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MAI? No thanks...!

I had a dream: Through a curtain of thousands of shrill voices
steps a darkly clad figure, the left arm outstretched:
"Behold, says William Blake, man's world:

Mad priests frantically dance around an enormous golden calf. Haunted by the agony of their inner emptiness, driven by unfathomable fear, they must dance till they collapse - dead. Harsh and discordant their rhythmic incantation: "growth - foreign investment - growth - competition - growth - profits"; and i hear it echoed back from all directions by the lesser minions - politicians, economists, brokers, pundits. As far as my eye reaches, hollow-eyed followers prostrate themselves, not daring to hope any longer for their lives, knowing that they, like generations before them, have been chosen as sacrifice to the king of all kings: Mammon, the Mighty." (1)

Then, together with the image of Blake, the incessant shouting fades away while through quiet sobbing and whimpering of children i hear a voice solemnly declare:

"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said - 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains, Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away." (2)

The proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment

The priests of Mammon and their minions have conspired and, in secret, drafted yet another "agreement" that is meant to further enshrine the service to monetary profit as the supreme law for all humanity. Once enacted it will further erode the powers of nations, states, provinces, and municipalities to govern their economies and to protect culture, health, and welfare of their citizens.

The OECD and the U.S. government are the driving forces behind the "Multilateral Agreement on Investment" (MAI). Negotiations between OECD member states and the U.S. have been conducted in secret for about 2 years.

Thanks to Global Trade Watch a draft text of this "agreement" has become public in early 1997. Inform yourself here, and, if you like, lend your voice in support of a kinder and juster world, a world where diversity and sustainability are respected, where we have a chance to survive.

Update note:
This page was the original entry page for the file collection on Flora's server in Ottawa that was begun in Spring 1997. The file collection was subsequently moved to a server in Victoria.

Footnotes:
  1. Hendrik's dream was probably inspired by Blake...
    (jump back to the dream)
  2. "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
    (jump back to the poem)


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This page was last updated on September 6, 2006