Censored Alerts
Peter Phillips
Excerpted from
"The Last Frontier"
The Ecologist
February, 2001
Maude Barlow
A global trade agreement being negotiated this year will seek to privatize
nearly every government-provided public service and allow transnational
corporations to run them for profit.
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a proposed
free-trade agreement that will attempt to liberalize/dismantle barriers
that protect government provided social services. These are social
services that the government provides in the name of the public welfare.
The GATS was established in 1994, at the conclusion of the "Uruguay Round"
of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In 1995, the GATS
agreement was adopted for inclusion into the newly created WTO.
Corporations plan to use the GATS agreement to profit from the
privatization of educational systems, health care systems, child care,
energy and municipal water services, postal services, libraries, museums
and public transportation.
If the GATS agreement achieves its December 2002 goal, it will lock in the
privatized, for-profit model for the global economy. GATS/WTO will also
make it illegal for a government with privatized services to ever return to
a publicly owned, non-profit model. Any government that disobeys these WTO
rulings will face sanctions. What used to be areas of common heritage like
seed banks, air and water supplies, health care and education will be
commodified, privatized and sold to the highest bidder on the open market.
People who cannot afford these privatized services will be left out.
The services sector is the fastest growing sector in international trade.
If GATS is implemented corporations will reap windfall profits. Health
care, education and water services are the most potentially lucrative.
Global expenditures on water services exceed $1 trillion each year; on
education, they exceed $2 trillion; and on health care, they're over $3.5
trillion. Already, the WTO has hired a private company called the Global
Division for Transnational Education. This company plans to document
policies that "discriminate against foreign education providers." The
results of this 'study' will be used to pressure countries with public
education systems to relinquish them to the global marketplace.
The future of accountability for public services, and sovereign law is at
stake with the GATS decision. Foreign corporations will have the right to
establish themselves in any GATS/WTO country and compete against public
institutions, such as schools and hospitals, for public funds.
The current round of GATS negotiations has identified three main priorities
for future free-trade principles. First, GATS officials are pushing for
'National Treatment' to be applied across the board. 'National Treatment'
forbids governments from favoring their domestic companies over
foreign-based companies. This idea already applies to certain services,
but GATS will enforce it to all services. This will create an expansion of
corporate access to domestic markets and further diminish democratic
accountability. What is more shocking is that Western countries are
planning to make it illegal for 'developing' countries to reverse this
exclusive access to their markets.
Second, GATS officials are seeking to place restrictions on domestic
regulations. This will limit a government's ability to enact
environmental, health and other regulations and laws that hinder
"free-trade." The government would be required to demonstrate that its
laws and regulations were necessary to achieve a WTO-sanctioned objective,
and that no other 'commercially-restrictive alternative' was available.
Third, negotiations are attempting to develop the expansion of 'Commercial
Presence' rules. These rules allow an 'investor' in one GATS country to
establish a presence in any other GATS country. The 'investor' will not
only be allowed to compete against private suppliers for business, but will
also be allowed to compete against publicly-funded institutions and
services for public funds.
This potential expansion of GATS/WTO authority into the day-to-day
business of governments will make it nearly impossible for citizens to
exercise democratic control over the future of all public services.
One American trade official summed up the GATS/WTO process by saying,
"Basically it won't stop until foreigners finally start to think like
Americans, act like Americans and most of all shop like Americans."
Synopsis by Chris Salvano
"Women's Health" Laws Masking Anti-Abortion Agenda
Excerpted from:
"The Quiet War on Abortion"
Mother Jones
September/ October 2001
Author: Barry Yeoman
A quiet war against abortion is being conducted by many local
governments in the United States. Cities and counties are placing
unnecessary restrictions on abortion providers under the guise of women's
health laws. These restrictions range from how wide a hallway can be to the
jet and angle type of the drinking fountains; from the height of the
ceiling to how long one must wait between initially seeing the doctor and
when the procedure can be performed.
These legal ordinances are known as TRAP laws. TRAP stands for Targeted
Regulation of Abortion Providers. These laws regulate everything except the
abortion procedure itself. While called women's health laws, they are
seldom applied to any medical facility other than abortion clinics. In
effect, these laws are prohibiting abortions even though they are still
legal. In the words of one right-to-life leader, the idea is to create an
environment "where abortion may indeed be perfectly legal, but no one can
get one."
TRAP laws have been passed in several states including Utah, Connecticut,
Louisiana, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Alabama, Colorado, Mississippi, New
Mexico, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Illinois, Nebraska, and Texas. These
regulations such as hallway width, angle and jet types for drinking
fountains, ceiling height, doorway width, counseling room dimensions,
air-circulation rates, outdoor weed-control practices, and separate
changing rooms for men have resulted in the closing of abortion clinics for
mandated remodeling. Sometimes the clinics are closed temporarily, but
sometimes the repairs are simply too expensive and the clinic is forced the
cease operating altogether.
In 1992 when the Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling continued to
support the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a new stealthier strategy was called
for and shaped by pro-life campaigners. After the Casey decision,
right-to-life advocates began thinking about other ways to attack abortion
that were not so overtly against the Wade decision. By claiming that
abortions take place in dirty facilities and cause such illnesses as
depression and breast cancer, right-to-lifers realized they could subtly
move the focus of the debate away from the moral and legal angles.
The right-to-lifers now couch their cause in terms of women's health.
Right-to-life advocate, Bordlee, says, "what's good for the child is good
for the mother. So now we're advocating legislation that is good for the
woman." By playing with words in this manner, people like Bordlee can make
laws sound plausible and even necessary. The dimensions of a counseling
room will not guarantee a safe and correct abortion. In fact, this
regulation does not even affect the procedure. This law does not protect a
woman's health, but it does provide a nuisance to abortion providers
everywhere.
TRAP laws and the quiet war on abortion are ways that pro-lifers
can circle the issue of abortion without facing it straight on. The Supreme
Court has repeatedly supported a woman's right to abortion, but these laws
are quietly taking that right away. If these laws are not challenged they
will become more frequent and ultimately could mean the end of legal
abortions in this country.
Synopsis by: Kara Stout
NAFTA Destroys Farming Communities at Home and Abroad
Excerpted from:
"NAFTA's devastating effects are clear in Mexico, Haiti"
Source: Fellowship of Reconciliation
Date: Dec. 2000/Jan. 2001
Author: Anita Martin
and
"NAFTA gives the shafta to North America's farmers"
Source: The Lowdown
Date: September 2001
Author: Jim Hightower
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) are responsible for the impoverishment of and exodus of
small farms in Mexico and Haiti. NAFTA is also causing the economic
destruction of rural farming communities in the United States and Canada.
The resulting loss of rural employment has created a landslide of
socio-economic and environmental consequences that will only worsen with
the continued dismantling and deregulation of trade barriers.
When NAFTA came before Congress in 1993, U.S. farmers were told that the
agreement would open the borders of Mexico and Canada, enabling them to
sell their superior products and achieve previously unknown prosperity.
Corporations whom operate throughout the Americas, such as Tyson and
Cargill, have since used the farming surplus to drive down costs, pitting
farmers against each other and prohibiting countries from taking protective
actions.
Since the enactment of NAFTA, 80% of the foodstuffs coming into the US are
products that displace crops raised here at home. NAFTA has allowed
multinational middlemen to increase production in Mexico, where they can
profit from much cheaper labor, as well as freely use pesticides banned in
the US.
In both Mexico and Haiti, NAFTA policies have caused an exodus from rural
areas forcing people to live on city streets, accepting low paid labor and
sweatshop conditions. Farmers in Mexico, unable to compete with the
large-scale importation and chemical-intensive mass production of US
agricultural corporations, are swimming in a corn surplus that has swelled
approximately 450% since NAFTA's implementation. Haiti's deregulation of
trade with the US has destroyed the island's rice industry in a similar
manner. Resulting urban slums are contributing to the breakdown of
cultural traditions and public authority, making the growing masses
increasingly ungovernable.
The Mexican government clashes violently with any organized dissent towards
NAFTA. Protests in Chiapas and in Central Mexico have lead to the reported
arrest, injury and death of dozens of activists. Community leaders like
Minister Lucius Walker, executive of the Interreligious Foundation for
Community Organization, state that, "The biggest challenge facing all of us
in this new millennium is to build a citizens' movement to counter the
corporate captivity of the Americas."
The1993 NAFTA agreement has created the desolation of small farming
communities, added loopholes to environmental precautions and exploited
poor people throughout the Americas. With the scheduled 2009 lift on
tariffs and import restrictions, as well as Bush's proposed Free Trade Area
of the Americas (FTAA) adding 31 more countries to the NAFTA agreement,
many additional farming communities are in danger.
Synopsis by: Adam Cimino
Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/