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I'm shocked...SHOCKED, I tell you...

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on June 14, 2005 - 2:13pm.
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FOR MORE CORPORATE PROFITS: Though President Bush did not take the time to look out for workers from the United States or Central America, the usual players will be doing just fine under CAFTA. The pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries would be "some of the biggest winners if the pact is approved." With public health an issue of concern, there is reason for worry over CAFTA. The Bush administration's insistence that CAFTA contain various protective provisions for the drug industry "could increase the cost of much-needed drugs in the region." The Costa Rican pharmaceutical industry estimates that the cost of medicines will increase by 800 percent "under CAFTA intellectual property provisions." One would think "workers' rights would enjoy the same guaranteed protections as CAFTA provides to prescription drug companies. Environmental and food safety laws deserve the same legal standing that CAFTA extends to CDs and Hollywood films."

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Okay, let's tear off another
Submitted by James R MacLean on June 15, 2005 - 4:25am.

Okay, let's tear off another sheet of note paper and start a list:

  1. desertification caused by greenhouse gases;

  2. AIDS & probable future strains that carry even more pandemic danger;
  3. resurgent imperialism; state terrorism in support of same;
  4. disintegration of social fabric, stimulated by income inequality and massive forced relocation of urban communities; ghettoization; "ethnic cleansing" and "racial hygiene";
  5. Profligate use of WMD by non-state (ergo, non-deterrable) actors
  6. Hubbert Oil Peak;
  7. ballooning current account deficit, concomitant economic disaster

and now

  1. the dependence of the country's finances and political elites on rents from ever-more exorbitant, extortionist intellectual property "rights."

TRIPS really made me see what I had failed to see before: how market economies and types of capitalisms require a narrative, and how that narrative can be imperialistic.

Dude, EVERYTHING requires a
Submitted by Prometheus 6 on June 15, 2005 - 8:53am.

Dude, EVERYTHING requires a narrative. It's the context for decision making for those who aren't omniscient.

Dude, EVERYTHING requires a
Submitted by James R MacLean on June 15, 2005 - 3:48pm.

Dude, EVERYTHING requires a narrative

Not to sound like Jessica Simpson or anything, but it took me a while to figure that out. I mean, imagine noticing that math constitutes a narrative. That's not as obvious as a belly button.