Bob's Links and Rants

Welcome to my rants page! You can contact me by e-mail: bob@goodsells.net. Blog roll. Site feed.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Free Trade and an Emerging Revolutionary Planet

An article by Robin Matthews, from Vive le Canada (thanks, Mike!). Excerpts:
Free Trade stands for almost everything wrong on the planet. As the Free Trade noose tightens, more revolutionary activity will occur until the strangling grip is broken completely or until the despotism of obscenely wealthy and criminal oligarchs feeding off an increasingly destitute and dehumanized world population wins its final triumph.

Free Trade is a condition in which dominant industrial power (allied to overwhelming political and military power) arranges the trade of the world to its own advantage while claiming it is participating with equals in an equal exchange of goods and services.

Free Trade has always been advocated and pushed by the wealthiest nations with the highest technological efficiency. Those nations are almost always imperialist powers. An imperialist power is a giant suction pump, pulling the wealth from outside its borders into its own heartland to grow richer and richer.

In order to maintain its dominance and to keep the flow of wealth pouring into its own borders an imperial power builds huge military forces, establishes bases wherever it can, bribes leaders and sets up co-operating dictatorships. Whenever an imperial power needs a war to control markets, it starts a war.
...
That is why many parts of the planet are moving, now, into revolutionary postures. They know (A) Free Trade is a big swindle, guaranteeing poverty and suffering. (B) Comparative Advantage is a lie. Period. (C) Wealthy capitalists have used the two together as a way of getting a large part of the world’s population into near slavery. (D) The only way out of this destructive entanglement is to fight a way out.
Ross Perot called it a "giant sucking sound," and he was right. The thing is, it sucks for everyone in every country except for those at the very top.