FTAA protesters start 34-mile march from Broward to Miami

[Say_What]

<clips>

FORT LAUDERDALE · With the pageantry of a parade and the passion of a prayer revival, hundreds of protesters began a three-day march Sunday through Broward County, a trek that will end in downtown Miami with a massive demonstration against the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit.

"FTAA, go away!" chanted the marchers, clad in the yellow T-shirts of the Root Cause organization, which supports farmworker rights.

The 34-mile march, one mile for each of the nations participating in the FTAA meetings, began at Wimberly Field in Oakland Park before turning south on U.S. 1. The block-long procession of about 200 marchers was escorted by police on motorcycles and horseback in the highway's outside lane. It moved less than two miles an hour.

The marchers, from toddlers to retirees, bore banners, placards and oversize puppets to proclaim their message that the FTAA would hurt poor workers at home and abroad. They banged drums, blew trumpets and flutes and handed out flyers to bystanders and motorists.

<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/miami/sfl-dmarch17nov17,0,1616787.story?coll=sfla-news-miami>

[Kolesar]

1. I wish I could have been there

kick

[Say_What]

2. Trading Away Democracy

<clips>

“The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will spread freedom, liberty and democracy to all the peoples of the Americas.” This is one of the many tall tales free traders repeat in newspaper interviews, on television and radio programs and at public debates. But if someone were to ask them to explain how, their response would be similar to a deer in headlights. That’s because it’s difficult to defend a statement that has no factual evidence to support it. The FTAA would actually undermine democracy by granting transnational corporations the ability to overturn labor laws and environmental regulations, thus stripping countries of their sovereignty and citizens of their rights to self-determination. Here’s how.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (in a clause under Chapter 11) provides foreign investors the ability to challenge local, state and federal laws of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, for cash compensation—taxpayer money. This is unprecedented, as it allows corporations to sue nations for the first time in history. The FTAA would adopt NAFTA's investor rights and as a result leave 31 more countries ripe for the picking.

This has the potential to generate an explosive number of new cases. A 2002 Taxpayers for Common Sense report said that in the U.S. alone, these investor rights could cost American taxpayers over $30 billion per year under the FTAA.

Just this summer Canadian mining company Glamis filed Notice of Intent that it will bring a $50 million claim against the U.S. for actions taken by California to protect the environment and indigenous communities from the harmful impact of open-pit mining. Its venue: a closed-door arbitration tribunal, with no public access or oversight. California’s attorney general won’t even have an official role in the case. Citizens of the state are forced to rely on federal government agencies such as the Office of the United States Trade Representative to defend their laws and well-being. So the same office that helped push through the legal framework that allows Glamis to file their $50 million claim is supposed to win a case against them. If you find this disturbing you’re not alone.

http://progressivetrail.org/articles/031117Mychalejko.shtml

[Kolesar]

8. Fair Trade is an issue that Democrats can win on

Americans are afraid of losing their jobs to low wage countries. The GOP will never take an anticorporate position on matters like these. States like the Carolinas have seen huge job losses in the textile mills, and if their voters knew why, they would be royally mad. (kick)

[Judi Lynn]

3. Otto Reich rears his "exile" head as he advocates Bush's FTAA

NAFTA On Steroids


Lori Wallach is director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.



This week, when trade ministers gather in Miami for a Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, they will be greeted by thousands of protestors. FTAA negotiations have been quietly underway since 1995 with a December 2004 target deadline. The Miami summit is a deciding moment—as awareness about FTAA has grown, so has opposition.

The draft FTAA text contains hundreds of pages of rules to which every country would be required to conform its national, state and local policies—regardless of whether voters and their democratically-elected representatives had previously rejected the same.

FTAA is a proposal to extend NAFTA to 31 Latin American and Caribbean nations. If you liked NAFTA, you will love FTAA. It is NAFTA on steroids.

When NAFTA was being negotiated and debated in the early 1990s, it was sold as the only path to bring Mexico's standard of living closer to that of its northern neighbors.

As we mark the tenth anniversary of the NAFTA agreement on January 1, 2004, the time for promises is past: the data clearly shows the damage NAFTA has wrought for millions of people in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Yet the Bush administration again is selling FTAA as the best path to pull the rest of the hemisphere out of poverty and a boon for U.S. workers and farmers. At a Miami forum this month, Otto Reich, the White House special envoy for the Western Hemisphere, went so far as to claim that the FTAA is "the best route to achieving the goal of lifting people out of poverty." (snip/...)

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9400


Otto

[Kolesar]

4. Reich was in the shadows for the April 2002 coup in Venezuela

[Say_What]

6. He's such a creep, that photo nearly made me lose my lunch

:puke:

[Say_What]

5. U.S., Brazil Lock Horns over Future of Trade in Americas

The US trying to f*ck Brazil.

<clips>

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov 15 (IPS) - The United States appears to be revising its strategy for winning a threatened trade deal in the Americas by isolating Brazil, while doling out economic benefits to other Latin American countries.

... ”The strategy is all about how to corner Brazil to make them feel they will be isolated if they don't go along with the kind of FTAA that the U.S. government wants,” said Sarah Anderson a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

”That's because I think they see Brazil as really the crown jewel of the Americas.”

With the largest economy in South America and a population of nearly 180 million people, Brazil has staunchly protected its economy, retaining more restrictions on foreign investments than most other Latin American nations.

Its government wants trade concessions from Washington in exchange for supporting some parts of the FTAA

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=3&u=/oneworld/20031117/wl_oneworld/4536729131069077662>

[Kolesar]

7. Brazil is historically protectionist

That was my experience in the electronics business. They insisted that products be built in Brazil if we wish to sell them there so we set up manufacturing on site.

[Judi Lynn]

9. No doubt our righteous embed reporters will get us the low-down

on these dad-blamed card-carryin', tree-huggin' protestors in Miami:

Posted on Mon, Nov. 17, 2003

Media "embeds" with police as trade talks start
RACHEL LA CORTE
Associated Press

MIAMI - From breakfast at the start of a shift to patrolling the downtown streets, journalists are witnessing the daily tasks of local police preparing for thousands of protesters expected this week to rail against free trade talks.

Initiated by Police Chief John Timoney, this is believed to be the largest ever use of embedded reporters for a U.S. police operation.

The news organizations participating in the embedding include The Associated Press, NBC, Reuters, The Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, CNN, Fox and several TV stations. Up to 24 reporters and photographers are participating each day.

The reporting teams have been assigned to a Coast Guard cutter and other police units assigned to the protest during the Free Trade Area of the Americas talks that began Sunday.

"A lot of officers feel intimidated, they feel uncomfortable," said Miami Sgt. Al Alvarez, a member of a "response team" that is constantly on the move until called to a trouble spot. "They have to work lots of long hours and some feel they shouldn't have to deal with the added pressure" of the media. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7284023.htm

[Judi Lynn]

10. The Miami Herald shows a little bias against the protestors

exercising their rights of free speech. This seems to support what I've heard already in learning the city is actually hostile to these people, and has been agitating public sentiment against them well before their arrival.

Posted on Mon, Nov. 17, 2003

Miami free-trade protesters allege police harassment
RACHEL LA CORTE
Associated Press

MIAMI - Protest leaders complained Monday that police were harassing and targeting protesters and unsuccessfully demanded a meeting with the mayor to discuss their grievances.

Organizers alleged that police are videotaping them walking down the street or while giving media interviews, and say that officers have done illegal searches of protesters.

"Miami police have taken a very aggressive stand against protesters who haven't even begun to protest," said Max Rameau, who is working with Root Cause, a coalition of local anti-globalization groups.

Protesters began arriving in Miami this past weekend in preparation for demonstrations against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. Thousands are expected to rail against the trade talks during protests on Thursday and Friday, saying the agreement would be detrimental to workers, the environment and smaller countries. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7285805.htm

The use of antagonistic, loaded words in actual reporting should have been caught by the editor, and corrected. It only contributes to the "us against them" attitude some of Miami's lowest personalities would dream of bolstering.

[Kolesar]

11. The protest organizers have called for direct action

Since the public is locked out of trade negotiations, the organizers decided that they had to do mildly illegal actions like blocking streets, disrupting traffic, etc.