Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Re: NAFTA / A New Kind of Science
Jack Park wrote: (01)
> At 01:20 PM 5/16/2002 -0700, you wrote:
> >Of course, no American company has the right to do that. But a
> >foreign company does, under NAFTA. Talk about signing away
> >your sovereignity at the stroke of a pen!!
>
> I watched a PBS special on this very problem, and one of the law suits was
> from an American company (if memory serves) suing a state or county in
> Mexico over the rights to use a landfill they had bought ( at which
> time, the landfill had been closed), in order to use that site for dumping
> toxic waste. The locals lost the battle. Go figure... (02)
Yup. That's the Bill Moyers special that opened my eyes on the subject.
All of the data I quoted came from his excellent reporting. (I should have
attributed it.) (03)
The Mexican situation is equally vexing. The local population rightly
decreed that their health came first. Under NAFTA, the U.S. company
gets to sue Mexico for their lost profits. (04)
The worse news: Congress is even now considering a bill to extend
the treaty to include some 49 other countries!!!! (05)
Multinational corporations are rubbing their hands with glee. An American
company can't force us to change our laws. But a foreign subsidiary can
sue us to death until we comply with their dictates, while the American
division does the same to the foreign government. (06)
The bottom line is that multinational corporations have aquired the power
to arrange the world to their own liking. While the democratic process
has legislative power, NAFTA gives corporations the financial power
to impose a crushing, ongoing finanical burden on any populace so unwary
as to exercise their legislative right. (07)
Damn scary. (08)
That's one reason that 3-dimensional farming and guerilla gifting are
vital -- to begin draining those corporations of their lifeblood. (09)