Re: Beyond Genoa: An alternative approach

[Michael Pugliese <debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Fact check time there at FT, needed! >..."US Business and Economic
Council, a group of economic nationalists..." S/B,
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/98profiles/24303.htm
Michael Pugliese

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Diamond" <sdiamond@xxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 12:17 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:15690] Beyond Genoa: An alternative approach


> While I do not agree with everything that Public Citizen and Lori Wallach
do - particularly their weak kneed support for enforceable international
labor rights and their near silence in the battle against PNTR, their work
against fast track (now called, in doublespeak, "Trade Promotion Authority")
is admirable and indicates the political potential of democratic organizing
and solid arguments about the international economy.  The results are
certainly more tangible than throwing bricks through windows.
>
> Steve Diamond
>
> _________________
>
> Peace-loving activist at war with fast-track hell: Anti-globalisation
protesters do not all seek confrontation, finds Nancy Dunne
>
> Financial Times, Aug 3, 2001
> By NANCY DUNNE
>
> Lori Wallach, anti-global-isation campaigner, is preparing for "fast-track
hell". She sleeps for 12 hours two nights in a row. She prunes back her
garden "severely", knowing she will have no time to return to the task for
weeks. Then she descends into the basement of a beauty salon for a massage -
"to work out the residual stress to make room for new stress".
>
> She is thus armoured for a return to the fray - her fifth fight against
passage of a provision of US law once known as "fast track", now called
"trade promotion authority", or TPA. The measure is essentially a
congressional promise not to amend trade pacts after they have been
negotiated by the administration and sent to Capitol Hill for approval.
>
> Global Trade Watch, which Ms Wallach directs, is a division of Public
Citizen, founded by Ralph Nader, the consumer crusader. Supported by
foundation and member contributions and by sales of its books, the group
deploys a comparatively meagre annual budget of about Dollars 800,000
(Pounds 563,000) and an 11-member staff in its battle against
"corporate-dominated" globalisaion.
>
> Its fight is on two levels. In Washington the objective is to deny
President George W. Bush the opportunity to negotiate new trade pacts,
which, the group believes, do not protect the environment, labour, human
rights and food safety standards. It also plays a big role in mobilising
non-violent protests at international trade meetings.
>
> On a typical day in fast-track hell, Ms Wallach meets other "public
interest" lobbyists to prepare for the congressional recess. While
legislators who are undecided about fast track are home for a break, they
will receive visits from community leaders, co-ordinated by this loose
coalition.
>
> Ms Wallach is the most visible activist in a group that opposes what she
calls "the one-size-fits-all model" of trade pacts. She - and thousands of
others who marched peacefully during the Group of Eight summit in Genoa -
believe that the principal purpose for trade deals is to facilitate
worldwide corporate investment and profits in the name of efficiency.
>
> While big companies and US presidents have argued that expanded trade
opens markets to US products, brings cheaper goods into the domestic economy
and raises living standards around the world, Ms Wallach says trade deals
are "ruining the lives of gazillions of people" who cannot compete against
them.
>
> The coalition often meets at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO, labour's
umbrella organisation, which provides much of the financing and manpower for
campaigns. The group exchanges intelligence on how congressmen are leaning,
plots strategy and rehearses its arguments.
>
> Ms Wallach likes to create slogans and images - the inspiration usually
comes in her dreams, she says. "She even spins in her sleep," says an ally.
>
> This year labour is providing a special toll-free telephone number to
connect voters with their representatives' offices in Washington so they can
complain about TPA. The callers are also provided with background
information and talking points. TPA supporters argue that labour's principal
interet is in protecting jobs at home; in fact, before imports began to
flood US markets unions supported liberalised trade.
>
> Dan Seligman, trade co-ordinator for the Sierra Club, an environmental
group, met Ms Wallach during a fast-track fight eight years ago, when she
struck him and others as "fiery and ferocious". Their two organisations work
closely; he has 15 regional volunteers who co- ordinate activists at state
level and arrange meetings.
>
> Although most of the groups are left of centre, they are also joined on
trade issues by the US Business and Economic Council, a group of economic
nationalists. Alan Tonelson, the council's researcher, provides some of the
intellectual ammunition for the campaign, putting out reports that conclude
that trade deals have "very negative effects" on US living standards. The
council repre sents small and medium-sized businesses which, because they
are less able to withstand the competition, are openly protectionist.
>
> Part of the game plan in this year's TPA fight is to portray it as an
attempt to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to 31 more
countries.
>
> Nafta is deeply unpopular, Ms Wallach says. "In the early 1990s no one
knew what Nafta was. They thought it was a new laundry detergent." Since
then many companies have moved production south of the border; thousands of
manufacturing jobs have been lost. Nafta's defenders say Mexican labour
helps to keep the lid on inflation.
>
> While she has one team of staffers working on fast track, the other is
organising for the next WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November.
"By simply going to a place that forbids free speech, (the ministers) will
not get a free ride, I promise," she says. She insists that the protesters
will be there.
>
> The yearly fight against fast track begins to grow tedious, but Ms Wallach
thinks the anti-globalisation movement is gaining ground. "We had to create
the political space to make the possibility of change real. We've done that.
We've stopped the momentum ofthe 'unstoppable, inevitable' move to
globalisation."
>
> This concludes our series on non-governmental organisations Copyright: The
Financial Times Limited
>