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MEDIA IMAGES IGNORE FTAA MESSAGES: FOCUSES ON VIOLENCE INSTEAD	Current rating: 0
by Lewis Green (No verified email address)	22 Apr 2001
What is wrong with NAFTA and FTAA, and what should trade look like. A commentary.
It is noon, Seattle time, Friday, April 20. I sit in my office watching Fox News transmitting images of a handful of protesters heaving objects toward riot-garbed police and soldiers in Quebec City. This is where the Summit of the Americas is being held, which is engaged in creating a hemispheric-wide trade agreement called the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The pictures are reminiscent of the WTO protests in Seattle, where 30,000 peaceful protestors gathered, but media images focused on the tens of violent protestors. Unfortunately, while the images make good TV, they ignore the messages and concerns of the tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators on the streets, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans in solidarity with the protestors. What the vast majority of us want is only to inform and educate both the media and the public regarding the truths behind NAFTA and the devastating effects that FTAA may bring. The vast majority of us are not opposed to trade, but we are concerned with these mega-treaties. We are concerned about trade policies that subvert democratic policies, to be replaced by corporate hegemony. NAFTA and FTAA are about Ronald Reagan economics and America-First policies that benefit the rich and the powerful, but tread on most Americans, whether they live in Canada, the U.S., Mexico or Brazil. This philosophy rests on an economic foundation called \"Trickle Down.\" President Bush\'s favors this economic philosophy, which supports free markets, believing that they lead to growth and progress. Historically, however, free markets have led to exploitation of resources, a rape of our planet, a wealth gap, increased poverty and decreased protections for the neediest among us. In a recently released document developed by \"Witness for Peace,\" an organization dedicated to human and civil rights, the authors explain that ideologues who favor \"Trickle Down\" believe that in a \"truly neoliberal (market-driven) economy, a country should remove all barriers to the free flow of goods (including government price supports, import and export taxes, and import product regulations) so that the market can guide the economy.\" Witness for Peace counters that \"In practice, neoliberal policies play out differently. In countries that implement these reforms, wealth tends to concentrate in few hands rather than trickle down. This is a worldwide trend: according to the World Bank, in 1993 the richest one percent of the world�s people owned the equivalent of the combined wealth of the poorest 57 percent. \"In the United States � the world�s richest country and chief promoter of neoliberal economics � median income for families is below what it was in the 1970s, people work more hours than any other industrialized country and there have been severe cutbacks in social services. \"All this despite the fact the economy has grown and corporations� profits are skyrocketing.\" According to Public Citizen�s Global Trade Watch, NAFTA has not benefited most U.S. citizens. In the first five years of NAFTA: � U.S. citizens lost at least 200,000 jobs. Seventy percent of these jobs were in manufacturing, where wages are generally above average. � Half of union-organizing efforts in the U.S. were disrupted by companies� threats to transfer production abroad. When organizing drives did succeed, plants closed at triple the pre-NAFTA rate. � U.S. manufacturing wages stagnated. � The number of small U.S. farms declined by nine percent. � The percentage of U.S. farm households living at or near the federal poverty line climbed to 93 percent. � Food prices increased: despite a 62 percent decline in U.S. hog prices, consumers paid more for pork in 1998 than before NAFTA. The price of tomatoes rose 16 percent. It is important to note that, to date, FTAA has been negotiated in secret by trade representatives from 34 nations of North and South America, with Corporate-input, but no input from Non Governmental Organizations or from any of our elected officials. The vast majority of us opposed to NAFTA and FTAA believe that any hemispheric trade agreement should be a means to an end, sustainable social and economic development rather than an end in itself. We call for an FTAA that: � Prioritizes social development and human needs. Any hemispheric trade agreement must work toward the eradication of poverty and inequalities within and among nations, between men and women, and among races. � Takes into account the vast differences in levels of economic development in the hemisphere and establishes mechanisms to help smaller economies catch up with more powerful countries, as was done in the European Union. � Includes broad participation of civil society. A new development model must be promoted, based on popular participation in the planning, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation of development plans. � Facilitates the creation of high quality jobs, with special protections for women and minorities. A worker�s rights clause should be included in any hemispheric trade agreement, with an enforcement mechanism and a supervisory role for the International Labor Organization (ILO). � Holds corporations accountable to the communities in which they operate. These corporations should pay local taxes and respect local laws so that they contribute to local development. � Establishes the primacy of international environmental and human rights agreements over trade agreements. � Allows countries to protect or exclude staple foods from trade agreements. � Includes agreements regarding migrant workers. Any trade agreement should address the root cause of immigration problems: unequal economic opportunities in member countries. Agreements should allow for variation in immigration policies, but facilitate funding for programs that increase economic well-being in countries that are major exporters of labor. So, while Media, Corporations and the Administration paint us as out of touch and radical, we believe that most Americans, when they understand our positions, will agree that trade should benefit all, while protecting our environment, not benefit only the rich and the powerful at the expense of the working classes, the poor and the environment. Lewis Green is the Lobby point person for the Seattle Citizens Coalition Concerned About Trade.
See also: http://seattle.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=2888&group=webcast

Comments

The News-Gazette Calls The FTAA Democracy
by ML (No verified email address)	Current rating: 0 22 Apr 2001
It is ironic that the assembled leaders claim to be negotiating the FTAA to make it a "democracy-only" zone, as the headline in Sunday's News-Gazette claims. This version of democracy demands an agreement negotiated in secret. This version of democracy demands that police and military crush out the voices of those who oppose the concentration of power into the hands of an economic elite. This version of democarcy overlooks the suffering of the many in order to pad the already overstuffed wallets of a few (anybody for a "tax cut"?) The facts recited in the commentary above reflect the grim realities of life for an ever larger percentage of the hemisphere's people. NAFTA was based on lies; the FTAA is based on lies. The lesson is that if this is indeed democracy, it is a demonstrated failure for any but the few. Failed democracy badly needs renewal. What do you intend to do? Think about it, then act together.