.....Based on Manuel Castell and Cliff Barney interview
from UPSIDE, high-tech capital venture magazine......by Ray Tapajna, 10/18/2002
When we talk about networks,
they are not solely related to the internet and the computer world. Today, networks might be the stock exchange, bankers,
the European Union, the coca fields, clandestine labs, secret landing strips, politicians, bureaucrats, the statistical Americans
who are part of some data classification etc.... however, if you are "missing in action" from any of these groupings, you
are not counted. You are outside, looking in just as those who are discouraged and no longer seek employment. And if
you have given up trying to find a job- you are not part of any data network and are considered employed not unemployed.
On a global wide basis, governments have become
less sovereign and have become more like power brokers in a world of shifting partners. They find it difficult to fulfill
the promise of the entitlements. Globalism forments disenfranchising of a large portion of people. In the USA, only
50% of all possible voters vote. They feel they are left out -- disenfranchised. Meanwhile, the media "networks"
can make or break someone or something in an instant mode by direct association or just my leaving them out of the news entirely.
Then we have the "technology gods" of high tech and
bio tech who work in a space all their own. Logic only applies in the particular networks and millions have been "un-netted"
with their voices unheard. A new "ism" follows all this unannounced. It has vast transnational corporations, elite political
groupings, world banks and separate international organizations like the WTO acting outside any democratic process controlling
events. In the end, it does not matter if you are a capitalist or a socialist, because the new "ism" of Globalism is
running underneath any social economic definition. Globalism does not care about these things, it just calls for searching
out the cheapest labor markets to exploit.
The internet itself has take on a mystical
life of its own. It can be described as the Rapture of the Net, a gateway to paradise wherein the internet becomes the
general solution for social and cultural problems. Through it, we are going to fix the schools, reinvent government, link
the world in an orgy of mass communications - and all will get rich in the process- ( the fall of the Dot Coms slowed this
down but much of this remains as a focus.) As they have found in France, where they had their own version of the internet
for twenty years now, nothing yet has been found to support the effort except for the pornographic industry.
Meanwhile, dirty money is laundered through many
"legitimate" businesses. At the same time the stock market has lost trillions of dollars in value after firing millions
of workers instead of hiring them to show a better bottom line. Workers now find they have very little control of their
destiny and even less over their income and wages. A working poor class has been set in place. They have little control
in a setting where employers shift from place to place anywhere in the world based on the cheapest labor markets. Now however,
we find that when production is moved from place to place anywhere in the world, burnt out societies and communities are
left behind. In the end businesses are finding they have less and less populations to sell to and production based on
consumerism alone is left with fewer and fewer consumers that can afford even the cheapest output of production no matter
how cheaply they are made. The working poor class in this country can not buy that much to balance things out and the destitute
and wage slave workers of the world can not buy the things they make let alone have any money left to buy anything nations
like the USA have left to sell. Thus, the flow of things , take on a domino effect across the board. Globalism
has caused experimintation without any precedence in history just because there was money to be made in a fast track way.
Now the networks of influences are clashing with each other in this wild west economic show and if you are not part of any
network in the process, you just do not exist.
