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What I am talking about is this weekends protests, teach-ins and mass movement against the plotting of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, not to mention scores of central bankers around the world. But THIS TIME while the honchos of the corporate oligarchy is meeting to try to plan our lives, the people is meeting too. The people are saying the Big Negatory to having our lives from secret and at a damned distance.
I want to hope ya'll is showing them your support instead of listening to the talking heads of the corporate press tell you that it is just some latter-day hippies and anarchists. It ain't. There is folks all over the world taking part in taking back our world. When I first got wind of it, I sent RodMan, our publisher, over to the April 16 Web site so's he could take a look. You should read this, too. And tune into 97.5 to hear what is happening!
What is the beef against the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, some of ya'll might be wondering. Well, I don't know economic details as well as some of the folks here like Kevin Carey and Rod Amis, but what I does understand is that they are the main lenders to Third World countries.
That gives these institutions the power to control whole economies, and thus have a major impact on the international economy. Now, from what I understand, it seems that over the years it's been the policy of the World Bank and IMF to impose restrictions on the kind of economic activity these countries get involved in. What does this mean?
It means, for example, that the World Bank and IMF, in order for a poor country to pay its debt service, can say, "Hey, listen here, Sudan, we don't want you raising grain anymore. The price is too low. Lookahere, stop planting them food crops and put in cotton instead. Cotton prices is high right now. That way you can pay us the $4 billion in debt service you owe this year."
From what I understand, that's pretty much what they did back in the 'eighties. And what happened? Well, Sudan was kind of a breadbasket country for that part of the world. Suddenly, you got famine in Ethiopia (a next door neighbor) higher bread prices in Egypt --- leading to riots --- for the first time in thirty damned years, and eventually even famine in Sudan.
Get the picture?
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Now get this: 54% of the money backing the World Bank and IMF comes from the United States. So it don't come as no surprise to this homeboy that many of the people joining these actions from other countries see what's going on as more machinations of America to globalize the world at their expense.
It's called neo-imperialism. It means that poor folks in other countries are exploited by big American multinational corporations. America consumes cheap goods and cheap oil while the rest of the world twists slowly, slowly in the wind.
That's part of the reason that labor organizations like the AFL-CIO have taken to the streets of Washington, D.C., too. Students and steel workers arm in arm to slow down the forces of globalization. Wow!
So I'm saying show your support, ya'll. We ain't just talking economics here, we are also talking the very environment of our planet. Ever wonder why we have rain forests disappearing in countries like Indonesia? Ask one of the Directors of the World Bank.
There's a big hole in the sky above our planet and the damned ozone is slipping out. There's some old white men from big corporations having a Star Chamber-like meeting in Washington, D.C. That's why people have taken to the streets.
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