The Internet and Globalization: A View from Buenos Aires

Posted by Joshua Karliner on June 30th, 2008

Almost twelve years ago, when a group of us started CorpWatch, we did so because it seemed then that a few hundred transnational companies were intent on remaking the earth in their image. As we saw it, the corporate version of globalization undermined community, ecology and democracy. At that moment the Internet had just appeared on the scene, and it seemed to us, and to many others, a vehicle through which to build an alternative – a form of grassroots globalization that fostered human rights and environmental rights, and that helped hold corporations accountable across the globe. Thus CorpWatch was born.

In the ensuing dozen years, the corporate encirclement of the earth has only
grown – as has the grassroots response to it in every corner of the planet.
The Internet has boomed and become on the one hand, more corporatized than we might once have imagined and yet also an increasingly powerful tool for building democratic participation and communication (and I’m very proud that CorpWatch is still part of it). This dual nature of the Internet embodies a fundamental paradox of globalization. While globalization seems to concentrate power in the hands of a few in most every realm it touches, it also increasingly interconnects us, interweaving universal values into a multinational tapestry of cultures and politics.

I see this here in Argentina, where I’ve had the good fortune to live for the past year. As numerous people here will tell you, once, this country was so isolated from the rest of the world that a lot of folks were not aware of the magnitude of the horrors unleashed by the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. People knew enough and saw enough and felt enough to be afraid, and tens of thousands felt the direct impact as they or their loved ones were arrested, tortured, “disappeared.” But the truth was hard to come by; there was heavy local censorship, and there was no Internet. People abroad knew more about what was going on in Argentina, than many here did.

Today, the country, like most of the rest of the world, is dialed-in, networked to the hilt, totally online. It seems almost unthinkable that something similar could happen here again. There is a strong consciousness of and commitment to human rights, and an understanding of the connection between what Argentina went through, and similar histories and battles elsewhere in the Latin American region and the world. Argentina pulled itself out of the horrors of dictatorship, and as it has re-evolved as a nation, it has benefited in this way from globalization.

At the same time, the country is suffering many of the attendant ills. I asked my twelve year-old daughter what she had learned about the United States from spending a year outside of the country. Her reply was quick and clear – I’ve learned that the US controls the media in the rest of the world. From the mouths of babes...but after all, she learned to speak Spanish, in part, by watching American sitcoms dubbed into Spanish on the local TV. Meanwhile, although the country has reaped significant economic benefit from its agricultural prowess as a giant in the world soy market – the control of this commodity is increasingly in the hands of a few transnational corporations: Cargill, ADM and others. And the country’s forests are suffering as more and more trees are felled to make room for more and more soybeans. These facts will remain true, no matter the outcome of the current conflict between President Kirchner and the country’s farmers.

Finally, globalization and all its contradictions hits home directly for me here in the Buenos Aires neighborhood I’m living in. Once a zone of automechanics and warehouses, Palermo Viejo is today one of the hippest and most popular destinations in this wonderful city. Now known as Palermo Hollywood, it is a barrio in the midst of a vast transformation. Many of our neighbors have lived here for forty or more years – they are old-school butchers, bakers, antique dealers, bar owners. Yet they are increasingly surrounded by trendy boutiques and fashionable restaurants. Many are being squeezed out by big corporate real estate that has entered the scene and is speculating on a series of high-end apartment towers that will forever change the face of this low-slung old time neighborhood. In the midst of it all are a throng of artists, ex pats, and activists organizing for the soul of the barrio.

Don’t get me wrong; it ain’t all bad. To be honest, all the paradoxes and contradictions of the gentrification of this globalizing hub make it an exciting and wonderful place to live (for the moment). I decided to try and document the intersection – the convergence and contradiction – of these various separate realities-the old and the new of Palermo Viejo. You can check out my photo essay on the subject at http://www.palermobuenosaires.blogspot.com.

Josh Karliner is Founder and a board member of CorpWatch.

An Afternoon with L-3 Communications/Titan

Posted by Tonya Hennessey on April 30th, 2008

A funny thing happened on the way to exercising my presumed right, as a shareholder, to attend yesterday’s annual shareholder meeting of private military contractor L-3 Communications, held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Manhattan’s financial district.

I was one of a group including a translator, Marwan Mawiri, who worked for a year and ½ for Titan, now an L-3 subsidiary, in Iraq. Marwan has witnessed first-hand numerous problems with the way interrogation and translation contracting is being handled in Iraq – a practice that may be putting at substantial risk the national security and lives of the Iraqi people, of U.S. and multinational troops, officials and contractors, and of the United States itself.

The problem is clear: inadequate and downright bad vetting and hiring practices for analysts, interrogators and linguists. Indeed, the U.S. military has recently cancelled Titan’s translation contract due to poor practices along with waste, fraud and abuse.

What is also crystal clear is that the war in Iraq can neither be won, effectively prosecuted, nor competently withdrawn from until these problems are solved and until proper oversight is in place.

If people hired to translate in critical battlefield and other situations are not even fluent in at least Arabic and English; if screeners monitoring the entry and exit of people to U.S. military bases at times have no more qualification and training than having been a baggage screener at a U.S. airline (see CorpWatch’s new report: "Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq"); if interrogators are not qualified, experienced and trained to the highest standards possible, how can we ensure that we avoid future travesties due to bad intelligence? Such as the bad intelligence around the supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program (which was, of course, Bush/Cheney and neocon-driven, not L-3-driven), that got the U.S. into this war in the first place? (And remember, even when U.S. soldiers start coming home from Iraq, large numbers of private contractors will stay, making proper oversight all the more crucial.)

It turned out that L-3’s management wasn’t so happy to see us, and that my co-worker, Pratap Chatterjee and I, were supposed to have received a certain admission ticket to attend the meeting. The same went for our companions from the Iraq Campaign 2008 – a major coalition to oppose the war, which is now taking on private military contractors as part of their broader campaign on the high cost U.S. taxpayers are paying for the war in Iraq – and Foreign Policy in Focus, who were holding proxies. Funny that.

Looking out at the Statue of Liberty from the hotel lobby downstairs, where we gathered to figure out how to proceed, I pondered the damage this war has done to the liberties of so many Iraqi people, and to so many U.S. liberties and values that I hold dear. Like respect for human rights, compliance with the Geneva Conventions around torture, appropriate security that is handled with skill and integrity. I wasn’t surprised that L-3/Titan didn’t want to hear our message; though I sincerely hope some of the shareholders, managers, directors, staff and financial analysts do take the time to read our report and to talk to current and former contractors like Marwan. We didn’t go in malice.

We went in genuine concern over business operations that, while they may be earning a pretty profit for large shareholders, pose a genuine reputational risk to the company for future liability. And are causing harm on the ground, to real people. We challenge L-3 Communications to become a truly ethical leader in business practices, not just in products and sales. Surely the sixth-largest U.S. defense industry company (according to their website) has the intelligence to recognize bad practices and the ability to change them for the better.

Or are we simply destined for years more, as Huffington Post blogger Charlie Cray put it, of companies and investors milking a “Baghdad Bubble as a result of the Bush administration's refusal to hold them accountable”?

As the meeting ended, and the muckety-mucks began leaving the Ritz-Carlton to be chauffered away in their Lincoln Town cars and limousines, we gave these decision makers another opportunity to take a copy of CorpWatch’s report, or even to talk to us directly. The vast majority kept their blinders on and marched resolutely past.

Suddenly we saw General Carl Vuono (ret.). Vuono is former chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and long-time president of private military consulting firm MPRI, which is now also an L-3 subsidiary. Pratap and Marwan rushed to try and speak with him, while a reporter and cameraman from Al-Jazeera English filmed and stood at the ready for the general’s reply. The general didn’t want to talk, but you can see some of the footage on YouTube. You can also watch Pratap and Marwan describe their experiences on Democracy Now!, where they were interviewed live this morning.

Pratap gave the general a copy of “Outsourcing Intelligence In Iraq” – maybe he’ll decide to have one of his staffers give it a read. We’d love to talk, and welcome any dialogue with officials of L-3.