Posted on 03/27/2003 2:04:39 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
It's somewhat odd that the North American left are only really geared up to support the World Social Forum this January, since many of its Brazilian organizers saw it as a natural sequel to 'Seattle', their short form for the destructive riots in that city against the World Trade Organization in 1999. Wanting to continue the struggle, Brazilian anti-trade activists teamed up early in 2000 with a prominent French leftist, Bernard Cassen, to help organize a conference. Cassen was an experienced anti-globalization activist, as both the director of the publication Le Monde Diplomatique and the leader of France's branch of ATTAC, a group favoring increased taxation on international financial transactions. He was enthusiastic, and together they attempted to take the 'next step' in their socialist program - instead of simply opposing, they wanted to hold a conference that would make specific, creative proposals, as the first step in achieving a system they could support. Through feverish activity, institutional support from the Brazilian left, and participation in a number of European and Latin American protests throughout 2000, the organizers succeeded beyond their expectations. They claimed approximately fifteen thousand people from over one hundred and twenty countries attended their first conference in January 2001, and while leftists often inflate attendance figures at meetings and protests, there's no doubt that the 2002 and 2003 conferences were bigger still. In 2002, attendence was estimated at 60,000; at the 2003 conference, over one hundred thousand people attended.
1969 : (Future German foreign Minister Joshua Fischer attends PLO meeting that calls for “final victory” over Israel -— see German Green Party support of Global Tax) [Joshka] Fischer himself [future Green Party member and future Foreign Minister of Germany associated with members of terrorist organizations such as Hans-Joachim Klein, an accomplice of the pro-Palestinian terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal] was reported to have participated in Palestine Liberation Organization camps in Jordan and to have attended a 1969 PLO meeting that called for “final victory” over Israel.
1972 : (German author Boell wins Nobel Prize for Literature -— see Global Tax/Toobin Tax & The Boell Foundation) The Boell Foundation is named after the German author who won the 1972 Nobel Prize for Literature.
1994 : (The UN Human Development Report features article endorsing world government -— see German UN official Dr. Inge Kaul who presided over the report) 1994 edition of the U.N.’s Human Development Report that featured an article endorsing world government.
1995 : (Copenhagen, Denmark : French PM Mother and advocates for global taxes at the UN-Sponsored World Summit for Social Development -— see Global Tax/Toobin Tax) France, under its then-Socialist Prime Minister Francois Mitterand, was a big booster of global taxes at the 1995 U.N.-sponsored World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1996 : (The Book “The Toobin Tax” is published — see editing Dr. Inge Kaul ) [German Dr. Inge] Kaul, was ...an editor of a 318-page book, The Tobin Tax, published in 1996, completely devoted to this particular global tax scheme.
January 1997 : (Santiago, Chile: 4th Expert Group Meeting on Financial Issues of Agenda 21 -— see Global Tax/Toobin Tax) The same [UN ] division also published “Finance for Sustainable Development: The Road Ahead,” containing the proceedings of the Fourth Expert Group Meeting on Financial Issues of Agenda 21, which met in Santiago, Chile, back in January 1997. One section of the book, “Innovative financial mechanisms for sustainable development,” emphasizes how “political obstacles to international taxation” can be overcome. This book laid the groundwork for the U.N.’s World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was a follow-up to the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
1996 : (Democrat Senator Jeff Bingaman , at the request of Tom Daschle, proposes a [”baited”] global tax — see STET, ) ...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.
1999 : (UN Book “Global Public Goods : International Cooperation in the 21st Century” is released, edited by German Dr. Inge Kaul) Kaul, a 20-year veteran of the U.N., was an editor of an official 1999 U.N. book, Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, which says that “a world tax organization [must be] contemplated” and that, “with respect to tax policy, perhaps the most prominent idea is that of economist James Tobin for a tax on all cross-border financial transactions, in the hope of decreasing such flows and making them more manageable.”
December 11-12, 1998 : (Paris, France : The ATTAC movement is born -— see Toobin Tax/ Global Tax/International Tax) 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.
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.
April 11, 2000 : (Democrat congressmen DeFazio of Oregon and Wellstone of Minnesota introduce resolution -— see Toobin Tax/Global Tax/International Tax) 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).
May-June 2001 : (Article in Challenge by Thomas Palley makes the case for a Global Tax/Toobin Tax -— see AFL-CIO, Soros’ Open Society Institute ) [AFL-CIO former assistant director of public policy, Thomas] ... Palley wrote an article for the May-June 2001 issue of Challenge that made “the Case for an International Currency Transactions Tax.” He is now (as of summer 2003) the director of the Globalization Reform Project at Soros’ Open Society Institute, which claims operations in 50 countries. The Open Society Institute’s office in Washington, D.C. is headed by Morton H. Halperin, a former associate of CIA defector Philip Agee who served as the “Senior Director for Democracy” at the National Security Council under President Clinton.
2002 : (Washington : International activists attend conference urging more pressure on the Bush Admin to support global taxes/ToobinTax/International Tax ) Activists from Germany, the U.S. and other countries were present at a Washington conference in 2002, urging international pressure on the Bush administration to support global taxes, the creation of more global agencies, and cuts in American living standards in the name of “sustainable development” for the world.
Hilary French, who runs the “Global Governance Project” of U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute, suggested that Americans had to get over “the sovereignty thing” and embrace global taxes. She endorsed an international currency tax to generate as much as $300 billion a year for global agencies.
“A lot of these ideas are more accepted in Europe,” where people are “more accepting of government and taxation” and a European Union has emerged to eclipse the power of national governments, she said. However, she insisted that the U.S. government could be pressured to go along with a global tax scheme if Europe and the rest of the world “shame the United States” and depict us as out of step with the international consensus.
French spoke to an audience that included representatives of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the British and South African embassies.
March 2002 : (Global Policy Forum NGO advocates global tax/ToobinTax/InternationalTax) In a March 2002 report entitled “Global Taxes for Global Priorities,” a powerful U.N.-backed non-governmental organization (NGO), the Global Policy Forum, declared:
*”The time for concerted action has come…Like-minded governments and citizen groups must advance together towards the goal of global taxes. The U.N. has the authority and capacity to address this agenda, and so to pave the way for a just and sustainable global future.”*
In addition to the Tobin Tax on financial transactions, the Global Policy Forum suggested global taxes on fossil fuels, aviation fuel, emails and the Internet, world trade, the arms trade, deep-sea fishing and “parking” satellites in space.
October 2002 : (UK : London School of Economics : George Soros praises Toobin Tax /Global Tax) Billionaire George Soros has joined the campaign, having declared last October [2002] at the London School of Economics that the Tobin Tax is a “valid suggestion” for raising international revenue and that opposition to implementing the tax can be overcome.
January 16, 2003 : (Washington DC : Leftwing NGOs meet to study ways to impose a Global Tax/ToobinTax) 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. ...
...The January 16 [2093] meeting [in Washington DC], organized by an ad hoc group called the “New Rules for Global Finance Coalition,” included several representatives of the International Monetary Fund. It constitutes another manifestation of the international campaign led by the governments of France and Germany to press for adoption of a global tax to redistribute the world’s wealth away from the U.S. The “New Rules for Global Finance Coalition” includes Emira Woods of Interaction, the foreign aid lobby; and Jamie Baker and Jo Marie Griesgraber of OXFAM America.
The event was underwritten by the U.S. Mott and the German-based Boell Foundations and held at the Carnegie Conference Center, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. ...
2019—should be—2003
Jan 16, 2003 : (Washington DC) At the January 16 conference, the Boell Foundation representative made a point at the gathering of saying that the German government had endorsed the Tobin Tax. The German Ministry for Development, which dispenses foreign aid, has commissioned a study, “On the Feasibility of a Currency Transaction Tax,” which was published on February 20. It urges Europe to impose a currency transaction tax (CTT) as a first step toward global implementation of the measure. Fischer’s party is officially on record in support of the CTT.
Jan 16, 2003 : (Washington DC global tax meeting also attended by Palley) AFL-CIO former assistant director of public policy, Thomas Palley, was a featured speaker at the January 16 event. Palley wrote an article for the May-June 2001 issue of Challenge that made “the Case for an International Currency Transactions Tax.” He is now the director of the Globalization Reform Project at Soros’ Open Society Institute, which claims operations in 50 countries. The Open Society Institute’s office in Washington, D.C. is headed by Morton H. Halperin, a former associate of CIA defector Philip Agee who served as the “Senior Director for Democracy” at the National Security Council under President Clinton.
The January 16 meeting was followed by a “Tobin Tax Meeting for Organizers & NGOs” on January 17 at the headquarters of Dean Baker’s Center for Economic Policy Research
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