[Imc] IMF/World Bank - What are you looking for?

[Michael Feltes]

Hello, sir.  My name's Michael Feltes, and being a recent graduate of high
school myself, I'd love to help you out.

What sort of angle were you thinking about taking toward this issue?  Would
you like information about the reasoning behind the anti-globalization
movement, or were you perhaps more interested in legal issues (it being a law
class) that arise from the act of protest?  There's a lot of good info out there,
written by people who are much more lucid than me.  A very good place to
start is http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/GlobalEcon.htm
This is a compilation by Z Magazine of information about the nature and
structure of the IMF/World Bank, how it hurts the world's poor, and what we'd
like to see replace the current structure.  I think that you'll find there's a
lot of stuff that no one ever told you, and it's good to begin understanding
the situation.

Here's one thing that I want to tell you about anti-globalization from the
start.  We're not against globalization.  We are against globalization in its
current form.  Globalization, as it is currently structured through the World
Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other
supranational bodies and treaties, lines the pockets of multinational
corporations and the rich, who steal the labor and resources of poor countries in
order to create bigger and bigger profits.  Our government and the governments
of other Western countries are complicit in this scheme and help make it go. 
Globalization, if it was designed in such a way that it redistributed wealth
in order to allow ALL people everywhere to live with dignity, would be an
extremely cool thing.  However, globalization does not do this presently; it
does exactly the opposite.  


Feel free to contact me, mfeltes at gmx.net, or the imc list with any further
requests.  There are a lot of people from C-U who have been on the ground at
anti-globalization protests like Seattle and Quebec City, and can tell you a
great deal about it.  I guess that the next move for you would be to tell us
what your particular interests are, so that we can help you gather the
information.  I know high school can be a pain (sometimes it seems like it's
designed to do exactly the opposite of what it should), but sometimes you have
opportunities there to educate your colleagues and teachers as you are learning
yourself.  That can be a very empowering experience.

Take care.

-- 
--

Michael Feltes
mfeltes at gmx.net

The question is asked - can we afford it [Labour's socialistic 
reforms]?  Supposing the answer is 'No,' what does that mean?  It 
really means that the sum total of the goods produced and the 
services rendered by the people of this country is not sufficient to 
provide for all our people at all times, in sickness, in health, in 
youth and in age, [a] very modest standard of life... I cannot 
believe that our national productivity is so slow, that our 
willingness to work is so feeble or that we can submit to the world 
that the masses of our people must be condemned to penury.

- Clement Attlee, 1946

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