Saturday, September 20, 2003
Again about sharing music in the Internet. The American media lately are giving a lot of space to this "problem", mainly due to the RIAA legal attacks to the illegal enemies of capitalism, as someone put it. For example, today in the New York Times there are two articles, one about the incredible fact that students can't understand that sharing music is not right, and the other, more interesting, about what's the moral behind this problem.
On the one hand, students have no money, and they are rebel by nature, so they download songs both to fight the evil system and to be able to hear music when they can't pay for legal music. Some interviews with students seem to confirm this:
An unnamed 16-year-old female in Forrester's report summarizes her defense of downloading this way: ''RECORD COMPANIES ARE UNFAIR AND ARE PART OF THE SYSTEM, GO AGAINST THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!''
It's really expensive, especially for college students, to buy the whole CD.
Add to this that most students are not aware that this is illegal:
"No one close to home has gotten in trouble," said Andrew Ricken, a junior.
"Up until recently, we were not told it was wrong," said Kristin Ebert, 19. "We think if it's available, you can use it. It's another resource."
"It's not something you feel guilty about doing," said Dan Langlitz, 20, a junior here. "You don't get the feeling it's illegal because it's so easy." He held an MP3 player in his hand. "They sell these things, the sites are there. Why is it illegal?"
and so on. The first article points that this is like a new drug that creates a bad habit on young people, and that it must be stopped before it gets a behaviour when they become adults. The second article says that when people grow up, they forget about all of this: it's just young rebelliousness. The first article blames the education system, saying that they are not doing enough to teach students that such thing is plainly wrong. But they see a ray of light: many students buy CDs and go to concerts after they downloaded the music, so perhaps we're just talking about another unexplored branch of advertising.
So far the New York Times. I ignore to what extent this kind of articles is being pushed by pure and true capitalist way of thinking, or if there are industries paying for them. That simplistic point of view misses completely the point. First of all, people download music because they like music, it is available, and if they were to buy all the music they would wish, no money in the world would be enough. They hear the music being aired in the radio, for free; they see the video clips in MTV, for free; they go to a pub and they hear it again, for free. At a friend's, in a disco, in the music stores, music's in the air all the time. You would tell me that you're paying for MTV, but people pay just for the cable broadcasting in general terms, not for every piece of music they hear in one particular channel. So you pay "the transport" of the resources: the cable, a beer in a pub, the ticket for the disco. They receive music through a lot of "transport channels", for free. One of them happens to be the internet, it's completely natural for them. I turn on the TV and watch a documentary, a movie, and a Metallica video. I turn on the radio, and I hear the news and some more Metallica. I connect to the internet, read the free newspapers, download my email and some more Metallica MP3s. Why should it be different? Ah, Metallica is probably paying to be aired on MTV, but if someone downloads their MP3s for free, then Metallica is losing money. Like that student said, "it's another resource". But the record industries want to charge you for that. One song, one dollar. If a CD costs 15 dollars, and it has some 12 songs (that's an average), you're saving 25 cents per song, that's great. And instead you have to burn the songs in a CD yourself, a blank CD you bought, you have no packaging, and your receive quality that still is not near the CD quality. An excellent deal that everyone will be hurrying to accept. Come on.
The other "fact", that the perception of capitalism as evil eventually disappears with age ("Who didn't feel that way at 16? On the other hand, how many people feel that way forever?", to quote the second article) is also false. Noone ignores the huge amount of money the music artists are doing. If each artist is making big money, how much more the few industries that gather the majority of all best selling artists? But they made a 12 years old child pay a huge amount of money just because she used that evil file sharing system. That child will never think again that capitalism is a toy to play with. The second article uses irony about this issue:
It's called capitalism, kid, and chances are very high that your favorite recording artist -- and every other cultural figure you admire -- loves it. Better to learn this now and kick the download habit before it leads to harder stuff, like a general unwillingness to pay for material goods of any kind, or a failure to grasp the magic of a great brand. If these consumer delinquents don't get scared straight back to the mall, the cost to us all will be much greater than lost revenue for the music business. The very morals of a generation are at stake.
So it's very hard for people to understand that is them who are wrong, and not the "greedy capitalist" companies. In Argentina, a regular CD costs more or less eight dollars, but some cost even 1.5 $. And they still make enough money to allow Argentina those prices, naturally. I'm talking about the same artists that are being sold in the United States for the double. In the Third World, it's not that easy to have an interesting collection of music, because it's expensive for general people. Downloading from the internet is like a manna.
The very idea of these new legal processes against common people forcing them to pay 150000 dollars for each downloaded song doesn't put those companies in a good place either. Just like in some other cases (multinational companies against the exploitation of the Third World, the media for the government and against people, weapon and oil industries provoking wars, etc.) this kind of behaviour only separates more the two sides: the common people and the evil system, to use the nomenclature of the New York Times articles. The conclusion of the second article:
The urge to cast downloading as a kind of black-and-white moral issue that simply needs to be made plain to the kids so that they will knock it off is understandable, but it's also wishful thinking. An estimated 60 million people have downloaded songs illicitly, which makes the phenomenon bigger than a youth fad. (...) By now, even if the music industry is right on the legal argument, it can't win the moral one.
I would extend that to the other faces of capitalism versus humanism.
On the one hand, students have no money, and they are rebel by nature, so they download songs both to fight the evil system and to be able to hear music when they can't pay for legal music. Some interviews with students seem to confirm this:
An unnamed 16-year-old female in Forrester's report summarizes her defense of downloading this way: ''RECORD COMPANIES ARE UNFAIR AND ARE PART OF THE SYSTEM, GO AGAINST THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!''
It's really expensive, especially for college students, to buy the whole CD.
Add to this that most students are not aware that this is illegal:
"No one close to home has gotten in trouble," said Andrew Ricken, a junior.
"Up until recently, we were not told it was wrong," said Kristin Ebert, 19. "We think if it's available, you can use it. It's another resource."
"It's not something you feel guilty about doing," said Dan Langlitz, 20, a junior here. "You don't get the feeling it's illegal because it's so easy." He held an MP3 player in his hand. "They sell these things, the sites are there. Why is it illegal?"
and so on. The first article points that this is like a new drug that creates a bad habit on young people, and that it must be stopped before it gets a behaviour when they become adults. The second article says that when people grow up, they forget about all of this: it's just young rebelliousness. The first article blames the education system, saying that they are not doing enough to teach students that such thing is plainly wrong. But they see a ray of light: many students buy CDs and go to concerts after they downloaded the music, so perhaps we're just talking about another unexplored branch of advertising.
So far the New York Times. I ignore to what extent this kind of articles is being pushed by pure and true capitalist way of thinking, or if there are industries paying for them. That simplistic point of view misses completely the point. First of all, people download music because they like music, it is available, and if they were to buy all the music they would wish, no money in the world would be enough. They hear the music being aired in the radio, for free; they see the video clips in MTV, for free; they go to a pub and they hear it again, for free. At a friend's, in a disco, in the music stores, music's in the air all the time. You would tell me that you're paying for MTV, but people pay just for the cable broadcasting in general terms, not for every piece of music they hear in one particular channel. So you pay "the transport" of the resources: the cable, a beer in a pub, the ticket for the disco. They receive music through a lot of "transport channels", for free. One of them happens to be the internet, it's completely natural for them. I turn on the TV and watch a documentary, a movie, and a Metallica video. I turn on the radio, and I hear the news and some more Metallica. I connect to the internet, read the free newspapers, download my email and some more Metallica MP3s. Why should it be different? Ah, Metallica is probably paying to be aired on MTV, but if someone downloads their MP3s for free, then Metallica is losing money. Like that student said, "it's another resource". But the record industries want to charge you for that. One song, one dollar. If a CD costs 15 dollars, and it has some 12 songs (that's an average), you're saving 25 cents per song, that's great. And instead you have to burn the songs in a CD yourself, a blank CD you bought, you have no packaging, and your receive quality that still is not near the CD quality. An excellent deal that everyone will be hurrying to accept. Come on.
The other "fact", that the perception of capitalism as evil eventually disappears with age ("Who didn't feel that way at 16? On the other hand, how many people feel that way forever?", to quote the second article) is also false. Noone ignores the huge amount of money the music artists are doing. If each artist is making big money, how much more the few industries that gather the majority of all best selling artists? But they made a 12 years old child pay a huge amount of money just because she used that evil file sharing system. That child will never think again that capitalism is a toy to play with. The second article uses irony about this issue:
It's called capitalism, kid, and chances are very high that your favorite recording artist -- and every other cultural figure you admire -- loves it. Better to learn this now and kick the download habit before it leads to harder stuff, like a general unwillingness to pay for material goods of any kind, or a failure to grasp the magic of a great brand. If these consumer delinquents don't get scared straight back to the mall, the cost to us all will be much greater than lost revenue for the music business. The very morals of a generation are at stake.
So it's very hard for people to understand that is them who are wrong, and not the "greedy capitalist" companies. In Argentina, a regular CD costs more or less eight dollars, but some cost even 1.5 $. And they still make enough money to allow Argentina those prices, naturally. I'm talking about the same artists that are being sold in the United States for the double. In the Third World, it's not that easy to have an interesting collection of music, because it's expensive for general people. Downloading from the internet is like a manna.
The very idea of these new legal processes against common people forcing them to pay 150000 dollars for each downloaded song doesn't put those companies in a good place either. Just like in some other cases (multinational companies against the exploitation of the Third World, the media for the government and against people, weapon and oil industries provoking wars, etc.) this kind of behaviour only separates more the two sides: the common people and the evil system, to use the nomenclature of the New York Times articles. The conclusion of the second article:
The urge to cast downloading as a kind of black-and-white moral issue that simply needs to be made plain to the kids so that they will knock it off is understandable, but it's also wishful thinking. An estimated 60 million people have downloaded songs illicitly, which makes the phenomenon bigger than a youth fad. (...) By now, even if the music industry is right on the legal argument, it can't win the moral one.
I would extend that to the other faces of capitalism versus humanism.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
About the Friedman article I just commented, I remembered some quotes I have read from an excellent page of resources, Third World Traveller. One of them was a letter to an American citizen by someone who used to live within the Soviet countries, and later moved to America:
I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world -in the field of advertizing- and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency (...) Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious (...) I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours... and we tend to disbelieve ours.
No other thing can explain Friedman's editorial. He speaks about the current situation as if we were in a global war: allies, rivals, enemies, that's the language of war. The United States attacked Iraq under false reasons, that by an incredible display of propaganda such action was believed by the American people as just and necessary. America's not under any kind of war. A terrorist attack is not a war. A huge display of weapons and death against two poor and distant countries is not a war. The propaganda worked alright, nevertheless, for the people. Some understood that it was a proper revenge for the 9/11 attacks. Some others thought it was fair for the Iraquis to be relieved from the tyrant they had. All of them were deceived, and still are under that illusion. Noam Chomsky:
The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.
Some TV producer wondering why Americans tolerate unjust and inhumane U.S. government policies, at home and abroad, said "we are willing to accept lies if they make our lives easier". When the crisis of the Balkans, it was Friedman who said "give war a chance", and he won a Pulitzer. While the bombs were falling, he wrote "Twelve days of surgical bombing was never going to turn Serbia around. Let's see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does.", and again: "give war a chance". His motto was repeated again after 9/11 attacks:
"Let's all take a deep breath and repeat after me: Give war a chance. This is Afghanistan we're talking about. Check the map. It's far away."
"It's far away". That's the Friedman who reaches millions through his New York Times column. That's the Friedman who won a Pulitzer "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat". That's the Friedman who claims today that France is an enemy to the United States. In 1998, advocating for "bombing Iraq, over and over and over again". In 1999: "Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no one knows when the lights will go off or who's in charge". In his book "Lexus and the Olive Tree":
The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Pure Friedman. This cheerleading (and its consequent Pulitzer) is not by chance. Chomsky again: "To say 'I'm an embedded journalist' is to say 'I'm a government propagandist'". One can say that, or perhaps agree with Walter Annenberg:
The American press has at least as much power in determining the course of the republic as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches set forth in the Constitution.
Any option is equally frightening when it comes to Thomas Friedman.
I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world -in the field of advertizing- and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency (...) Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious (...) I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours... and we tend to disbelieve ours.
No other thing can explain Friedman's editorial. He speaks about the current situation as if we were in a global war: allies, rivals, enemies, that's the language of war. The United States attacked Iraq under false reasons, that by an incredible display of propaganda such action was believed by the American people as just and necessary. America's not under any kind of war. A terrorist attack is not a war. A huge display of weapons and death against two poor and distant countries is not a war. The propaganda worked alright, nevertheless, for the people. Some understood that it was a proper revenge for the 9/11 attacks. Some others thought it was fair for the Iraquis to be relieved from the tyrant they had. All of them were deceived, and still are under that illusion. Noam Chomsky:
The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.
Some TV producer wondering why Americans tolerate unjust and inhumane U.S. government policies, at home and abroad, said "we are willing to accept lies if they make our lives easier". When the crisis of the Balkans, it was Friedman who said "give war a chance", and he won a Pulitzer. While the bombs were falling, he wrote "Twelve days of surgical bombing was never going to turn Serbia around. Let's see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does.", and again: "give war a chance". His motto was repeated again after 9/11 attacks:
"Let's all take a deep breath and repeat after me: Give war a chance. This is Afghanistan we're talking about. Check the map. It's far away."
"It's far away". That's the Friedman who reaches millions through his New York Times column. That's the Friedman who won a Pulitzer "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat". That's the Friedman who claims today that France is an enemy to the United States. In 1998, advocating for "bombing Iraq, over and over and over again". In 1999: "Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no one knows when the lights will go off or who's in charge". In his book "Lexus and the Olive Tree":
The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Pure Friedman. This cheerleading (and its consequent Pulitzer) is not by chance. Chomsky again: "To say 'I'm an embedded journalist' is to say 'I'm a government propagandist'". One can say that, or perhaps agree with Walter Annenberg:
The American press has at least as much power in determining the course of the republic as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches set forth in the Constitution.
Any option is equally frightening when it comes to Thomas Friedman.
This is really outrageous. Again in the New York Times, today Friedman writes:
It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.
The arguments behind this irrational statement are equally irrational. After Bush admitting the absolute lack of security reasons for the Iraq war, practically after saying that they invaded Iraq because it was politically convenient, this pro Bush influential journalist says that it's high treason not to support the United States in this endeavor; not only this, he's condemning France, highlighting the European country as an enemy to America. How long this will go on? For how long the American people will have to bear with people like Friedman? There's nothing I hope more than the United States having a change in its political direction, as soon as possible.
It's time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.
The arguments behind this irrational statement are equally irrational. After Bush admitting the absolute lack of security reasons for the Iraq war, practically after saying that they invaded Iraq because it was politically convenient, this pro Bush influential journalist says that it's high treason not to support the United States in this endeavor; not only this, he's condemning France, highlighting the European country as an enemy to America. How long this will go on? For how long the American people will have to bear with people like Friedman? There's nothing I hope more than the United States having a change in its political direction, as soon as possible.
In the New York Times I read that Bush admits that he never had evidences on Hussein tied with 9/11. Seven for each ten Americans think that they are related; that is the result of a propaganda that undoubtely came from the American government, as no other people from no other country would think such nonsense. But now Bush says he never thought that: "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th". Cheney, on his side, said "I think it's not surprising that people make that connection, but we don't know that for sure."
Add to this that Bush never could prove that Iraq had massive destruction weapons, and the curtain should fall on Dubya's head. The American people, though, still believe that the Iraqi war was something necessary. Nothing today makes me think that Bush won't be reelected. The government is mocking in the face of the American people, and still...
Add to this that Bush never could prove that Iraq had massive destruction weapons, and the curtain should fall on Dubya's head. The American people, though, still believe that the Iraqi war was something necessary. Nothing today makes me think that Bush won't be reelected. The government is mocking in the face of the American people, and still...
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Officially confirmed the pressures over Argentina of the US about Iraq, and from the World Bank in a new lobby for the international companies in Argentina. We say: they give from one side, they take from another.
Monday, September 15, 2003
In the USA today, today:
To boost numbers in Iraq, U.S. officials have intensified negotiations with India, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey. They are even holding out hope that France and Germany, the strongest opponents of the war, will send troops in a move to rebuild ties with the United States. And they have been courting Argentina, Brazil and Chile as sources for soldiers.
When I commented a couple of days ago "I don't get the big picture", I suspected that Bush's help wasn't free, after all. In these days the newspapers were commenting that Bush asked Argentina to support the first world countries position in the WTO meeting at Cancún, but Argentina didn't, and denied there was a pressure from the North. Argentina always refused a pro-war position, and so Chile. But now Chile has a free trade treaty with the US, and Argentina knows that the agreement with the IMF was in part due to the lobby of the United States. How longer will we resist?
To boost numbers in Iraq, U.S. officials have intensified negotiations with India, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey. They are even holding out hope that France and Germany, the strongest opponents of the war, will send troops in a move to rebuild ties with the United States. And they have been courting Argentina, Brazil and Chile as sources for soldiers.
When I commented a couple of days ago "I don't get the big picture", I suspected that Bush's help wasn't free, after all. In these days the newspapers were commenting that Bush asked Argentina to support the first world countries position in the WTO meeting at Cancún, but Argentina didn't, and denied there was a pressure from the North. Argentina always refused a pro-war position, and so Chile. But now Chile has a free trade treaty with the US, and Argentina knows that the agreement with the IMF was in part due to the lobby of the United States. How longer will we resist?
Change topic. This morning I was listening to the radio, and I heard a song called "How soon is now?", originally written by The Smiths (or Morrissey alone, I don't know) and now being sung by two Russian girls who pretend to be lesbians. The original song is long and dense; Morrissey sings depressed and apparently full of true feelings. The new version is dance pop, lightweight and catalogued by many people as cold, almost robotic. The lyrics are common to the two versions:
I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.
I am the son and heir of nothing in particular...
You, shut your mouth; how can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does.
There's a club, if you'd like to go; you could meet somebody who really loves you.
So you go, and you stand on your own,
and you leave on your own,
and you go home,
and you cry,
and you want to die.
When you say it's gonna happen "now", well, when exactly do you mean?
See, I've already waited too long and all my hope is gone.
So, shut your mouth; how can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does.
As you can see, closer to Morrissey than to the pseudo-lesbian popstars, Tatu. Nevertheless, when I heard their version on the radio today, the song was equally effective: a wave of despair and sadness chilled me to the bones. I always thought that a good song can resist its interpreters, as long as the real heart of the song is there. The "real heart" it's a fuzzy concept that varies among different tunes; in this case the heart is on the lyrics, in my opinion.
Tatu fans ignore The Smiths; after all, they were barely born (if at all) when Morrissey was singing "How soon is now?". Tatu themselves didn't know the group; they say the song was imposed by their producers. They even didn't care about the original version. Morrissey, on the other hand, said he loved the new version. Some suspect that it has to do with the royalties he's perceiving now. In any case, the "Smithsonians" just hate the song, and hate that Morrissey thinks it's OK.
The fact is that the girls sang again those anguished lyrics under the most shallow environment, and it worked its old spell again, with its magic intact, after all those years, in spite of the new background, in spite of their ignorance of The Smiths. This is the taste of something classic: you read the Odissey today and you are moved like the Greeks 2500 years ago, with a different culture, different values, and the book is there still ready to touch you once more. The Odissey and Morrissey have something in common, other than their rhyming names.
I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.
I am the son and heir of nothing in particular...
You, shut your mouth; how can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does.
There's a club, if you'd like to go; you could meet somebody who really loves you.
So you go, and you stand on your own,
and you leave on your own,
and you go home,
and you cry,
and you want to die.
When you say it's gonna happen "now", well, when exactly do you mean?
See, I've already waited too long and all my hope is gone.
So, shut your mouth; how can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does.
As you can see, closer to Morrissey than to the pseudo-lesbian popstars, Tatu. Nevertheless, when I heard their version on the radio today, the song was equally effective: a wave of despair and sadness chilled me to the bones. I always thought that a good song can resist its interpreters, as long as the real heart of the song is there. The "real heart" it's a fuzzy concept that varies among different tunes; in this case the heart is on the lyrics, in my opinion.
Tatu fans ignore The Smiths; after all, they were barely born (if at all) when Morrissey was singing "How soon is now?". Tatu themselves didn't know the group; they say the song was imposed by their producers. They even didn't care about the original version. Morrissey, on the other hand, said he loved the new version. Some suspect that it has to do with the royalties he's perceiving now. In any case, the "Smithsonians" just hate the song, and hate that Morrissey thinks it's OK.
The fact is that the girls sang again those anguished lyrics under the most shallow environment, and it worked its old spell again, with its magic intact, after all those years, in spite of the new background, in spite of their ignorance of The Smiths. This is the taste of something classic: you read the Odissey today and you are moved like the Greeks 2500 years ago, with a different culture, different values, and the book is there still ready to touch you once more. The Odissey and Morrissey have something in common, other than their rhyming names.
The WTO meeting ended. Just like in 1999 in Seattle, poor and rich couldn't reach an agreement, and it was all a failure. A huge failure. There's an interesting blog about this called KickAAS (Kick all agricultural subsidies); in spite of the collapse, they look at the bright side of it:
At least developing countries did not on this occasion yield unconditionally to the awesome bargaining power of the US and the EU. Thanks to the clout given by the newly emergent lobby, the Group of 21, which includes China, India and Brazil - they refused to agree to unacceptable conditions linking reductions of subsidies to steep cuts in manufacturing tariffs and liberalisation of investment.
Meanwhile, the rich countries think of the G21 as a marriage of convenience. In the words of the Deputy US Trade Representative:
It's really unclear to us what is the unifying principle there among those countries; on the one hand, you've got some of those countries that were among the most ambitious countries for agricultural reform. Then it goes across the spectrum... to countries that have not been advocates of reform.
And EU spokeswoman Arancha Gonzalez:
We do not see the G21 as some kind of a threat. It is a temporary alliance which wants to push the joint interests of its members together.
G7 against G21?
At least developing countries did not on this occasion yield unconditionally to the awesome bargaining power of the US and the EU. Thanks to the clout given by the newly emergent lobby, the Group of 21, which includes China, India and Brazil - they refused to agree to unacceptable conditions linking reductions of subsidies to steep cuts in manufacturing tariffs and liberalisation of investment.
Meanwhile, the rich countries think of the G21 as a marriage of convenience. In the words of the Deputy US Trade Representative:
It's really unclear to us what is the unifying principle there among those countries; on the one hand, you've got some of those countries that were among the most ambitious countries for agricultural reform. Then it goes across the spectrum... to countries that have not been advocates of reform.
And EU spokeswoman Arancha Gonzalez:
We do not see the G21 as some kind of a threat. It is a temporary alliance which wants to push the joint interests of its members together.
G7 against G21?
Sunday, September 14, 2003
Elections day today, and for the first time in my life I didn't feel the urge to vote. Things can't be changed at this point of the history, as it seems.
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