G8: Preventing a More Just World?

The Guardian is providing coverage of G8 summit at Camp David and NATO protests in Chicago.

DONNA SMITH, donnas at calnurses.org
CHARLES IDELSON, cidelson at calnurses.org,
Smith and Idelson are with National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of nurses in the U.S. They are holding a rally Friday in Chicago with other groups and musicians including Tom Morello. In a statement, they derided "the AWOL G8 world leaders, who decided to run off and hide in the woods of rural Maryland [at Camp David] rather than face a disgruntled public in Chicago as originally announced, to determine what they are doing to help average families, not just the banks and Wall Street high rollers, in the midst of a continuing economic gloom." National Nurses United is calling for a "tax on Wall Street stocks, bonds, derivatives and other financial instruments that can raise up to $350 billion every year to help mitigate the economic crisis created by the banks, with the revenue available for jobs, healthcare, education, and other basic needs and services."

MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D., mdpnhp at gmail.com,
Flowers is an organizer of the Occupy G8 Peoples' Summit in Maryland. She appeared on Democracy Now this morning and just co-wrote the piece "Why We Protest the G8," which states: "Countries representing concentrated wealth will gather in remote Camp David this week to try to prop up a failing global economic system that has funneled wealth to the top, leaving everyone else behind. From its founding, the G8 has been engaged in a struggle between the wealthiest people in a handful of nations and everyone else. The losing side of this corrupt bargain has increasingly come to include many people within those wealthy countries, as well.

"In 1974 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration for the Establishment of a New International Economic Order. This document laid out an economic vision that would have created a much healthier planet and fairer international economy. It would have empowered countries to regulate and control multinational corporations operating within their borders. It sought to develop international trade that was fair so countries received equitable prices for raw materials and labor. It also opposed the use of military, economic or political force to prevent countries from acting in their own economic self-interest, whether individually or jointly. This latter point was in defense of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose oil embargo occurred two years earlier.

"The response from the wealthiest nations was to create the G6, the forerunner to the G8 (as it did not include Russia or Canada) which first met in 1975, amidst another recession that featured high unemployment, inflation, and deficit. The G6 sought to circumvent the UN's Declaration and prevent the world from participating in economic decision-making that benefited all, not just a few. The G6 put the world on an economic path of concentrated wealth and corporatism that has looted our resources and brought the economy and environment to the breaking point."

KINDA MOHAMADIEH, kinda.mohamadieha at annd.org or via Ryme Katkhouda, rymepmc at gmail.com
Mohamadieh is with the Arab NGO Network for Development and is currently visiting Washington, D.C. with a delegation from several Arab countries. The delegation just released a paper, "Overview and Suggestions for Improving Key Areas in U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Arab Region," which states: "U.S. development assistance to the Arab region has been closely linked with promoting foreign policy and strategic military goals, while not necessarily serving democracy and human development."