Sunday, May 23, 2004

Posted here Sunday, May 23, 2004 at 5:10:52 PM     Globalization and terrorism. What are the links? There seem to be two kinds of thinking 1. globalism is neutral. Whetehter it generates good or bad results is a quesstion of local conditions. 2. gloablization is driven by those who will benefit by it, and built in is the idea of the free flow of capital and the lack of free flow of people, also that globalizationn is aimned at underminign ,lcoa jurisdictions and impsosing broad rules that favor those who drive the globalization for their own benefit. Look at  Haas's comencement address (he is the current head of the important Council on Foreign Relations.) http://www.cfr.org/pub7026/richard_n_haass/remarks_to_franklin_amp_marshall_commencement.php Globalization itself is neutral, neither benign nor malign. The movement of dollars across borders can raise living standards or fund crime. The same jet plane that takes you on vacation over spring break can be turned into a guided missile. The Internet can carry emails ranging from love letters to formulas for the production of biological weapons. A container moving from a port in Asia to the east coast of the United States can hold your household effects or a nuclear device. The idea that a jet plane is neutral between vacation and weapon ignores the fact that 80% of the world's population never flew, can't aford it, and won't, much less the environmental impact of jet fuel, and the whole reange of secondary effects (poor people live cloe to airports, not rich). Haas is playing with a stacked deck. The result is, there is no possibility of an honest dialog. Why does he take this approach? because he wants to keep globalization for its class based advantages, wheil trying to separte out the destructive consequnces for that class. Thus he ignores the destructive aspects for other groups, calling Gloablization itself neutral. It is not "conservative" to embrace a trend which is destructive of the underlying integrity of the culture. It is a kind of narrow advantage seeking, rather disengenuous. And worse if entirely unconscious. ********