Fwd: ZNet Free Update: Quebec 2

[Doug Millison]

...more political news in a Pynchonian vein...

>From: "Michael Albert" <sysop at zmag.org>
>Subject: ZNet Free Update: Quebec 2
>Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 05:51:07 -0400
>
>Hello,
>
>Of course we are continually updating the ZNet
>site (http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) and hope
>you will visit regularly...but we thought just in
>case you can't make it, we would send along
>another commentary bearing on the events and their
>focus...the FTAA...with more to follow, we hope.
>
>This one was a piece in the Toronto Star...a
>bright spot in the mainstream....
>
>
>----
>
>It's about corporate wealth, stupid
>by Dalton Camp
>
>These days we are being bombarded by essays,
>editorials, columns and voicespeak assuring us
>that free trade is the miracle analgesic of our
>time, promising prosperity for all, inviting us to
>take a number and be patient. There is hardly a
>retired foreign service boffin who has not been
>heard to offer calming reassurance and to scold
>the deranged protesters.
>
>The Prime Minister, speaking of the protesters,
>has characterized their contrary views as "blah,
>blah, blah." My morning paper, the national
>edition, is making a heroic effort to explain the
>economic wonders of globalization, the road to
>which is being paved by FTA, NAFTA, FTAA and the
>eager multinationals. In its latest peroration, my
>morning paper declared: "Mexico has toughened its
>environmental regulations since Canada and the
>United States and Mexico formed the free-trade
>zone in 1994." Well, I'm far from expert in these
>matters. But I did once travel through Texas on a
>train, and I have a little "blah, blah, blah" to
>add to the blessings free trade is trying to bring
>to the Mexican environment.
>
>South of the border, down Mexico way, in a small
>town in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, a
>California firm - Metalclad - a commercial
>purveyor of hazardous wastes, bought an abandoned
>dump site nearby. It proposed to expand on the
>dumpsite and to haul toxic waste material and
>other hazardous stuff and dump it in San Luis
>Potosi. The people in the neighbourhood of the
>dump site protested. The municipality, using
>powers delegated to it by the state, rezoned the
>site and forbid Metalclad to extend its land holdi
>ngs.
>
>Concerned about the potential hazards of the
>reopened dump to the local water supply, the state
>conducted an environmental impact study. As a
>result, it rezoned the property and forbid any
>extension of Metalclad's land holdings.
>
>Metalclad, under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA, then
>sued the Mexican government for damage to its
>profit margins and balance sheet as a result of
>being treated unequally by the people of San Luis
>Potosi. A trade panel, convened in Washington,
>agreed with the company. The Mexican government
>has since appealed, and, if I may add a little
>more "blah, blah, blah," good luck to them.
>
>There is no better example for the rising public
>anger, concern and unease over globalization, free
>trade, and over the NAFTA, than the illustration
>provided in the matter of Metalclad vs. the people
>of Mexico, and beyond. Nothing has done greater
>damage to the environment, potable water and to
>public health than the devastating combination of
>new industrial border towns and dirt cheap Mexican
>labour. Globalization's apologists say this is
>about "development." There is overwhelming
>evidence it is really about exploitation of the
>poor and the powerless.
>
>In the small town in San Luis Potosi, there was
>once a dump. Then there was no dump. NAFTA (which
>includes us) says there has to be a dump, whether
>the people in the community want a dump, whether
>the municipality wants a dump or the state wants a
>dump; NAFTA says you gotta have a dump. Is the
>Prime Minister really puzzled about the fact that
>a lot of people who haven't read the treaty, and
>had never heard of Chapter 11 until yesterday, are
>saying that if this is what free trade is about,
>then it's nothing they want to root for, believe
>in, or, for that matter, vote for. In fact, to
>answer our own question: In truth, the government
>of Canada is madly lukewarm about Chapter 11.
>
>The Americans are devoted to the doctrine of equal
>treatment; it's an NRA, John Wayne, James Madison,
>General Dynamics, Bill Gates, Knute Rockne,
>General Motors kind of thing: If it's not part of
>the constitution, it should be (as it applies to
>business and good corporate health).
>
>The political establishment knows Canada's
>society, its health- care system, even its
>parliamentary democracy, are endangered by Chapter
>11. (After Ethyl corporation sued when the
>government banned its gasoline additive as a
>health hazard, the government settled "out of
>court" to prevent a public spectacle of a
>corporation overruling the nation's Parliament.)
>The hard truth is this: Chapter 11 was not
>enshrined in the NAFTA in order to make a better
>world for the people of Canada, any more than for
>the people of San Luis Potosi but, instead, for
>the corporate folk who own the newspapers,
>magazines and the electronic media, as well as
>many of the politicans, along with a few
>economists. All are now on parade in full marching
>regalia, and in full voice, singing for their
>supper and for a Chapter 11 for all people of all
>nations.
>
>Dalton Camp is a political commentator.

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