Unfortunately, this is not the case either today or yesterday, and the totalitarian capitalist schema continues today with behind-the-media-scenes planning for a "North American Union." Like the Federal Reserve and GATT-NAFTA schemes, a similar legislative fait accompli is planned for the NAU.
In essence, it is not even so much about the ends, as it is about the means. If the means are corrupt and undemocratic then the ends are bound to be wrong, counterproductive, and costly. The current backlash to forced globalization around the world, and in recent elections in Latin America, reflect this reality.
"We're sick of the ruling elites trying to rule our country" Abraham Flores, Mexican voter
Alternatively, a laboratory of states and nation-states enables the greatest degree of freedom, experimentation, cultural latitude, and local democracy. It may also mean some states may be less free than others or, in the case of a North Korea, both dangerous and backward. Yet we do not imprison all states for the crimes, or potential crimes, of one.
Is the existence of one or a few bad apples reason to remove the nation-state freedoms of all, and proceed to end any greater local freedom, culture, and democracy? I think not, yet this is the ruling elite's "rogue state" and "interdependency" rationale.
Is not a cloistered and independent Tibet a blessing, as opposed to an imperialist Chinese state of tyranny? Is Denmark dangerous? Switzerland bad?
In any case, the ruling elite's trade deals (read forced trade with the greater slave) take away our levers to demand better standards and foster democracy. They reward the greater slave and slavemaster, against whom we must compete in a sick and twisted race to the bottom. They sacrifice a Tibet to "engage" a despotic China. In effect, they give away our markets and we get nothing in return – it is beyond dumb and treason is the word that comes to mind.
This, in essence, is today's fascist globalization (aimed at your resources, freedom, independence and democracy) and it is a dismal setup never voted for by the vast majority. As a result of such capitalist tyranny, it may well mean a new era of terrorism against the rich emerging - after the religious simpletons currently blowing innocents away discover who are their real enemies.
In any case, in the USA, from the beginning, we have taken pride in our "laboratory of states" model - wherein a republican form of federation allows both local control and national federation-cooperation if desired. This setup assumes, of course, that all the states of the republic reflect the will of the people via truly honest democratic processes, with honest voting machines, and that neither their majority-driven perogatives, nor minority rights, are taken away by a single person in a single, 5-4, Supreme Court decision.
Only in this from-the-ground-up fashion does democracy have any meaning. In this way we respect our own history, tradition, local customs and economy and allow for ourselves, and all others around the world, the widest variety of human rights and freedoms within one's own democracy-driven, freely-chosen, socio-economic, arrangement. It is the only way we preserve any cultural freedom and variety and avoid the pathetic, plastic, McWorld we are now forced to create.
In other words, as with Nature, we value diversity over monoculture. We value local freedom, human rights, and effective democracy over any global interdependency for its own sake.
In biology, monoculture is a disease-state and a weak bad seed on its way to a premature demise. A monoculture, both in society and nature, is the weakest and most vulnerable of structures, and so the most susceptible to disease and to the dis-ease of the people. A mono, global,culture is surely the most depressing of conditions, particularly if it is not the result of truly ground up, democratic, local choices for interdependency and cooperation.
A pluralism and freedom for diversity should be the approach in any more interconnected world – i.e., a laboratory of nations, not a forced and fascist globalization and dreary monoculture dictated from the top down by capital's ruling economic forces.
Yet that is what "we" are breeding today – i.e., a dismal global monoculture of neo-slave states with their powers wrested from the people and placed in agencies of the unelected... independent, of course, of any great labor representation. This top-down, fascism-by-appointment, regime is, predictably, brewing global backlash and may soon mean new bloodlettings of the rich and powerful – despite all the efforts to distract the populace with wars and info-tainment.
In any case, nation states are not a problem per se. Yes, we may have problems with some few nation-states. The real question, however, is whether today's nation states have any real freedom left – controlled as they are by private central banks, corporate media and campaign finance, and appointments to key positions and offices vetted by big capital alone.
In truth, we do not have effective democracy today, we have well-oiled, money-is-speech, oligarchies – all the more reason to preserve nation-state powers and freedoms in order to see that any globalization, harmonization, and interdependency proceeds democratically... from the bottom-up. Rewarding the greater slave, and punishing the greater democracy, is not the way to start this, or any other, socio-economic process.
Author, Exec. Dir. The Center For Balance. Websites: PanditPress.com, OligarchyUSA.com, PublicCentralBank.com, EditorFreedom.com,
FascismUSA.COM & more
Great article Kent, for the past twenty years free trade propaganda has been spewing from corporate funded think tanks so many people believe it is the only way. I think people are starting to figure out the real agenda behind it as they witness the devastation of wages at all skill and education levels.
Its time for Americans to take a stand against the corporate whores who are supposed to represent the people of America and try them for treason because much of the globalist agenda is also a huge threat to our national security in the not so distant future. Trade with China perfect example,we get slave labor for short term profit they get massive industrialization and a military buildup that will blow your mind. In twenty years China will control the entire world and impose whatever kind of doctrine it desires. They could very well succeed at what Hitler failed.
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Gary Denson (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 197 comments)
on Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 6:01:00 PM
But we can't put our heads in nationalistic soil and hope globalization goes away. Instead, let's embrace globalization thru a democratic body of people who confront corporate rule.
The basic premise of George Monbiot's argument for a world parliament is that world government by elites is a given – whether we like it or not. Our only hope, then, is to develop a people’s forum that holds global government to account. See his Age of Consent: Manifesto for a New World Order.
In this book, he details how we can preserve our cultural identities, as a world democracy. A shorter version of his ideas is in this essay.
Instead of swimming against the tide of world governement by elites, why not build a boat for the people to hold that government to account?
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Rady Ananda (80 articles, 219 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 576 comments)
on Sunday, July 1, 2007 at 1:30:17 PM
