Mark Engler, TomPaine.com. March 28, 2002. President Bush is busy touting U.S. aid to developing countries, but experience in El Salvador shows how U.S.-devised neo-liberal policies deepen poverty and constrain human rights.
Marc Cooper, The Nation. March 14, 2002. What did anti-globalization activists find when they went to Porto Alegre to attend the World Social Forum -- hope for the future.
Carter Dougherty, TomPaine.com. February 28, 2002. The more the pro-free trade establishment dismisses those who oppose globalization, the greater chance the crazy quilt of unions, environmentalists, consumer advocates, glassy-eyed tokers and black-clad anarchists will matter.
Walter Truett Anderson, Pacific News Service. February 15, 2002. Anti-globalists, stung by charges that they are too simplistic, idealistic or just plain behind the times, are beginning to develop an alternative global vision, asking what they stand for, not just what they're against.
AlterNet. February 15, 2002. When 50,000 people gathered for the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, what exactly happened? Why should we care? A package of stories to answer those and many other questions.
Naomi Klein, TomPaine.com. February 13, 2002. Do the public floggings at the World Economic Forum represent true progress? No, true progress can be found in a small city in Brazil.
Lenora Todaro, Village Voice. February 11, 2002. Corporate moguls debated their role in the post-9/11 era at the World Economic Forum in New York. But all that talk about "good citizenship" may be just that.
Dara Colwell, AlterNet. February 4, 2002. Pitted against the wildly popular NYPD, this weekend's anti-WEF protesters were more subdued than their predecessors in Seattle or Davos. Was their message still heard?
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. February 4, 2002. Of the two world forums that happened this weekend, the Economic one was deemed "practical" and the Social one "idealogical." But a closer look shows the economic elites to be the stubborn ideologues, and the social entreprenuers to be the realistic pragmatists.
Tamara Straus, AlterNet. January 24, 2002. A new film hitting theaters all over the country is earning raves from critics because it does the impossible: turns the stale subject of "free trade" into a riveting narrative.
Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com. January 22, 2002. Even as Argentina collapses, the Bush Administration has renewed a push for free trade aggreements fraught with double standards. Central and South American countries are hardly embracing the policies.
Scott Harris, Between the Lines. January 21, 2002. Michael Dolan of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch discusses his concerns and hopes about the upcoming World Economic Forum protests in New York City.
Jerry Mander, Debi Barker, TomPaine.com. January 10, 2002. The IMF, World Bank and WTO say they can save the day, but their histories as anti-poverty institutions provide bad evidence.
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. January 2, 2002. Argentina's economic meltdown might seem far away from American borders, but our greedy support of short-sighted IMF policies is largely to blame.
Richard Falk, AlterNet. December 20, 2001. Bush claims that the War on Terrorism has united America with the world. But by rejecting treaties and thumbing his nose at international law, he proves exactly the opposite.
Thomas E. Ambrogi, AlterNet. December 19, 2001. With a population of 800 million and a combined GDP of $11 trillion, the FTAA would be the largest free trade zone in world. It would also allow transnational corporations to sue governments for financial compensation, since publicly-funded services are considered "monopolies."
William Greider, The Nation. December 18, 2001. As globalization enters a fateful new stage, China is taking jobs away from Mexico and other low-wage developing countries.
Kevin Danaher, Jason Mark, AlterNet. December 4, 2001. A Congressional vote on whether to give the President "fast track" powers in trade negotiations could happen any day. For our safety in the terror war, Congress should vote no.
Anuradha Mittal, International Forum on Globalization. December 3, 2001. Agricultural liberalization has failed to live up to its advertising as the key to improving farmers' economic situations in developing nations and solving world hunger.
Franz Schurmann, Pacific News Service. November 26, 2001. As America's economic slump continues and Washington focuses on the war in Afghanistan, the countries of Southeast Asia are increasingly turning toward an awesomely productive China.
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. November 16, 2001. Lack of progress at the WTO meeting just concluded in Doha, Qatar can be chalked up to a powerful new force: developing countries are beginning to defend their interests.
Srinand Jha, TomPaine.com. November 12, 2001. A New Delhi-based journalist explores the mixed blessing of globalization in India, where American values, products and media have fueled a cultural revolution.
Jennifer Bauduy, TomPaine.com. October 22, 2001. Premilla Dixit, an anti-corporate activist, will not be in Qatar or Singapore for the World Trade Organization meeting this November. But she is still laboring 16 hours a day to drive home the importance of putting checks on international trade.
Naomi Klein, The Nation. October 10, 2001. Anti-corporate protesters who once aimed at powerful symbols of capitalism -- like the World Trade Center -- have found themselves in a transformed landscape.
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. October 4, 2001. By using the tragey of 9-11 to steamroll "fast track" legislation through Congress, the Bush administration is acting like an ambulance-chasing lawyer.
Steven Rosenfeld, TomPaine.com. October 3, 2001. An arcane provision of NAFTA -- that could set a precedent for the forthcoming free trade zone for all of the Americas -- allows corporations to sue governments if new laws threaten future earnings.
Frances M. Beal, AlterNet. September 12, 2001. The forum of nongovernmental organizations at the World Conference Against Racism revealed there is an ever more articulate and ever more vocal anti-globalization movement.
Kari Lydersen, LiP Magazine. September 10, 2001. The latest spoonful of "free trade alphabet soup" being served in the Americas is the PPP -- the Plan Puebla-Panama, a trade ploy that may forever change Mexico.
Starhawk, AlterNet. September 5, 2001. After surviving the violence in Genoa, this leading activist is more convinced than ever that anti-corporate protesters need to stay in the streets, mounting large, global actions.
Institute for Public Accuracy. August 29, 2001. The IMF and Argentina's government have agreed to another loan package of $8 billion and further austerity programs. According to leading policy analysts, it is an unwise move.
Tamara Straus, AlterNet. August 28, 2001. Telemarketers in India with perfect West Virginian accents. American cyber-boys paving the high-tech road in Africa. A new PBS series, "PlanetWork," explores the changing nature of employment.
Institute for Public Accuracy. August 20, 2001. Anticipating major protests, the IMF and World Bank have announced they will be scaling back their fall meetings in Washington to only two days. These policy critics find the move revealing.
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. August 15, 2001. Over the last 20 years, income per person grew by a mere 7 percent in Latin America. This compares to 75 percent for the previous two decades (1960-1980), when national governments exercised much more control over their economic policies.
John L. Allen Jr, The Nation. August 15, 2001. While violence generated by the radical "black bloc" dominated initial headlines during the G-8 summit in Genoa, it is now Italy's men in blue who find themselves at the center of criminal investigations and political debate.
Alicia Rebensdorf, AlterNet. August 7, 2001. Corporations have become expert at co-opting even the most subversive of cultural movements. But can they capitalize on today's radical anti-capitalist protests? Nike hopes so.
Russell Mokhiber, Robert Weissman, AlterNet. August 7, 2001. Last month in Genoa, Italy, George Bush decried the activists, saying corporate globalization will advance the interests of the world's poor. Unfortunately, it is frighteningly easy to prove him wrong given the facts.
Knute Berger, AlterNet. August 3, 2001. At the WTO's next summit in Qatar, the local McDonalds will be safe from the black blocs and delegates will only hear the sound of their own voices.
International Forum on Globalization. August 1, 2001. In 25 years, two-thirds of the world's population may lack access to clean water. The proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas is only going to make the problem worse.
Don Hazen, AlterNet. August 1, 2001. The next big globalization protests will be held in D.C. this September. While a subtext of violence permeates the planning efforts, activists expect a massive mobilization.
Mary Black*, AlterNet. July 25, 2001. Who are the Black Bloc, what do they believe and will they survive after Genoa? A first-hand account from a female "member" of today's most contentious radical faction.
Kenny Bruno, CorpWatch. July 25, 2001. The Black Bloc, mainstream demonstrators and police authorities must all come to their senses and de-escalate violence at future protests.
Geov Parrish, AlterNet. July 24, 2001. For some 20 months, tactics have been escalating on both sides as the protests against international finance and trade organizations have gotten larger and more raucous. Now one is dead in Italy. Is change afoot?
Sam Husseini, AlterNet. July 24, 2001. Critics say the elites who meet at G-8 Summits are refusing to come to terms with some harsh realities -- the global AIDS crisis, debt buildup and economic slowdowns.
Ted Rall, Mother Jones Online. July 18, 2001. If international bodies keep leaning on the U.S. to do the right thing, liberals might learn to love globalization after all.
David Moberg, In These Times-bad. July 3, 2001. The next big domestic political battle -- fast track -- would push trade deals through Congress with minimal debate. It was defeated before, but the new politics is clamouring for free trade.
Neal Pollack, LiP Magazine. June 27, 2001. In a recently discovered letter, Che expounds on the beauty of free markets and Forbes magazine. Capitalists of the world, unite!
Bruce Rich, TomPaine.com. June 27, 2001. The WTO, World Bank, and IMF are not the only culprits in the international development scam. Export Credit Agencies also fund immoral and environmentally damaging projects.
Tamara Straus, AlterNet. June 26, 2001. This week the UN General Assembly held its first ever special session on AIDS. But can the world's most lumbering bureaucracy stop the new global plague?
Will Durst, AlterNet. June 26, 2001. Globalization affect me because: 1. I can't pronounce my car. 2. I bought a cell phone with an international plan. 3. My third grader can make bail for me in six languages.
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Globalization
The globalization debate has rightly been called the grand ideological battle of the 21st century. It has pitted student activists against corporate heads, union members against environmentalists, Mexican peasants against officials of the International Monetary Fund.
Background
Read the summary of proposals made at the World Social forum in Porto Alegre. Read it.
