From the October 14 Manifesto endorsed, apparently, by Eduardo Galeano (socialist), Naomi Klein (socialist), Noam Chomsky (allegedly left-anarchist) and Vandana Shiva (environmentalist):
“Undemocratic international institutions are our global Mubarak, our global Assad, our global Gaddafi. These include: the IMF, the WTO, global markets, multinational banks, the G8, the G20, the European Central Bank and the UN Security Council. Like Mubarak and Assad, these institutions must not be allowed to run people’s lives without their consent. We are all born equal, rich or poor, woman or man. Every African and Asian is equal to every European and American. Our global institutions must reflect this, or be overturned.
Today, more than ever before, global forces shape people’s lives. Our jobs, health, housing, education and pensions are controlled by global banks, markets, tax havens, corporations and financial crises. Our environment is destroyed by pollution in other continents. Our safety is determined by international wars and international trade in arms, drugs and natural resources. We are losing control over our lives. This must stop. This will stop. The citizens of the world must get control over the decisions that influence them at all levels – from global to local. That is global democracy. That is what we demand today.
Comment:
If this weren’t so serious, it would be funny.
“Global Mubarak, Assad, and Gaddafi,” eh? All brown-skinned Muslims? No mention of Barak Obama or George Bush or Bill Clinton? No mention of Paul Wolfowitz?
The Global Wolfowitz Is At The Door has a nice ring…..
Global Netanyahoo? Too polysyllabic for comfort.
And George Soros, many megawatts more powerful than some Middle Eastern dictators? But Global Soros sounds too much like a disease….
Talking about Soros, check back this to post of mine from June 2010, which analyzes a Soros proposal for global democracy, from 2009. This adds weight to what I said about the push-back against the Tea Party starting in 2009. When he talks about “demagogues” in the piece, he means the middle-class that rose up against the bail-outs.
Oh dear. A bunch of professional activsts, westerners all (Vandana Shiva notwithstanding), sharing the same old world view (all leftists), speaking for the six billion plus people of this planet, hundreds of nations, hundreds if not thousands of languages and dialects, scores of religions, ethnicities, millions of companies and associations, most of whom are going about their business and have nothing to do with OWS.
How’s that for Global Chutzpah?
Here is Vandana Shiva calling for global democracy and name-checking George Soros and Mikhail Gorbachev (ANC.net/au):
“And you might remember Gorbachev was a very keen free marketer, and he was speaking with me at the opening plenary of this meeting and said “it’s turned out to be very different from what I had imagined. I thought it would bring democracy; it brought mafia rule.”
And then the person who’s really won out in this game of globalisation — George Soros — he was there too, and this is what he said. (my italics and emphases throughout)
He said: “free markets were supposed to have created open societies, free societies, but we cannot speak of the triumph of democracy. Capitalism and political freedom do not go hand in hand. We cannot leave freedom and democracy to market forces. We need to create our own institutions and different institutions from those that serve capitalism to take care of it.
“And anyone,” this is not my words, it’s not your words, it’s George Soros’, “who thinks they can leave freedom to free markets is a market fundamentalist, that’s not how societies work”.
Ms. Shiva, we love your work. But don’t be taken in by this Hegelian dialectic, this Mighty Wurlitzer of media manufactured global consensus between faux free-marketers (Soros) and faux -anarchists (Chomsky). The missing term from both adjectives is “state”. Soros is a state capitalist and Chomsky is a state socialist. It is the capitalist-communist convergence.
State-capitalists fund the think-tank circuit and foundation activism. The corrosive effects of this on democracy have been established many times by serious analysts. In what sense then can foundation activists call for democracy? A polarised dialectic is created by the state-capitalists to co-opt reform, and people like Ms. Siva are there to put a diverse face on the resolution of the dialectic and make it acceptable to the non-western world.
Step back and think about the invisible hand here.
Who is this George Soros?
Even Magasaysay Award-winning Medha Patkar, according to renowned anti-globalization activist Arundhati Roy, has allowed herself to be bamboozled by the Wikileaks-blessed Anna Hazare circus.
Now, it is becoming clear to many that behind the attractive “anti-corruption” agenda, which is dear to many, many ordinary Indians, the globalists are showing their hand, by trying to hustle through legislation favorable to them (the Janlok Pal Bill) in the hubbub of the cynically named so-called “Second Indian Independence.” The government must be “transparent,” but foreign-funded non-governmental organizations promoting chauvinism and wedge-issues, mixing legitimate grievances with bogus accusations, must be exempt from transparency requirements.