August 27, 2001

6:43 AM

As Carlo Giuliani's anti-globalization martyrdom continues apace, an object-throwing youth has killed a NATO soldier in Macedonia. Tie game?
posted by rcade (15 comments total)

Are these youths in custody? Are NATO soldiers unable to defend themselves against 'civilian' aggression? Anyway, this is no game.
posted by zanpo at 7:13 AM on August 27, 2001

Amazing insight from the media:

"CNN's Walter Rodgers said the attack may have been the result of animosity towards NATO and its mission."

Gee, do you think so??? No wonder CNN has been going downhill for the last couple of years ....
posted by tobey at 7:27 AM on August 27, 2001

The irony of the JFK quote on the Carlo Giuliani page...

*shakes head in disbelief*
posted by Mick at 7:49 AM on August 27, 2001

Tie game?

Not particularly, given that joining up is usually a way to escape the dole queue in those parts of the country where traditional industries have been "globalised" away. (The British soldier who died was from Sheffield. Nuff said.)
posted by holgate at 8:21 AM on August 27, 2001

These two events don't have anything to do with each other. The movement of NATO troops into Macedonia is an attempt to end a civil war there. What's that got to do with "anti-globalization"?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:22 AM on August 27, 2001

Are NATO soldiers unable to defend themselves against 'civilian' aggression?

No. Not a game I would play with soldiers.
posted by thirteen at 8:29 AM on August 27, 2001

There was a lot of fishy stuff going on at Genoa. The most violent protesters were filmed entering and leaving police stations and hob-nobbing with on-duty local police when they were not smashing storefonts (or beating up on other protesters who were trying to calm down the violence.) While it is fairly easy to explain Guiliani, it is a bit more difficult to dismiss why the police felt the need to attack prosters in their sleep and systematically torture them while in custody.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:33 AM on August 27, 2001

Globalization isn't just an economic issue, Steven. NATO's the most prominent international military force in the world, and some opponents of globalization view NATO as a threat:

"NATO is the army of the multinational corporations. NATO bombed Yugoslavia not to bring about a triumph for human rights, but to force that country to apply the program of the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. " -- Activist Michael Collon

However, the main reason I connected these two incidents together is because Ian Collins' death reminded me of the way Carlo Giuliani was defended. Newsflash: Thrown objects can kill.
posted by rcade at 8:48 AM on August 27, 2001

The NATO force was invited into Macedonia by both sides to help enforce the peace treaty and supervise disarmament. I still don't see what this has to do with globalization.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:30 AM on August 27, 2001

This is the first time I've heard that protester's name. So for a bit of inappropriate irreverence, I thought I'd point out the irony that a man named Guiliani was killed by the police.
posted by hincandenza at 12:02 PM on August 27, 2001

For fuck's sake, I'm so fucking sick of hearing "globalization" used as though it was:

a) a dirty word

b) a confirmed and documented state-of-affairs.

The term and the way it's being used by a bunch of ignorant rent-a-crowd protesters is nothing more than very half-baked politics. It's pathetic that people are so quick to embrace a political cause without a single fucking clue what it's even about or whether there is even the slightist basis in FACT to it.
posted by Option1 at 4:37 PM on August 27, 2001

If it isn't a dirty word, what word would you use to describe how the biggest countries are strip-mining the resources of the third world and drowning them in debt, making them worse off than ever before? I think a lot of the violent protests are hooligans adopting anti-globalization as an excuse to raise hell, but that doesn't mean the issue itself is a fiction.
posted by rcade at 8:08 PM on August 27, 2001

The countries??? Or companies from other countries? Big difference.

You've fallen at the first hurdle.
posted by Option1 at 9:26 PM on August 27, 2001

Where apparently you are lying beside him, both of you with bruised shins. So it's companies from the countries, not the countries themselves? Gee, thanks for making that critical distinction. Unless, uh, those companies had enormous influence on the countries in which they reside which might... but... and the... also... oh, nevermind. I bow down to your obviously superior if jaded understanding...
posted by hincandenza at 9:36 PM on August 27, 2001

The countries??? Or companies from other countries? Big difference.

Not really. The countries use the IMF and World Bank to withhold international loans until third world countries open their markets to multinational corporations, which move in, overwhelm local competition, and make out like bandits because they don't have environmental or labor laws to worry about.

Later, the corporations move on, the local economy is in shambles, despotic governments squander the loans, and you end up with places like sub-Saharan Africa, where countries owe $200 billion in debt and earn less than $70 billion a year in exports.

From 1990 to 1993 in Zambia, the country spent $37 million on primary school education and $1.3 billion repaying foreign creditors. Yet globalization isn't a dirty word?
posted by rcade at 6:46 AM on August 28, 2001