Heated Exchanges as German, Other Critics Demand US Quit Iraq

"We don't hate the Americans and we condemn suicide bombings against civilians, but we believe the resistance (against US forces) is legitimate," said conference organiser Barbara Fuchs, a member of the anti-globalisation movement Attac

OK, so what is 'Attac'?

from another thread's article- a very interesting one- titled "Franco-German Alliance Pushes Global Tax Against America" :

...A closed-door meeting of left-wing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was held on January 16, 2003, in Washington, D.C. to consider how to apply international financial pressure through a global tax on the U.S. Bruno Jetin, a representative of ATTAC France, spoke to the gathering and acknowledged in private conversation that his group works hand-in-glove with the French Communist Party and the "Socialist parties on the Left." A representative of the embassy of France in the U.S. was listed as a participant.
ATTAC stands for the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens. The International ATTAC Movement was created at an international meeting in Paris on December 11-12, 1998. It claims 80,000 members worldwide and an international network of independent national and local groups in 33 countries. It claims 20,000 members in France alone.
[* My note: December 1998 was a very interesting month in Iraq as it is when inspectors were pulled out and Operation Desert Fox took place. There was chatter from al Qaeda about a terror attack on Washington DC & NY that month, too]
Their goal is implementation of the Tobin Tax, named after the late Yale University economist James Tobin. His proposal was for a tax on international currency transactions in the foreign currency markets. The global tax effort is a key facet of an international campaign to isolate, resist and ultimately overcome the U.S. position of dominance in the world.
The foreign currency markets are considered the world's largest -- between $1.2 trillion and $2 trillion a day is exchanged. Proponents call the Tobin tax the "Robin Hood tax" because it supposedly taxes the rich to benefit the poor. But it would affect ordinary Americans' savings accounts, IRAs, Mutual Funds and pensions - any vehicle with money that is invested abroad. Possible revenues from such a tax have been estimated in the billions or even trillions of dollars a year....

she's more than just the usual butt monkey...see my last post and this, also from the same thread as the info above:

Bruno Jetin of France said ATTAC doesn't have a formal U.S. affiliate but that his group works with Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research. CEPR reports that it receives 85 percent of its funds from the Ford Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Baker stated at the forum that proposals for a global tax might gather support in the U.S. if politicians said that the proceeds would go for health care, education and other such matters.
A variation of such a proposal was offered by Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) at the request of Democratic leader Tom Daschle in 1996. Entitled, "Scrambling to Pay the Bills: Building Allies for America's Working Families," the Bingaman report called for a securities transfer excise tax (STET) that would extend to transactions by individuals, corporations, and tax-exempt pension funds and would apply to stocks, bonds, options, futures, swaps of currency, interest rates and other assets.
By his calculations, the tax could generate anywhere from $27 billion to $62 billion a year that the federal government could spend on education, work force training and other liberal programs. He said its implementation would have to be coordinated with other G-7 countries (U.S, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain) and would, therefore, be the beginning of the Tobin Tax on a global scale.
A U.S. Congress Concurrent Resolution on "Taxing Cross-border Currency Transactions to Deter Excessive Speculation" (H.Con.Res.301) was introduced on April 11, 2000, by Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN).
Another U.S.-based group supporting these efforts is the Center for Environmental Economic Development, which acts "in solidarity with our international partners," including ATTAC France.
Other U.S. groups endorsing the Tobin Tax include:
AFL-CIO
Preamble Center
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
National Lawyers Guild
Global Exchange
50 years is Enough National Network
RAN (Rainforest Action Network)
Seventh Generation Fund

Oh, and another supporter of the Tobin Tax is George Soros.

Thanks. I recently was reading something about that in this article on Soros' associate Maurice Strong:

International Man of Mystery: Who is Maurice Strong?

Americans should be worried by the Commission's recommendations: for instance, that some UN activities be funded through taxes on foreign-exchange transactions and multinational corporations. Economist James Tobin estimates that a 0.5 per cent tax on foreign-exchange transactions would raise $1.5 trillion annually -- nearly equivalent to the U.S. federal budget.

The rest of the article has more on the individuals and groups pushing this.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.