The international WTO continues to be unofficially abandoned in favor of regional (unilateral) trade blocs like NAFTA, CAFTA, the EU, etc., increasing international tensions, which, if one looks below the surface, are conflicts between giant corporations based in rival nations, battling for control of international markets, raw materials, and cheap labor.
The failure of the WTO, the UN, and now Copenhagen are all examples of an increasingly conflict-ridden world, based on the emerging economies challenging the rule of the old powers. This dynamic clearly resembles the situation prior to WWI, when the big powers -- England and the U.S. -- felt threatened by the rise of Germany and Japan, and used a strategy of "containment" to stunt their growth. The end result was war.
This time, however, China, India, Brazil, and Russia are the emerging threats, and the issue of climate change is being used as yet another tactic to "contain" their growth.
Giant corporations in different countries are constantly growing and competing with each other for a very limited global marketplace, always attempting to monopolize markets, raw-materials, and labor by any means necessary. This vicious competition pushes all other social issues into the background -- human needs are subordinate to blindly chasing profits.
Such an irrationally competitive system cannot be smoothed over with good
intentions and on-paper cooperation. Deeper, conflicting corporate interests
between nations are the motor force pushing countries further apart the more
cooperation is needed.
But soon the fake cooperation Obama stresses will be too much for the U.S.
corporate-elite to bear. Many of them are bored with the international
community, especially when the U.S. is the sole
military super-power in the world. Soon Obama's "failed attempts" to
cooperate internationally will evolve into a more independent, Bush-like
approach.
The largely ignored UN is likely to be further pushed aside so that brute force
can continue to dictate US international policy, an agenda already begun by the
U.S. invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama's expanding war in Pakistan,
and the "looming threat" that supposedly Iran is.
As long as governmental policy is dictated by the corporations -- represented in
the U.S. by the two
party system -- multi-lateralism and cooperation are doomed. Thus, the
battle to save the environment and end war must include a fight against these
corporations, who wield a political/economic vise grip over society. Only
by publicly controlling these billionaire-owned mega-enterprises can the
peaceful and cooperative impulses of the earth's people find their full
expression.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com
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