Why Free Trade agreements suck

My seemingly week long writers block continues, but that never stopped me from running my mouth. I simply quote other people at length to compensate. In that spirit, I read an article on Salon by Marisa Handler. She is protested against the FTAA in Miami this week and wrote artilces from an activists point of view. What she wrote should remind us why we have to protest against the "free trade" that corporations want to shove down our throats:

The Free Trade Area of the Americas, should these agreements go through, will prove a disaster to communities and the environment. The FTAA essentially expands NAFTA to the entire Western hemisphere (with the predictable exception of Cuba, which is not represented among the 34 countries here). NAFTA, contrary to optimistic predictions, has only benefited the wealthiest in the three countries it includes. According to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, since NAFTA was passed in 1994, an estimated 765,000 jobs have been lost in the U.S. These jobs have largely moved to maquiladoras, cheap border factories based in Mexico. Meanwhile, the number of Mexicans working for less than Mexican minimum wage has increased by over a million. NAFTA is a race to the bottom, and those who are paying for increased multinational profits are the most destitute.

Like NAFTA's Chapter 11, the FTAA's rules of investment would additionally allow corporations to sue governments for future profits lost (a recent example of this was when Canada's Methanex Corp. sued the state of California for almost a billion dollars for banning the use of MTBE in its gasoline, due to its high toxicity. Should Methanex win, California either has to pay out or significantly lower its environmental standards). A poor nation like Bolivia would have virtually no protection against the might of U.S.-based multinationals in a case like this. And the FTAA would also include services, which means that everything ranging from water to education to hospitals would be up for privatization.

The FTAA is a nightmare for the environment, labor, and human rights. And there is no process for public input: the space for nongovernmental organizations amounts to little more than a suggestion box, while corporate advisors are given privileged advisory roles in these talks. Most of the communities represented in these talks cannot come to voice their dissent. For those who can, for the conscientious and the outraged, nonviolent protest is the last tool left us. That is why I came to Miami.

I was gonna write something about free trade, fair trade, and globalization, but sometimes it's best to let the pros do it. It doesn't mean that I won't subject you to it later this week, though.

OK, back to my regularly scheduled writers block.. Or, actually, off to bed. 9:00am meeting at work tomorrow, which means that I actually have to wake up on a sunday. I think the last time I got up at 7:30am on a sunday morning was 5 years ago. I'm not happy about this whole going to bed on a saturday night shit.