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It’s interesting to read about this in the American press for the first time, though I’m sure it’s come up in some other print source I may have missed. This article isn’t too bad as a starting point for the basic issue, but misses a much larger point.
The Argentine goverment opposes the pulp mills primarily for economic reasons, rather than the purported noble environmental reasons. Argentina already has 10 pulp mills whose environmental contamination has been well documented. If Uruguay were to build these state of the art plants (Argentina’s pulp mills rely on outdated and heavily-polluting technology), it would represent an enormous amount of Foreign Direct Investment for the tiny nation and a coup for the Uruguay government.
I understand the real concerns of the Argentine localities that will be close the paper mills, but the position of the Kirchner government is completely hypocritical and should be recognized. If Kirchner administration is so interested in the environment, it should start by doing a better job of policing the great polluters it already has.
I understand that Greenpeace would get involved in this campaign, but the politicians in Buenos Aires are cynically exploiting the environmental movement for their own economic motives.
Incidentally, this conflict perfectly illustrates why Latin America will likely never be in a position to significantly challenge Washington’s hemispheric influence. Despite both countries being members of Mercosur, Argentina is completely willing to screw Uruguay over in this deal which would provide much needed FDI, for its own gain. This shows that despite the ascendance of the left and the centrist left in Latin America, governments will still pursue self-interest politics at the expense of regional unity and economic improvement, all of which plays into the hands of Washington.
(Full disclosure: I was born in Uruguay and raised in the U.S. but go back every year and have most of my family there)
Posted by Caschunk on Apr 3, 2006 at 11:41 AM
Up here in northern Minnesota these multi-national corporations are also destyroying everything in sight that they can get their greedy hands on… the paper companies like the Finnish multi-national Sappi, mining companies like United States Steel, and the huge Canadian multi-national Berger out of Quebec Canada are all a part of the scheme.
The Minnesota Commissioner of Natural Resources, Gene Merriam—- a long-time Democrat turned Republican who was always a servant for these big corporations—- has granted a permit to mine peat in the Big Bog, which is the last and largest of the bogs in the lower forty-eight ; bogs play a crucial role in fighting global warming.
If this isn’t enough, United States Steel’s Minntac taconite producing operation has been granted permission to pump billions of gallons of contaminated industrial wastes, including mercury and heavy metals, into the streams, rivers, and lakes of northern Minnesota, and not one single elected Minnesota legislator has the courage to stand up and say that this insanity has to be halted.
None of the three contenders for governor from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party have spoken out. The present Republican governor is a Bush clone.
Both the peat mining, and the dumping, are the hare-brained schemes of United States Congressman James Oberstar who brokered both deals behind closed doors in corporate board-rooms behind the backs of the people. Oberstar even came up with the name for the Environmental Impact Statement: Minntac’s Water Reduction Proposal, which would lead one to believe that the corporation just has too much water. The problem is, this water has been accumulating in a two mile by thre mile reservoir that United States Steel was forced to construct because the contaminents were too dangerous to allow into our environment. The problem, one finds after opening up the EIS is that Minntac is saying that this water has become so dirty that it is ruining their equipment and degrading the taconite pellets to the extent that the pellets are contaminating the steel making process of their customers.
Oberstar taunts people with “jobs, jobs, jobs,” and has used the issue of “jobs” in much the way Joe McCarthy used anti-communism; smearing anyone who dares to challenge corporate rule with “destroying jobs;” this probably shouldn’t surprise anyone since Oberstar rose to power thirty years ago in a vicious red-baiting campaign against his opponent, George Perpich, brother of former DFL governor Rudy Perpich. Oberstar said that their father was a communist, as if this was some kind of crime. Now Oberstar, a worthless political hack who constantly attacks women’ rights and who has refused to introduce any legislation to protect jobs and workers in the workplace or their communities, has taken to referring to Bush as a communist—- apparently because he refuses to acknowledge the truth articulated by the elder Perpich that capitalism is the source of the problems working people experience.
This contaminated water will flow into a pristine designated trout stream and much of this “dirty water” will end up in the Big Bog.
Readers can help by boycotting all products sold by Miracle Grow and Scott’s Gardening Products.
Of course, in the long run we need to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism. We should be taking some lessons from our neighbors to the south who are standing up to these multi-national corporations.
Posted by alanmaki on Apr 6, 2006 at 9:35 AM
Amen! God, what I would give to live in such rich and stable countries.
Viva la socialism!
Posted by Jay Cline on Apr 6, 2006 at 12:01 PM
Shocking new revelations—more reasons to impeach Bush
More conspiracies, lies and crimes revealed
This ad has been placed in the NY Times,
the SF Chronicle, and the Boston Globe
The growing nation-wide effort to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is emblematic of a larger issue: what kind of country is the United States to become.
Yesterday
Posted by brian28 on Apr 7, 2006 at 8:42 PM
Brian28,
What the hell does a controversy over a paper mill in Uruguay have to do with impeaching the President? Not that I disagree with you, but it’s this kind of thing that turns people off to your message.
It’s the same phenomenon when you go an anti-war rally. It turns out that in addition to Iraq, you end up protesting on Palestine, Agribusiness, Plan Colombia. The lack of focus only hurts the original cause, whether its opposition to the Iraq War or support for impeachment.
It’s the equivalent of spam e-mail because it shows you’re not even paying attention to what the original thread of conversation was about.
Posted by Caschunk on Apr 10, 2006 at 9:01 AM
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Reader Comments
It’s interesting to read about this in the American press for the first time, though I’m sure it’s come up in some other print source I may have missed. This article isn’t too bad as a starting point for the basic issue, but misses a much larger point.
The Argentine goverment opposes the pulp mills primarily for economic reasons, rather than the purported noble environmental reasons. Argentina already has 10 pulp mills whose environmental contamination has been well documented. If Uruguay were to build these state of the art plants (Argentina’s pulp mills rely on outdated and heavily-polluting technology), it would represent an enormous amount of Foreign Direct Investment for the tiny nation and a coup for the Uruguay government.
I understand the real concerns of the Argentine localities that will be close the paper mills, but the position of the Kirchner government is completely hypocritical and should be recognized. If Kirchner administration is so interested in the environment, it should start by doing a better job of policing the great polluters it already has.
I understand that Greenpeace would get involved in this campaign, but the politicians in Buenos Aires are cynically exploiting the environmental movement for their own economic motives.
Incidentally, this conflict perfectly illustrates why Latin America will likely never be in a position to significantly challenge Washington’s hemispheric influence. Despite both countries being members of Mercosur, Argentina is completely willing to screw Uruguay over in this deal which would provide much needed FDI, for its own gain. This shows that despite the ascendance of the left and the centrist left in Latin America, governments will still pursue self-interest politics at the expense of regional unity and economic improvement, all of which plays into the hands of Washington.
(Full disclosure: I was born in Uruguay and raised in the U.S. but go back every year and have most of my family there)
Up here in northern Minnesota these multi-national corporations are also destyroying everything in sight that they can get their greedy hands on… the paper companies like the Finnish multi-national Sappi, mining companies like United States Steel, and the huge Canadian multi-national Berger out of Quebec Canada are all a part of the scheme.
The Minnesota Commissioner of Natural Resources, Gene Merriam—- a long-time Democrat turned Republican who was always a servant for these big corporations—- has granted a permit to mine peat in the Big Bog, which is the last and largest of the bogs in the lower forty-eight ; bogs play a crucial role in fighting global warming.
If this isn’t enough, United States Steel’s Minntac taconite producing operation has been granted permission to pump billions of gallons of contaminated industrial wastes, including mercury and heavy metals, into the streams, rivers, and lakes of northern Minnesota, and not one single elected Minnesota legislator has the courage to stand up and say that this insanity has to be halted.
None of the three contenders for governor from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party have spoken out. The present Republican governor is a Bush clone.
Both the peat mining, and the dumping, are the hare-brained schemes of United States Congressman James Oberstar who brokered both deals behind closed doors in corporate board-rooms behind the backs of the people. Oberstar even came up with the name for the Environmental Impact Statement: Minntac’s Water Reduction Proposal, which would lead one to believe that the corporation just has too much water. The problem is, this water has been accumulating in a two mile by thre mile reservoir that United States Steel was forced to construct because the contaminents were too dangerous to allow into our environment. The problem, one finds after opening up the EIS is that Minntac is saying that this water has become so dirty that it is ruining their equipment and degrading the taconite pellets to the extent that the pellets are contaminating the steel making process of their customers.
Oberstar taunts people with “jobs, jobs, jobs,” and has used the issue of “jobs” in much the way Joe McCarthy used anti-communism; smearing anyone who dares to challenge corporate rule with “destroying jobs;” this probably shouldn’t surprise anyone since Oberstar rose to power thirty years ago in a vicious red-baiting campaign against his opponent, George Perpich, brother of former DFL governor Rudy Perpich. Oberstar said that their father was a communist, as if this was some kind of crime. Now Oberstar, a worthless political hack who constantly attacks women’ rights and who has refused to introduce any legislation to protect jobs and workers in the workplace or their communities, has taken to referring to Bush as a communist—- apparently because he refuses to acknowledge the truth articulated by the elder Perpich that capitalism is the source of the problems working people experience.
This contaminated water will flow into a pristine designated trout stream and much of this “dirty water” will end up in the Big Bog.
Readers can help by boycotting all products sold by Miracle Grow and Scott’s Gardening Products.
Of course, in the long run we need to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism. We should be taking some lessons from our neighbors to the south who are standing up to these multi-national corporations.
Amen! God, what I would give to live in such rich and stable countries.
Viva la socialism!
Shocking new revelations—more reasons to impeach Bush
More conspiracies, lies and crimes revealed
This ad has been placed in the NY Times,
the SF Chronicle, and the Boston Globe
The growing nation-wide effort to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is emblematic of a larger issue: what kind of country is the United States to become.
Yesterday
Brian28,
What the hell does a controversy over a paper mill in Uruguay have to do with impeaching the President? Not that I disagree with you, but it’s this kind of thing that turns people off to your message.
It’s the same phenomenon when you go an anti-war rally. It turns out that in addition to Iraq, you end up protesting on Palestine, Agribusiness, Plan Colombia. The lack of focus only hurts the original cause, whether its opposition to the Iraq War or support for impeachment.
It’s the equivalent of spam e-mail because it shows you’re not even paying attention to what the original thread of conversation was about.
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