Masters of the universe Bono, Bill Gates & me
Lozada, Carlos
OF SEVERAL MINDS CARLOS LOZADA MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE Inside the World Economic Forum Rosemary is a veiy nice witch, perhaps the nicest I've ever met. She smiled, took time to talk with me, and...
...I'd long been skeptical of their motives and knowledge of the issues, and after my brief encounter, I still am...
...After a few hours inside the Waldorf, I realized that there was nothing strictly "economic" about this forum, despite the preponderance of businesspeople...
...She smiled, took time to talk with me, and patiently explained why she-along with her colleagues in the Pagan Cluster- was holding a rally against the World Economic Forum on a windy, whip-you-in-the-face February evening in Manhattan's Washington Square...
...to my right, a twentysomething Silicon Valley entrepreneur who had recently sold his tech firm for $800 million...
...Rosemary explained how the corporate and political leaders meeting that weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria secretly wanted to privatize water worldwide...
...Emboldened, Rosemary then explained how the World Economic Forum had created other evil institutions, including the International Monetary Fund...
...World Bank President Jim Wolfensohn moderated the session and was officially in charge of lobbing slow-pitch soft-ball questions to the panel, and then dutifully fielding the answers...
...Really...
...Oh, it is a moral issue first, of course...
...Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, Microsoft honcho Bill Gates, plus the chairmen of Renault, Toshiba, and Merrill Lynch...
...Hum, a little stale...
...Disgusted, I walked out of the ballroom, intent on checking my e-mail at one of the computer clusters dotting the Waldorf that weekend...
...You never know how a witch might react...
...It was in fact a big, lavish party for Global Notables of any field...
...Perhaps the worst session I attended was called "From Business Leaders to Global Leaders" and featured U.S...
...Membership in the Forum does have its privileges...
...Connecting to Consumers in Uncertain Times...
...Ruth provided an interview to CNN's "Business Unusual...
...Yet, at times it seemed that the sessions were merely obligatory foreplay before the all-important fifteen-minute "contact breaks" scheduled between sessions, where pretenses were shed, business cards exchanged, and deals struck...
...and ten feet away, sex expert Dr...
...It turned out to be my lone opportunity to meet the infamous protesters, the barbarian hordes that had made trouble and headlines in Seattle, Ottawa, Genoa, and Washington, D.C...
...I bit into a cookie...
...Ah yes, the titles of the discussion sessions...
...Only at the World Economic Forum can the rock star Bono, Kofi Annan, and the chief rabbi of Israel walk into the same room without representing the opening line of a bad joke...
...Extremely refreshing...
...Nor did I mention that in my pocket I carried a pass to the Forum's exclusive meetings, proof of my complicity in the vast conspiracy of corporate globalization...
...The Pagan Cluster was hardly alone...
...Of course, the Concierge only included the official sessions, not the informal, off-the-record power-broker gatherings I only heard about later...
...Often, they were as banal or bizarre as the protesters' slogans...
...On the way, I stopped at a table-cloth covered stand offering soft drinks, bottled water, and plastic-wrapped chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies...
...Carlos Lozada is senior editor of Foreign Policy magazine...
...The Paradigm for the Future...
...With them were members of the Communist Youth Brigade, the British group Globalize Resistance, and countless others rallying against globalization...
...This meeting occurred in the Waldorf's cavernous ballroom-or "Plenary Hall"- and was displayed on an enormous screen above the panelists, as if to magnify the session's uselessness...
...It's about the water," she confided, as we huddled by a makeshift shrine to Bridget, Goddess of the Forge...
...Somehow, I didn't have the heart to explain that the IMF was created decades before the Forum...
...Don't tell Rosemary...
...Attracting Capital in a Risk-Averse Environment...
...Also listening were dozens of police officers- on foot, horseback, and motorcycle-as well as several local TV crews, no doubt lured by the spell of good footage...
...I'm glad I did...
...Each ranged from seventy-five minutes to two hours, with presenters, challengers, and discussion leaders...
...People, not Profits...
...Fortunately, we all had access to a computer-based, personalized "Knowledge Concierge" who kept track of the meetings we were attending and could deliver messages to other participants...
...No to the World Exploitation Forum...
...Come to think of it, I'm not sure what she was doing at a session billed as "Reconsidering the Role of Religion in Light of Recent Events...
...Science fiction writers mingled with corporate CEOs, famed musicians chatted up dot-com tycoons, and even antiglobalization scholars (if suitably fashionable and domesticated) were invited to smile knowingly and pose predictable questions...
...I spent two hours talking and listening to their chants...
...He was invited to the World Economic Forum as one of the Forum's 100 "Global Leaders for Tomorrow" for 2002.rrow" for 2002...
...I opened a bottle of Perrier...
...Consider my lunchtime companions on Sunday: to my left, a Nigerian Catholic cardinal...
...Yet, as I discovered over the next three days, the protesters were no less outlandish, varied, or, in some cases, ill-informed than their counterparts in the august halls of the Waldorf-Astoria...
...All Forum participants are elite, but some are more elite than others...
...I had arrived in the city two days late for the Forum, but skipped out on an "official" event that Friday evening in order to walk through the city...
...Dozens of sessions seemed to be occurring simultaneously...
...Bill Gates, is your generous philanthropy a moral imperative, or does it help your business...
...The Diabolical Mind...
Vol. 129 • March 2002 • No. 6
