Re: [GKD] Internet vs Community Radio

Answering to a Global Knowledge Development post, excuse for cross posting
this very important point.


>>>>>>>>>>>
>Wijkman, formerly the head of a U.N. Development Programme technology
>initiative, said without urgent action it was clear the gap between the
>rich and poor nations would widen. >"We are absolutely convinced that
>unless the international community makes serious efforts now, not in five
>years, that very large regions of
>the world will become totally marginalized from this new economy,"
>Wijkman said. >The growth of business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces on
>the web would
>prove to be even more effective trade barriers than quotas and tariffs,
>he added. >The report estimated that 150,000 people were joining the
>Internet every
>day to add to an estimated population of around 300 million. Internet
>commerce, worth $45 billion in 1998, could reach over $7 trillion by
>2004, it said. >Wijkman said, however, the developed world appeared as yet
>unconvinced
>of the need to act. He noted a recent European Commission development
>policy paper focused on transport links rather than communications in a
>broader sense whereas at the same time EU leaders were putting the
>finishing touches to their own e-Europe initiative.
>>>>>>>>>>>

Each of the masters of the rich countries is trying to sell is own goods,
USA sells its new economy, European Union want to keep selling its old
fashioned vision of development. Europe want to control its third world
suppliers thank to concrete highways, USA looks after a new conquest thanks
to virtual highways. Each decision maker of each of the two remaining world
powers are decided to use the tools they control to maintain their natural
zone of influence under a contemporary colonialism based on economics
dominance.

>>>>>>>>>
>He cited the example of a Peruvian village he had visited where the Web
>was now used to consult world food prices and cut out middlemen so that
>farmers could earn maximum profits from their produce.
>>>>>>>>>

And this could work in the other way too! I mean, if the Peruvian farmer is
able to cut out the middlemen and improve his benefits, the resailer wont
take a long time in asking for a reduction of the prices because the so
called free market law will always drown the little unit in benefit of the
biggest one. Here cames the action of national states in protecting their
inhabitants, not with quotas or tax regulation because it is already too
late (for it the total world control of the WTO)  but by boosting the
creation of local and national cooperative bodies able to resist to the
disproportionate power of the transnational companies. And here comes the
reappraisal of the Internet use: these cooperatives will be able to
communicate in between them to strenght their strategies. The remaining
question is then to know if the access to the Net will be kept as free as
it should be?? If real highways are paved of tollgates, why virtual ones
ought to escape to the hardware and software providers' will of control?
As always, the control of the transit knots is the key of the power and you
can be shure that the routers will always be *safely* installed in the
dominant countries.

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