COVER -> ACTION ALERT
"The anti-Americanism today encompasses not a specific policy like Iranian sanctions but a feeling that globalization has an American face on it and is a danger to the European and French view of society. There is the sense that America is such an extraordinary power that it can crush everything in its way. It is more frustration and anxiety now than plain anti-Americanism." --- Felix Rohatyn, US Ambassador to France
"Omnipotence and ignorance. It is a questionable cocktail.
"It would be great if they [Americans] read some of what we write, but they do not. It would be great if they saw what they looked like from over here. But they are not interested. The Americans are so sure of themselves. They think they are the best in the world, that they are way ahead of everyone and everyone needs to learn from them." --- Noel Mamere, author, No Thanks, Uncle Sam
"The conditionalities of the World Bank are basically conditionalities that make the poor poorer and the constant hype that the World Bank serves the poor is not at all true. If I spent the last two decades of my life supporting local movements, doing ecological research, rather than doing physics research, it is because of the devastation the World Bank is causing." --Vandana Shiva
FEED THE HUNGRY. You can help someone else in this world and IT WON'T COST YOU A DIME. If you simply remember to drop by The Hunger Site every day that you surf and click a simple button ONE LESS PERSON WILL GO HUNGRY. The food is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme and paid for through the sponsorship of companies that care. Do your part.
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The rich are IN FACT getting richer and the poor are IN FACT getting poorer.
Make no mistake about it. The G21 is solidly behind our brother and sisters who showed up in Washington, D.C., in New York, again in Seattle, in San Francisco, in New Delhi, and London, and around the world to say NO to the mercantile juggernaut of globalization. We believe that any policy that doesn't put average working people first is a misquided policy. If the world is to be globalized, it needs to be done on the basis of global COMMUNITY. We need to put average working people FIRST. Period.
We believe this will be a summer to remember. The WTO protest in Seattle was just a precursor of the activism which the World Wide Web has enabled us to begin. And, finally, alternative voices are being heard in the Mouthpiece Media.
The fact is that our world is at a turning point. We can move into a "post-human" era and accept electronic implants which make us prey to governmental and corporate surveillance, or we can resist.
We can let biochemical companies move us into an era of rampant genetic engineering, or we can insist that there be some ethical and moral brakes placed on the rampant re-engineering of life as we know it.
We can allow a new class of cyborganic life to replace people, or we can insist that we take a look before making the leap to machine control.
Most of all, we can ask ourselves what kind of future we want for ourselves and generations to come.
But part of that move may mean taking to the streets to stop the secret machinations of transnational institutions as people are doing all over the world this weekend and in the weeks to come.
The choice is ours. But we must be willing to take dedicated action now.
Let us make no mistake about it, the question being argued on the streets of Washington, D.C., and cities all over the world is not a trivial one. That question has everything to do with whether we allow the global multinationals to become de facto governments, whether average working people matter, and what type of future we want for our world. The question has to do with whether we are willing to accept the return to unbridled mercantilism which has taken place, robbing individuals of both privacy and a stake-hold in the future, or whether we shall insist on individual dignity and self-determination.
To put it in the simplest terms: will we decide our destinies or will we let faceless corporate moguls do it for us by buying our governments lock, stock and barrel --- because they can.
In my personal naivete, I am still willing to believe that people care about the future of themselve and their children. I am still willing to believe that the best impulses of the human race can overcome the oppressive power of corporate greed, unnecessary homogenization, and the loss of individual sovereignty. Join me in this attitude. Agitate. Agitate. Agitate!
Our Editor does listen!