CHARLES McCOLLESTER, http://www.pointofpittsburgh.com
McCollester, author of "The Point of Pittsburgh: Production and
Struggle at the Forks of the Ohio," just wrote the piece "There are
plenty of reasons to protest the G-20: The global economic system has
deindustrialized America, despoiled the Earth and marginalized working
people everywhere" for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
McCollester writes: "When the announcement was made in Washington
that Pittsburgh would be the site of the G-20 summit, reporters laughed.
Clearly, the significance of the city in the nation's history is poorly
understood.
"There is something symbolic in the holding of this potentially
watershed event in Pittsburgh at a moment when America's global
leadership is being seriously challenged by rising Asian economic
superpowers as well as by numerous political revolts in the hemisphere
it once dominated. The industrial collapse of Pittsburgh and American
manufacturing in the 1980s propelled the crushing trade imbalance and
indebtedness of the United States vis-a-vis the rest of the world. In a
sense the chickens are coming home to roost.
"The American global agenda in the triumphant capitalist expansion
that followed the disintegration of the Soviet empire proved to be
disastrous for the American working class, as well as for workers and
the environment around the world. Free trade, privatization and
deregulation pursued with varying degrees of ardor by both Republicans
and Democrats over the past 30 years has concentrated wealth and
increased the poverty of the majority of humanity by undermining local,
traditional and indigenous economies -- all while polluting and
degrading the natural world at an extremely dangerous pace. God knows
there are reasons enough to protest.
"The United States, the prime purveyor of this toxic cocktail of
economic dogmas, has seen its productive capacity collapse, its
governmental and individual debt obligations increase exponentially and
its once muscular and productive economic engine reduced to an
increasingly untenable global military presence. Our best defense is not
endless foreign war, but a sustained reinvention of our economic life at
home." http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09256/997396-109.stm
McCollester is a retired professor of industrial and labor relations
at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167