Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:38:55 -0400 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Citizen's Gathering in D.C. Protest MAI and Corporate Power] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu 15 Apr 1998 22:04:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:06:36 -0400 From: David Snyder Subject: Citizen's Gathering in D.C. Protest MAI and Corporate Power Sender: owner-slac@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu To: "'Moira Smith'" , "'amarley@jhsph.edu'" , "'bombast@hotmail.com'" , "'cnordone@aol.com'" , "'disarmnow@aol.com'" , "'dschubert@infoam.com'" , "'emuir@umd5.umd.edu'" , "'esak.garcia@yale.edu'" , "'E7h4ryo@toe.towson.edu'" , "'etandc@igc.apc.org'" , "'fnb@icaer.org'" , "'jheeg@jhu.edu'" , "'johnson@wou.edu'" , "'JPula@umpsy.ab.umd.edu'" , "'lexikyle@prodigy.net'" , "'lmagder@epi.umaryland.edu'" , "'mackay@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu'" , "'marmed@mailexcite.com'" , "'nalabdul@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu'" , "'nzook1@tiger.towson.edu'" Reply-to: slac@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu Illegal-Object: Syntax error in To: address found on listproc.hcf.jhu.edu: To: ^-extraneous tokens in address, missing end of address Dear Friends; 4-15-98 The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance, and the recent discovery of negotiations for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) has come like Paul Revere's horse and awakened people all over the world to the growing power of corporations and global institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. JOIN US FOR A RALLY TO PROTEST THE MAI THURSDAY, APRIL 23rd @ NOON Senate Side Lawn of Capitol, Across from Supreme Court The MAI is, as the head of the WTO put it, the constitution of a single global economy-but one in which multinational corporations have the right to exploit all the world's resources, and governments are greatly hindered from regulating that activity. In fact, under the MAI, if a corporation feels that a government has taken its profits away, even indirectly (through an environmental law, for example), that corporation can sue the government in the International Chamber of Commerce! The increasing centralization of power in the hands of unaccountable corporations portends the demise of the hopes of many for viable democracy and social justice-the MAI was initiated by the US Council of International Business (USCIB) in May 1995, and many of our Senators still don't know what the MAI is! When corporations reign unhindered, dictatorships flourish (just ask the people of Burma, or Nigeria) peasants are kicked off their lands (ask the people of Mexico or Brazil), the environment is plundered (every year, forested areas four times the size of Switzerland are cleared), and workers are exploited (ask the workers of Decatur, Illinois, or those who work at the Maquiladoras, for starters). In the world of MAI-style free trade, speculative investors are subsidized by our taxes and trillions of spectral dollars cause economic meltdowns like those seen in Mexico, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia (the MAI would prevent countries from slowing down or regulating those investments, as Chile currently does.) The struggle between human beings and corporations reaches back to the 18th century, when Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" condemned corporations as destructive of the conditions necessary for free trade-for Smith, free trade required that businesses be locally owned and rooted in the community. That struggle is being waged all over the world today, and in the case of the MAI, it has succeeded in at least delaying the negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. But already, the principles of the MAI-an absolutely deregulated global economy-have appeared in other pieces of legislation, like the Crane Bill for Africa and the Articles of Agreement of the IMF. There is also talk of moving the MAI negotiations to the World Trade Organization. Now that global citizens everywhere are waking up to the reality of corporate power, we cannot rest with the postponement of a single treaty! It is already being pushed through by other means, as we speak. By coming together next Thursday at the capital, and by raising awareness of the perils of corporate rule, we are opening a space in the political realm for people (like us!) to put forth alternatives. If we do not show our legislators that we condemn the MAI and the faulty vision which animates it (and NAFTA, and the GATT, etc.), that fragile space, which even now begins to show itself in our public sphere, will be shut by the power of the corporate lobby and mass media. That is the power of grassroots activism. And that is the responsibility we bear as citizens and stewards of the Earth. Indeed, it is the price of liberty. -David Snyder Sponsoring Organizations include: Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, The Citizen's Trade Campaign, Center for International Environmental Law, Progressive Challenge and the Global Economy Project of IPS, Women's Division of the United Methodist Church and the Alliance For Democracy. For More Information About the "MAI International April Week of Action" Contact Chantell Taylor at Public Citizen @ (202)546-4996 or www.citizen.org/gtw In Baltimore, e-mail David Snyder at dsnyder@goucher.edu - we may be able to provide transportation