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Zenresistance
good observation. Lou Dobbs on CNN has also lamented the equation of multinational-corporate-governed trade with free trade, and the attempt to designate any alternative policy as necessarily protectionist.
The problem is that opponents of the current system often do push protectionist measures that would do more harm than good -- agriculture subsidies, steel tariffs, etc.
But I don't doubt that multinationals are trying to screw over an oil-rich poor country. It does not take much intellectual labor to see this. The powerful will often try to take grossly unfair advantage of the less-powerful whenever they can get away with it, which is much more often with a royalist-corporatist president like the current one in power in the U.S.
Chavez, however, does not get a pass. Forget (only for the time you're considering this assertion, of course) America's motives in condemning him; he's deliberately undermining civil liberties and that's bad.
posted by
Dylan24
on
May 17, 2005
at
6:24 PM
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Yep.
I'm a free-marketeer, but this kind of crap isn't what I'm for or about. This news has been floating around a lot of the circles I'm in, and with little exception the response has been, "F*** the World Bank, and f*** George Bush." What the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the lot actually do is just create nicely-packaged, state-endorsed monopolies. Venezuela's oil is Venezuela's oil. Let them sell to whom they wish to sell it, and let them keep their house in order.
Maybe I'm weird and travel in weird political circles, but I am one free-marketeer that thinks a lot of the stuff that passes for "free trade" is a load of hooey. In many cases, it's just a very fancy term for indentured servitude.
posted by
zenresistance
on
May 16, 2005
at
12:27 PM
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wow, I did not know this. It is quite embarrassing.
posted by
michael_pilarte
on
May 16, 2005
at
6:14 AM
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