Sorry to post two in a row, but I'm getting ready to go to bed and I have a deadline tomorrow so this will get lost in the cracks.

I just poked around on the site WORLD CHANGING Change your thinking--the site where that article appeared I just mentioned regarding slowdown of globalization.

It looks like a great site.  I've bookmarked it.  Worth a visit.

orldchanging is a solutions-based online magazine that works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.

http://www.worldchanging.com/about/

Perhaps the hidden message in high gasoline prices is: “To Green with Love”

The high oil and gas prices are beginning to have a positive effect on local economies. I have been reading stories all over the news today about Americans who are “going local.” The oil and gas prices crunch—forced upon us in great part by the greediness of the oil companies and the current administration in the White House—could be a blessing in disguise, a silver lining to diminish the dark cloud of global warming and strengthen local economies.

Guest worker programs are just another word for human rights abuses—a perfect example of what happens when labor is not represented. 

Workers are left to accept the handouts offered to them by nations and corporations.  If anyone needs a lesson in regard to how well even our government represents its workers, you only need to look at the profit margins of corporations like Exxon and compare them to the current minimum wage of $5.85 an hour. Congress gave the first pay raise to workers by our government in 10 years But this $7.25 rate will not be in effect until July of 2009.

Justice for two Guest workers
http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/elizabethberry/CRNx

Immigrants issues are but one of the many results of unchecked globalization
http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/elizabethberry/CNlh

Globalization is sold on the basis that “development” reduces poverty, but this is not always true.
http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/elizabethberry/CxDY

Slave Labor and Guest Worker Programs—disgusted with Bush and disgusted with Congress.
http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/elizabethberry/CxD8

The following is from the United Steel Workers (the link to the source follows on the extended post)

Top Ten Effects of Globalization

10.   Manufacturing Job Loss - Since early 2001, we've lost 17.4 percent of our manufacturing jobs.  That's nearly three million family-supportive jobs!

9. "White Collar" Job Loss - Accountants, scientists, editors, programmers and many others are at risk of seeing their jobs head offshore due to the growing availability of technology and cheap labor.  A Princeton economist recently estimated that 30 to 40 million U.S. jobs could be outsourced in the near future.

8.  Devastated Workers & Families - The U.S. social safety net isn't properly set up for workers in this economy.  Often, a job loss means losing a pension, health care and financial footing. These pressures mean severe strain and hardship for families.

7.  Depressed Wages & Benefits - Direct competition with workers around the globe (who are often paid poverty wages) means U.S. workers are pressured to accept lower wages and fewer benefits.  Globalization creates extreme income inequality.

6.  Failing Economies - When jobs are lost, the tax base shrinks. It becomes tougher for communities and states to provide services to taxpayers. 

5. Shrinking Paychecks - Manufacturing jobs average $725/week, while the overall weekly average for all jobs is $602/week. 

4.  Giving Our Nation's Lawmaking Power to Corporate Entities - We've put ourselves in a position where we've had to overhaul our domestic laws because they've been challenged at the World Trade Organization.  In deals like NAFTA, we agreed to let corporations challenge any of our laws - even environmental protections!

3.  Skyrocketing Trade Deficit - Our number of exports is dwarfed by the number of products we import.  This isn't sustainable and goes hand in hand with job loss.

2.  Sweatshop Exploitation & Toxic Imports - Globalization is encouraging companies to scan the globe to find the most exploitable workers in order to fatten wallets.  Child workers, slave labor and inhumane conditions are becoming all too common.  In this rush to make cheaper goods, safety standards are compromised. We are then left with toxic products flooding our market and endangering even the lives of our children.

1. Constant Stress and Insecurity - We now live in a world where no matter how hard we work or how dedicated we are, we can still lose our job at any time.  We have to constantly live with the fear of losing our job, not being able to support our families, losing our healthcare and being forced to take a job (if we can even find one) that pays much less and immediately lowers our standard of living.

When it comes to politics, we Americans tend to be rather myopic and self-absorbed.  As an American, I too fit that profile to a great extent.  However, as of late (the past six months) I’ve been expanding my reading beyond the boundaries of mainstream media and even the alternative media (which I prefer) of the USA.  I’ve been reading from many international sources as well to see what else is happening beyond our borders as interpreted by others.  As an informed citizen, I need to know not only what is happening in my country, but also what is happening in the world.  With a global perspective, I can better put the context of what the leaders of my nation are doing as compared to what they SHOULD be doing.

Also, I encourage Americans who are seeking the truth to WIKI the authors of articles AFTER you read the information.  Sometimes reading about who the author is makes something fall into place and can be used as a tool to temper the credibility of what the author said—but I read first and then look up the author so I am not prejudiced beforehand. Sometimes, even if  I don’t agree with all they said, there are often elements of truth that I can use.

Last week, June, 17, 2008, this important event happened.  I wonder how many Americans knew of it?

The Irish objected to it because they did not want to create a European regime. As French and Dutch voters have said before, the Irish said they want a free trade zone. ….They can live with a single currency so long as it does not simply become a prisoner of German and French economic policy. But they do not want to create a European state.

The French and German governments DO want to create such a state.  .  .  Those two powers now want a framework for preventing war within Europe. They also — particularly the French — want a vehicle for influencing the course of world events. In their view, the European Union, as a whole, has a gross domestic product comparable to that of the United States. It should be the equal of the United States in shaping the world. This isn’t simply a moral position, but a practical one. The United States throws its weight around because it can, frequently harming Europe’s interests.

The French and Germans want to control the United States. The French and Germans would welcome all this if they could get it. They know, given population, economic power and so on, that they would dominate the foreign policy created by a European state. Not so the Irish and Danes; they understand they would have little influence on the course of European foreign policy. They already feel the pain of having little influence on European economic policy, particularly the policies of the European Central Bank (ECB).  .  . “

Source:   http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/integrate/2008/0617problem.htm 

The French took leave of their senses last year and elected conservative Nicolas Sarkozy as their prime minister.  It was a close election and riots broke out all over France.  More than 350 cars were set on fire across France after Sarkozy’s victory was announced. Riot police fired tear gas into a crowd gathered at the Place de la Bastille in Paris as news of Sarkozy's victory came through.  It was quite the scene. I was in Paris at the time.

Naturally with Sarkozy in place, the Bush administration’s overtures to France have warmed up considerably.  Now the French are our friends.

HERE IS THE LATEST MANEUVER FROM BUSH AND SARKOZY

It has not even been a week after Sarkozy and Bush met (Remember, last week was Bush’s whirlwind farewell tour of Europe to stir up support for attacking Iran.)

Sarkozy has announced that he wants to whittle down the size of the French Military.  On the surface, that sounds like a good thing, but it may not be.  I heard on the news this morning where several generals and other officials were protesting this move. (That of course is to be expected as no one appreciates job cuts in their own corners) however, this cutting of the military has nefarious overtones that go beyond merely paring down the military.

By making the French military smaller, they would be subservient to the UK in the event that a united European Army is formed. (Germany proposed the formation of a European Army to the UN in 2006.)  And what better ally does the US have in our warmongering neocon corporate sponsored adventures than Great Britain? 

Globalization is nothing if not a mass of contradictions.  It creates new markets and wealth and also causes widespread suffering, disorder, and unrest.

Many blame globalization; however, the problem is not globalization but capitalism and the desire of a small group to control it.  I will say this again because it is important. The problem is not globalization, but capitalism.  Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are now global corporations, only 49 are countries.   The top 200 corporations have economies that surpass the economies of 182 countries.  1

The second, and perhaps more frightening, part of this equation is that our government has for years now had as its priority to serve capitalism (corporations) and not people. (If you can’t tell from legislation passed for the past 30 years, then you have not been paying attention.)    Agencies and lobbyists representing corporate globalism are very much involved in pursuing the emancipation of capital and the means by which it is obtained from popular control.  This explains why Washington DC has over 35,000 registered federal corporate lobbyists.  That is about 700 lobbyists for every elected legislator.  Corporations are very serious about gaining complete control over capital and they are willing to put their money behind their efforts.

Between 1995 and 1998, on the Clinton’s watch, an agreement that most Americans have never heard of --The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was negotiated between members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2  (The OECD is an international organization of thirty countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free market economy.) 

FROM CORPORATE WATCH:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=378

Since it was created in 1995, the WTO has ruled that every environmental policy it has reviewed is an illegal trade barrier that must be eliminated or changed. With one exception, the WTO also has ruled against every health or food safety law it has reviewed.

Nations whose laws were declared trade barriers by the WTO-or that were merely threatened with WTO action-have eliminated or watered down their policies to meet WTO requirements.

Supposedly each of the WTO's 134 member countries have an equal say in governance. In practice, decision-making is dominated by the "Quad": USA; European Union; Japan and Canada.

Each member of the Quad represents its corporations' interests at the WTO. These corporations are often directly involved in writing and shaping WTO rules. In the U.S. this is achieved through official "Trade Advisory Committees" which are dominated by the private sector.

For instance, the US International Trade Administration's Energy Advisory Committee is made up exclusively of representatives of giant oil, mining, gas and utility corporations, including Texaco, Enron, Halliburton and Freeport-McMoran.

The top fifth of the world's people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and 68% of foreign investment-the bottom fifth, receive roughly 1%.

Women comprise 70 percent of the world's 1.3 billion absolute poor. Worldwide, they bear the brunt of economic and financial transition and crisis caused by market forces and globalization.

Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are now global corporations, only 49 are countries.   The top 200 corporations have economies that surpass the economies of 182 countries. 

To give you an idea, General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor and DaimlerChrysler  are all economic entities that are larger than  Poland, Norway, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Finland Greece, Thailand, Portugal, Venezuela, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Philippines, Chile, Pakistan, Peru, Czech Republic,  New Zealand, Hungary, Algeria, and Bangladesh.  The following link provides a complete list:

http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html

Two hundred giant corporations, most of them larger than many national economies now control well over a quarter of the world’s economic activity.  Instead of creating an integrated global village, these firms are weaving webs of production, consumption and finance that bring economic benefits to only about a third of the world’s people.  Two-thirds of the world (the bottom 20% of rich countries like ours, but this percentage is growing and the bottom 80% of poor countries) are either left out, marginalized or hurt by these webs of production/consumption/finance.

As corporate concentration has risen, corporate profits have risen with it, but not workers and communities benefits from these profits.  In America, median family income fell over 1 percent a year between 1989 and 1994.  (This after 40 years of expansion and the realization that our children would be better off than we were.)

SOURCE

http://globalpolicy.igc.org/socecon/tncs/top200.htm

My request to all the bloggers on this site:  Let’s put our brainpower to some good use.  Let’s learn about globalization and what it really means to the world and to us.  We are world citizens.  Let’s get involved and change our world.  We can, but we must be educated.  Here are two great sites that I recommend:

The reason our dollar is so low is that our President has seen fit to spend billions on unnecessary military adventures and essentially borrowed money to do it. We are not actually paying for these wars. We are on the installment plan and as enormous debtors we suffer the consequences of people who are in over their heads. Their credit rating goes down. When individuals do this, they pay more in interest, maybe get their car repossessed, or their home foreclosed. When nations do it their currency gets devalued, cheapened, if you will.

Most of our troubles today are directly related to the Bush foreign policy which has made us more isolated, more despised, and weaker, especially economically. Sure, a few people are doing very well, either by sucking up to dictators, or by getting lucrative contracts, but the average person is stuck with the bill. Since we indeed live in a global economy, it might be fair to say that even the term foreign policy is becoming obsolete. A better term might be global policy since we are not outside the world, but participants in it.

It's always Halloween when we remember Republicans. Let's make sure that the real Democrats among us post at least one blog an hour to remind everyone of just who and what "values" that Republicans really represent.  They are the ones who think that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to them.  They are the ones who don't believe in habeas corpus.  They are the ones with the President who said that the Constitution was just a piece of paper (but of course, he wears a flag pin). They are the ones who built Guantanamo for us.  They are the ones who use our tax dollars to pay for Blackwater.  They are the STUPID ones who instead of using local Iraqi people who needed the work allowed their no-bid contract friends Halliburton to bring in slave labor from Bangledesh to work in Iraq.  What is globalization really?  Just a Republican euphemism for slave labor.