Vineland revisited

[Paul Mackin]

I liked Jane's post. Suspect she is a parent or perhaps even a grandparent
(my generation) of a few of these idealistic young people who make grand
pronunciamentos about the world and how to set it right.


                                                            P.


Jane Sweet wrote:

> Teufelsdröcke wrote:
> >
> > Such treaties as NAFTA, GATT, FTAA protect the free movement of goods
> > and capital but continue to prevent the free movement of people.
>
> I don't think so. People are moving from Mexico and Latin
> America to the USA in very large numbers and not much is
> preventing this emigration.  Canadians are retiring to the
> USA, although their Health Plan requires that citizens spend
> a half the year and a day in Canada, which is exactly what
> many retired Canadians do. Asians are also emigrating to the
> USA in very large number, from China, from Korea, from
> India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and from Africa and from war
> torn states in Europe too.
>
> In this
> > way they are inherently fascist, codifying the continuing availability
> > of essentially prison labor in countries already ravaged by capitalist
> > predation.
>
> Is it capitalist predation that has ravaged these nations
> and their peoples?
> Can the USA continue to be blamed, can the World Capitalists
> take all the responsibility for poverty and slave and prison
> labor? I don't think so. There is good and evil isn't there?
> Isn't Africa hungry for US technology and food? Isn't it
> those Capitalist that have discovered all those wonder drugs
> now in use in Africa?
>
> The very opposite of their claim of bringing "western"
> > economic vitality and progress to "developing" nations, it is in fact a
> > new kind of colonialism.
>
> If it's new, or a new kind, perhaps colonialism is not the
> best term to describe it?
> Perhaps saying that it is a new kind of colonialism
> indicates that the horrors of colonialism are diminished as
> much as the horrors of the current state of affairs is
> inflated by the use of the term colonialism?
>
> >
> > Indeed, the anti-globalization movement provides some reason for hope,
> > because unlike the economic desperation behind the 1930's and the war
> > conscription behind the 1960's it is driven by a long-term and
> > principled vision of a democratic world.
>
> Well, some of the drivers don't give a damn for democracy,
> but most, be they red, pink, anarchists, so on, don't like
> capitalism one little bit, but I doubt there is much hope of
> defeating that market principle.