Language

Beyond stimulating thought

Submitted February 16, 2005 - 7:32 pm by Benjamin Melançon
I threw two thoughts too quickly together-- I didn't mean to describe tourism, itself, as lying down for multinational corporations.  I was also using rape figuratively (and as a substitute for another four-letter word).

I meant to describe the whole strategy of competing with other third world countries in tourism, selling coffee beans, or providing the cheapest work force as "what the richest people everywhere want every country to be competing with each other on: who can lay flatter while international corporations decide who to walk on and who to rape."

Most countries, and certainly Colombia, have the natural resources and human potential to supply themselves with food, shelter, clothing, and medicine without requiring the permission of the owners of capital, for this is the meaning of playing under existing trade rules with the existing inequality of wealth.

It's only when countries change the rules of this game that they develop.  I'm no fan of state capitalism (all the economic exploitation, none of the freedom!) but China at least didn't play by International Monetary Fund rules.  China strictly limited imports, provided for itself and developed its industrial base, and started exporting the rest of the world to death.

Chavez and Uribe making up has to do with I haven't been following this closely, but it doesn't seem that Uribe is doing precisely what my government wants in the FTAA negotiations either.  Is their hope he's not a clone?  That was the thrust of Laura's article, and unfortunately I haven't seen anyone refute it.  Is Uribe susceptible to pressure from the people of Colombia?  What can be done to stop the violence (mostly paramilitary, percentages do matter if we're going to deal with the whole problem, but guerilla also)?  I don't have many ideas to help Colombia, I'm hoping that there are paths to a better society there or can be soon.  But until someone blazes those trails for me, I am not going to complain about negativity in the writing a person who cares deeply about her country and all people (as does Paul Silvester, I must add).

I don't want to just stimulate thought.  I want to help spread the information that stirs people to action, I want to help discover the world we could build together, and I want to help work out the best way to win that world.

Reply

Our Policy on Comment Submissions: Co-publishers of Narco News (which includes The Narcosphere and The Field) may post comments without moderation. All co-publishers comment under their real name, have contributed resources or volunteer labor to this project, have filled out this application and agreed to some simple guidelines about commenting.

Narco News has recently opened its comments section for submissions to moderated comments (that’s this box, here) by everybody else. More than 95 percent of all submitted comments are typically approved, because they are on-topic, coherent, don’t spread false claims or rumors, don’t gratuitously insult other commenters, and don’t engage in commerce, spam or otherwise hijack the thread. Narco News reserves the right to reject any comment for any reason, so, especially if you choose to comment anonymously, the burden is on you to make your comment interesting and relevant. That said, as you can see, hundreds of comments are approved each week here. Good luck in your comment submission!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

User login