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Greens to Join Protests in Washington, D.C. Against the World Bank and IMF. |
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THE GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES GREENS TO JOIN PROTESTS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
AGAINST THE WORLD BANK AND IMF WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States will participate in protests coordinated by the Mobilization for Global Justice against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank throughout the week of September 22 and culminating in a major demonstration on Saturday, September 28. "The movement against global corporate power is as strong as ever, and even though the street protests continue, we've entered a more strategic political phase," said Ted Glick, New Jersey Green candidate for the U.S. Senate. "Tens of thousands attended the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil earlier this year, and nearly a half million in Barcelona last year, and we're gaining additional support as mainstream economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs join in the criticism." "Only the Green Party is speaking for the majority of Americans who continually oppose corporate globalization in polls," said Steve Greenfield, Green candidate for Congress in New York's 22nd District. "More and more Americans are recognizing what happens when we cede authority over our laws and economic sovereignty to secretive, antidemocratic cabals like the WTO, World Bank, and IMF. They've read about taxpayer money handed over to corporations in compensation for the 'right' to pollute, about overturned environmental laws, about cholera epidemics in Africa or South America after water is privatized, about the breakdown of the Argentine economy. And they've seen the loss of American jobs." Former World Bank Chief Economist and Economics Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz stepped into the debate recently, supporting the claims of protesters and declaring that the IMF generally exacerbates problems in countries with weak economies. Stiglitz warns that "...globalization itself has been governed in ways that are undemocratic and have been disadvantageous to developing countries, especially the poor within those countries." (American Prospect, January 14, 2002) "Without the 500-plus Green candidates this year across the country, the majority of voters who agree with us would be unrepresented," said Lorna Salzman, Green candidate for New York's First Congressional District, in Suffolk County, Long Island. "Our candidates and members will be on the streets on September 28 with thousands of others because they aren't allowed inside with the trade experts whose decisions have pushed millions into poverty in the third world and undermine labor and environmental laws in this country." The week will start with teach-ins, including a 'People's Summit' on Sunday, September 22; a protest for debt relief for poor and indebted countries will take place on Thursday, September 26. For Saturday, September 28, protest organizers have announced a 'quarantine' of World Bank and IMF personnel in their offices, to prevent the infection of their policies from spreading further, noting that economists use the word 'contagion' to describe the financial crises caused by the IMF. MORE INFORMATION
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