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Copyright
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Why
I made the t-shirt
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an unelected group (dominated by elites from rich western countries like the US) that exerts substantial control over the world's economies--both those that have signed on to its treaties and those who haven't. More importantly, the WTO has immense and undue control over the world and national governments. Countries, especially Third World countries suffering under perpetual crushing debt, are under enormous pressure to be a part of the WTO. Countries who have signed onto the various world trade treaties must abide by rulings of the WTO's tribunal when it comes to trade. Further, the WTO has the power to designate legislation in any country that is a member of the WTO as a "trade barrier". A trade barrier is essentially anything that prevents a corporation from making a profit, regardless of any other factor such as national, social, labor or environmental interests. If a country does not remove trade barriers--that is get rid of pesky environmental or labor protections for example--then that country can be sued for billions of dollars by the corporation whose profits are being blocked by them. So, laws that were democratically institued in sovereign countries have to answer to a higher power now: the WTO. That pretty much does away with national sovereignty. The WTO Tribunal has ruled many times concerning "trade barriers" and every time it has ruled against public interests and in favor of private profits. Tax payers in sovereign countries have not only been stripped of hard fought public interest protections by an unelected body, they've had to pay billions of dollars in penalties to foreign corporations (although modern corporations are mostly transnational these days; that is they behave as independent entities similar to countries by virtue of the fact that they have assets and operations in many different countries). Sounds pretty democratic, eh? Ask the Canadians who paid billions of dollars to the manufacturer of MTBE, a gasoline additive that causes cancer, because they had banned the product in Canada in an effort to protect the Canadian public's health. The Canadian government got rid of the law banning MTBE after paying its manufacturer the penalty awarded by the WTO Tribunal. There is so much to cover on the topic of globalization. I cannot adequately discuss it all here right now. Although I will add to this essay in the future. One important thing that I will say, is that the corporate media and other proponents of the WTO have made it hard to understand the issues surrounding the opposition to corporate dominated globalization by repeatedly misinforming and under-informing the world public. It is an unfortunate fact that those opposing the WTO and its agenda have been labelled as "anti-globalization". Globalization is an inevitable process that will continue to happen regardless of whether anyone wants it to. It is the process of opening communication and sharing culture as well as commerce betweeen all the peoples on earth. The WTO and its corporate ilk have attempted to take control of the process of globalization to the detriment of people everywhere. They would have globalization be a one-way system of removing wealth and natural resources from the majority of the world (the global South) and giving it to corporations owned primarily by stock holders living in the global North. They would have globalization be just another face of the imperialism and colonialism that has gone on for centuries robbing Africans, Indians, Asians, Latin and Central Americans, and so many others of their land, resources and freedom of self determination. This brand of globalization is unfair and undemocratic. While those opposing it have been labelled "anti-globalization", this is misleading. In reality, for the most part, they do not oppose the idea of globalization itself. But, they favor a more just and equitable globalization that affords rights and meaningful representation to all peoples , if not direct participation, in the process. They are against globalization without representation. There are many sources of more in depth information about globalization, the WTO, and other aspects of world trade. Here are some good ones: GLOBALIZATION LINKS
There are many more organizations and websites that deal with globalization. Please scour the web for more and find them on the ground in your communities as well.
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