MAI

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New address for Fred Hall
guevara42@hotmail.com

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Allison Ruth Denning wrote:

> Wednesday Feb. 11 at Dalhousie University's Law School, Maude Barlow spoke
> on the proposed MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) based on her
> book "The Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the Threat to Canadian
> Sovereignty".  There were over 200 people in attendance to this event.  To
> me, this indicates that there is still quite a bit of concern and/or
> lack of awareness or understanding about what the MAI is all about.  If
> you are interested in learning more about the MAI - please contact the
> Council of Canadians 
> 904-251 Laurier Avenue West
> Ottawa, ON
> K1P 5J6
> Phone (613) 233-2773
> Fax (613) 233-6776
> Toll Free 1-800-387-7177
> http://www.web.net/coc
> 
> Maude's talk also reminded me of an article by Peter Montague from the
> e-mail newsletter Rachel-Weekly which for those of you who do not
> subscribe to it, I thought you might find it interesting.  It's about
> corporate accountability, which will only decrease (in my opinion) if the
> MAI is agreed to by Canada.
> 
> TRENDS IN CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY -- WW III, Pt. 3
> 
> 
> Most people want the same things: 
> 
> ** better education for their children;
> 
>  ** good health, especially for their children;
> 
>  ** a better environment (broadly defined to include housing, recreation,
> and transportation, in addition to clean air, water, and food);
> 
>  ** safer communities;
> 
>  ** more economic security;
> 
>  ** stronger families and family support;
> 
>  ** less government regulation and smaller government;
> 
> ** fewer taxes;
> 
>  ** more local control.
> 
>  Yet the American economic and political systems are not delivering most
> of these things to most people: 
> 
> ** Many school systems are deteriorating, public library budgets are being
> cut, and TV is "dumbing down" both adults and children: by the time they
> are 18, American children have been in school 11,000 hours but have spent
> 15,000 to 18,000 hours in front of a TV set;
> 
>  ** By many measures, children's health is declining --cancers are
> increasing, and so are diabetes, asthma, infectious diseases, excessive
> weight, and attention deficits, to name only the most obvious problems.
> 
>  ** Overall, as we have documented again and again, the environment is
> tending to get worse in many respects despite the relentless barrage of
> corporate "greenwash" claiming the contrary in the media;
> 
>  ** Many communities aren't safe and many more are not perceived as safe
> (thanks to the media's obsession with murder and mayhem in the local
> news);
> 
>  ** Most people are less well-off AND less secure today than they were 20
> years ago (see REHW #567);
> 
>  ** Families are having a hard time because so many family members are
> working and the children are therefore somewhat neglected; spare time is
> shrinking; people are demoralized and stressed out by their lives outside
> the home so to numb themselves they allow TV to dominate their living
> rooms; elder care is a growing dilemma for most families; debt is growing;
> for many, retirement is a fading hope;
> 
> ** Government IS getting smaller but not always in ways that help most
> people --for example, the Internal Revenue Service IS getting smaller but
> this just means more wealthy tax evaders are going unpunished;
> environment, health and social service agencies are facing budget cuts
> while public subsidies to corporate polluters are holding steady or
> rising;
> 
>  ** Taxes have been mounting for the middle class and the working poor
> while corporations and the rich are paying less of their fair share;
> 
>  ** And, finally, Congress SAYS it is giving more control to people at the
> local level while the REAL direction is to "globalize" decision-making,
> which means transferring control from local citizens to transnational
> corporations that answer to no one.
> 
>  As a result of these trends, cynicism, depression and ennui are rampant
> among Americans; racism is increasing (even the President has noticed it
> is a problem) as more people compete for crumbs from a shrinking slice of
> the pie; most people don't vote (because candidates don't offer real
> alternatives --any that do are clobbered by the money bullies); so the
> system is stuck in a vicious circle in which power and wealth are
> relentlessly
> 
> siphoned off into the pockets of a smaller and smaller fraction of the
> people.  Forty percent of the people are doing well enough to continue to
> support the 1% who are becoming filthy rich --and the other 60%, who are
> hurting, nurse their wounds alone, disengaged, numbed by drugs or beer or
> television, or simply too tired to fight back.
> 
>  Notice the key actors in the scenario just described: the media,
> government officials (elected), corporate decision-makers and the people.
> How are they related?
> 
>  Ninety percent of the media are owned by fewer than 20 corporations that
> therefore dominate public discussion and debate; these corporations
> determine what people will talk about and the limits of the public
> discussion.  The elected government is controlled by corporations through
> campaign contributions (which are required because expensive media
> exposure is the key to election); the people are made insecure,
> discouraged and disengaged largely because of corporate policies and
> practices (downsizing, wage cuts, forced give-backs, overseas flight,
> union busting --or simply the fear that any of these tactics will be
> 
> used).  Corporations control government; government greases the skids for
> increasing corporate control.  People are disrespected and cut out of the
> decision-making loop.  Democracy is hollowed out --the democratic forms
> remain, but the substance is missing.
> 
> We can all vote, but voting seems to change nothing, at least not at the
> national level.
> 
>  It is a vicious circle, self-perpetuating.  BUT MAYBE THE CORPORATIONS
> WILL GO TOO FAR.  Despite their obvious successes in the past decade,
> corporate elites seem bent on consolidating their power even further by
> insulating themselves COMPLETELY from
> 
> popular control.  Consider these trends: 1. SLAPP suits are increasing and
> have taken a new twist in recent months.  SLAPPs are lawsuits intended to
> frighten people, to make them clam up.  The new trend in SLAPPS is for
> companies to claim tortious interference with their profits and to demand
> compensation for alleged losses.  Here is a typical scenario: a
> corporation is planning to pollute a community and deplete its resources
> (by building an incinerator, for example).  A local group opposes the
> corporate proposal, defending the community, trying to maintain it as a
> nice place to live and work.  If the
> 
> defenders succeed, the corporation sues them, claiming that it has lost
> money because of the group's interference.  The corporation demands huge
> compensation for its alleged losses. The defenders tend to get very quiet
> and focus on the struggle to maintain their lives in the face of a
> corporate army of lawyers trying to destroy them --and the next group of
> defenders thinks twice before speaking out.  Our First Amendment rights
> begin to shrivel.
> 
>  2. The Securities and Exchange Commission --a federal agency --is trying
> to insulate corporations from shareholders who might bring shareholder
> resolutions to change  corporate behavior.  In the recent past, such
> resolutions have changed corporate behavior in regard to apartheid, child
> labor and prison labor.  Even though the vast majority of shareholder
> resolutions fail to gain a majority vote, they create a platform from
> which to expose and criticize corporate policies and practices.  Now
> --this month --the SEC has proposed to modify SEC Rule 14(a)(8), to make
> it much more difficult (in many instances impossible) for shareholders to
> bring resolutions for a vote.  If the SEC succeeds, it will further
> insulate corporate managers from influence by shareholders.
> 
>  3.  As we saw last week, the Clinton administration (with strong
> bipartisan support) is trying to lock the U.S. into a new "free trade"
> agreement --the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).  The MAI
> would:  
> 
> --Allow corporations to sue municipal, state and federal governments in an
> international tribunal, whose decision would be binding, with no
> possibility of appeal;
> 
>  --Compensate investors in full when their assets are appropriated through
> "unreasonable" regulation; 
> 
> --Limit or eliminate performance requirements (laws that require
> corporations to meet certain environmental standards if they want tax
> incentives or low-interest development loans, for example) --thus reducing
> (or eliminating) the possibility that communities
> 
> might impose their values on corporate behavior; 
> 
> --Remove all restrictions on international movement of capital, and
> disallow local laws favoring locally-controlled capital (such as a
> community-controlled redevelopment bank).
> 
>  4. We saw earlier (REHW #552) that 19 states have now passed "audit
> privilege" laws. As the NEW YORK TIMES describes the trend, "Urged on by a
> coalition of big industries, one state after another is adopting
> legislation to protect companies from disclosure or punishment when they
> discover environmental offenses at their own plants."   In essence, state
> laws are giving corporations immunity from punishment if they self-report
> violations of environmental laws. Furthermore, any documents related to
> the self-reporting become official secrets, cannot be divulged to the
> public, and cannot become evidence in any legal
> 
> proceedings.  
> 
> If a murderer confesses, he or she still faces prosecution.  But these new
> "audit privilege" laws insulate corporate outlaws and polluters from
> accountability to governments and citizens.  Under these laws, confession
> exonerates a corporation, and any documents related to the confession
> become secret and privileged, hidden from citizens who might seek redress
> for harms they suffered from the pollution.  Further insulation from
> accountability.
> 
> *********5. Corporations are rolling back the system of environmental
> regulations at the federal and state levels.  A tidal wave of regulatory
> reform is sweeping through every legislative body in the nation.  These
> roll-backs have many different names: Project XL and the Common Sense
> Initiative (both Clinton proposals); ISO 14000; the Environmental
> Leadership Program; brownfields; air pollutant and water pollutant trading
> schemes; expansion of risk-assessment-based standard-setting procedures;
> new federal-state "partnership" agreements; and proposed new definitions
> of what constitutes solid and hazardous wastes.
> 
>  All of these alternative proposals have a few common elements. They allow
> corporations to negotiate their own performance and pollution standards
> with governments.  Because these negotiated standards are unique in each
> case, citizens have to understand each agreement on a case-by-case basis
> --and so do the government regulators.  At a time when regulatory budgets
> are declining, the resources needed to negotiate with the polluters (and
> enforce agreements) are growing. Citizens can barely understand the
> present system of uniform standards. The new system is much more
> complicated, so citizens are effectively be cut out of the oversight
> process. In many instances, citizen lawsuits are specifically prohibited
> by these new arrangements.  Thus the corporations are further insulated
> from citizens.
> 
>  Today, corporate and government policies are working relentlessly to put
> more and more people out of work, substituting energy and materials for
> human labor (and in the process depleting natural resources and polluting
> the planet).  For a long time such policies seemed to make sense.  But
> today these policies are enriching the top 5%, creating the good life for
> the wealthiest 40% (at least in the short term) and destroying the future
> for the remaining 60%.  THE ENVIRONMENT, DEMOCRACY, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND THE
> ECONOMY ARE THE SAME PROBLEM even though we (mistakenly) consider each
> separately.
> 
>  As Paul Hawken said recently, "We can't --whether through monetary means,
> government programs, or charity --create a sense of value and dignity in
> people's lives when we're simultaneously developing a society that doesn't
> need them."[1]  As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in 1986,
> "Full employment is the foundation of a just society."  Environmental
> justice will only be achieved when we have a semblance of economic
> justice.  
> 
> Hawken says the solution is to "fire the unproductive kilowatts, barrels
> of oil, tons of material, and pulp from old-growth forests --and hire more
> people to do so."  He says drastically reducing resource use will
> dramatically diminish our impact on the environment and create a multitude
> of new jobs.  But will the big corporations allow the needed changes to
> occur?  And what will happen if they don't?  In the meantime, there's lots
> WE COULD BE DOING.
> 
>                                                 --Peter Montague
> 
> 

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