CAFTA

[pandora]

http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandF...gnAid/hl872.cfm (http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandForeignAid/hl872.cfm)
A load of right wing diplomats going by fancy titles such as
His Excellency Tomás Dueñas, His Excellency Salvador Stadthagen, His Excellency Rene León, His Excellency Flavio Dario Espinal, His Excellency Guillermo Castillo, Brett D. Schaefer, and John G. Murphy

What the hell does all that excellency garbage mean? Oh yes we're leaps and bounds out of the 18th century globally right now kiddos, don't kid yourselves, these guys are all set to reopen the plantation and push your and my ass back on it at gunpoint.

The latest news is that the deal is basically going to give a heap of interest to China as a payout of the Monroe Doctrine to help salvage U.S. debt in China, yes the dollar is frying folks... in order to save it's ass while it's overused to build the empire, a backwater deal was made to give China many of the trade concessions to Central America, wasn't that nice of the U.S. to hand over the people it does not even possess as calatoral on a bank loan! :o

Bottom line! In Nicaragua, one of the big interests Chinese manufacturers will pay 1.50 a day, much less than the 3.00 Chinese average for a worker who produces 2500 pieces a day, and if she doesn't finish she doesn't return, even if it means staying late into the night unable to feed her family.

Nicaragua in return has opened a Fair-Trade Zone. These zones do need your support, most of you do buy products, please, fair trade only! Watch your money.

The excellencys laid on a lot of shit about how this was great for everyone concerned what a load! It's only good for them and everyone else especially the Nicaraguan workers will suffer, except a few extra people in shipping.

They tried to come up with a way this was good for U.S. workers and said it would surmount a 20,000 person increase, basically to handle the incoming freight, which is a load of crude. By having Chinese factories in Latin America it counters the shipping charges that were one of the last vestiges of American factory workers. Also, union reps from the region are appearing all over the globe to speak to people about how horrible this will be and what you can do to stop it. Please look for them or hook into a fair trade web site to see how you can stop this before millions of people in Central America are enslaved to the corporate wheel!

[h&s]

I hate to sound stupid and all, but what will be the actual consequences of this? How big will it be?

[bolshevik butcher]

This is ridiculous, and should have been widley reported, it's sad that I have to come here to find out things like this.

[bushdog]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 06:29 AM

The latest news is that the deal is basically going to give a heap of interest to China as a payout of the Monroe Doctrine to help salvage U.S. debt in China,
Do you perhaps mean the Truman doctrine?

[pandora]

CAFTA is much worse than my puny writings. I will try to find some links from those much more knowledgeable than myself such as unionists and indy media group on the issue. We must come out in solidarity for workers in Central America before it is to late, educate yourself:

Most Important Links:
Human Rights Watch Groups Link on Abuses Associated with CAFTA:
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/hearing0405/
Share: Responses from Labor in Guatemala and El Salvador with links to full information on CAFTA:
http://www.share-elsalvador.org/cafta/salv_gov.htm
AFL-CIO: http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globa.../ns04142005.cfm (http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/ns04142005.cfm)
Demonstrations in Costa Rica
http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2004...k3/01_20_04.htm (http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2004_01/Week3/01_20_04.htm)
Rocky Mountain Farmers Union & Sugarbeets Union
http://www.rmfu.org/News/Releases/ShowNews.cfm?ID=242
National Farmers Union (U.S.)
http://www.nfu.org/newsroom_news_release.cfm?id=1143

THIS IS VERY BIG!!! It's one of the big issues that this huge pope/mjackson smokescreen is trying to cover as well as other stories: ie.) Iraq, U.S. debt in Asia due to the war, the dropping of the dollar, outbreaks in Angola caused by neo-colonialism, etc.

In this day and age not only do you have to not believe what you read and half of what you hear, you damn well better find out what they aren't telling you.

In response to your question Bushdog

Originally posted by bushdog+Apr 21 2005, 07:14 PM--> (bushdog @ Apr 21 2005, 07:14 PM)
[email protected] 19 2005, 06:29 AM

The latest news is that the deal is basically going to give a heap of interest to China as a payout of the Monroe Doctrine to help salvage U.S. debt in China,
Do you perhaps mean the Truman doctrine? [/b]
Unsure of what you are refering to as Truman, most likely the "Bretton Woods" group in reference to neoliberalism and free trade agendas breaking down national soverighty.

The main drive was discussing the Monroe Doctrine (enforced by England and later Theodore Rooservelt in Nicaragua supporting United Fruits plantations which were basically slave plantations) which decreed that the entire Western Hemisphere basically belongs to the United States in an attempt to keep out Europe recolonialization:lol: a laugh except the U.S.'s enforcement of this doctrine has been detrimental to the development of a Pan-American movement that is Latin America based.

[Paradox]

THIS IS VERY BIG!!! It's one of the big issues that this huge pope/mjackson smokescreen is trying to cover as well as other stories: ie.) Iraq, U.S. debt in Asia due to the war, the dropping of the dollar, outbreaks in Angola caused by neo-colonialism, etc.

:lol: Ain't that the horrible truth. I get so sick of those same stupid meaningless stories over and over and over. But, that's part of their plan. Bastards.



Nicaragua in return has opened a Fair-Trade Zone. These zones do need your support, most of you do buy products, please, fair trade only! Watch your money.

Any links to where I could get some of these fair trade products? I don't want to support the u$ or the fake Communists in China.


This is ridiculous, and should have been widley reported

Like that would happen in the corporate media. Part of the reason I'm considering changing my major from medicine to journalism, so I could write on things like this that they practically never mention, or try to make look like wonderful developments that are going to benefit people. It don't benefit no one but them bastard capitalists. :angry:

[pandora]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 04:34 AM

Any links to where I could get some of these fair trade products? I don't want to support the u$ or the fake Communists in China.

Like that would happen in the corporate media. Part of the reason I'm considering changing my major from medicine to journalism, so I could write on things like this that they practically never mention, or try to make look like wonderful developments that are going to benefit people. It don't benefit no one but them bastard capitalists. :angry:

Several Websites of note
The most impressive is "Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch" at
http://www.citizen.org/trade

It lists this definition of CAFTA:

"The Central American Free Trade Agreement (known as CAFTA) is a proposed agreement between the United States and five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua). It was signed May 28, and the next step is a vote in Congress.

At that point, CAFTA will be combined with a proposed U.S.-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement. CAFTA is a piece in the FTAA jigsaw puzzle and is based on the same failed neoliberal NAFTA model. Its passage would serve to push ahead the corporate globalization model that has caused the "[color=green]race to the bottom" in labor and environmental standards and would promote privatization and deregulation of key public services."

Some more info on products and organizations of Fair Trade Zones
Nueva Vida Womens Sewing Cooperative (COMAMNUVI), Fair Trade Zone worker-owners: Products are listed on the website.
http://www.fairtradezone.jhc-cdca.org/fair_trade.htm

Fair Trade Cardiff of Wales lists various products and services, and gives a lot of information for support in Europe and United Kingdom
http://journalism.cf.ac.uk/2004/baoj/fairtrade/rachael.htm

Networks is the newsletter of the Fair Trade Federation for more Information
http://www.fairtradefederation.org/network...2/features.html (http://www.fairtradefederation.org/networks/archive/vol11_no2/features.html)

As far as trading your major to journalism, don't advise it career wise, most of the decent newswires in my country are completely run by volunteers :o

All through Central and Latin America we are seeing huge increases in repression, recently some of these efforts failed in trying to blackball Chavez yet again through his neighbors, and now backlash against U.S. Imperialism seems to be gaining.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 12:29 AM
Bottom line! In Nicaragua, one of the big interests Chinese manufacturers will pay 1.50 a day, much less than the 3.00 Chinese average for a worker who produces 2500 pieces a day, and if she doesn't finish she doesn't return, even if it means staying late into the night unable to feed her family.

Which admits that wages for workers in China are better than in much of the world. Many broad social conditions are also far better than in the rest of the Third World.

So why is China a target of extra-special demonization, more than any other country? Christ, even in an article about Central American-U.S. trade the centerpiece becomes...an attack on the Yellow Peril. And what exactly does the Monroe doctrine have to do with China here, exactly?

***

These (inaccurately named) free trade agreeements should be opposed because they're about increasing imperialist domination of Latin America. Latin American countries are forced to lower trade barriers which protect their young national industries, while the U.S. insists on retaining protectionist barriers to Latin American imports.

That's the basic reason for the opposition to these trade agreements in Latin America. Which has so far achieved some successes; the FTAA negotiations are largely stalled over U.S.- Brazil disagreements.

The opposition in the U.S., on the other hand, seems largely driven by protecting "American jobs" for "American workers"....a reactionary nationalist approach shared by the union bureaucracy and much of the "left".

For all their crocodile tears over the poor Latin American workers, always portrayed as victims not fighters, I doubt many of these workers are demanding more trade barriers against the product of their labor. On the contrary, Latin American unions have protested against trade barriers maintained by the U.S.

And "fair trade" is an oxymoron.

[pandora]

The joke about the Monroe Doctrine is that the Right Wing forces within the Bush adminstration still deeply believe in it, that is that the Western Hemisphere is the property of the U.S. and some British interests. For the most part the U.S. has fought to preserve these interests particularly in Central America.

As far as the left protecting the rights of workers in the U.S. and trade barriers, yes that is the job of the union in the United States to protect its workers, if you do not take that stance, say you take a different stance than you lose the support of American workers, when in fact their opposition is what is putting a lot of pressure on senators to keep this from going through.

That's politics my man, or woman, you need to keep autonomy to your cause, but that does not mean you do not make temporary partnerships that protect labor interests in general for specific battles. If you insist on being a purist you end up alienating U.S. workers, which is still a powerful group. For instance the WTO demonstrations in Seattle went as well as they did due to U.S. union support. You need to be realistic and not get on a high horse.

In reality the race to the bottom helps no one, not even Latin American workers as seen in the Argentine car factory example where as soon as it got cheaper to manufacture cars in China they were to lose their factories until the workers staged a sit in. Their sit in made since because it was IMF development loans that they were paying on that bought all the equipment in the factory so it belonged to them.

A lot of these things are complicated, we could talk about the U.S. arguement in the banana wars against Jamaica they complained they were producing bananas at a lower price in the Caribbean and so Europe had to buy the lower price bananas instead of honoring old partnerships with Jamaica.

I agree with you that Fair Trade is not the end but it is the begining to workers rights and affirmation. It's a first step back from the edge of Globalization, instead of putting down the work of workers why don't you really work to shape alternatives, than we'll listen to you.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 12:22 PM
As far as the left protecting the rights of workers in the U.S. and trade barriers, yes that is the job of the union in the United States to protect its workers, if you do not take that stance, say you take a different stance than you lose the support of American workers,
Yeah, see, I don't assume that workers in the U.S. are hopelessly nationalist. Nor do I think that communists can only take positions which will immediately have majority support.

I support struggles which are directed against the bosses and for the interests of the workers of the world. For example. (http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2004/feat_2004-03-11.cfm)

I don't support demands that lead workers to join with the bosses against workers in other countries. For example. (http://www.uswa.org/uswa/program/content/614.php) I think the USWA should be fighting against the steel companies' effort to weasel out of their pension obligations, not joining together with the steel companies to blame foreign competition...a stance that helps the bosses get off the hook for their abandonment of pension obligations, layoffs, etc.

I think the "alternatives" should be clear enough there.

[Klipper]

i went to an anti-CAFTA 'rally' of sorts yesterday at the Florida Fair Trade Coalition HQ here in st. pete. we had a good time, and good discussion, then made a 32-person call to rep. jim davis (i think) and told him that we wanted him to vote "NO ON CAFTA!!"

you can read more about it here -- http://www.livejournal.com/users/klipper/1838.html

[SocialismIsCentrist]

from utopia politics boards where there is a fair mix of opinion - though as ever, too much wrong thinking:

http://boards.swirve.com/board.cgi?boardse...oardid=politics (http://boards.swirve.com/board.cgi?boardset=utopia&boardid=politics) (threads on this forum are limited, so will drop off and links become something else)

CAFTA is 2,400 pages long
The Hidden Pages of CAFTA
by Liza Grandia


At 2,400 pages, the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) isn't really about trade. Frankly, you don't need 2,400 pages to eliminate tariffs and regulations on exports and imports. But, you might need 2,400 pages to smuggle through a new set of transnational corporate rights disguised by complicated legalese. I wonder, how many of our Congressional representatives will have even attempted to read this trade to me before next week's vote?

I recall in 1994 that only one senator Republican; Hank Brown (R-CO), accepted Ralph Nader's challenge to win $10,000 for charity by taking a simple ten-question quiz on the content of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement. After studying the agreement, Brown announced to the press: "I am a Republican, pro business and a proponent of the free market economy and I am here to speak out against the WTO. For when you read this text - and I invite my colleague senators to do this - you will understand that the WTO is fundamentally undemocratic."

Any naïve Congressperson who thinks CAFTA is merely about free trade should look carefully at its provisions on government contracts and corporate lawsuits, among others.

Government contracts. For any purchases over $117,000 (eventually to be lowered to $58,000), CAFTA forces governments to open up bidding to transnational corporations. That means that states will not longer be able to give preference to home-based businesses, and so mom and pop stores in Central America and the U.S. will suddenly be competing with the Bechtels and the Halliburtons of the world.

Corporate lawsuits against governments. Perhaps CAFTA's most worrisome provision expands the rights that corporations got under NAFTA to sue national governments over any laws perceived as barriers to trade and foreign investment. For instance, when California banned a carcinogenic gasoline additive called MTBE because it was seeping into the state's drinking water, the chemical manufacturer, Methanex, sued California for infringing on its trade rights under NAFTA and demanded $970 million in compensation. Such suits are a direct threat to democracy because they prioritize the profits of foreign corporations over a country's own environmental, social, and labor laws.

Already corporations are planning more such lawsuits. If CAFTA passes, a subsidiary of Harken Energy (on whose board George W. Bush once served) has said it will demand $58 billion from Costa Rica (whose entire GDP is only $37 billion) in compensation for hypothetical future lost profits, if they are not allowed to drill offshore in Costa Rica's protected Talamanca region--one of the planet's richest marine ecosystems, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

CAFTA also encourages privatization, especially for government services in health, water, energy, and social security. In agriculture, it will allow transnational agribusiness cartels to dump food commodities at below-market prices. It will forbid the public health sector from buying life-saving generic drugs for diseases like AIDS.

Upon close examination, one realizes that CAFTA is not a "free trade" agreement, but a corporate trade agreement that transforms foreign investment from a privilege to an inalienable right.

CAFTA is like having a house guest who cleans out your refrigerator, claims your nicest bed, spends hours in the bathroom, takes exclusive control of the television remote control, and then-like Paris Hilton-demands that you pay for the pleasure of her company and then writes you off as a business expense.

There are alternatives. If the U.S. is serious about strengthening economic ties with our closest neighbors, we could take a Common Market approach like Mercosur or the European Union. Europe opened up not only trade, but also labor markets to the lesser-developed regions of Europe. And, to help poorer member countries like Ireland become equal trading partners, the E.U. gives back 3.5% of Ireland's GDP in grants.

In the meanwhile, the U.S. has a perfectly sound trade agreement with Central America called the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which already makes most of our trade with Central America duty free. Congress should defeat CAFTA and send the Bush administration back to negotiate a real trade agreement that every U.S. and Central American citizen can read in less time than the pages of King James version of the Bible and Gone With the Wind combined.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 06:53 PM
The joke about the Monroe Doctrine is that the Right Wing forces within the Bush adminstration still deeply believe in it, that is that the Western Hemisphere is the property of the U.S. and some British interests. For the most part the U.S. has fought to preserve these interests particularly in Central America.
Every President in the last 100 years has believed in the Monroe Doctrine.

[Stonewall]

Klipper, who are you on OkCupid?

[Cheung Mo]

Titles are a joke.

The Rightly Honourable Stephen Harper? No. Just no.

His Emminence Pope Benedict XVI? Cardinal Nazinger is an emminently pretentious fascist.

[Anti-Red]

Even though I am capitalist, I oppose CAFTA and free trade because I believe that all our tax revenue should come from a national sales tax and tariffs. Free trade also is helping my autoworker father lose his job because those crapmobiles from Japan come in and then there is all the Mexican parts that come in. Can you believe it? In my grandparents day they were nuking Japan and now they are making our cars. I think we should have just put Japan back in the stone age back in the war and given them no aid or anything in rebuilding because then we would not have this problem with their cars stealing our market.

[renagade]

Originally posted by Anti-[email protected] 10 2006, 03:05 AM
Even though I am capitalist, I oppose CAFTA and free trade because I believe that all our tax revenue should come from a national sales tax and tariffs. Free trade also is helping my autoworker father lose his job because those crapmobiles from Japan come in and then there is all the Mexican parts that come in. Can you believe it? In my grandparents day they were nuking Japan and now they are making our cars. I think we should have just put Japan back in the stone age back in the war and given them no aid or anything in rebuilding because then we would not have this problem with their cars stealing our market.
oh so you believe a country should be ran by the ones with money or by money... your probably a rich mother fucker too arnt you.... or re defign my deffinition of capitalist...and if i am wrong Sorry

[pandora]

There are some excellent postings here. The ultimate threat is the way that it is instated. I agree I would love to see a Pan-American ideal away from nation based idealisms, but it is a ways off, and many mom and pop's can be easily convinced against free trade.

As far as any prejudical attitudes against Chinese companies, this is not out of prejudice, but out of the first hand accounts from workers in side by side "free trade" faculities speaking of higher labor abuses at these companies including the striking of female workers by foremen, then from any other companies. China may have at one time believed it was Communist, but it is the furtherist behind in terms of workers rights of the big moguls. In terms of treating workers as subhuman in terms of physical abuse and work hours.

However the others are not far behind. Currently the favorite companies to work for are the French, Swiss, and Israeli's so that should give you a clue as to how many companies are doing business there from how many countries. None of these companies offers health care. Israel offers the best wages and shortest days, but uses equipment to hire the least number of workers as well. The business? The moved tomato greenhouses from Gaza strip. Jobs that used to exist in Gaza.

Nicaragua is facing a difficult election, the pro-Sandinista conservative candiate who was the mayor of Managua has had a heart attack. Ortega is in the lead but seen as selling out and untrustworthy.

[pandora]

• Huge WTO Victory for the Global Justice Movement/Victoria sobre el
OMC

***


Huge WTO Victory for the Global Justice Movement/Victoria sobre el OMC

Great news. The Doha Round of the WTO has collapsed. Combined pressure
from activists the world over and increasing resistance from Global
South
governments led to a total breakdown of negotiations. Spread the word,
and
recognize this as the great victory that it is.

For analysis in English see:
http://citizenstrade.org/pdf/gtw_dohacollapse_07262006.pdf
http://www.focusweb.org/
http://citizenstrade.org/
http://viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php

***

Buenas noticias. La Ronda de Doha de la OMC ha sufrido un calapso
gracias
a la resistencia global a sus politicas neoliberales y la oposición
creciente de los gobiernos del Sur Global.

Para una analisis en español:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/07/28/029n1eco.php
http://movimientos.org/noalca/
http://viacampesina.org/main_sp/index.php