The FTAA must be recognized as an effort by multi-national corporations to impose upon us even more thoroughly a value system in which their profit is the only serious priority. Throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada, people recognize NAFTA as a travesty because it has abetted corporations in their already frenzied race for the cheapest labor and the fewest regulations. Examples of NAFTA's offenses abound.
The United States lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs; in Mexico, hundreds of thousands of laborers live without basic services and work under poor conditions, drawn to foreign-owned maquiladoras that pay wages that seem relatively generous but that in fact provide little purchasing power.
Canada, meanwhile, has been forced to repeal its ban on MMT, a toxic gasoline additive, and to pay $13 million dollars in damages to the Ethyl Corporation. President Bush may try to use the undemocratic "fast track" strategy (formally known as "Presidential Trade Promotion Authority") to move this trade agreement quickly through Congress without amendments. To prevent this, write a letter to the president and to your congressional representatives. For help, visit http://www.stopftaa.org.
Corporate authority thrives in an environment of political apathy. A surge of protest, however, can thwart their effort to enshrine profit as the principle of world governance.
