are street theater which reflect the age-old conflict between capitalism and socialism. These non-governmental organizations would welcome global control of trade – so long as the trade is regulated by a central authority over which they have substantial influence, and whose goals included the social and environmental objectives they believe to be necessary to a just and sustainable world.
On the other side of the coin are organizations such as Sovereignty International, that claims the World Trade Organization already infringes national sovereignty by having the power to penalize nations that fail to conform their laws to WTO rules.
The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, first proposed in 1994 at Bill Clinton's Summit of the Americas in Miami, and the recommendations of the High Level Panel on Financing for Development, which originated in 1997, are both entangling agreements that ultimately strengthen global governance, further eroding our national sovereignty.
The Financing for Development negotiations, which concluded the 3rd Preparatory Committee meeting on Oct. 19, are replete with socialist ideas, including a global tax on currency exchange, a global tax on fossil fuels, a Global Taxing Authority, and a new U.N. Economic Security Council. But a new voice is stirring in these negotiations.
A delegate from the United States initially rejected the draft document, saying that the "three fundamental prerequisites for development: [are] peace, freedom and capitalism." He said that the purpose of the meeting "should not be to negotiate changes in the capitalist system but to integrate countries into it."
These are unfamiliar words by U.S. delegates at U.N. meetings. The United States is represented on the negotiating bureau by John Davidson, of the Permanent Mission to the U.N. Some delegates "chortled" at the U.S. position, one saying that "he hadn't heard language like this on capitalism since Brezhnev was alive."
This language has softened wording in the negotiating document from the report issued at the end of the June meeting. Nevertheless, the key elements, called for in the Millennium Declaration, are all contained in the carefully worded draft document.
While it is encouraging that the U.S. is speaking up at these meetings, in the end, the U.S. has only one vote at the U.N. U.S. clout comes from the money it can withhold if things do not go our way, and from our veto in the Security Council. If the U.N. gets the power to tax, and creates its own independent revenue stream, the U.S. will lose much of its influence. The new Economic Security Council will not offer veto power to any nation.
This initiative is carefully being guided to avoid the need for Security Council approval, where the U.S. has a veto, and possibilities are being explored that could achieve the desired result without the need to amend the U.N. Charter, therefore avoiding the need for Senate ratification.
This World Conference is scheduled for March 2002, in Monterey, Mexico. The political right will oppose the proposal because it goes too far toward giving the U.N. economic control. The political left will oppose it because it does not go far enough in the elimination of capitalism.
Whatever the outcome of the March meeting, the issue will not go away. The U.N., and the well-organized non-governmental organization machine, will continue to amass control in a central authority under the control of the U.N.
If the draft document is adopted in a form even closely resembling the present form, it can be implemented with or without U.S. approval.
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
