Robbins, Mark on 11 Sep 2000 22:10:15 -0000


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RE: <nettime> draft article on WTO


Interesting text.  I think, however, that it would also make sense to
examine the path we took to getting here.  At least in America, and
perhaps worldwide, there has been a tendency on the left to escew grabs at
large ammounts of power, and opt for small ones, like school boards, and
PTA's. Certainly, this sort of working up from the grassroots level seems
like a wonderful way to build a base, but now this threat, greater than
any wacko on a school board could ever hope to be, is upon us and we are
impotent to stop it.  To me this is a failure of past generations to look
realistically at the world.  Things have never been approached with a) an
ubiquitous worldview or b) well defined goals.  This is a mistake that we
cannot afford to make if we have any hope of putting up serious opposition
to corporate gloabisation.  The left has been duped into adopting a
worldview wherein corporations are human, with the same rights and
priviligaes that we as human beings enjoy.  They are not, and they have
not.  That is what must be attacked, get people to question the idiocy of
assuming that corporations are human beings, and the gloves will come off.  
That includes fighting things like globalisation and the WTO, which serve
only to make corporations more human, but fundamentally it means making a
conscious effort to wake yourself and others up from this mass
hallucination.  If enough people believe in something, it is real.  A
corporations power has nothing to do with its bank account.


M. Robbins




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