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Sound Bites for Anti-FTAA Protests
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If the media asks you about why you oppose the FTAA at a protest or a teach-in, here are some possible responses:
Why are you opposed to FTAA?
General Responses
Trade has to be about meeting peoplešs needs. The FTAA is not about benefiting people it is about helping corporations make even bigger profits. Whenever they start talking about "free" trade you can be sure that workers, indigenous communities, and the environment are going to suffer.
We have ample evidence of what free trade agreements do to workers, indigenous communities, and the environment. NAFTA has had negative impacts on all of these areas. It would be a grotesque mistake to expand something as harmful as NAFTA to the entire Western Hemisphere.
National, state, and municipal laws are being threatened by the FTAA, which has the power to overturn environmental and labor laws because they are considered to be barriers to trade. NAFTA has only helped the corporations at the expense of the environment, jobs, and human rights. The FTAA would give corporations more power than they already possess and further the income gap.
Democracy Related Responses
Free trade agreements affect everybody workers, farmers, consumers, indigenous people and the environment- and FTAA negotiators have only consulted the corporations. They have no mechanism for involving people in their negotiating process and it is therefore a fundamentally undemocratic.
The entire process of the FTAA is completely undemocratic, they are only listening to the voice of the corporations through the American Business Forum, not to the voice of civil society.
The FTAA is not negotiating for the peoplešs interest. They are not interested in what well help me, help you, or help Bolivian farmers meet their needs. They are negotiating how to help corporations make more profits that is not in my best interest, itšs not in your best interest. Itšs only in the best interest for CEOs of multinational corporations. Why should we support that? Why should we even allow them to attempt it?
NAFTA required the Mexican government to rewrite its constitution and remove protections for indigenous land rights. The FTAA is likely to do the same: force governments to change or remove laws that provide rights and protections for indigenous populations and the environment. It will force governments to meet the profit needs of corporations before ensuring the rights of its people.
The FTAA trade negotiators have been listening to the corporations (via the American Business Forum) for years and ignoring people. We want them to stop negotiating because they do not care about the needs and concerns of the people. Even if the negotiating process is extended to civil society, the FTAA will still be completely undemocratic because it will overturn national, state, and local laws in favor of free trade.
Environmental Related Responses
We know from NAFTA that free trade does not promote protection for valuable natural resources. The NAFTA tribunal has continuously ruled against the environment and in favor of corporate profits. Governments have had to pay compensation fees to corporations because environmental laws were considered to be barriers to trade. The FTAA will turn the entire Western Hemisphere into an ecological disaster area.
Last year the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia erupted in protests after the government sold the water rights to a US-based corporation. Where the average monthly salary was US $100, people were paying as much as US $20/month for their water. This privatization was accepted because it was part of trade liberalization. This is what the FTAA promises for the entire Hemisphere: corporate profits and the privatization of natural resources.
Labor Related Responses
NAFTA has caused thousands of people throughout Mexico, Canada, and the United States to loss their jobs and in many cases has caused wages to plummet. The jobs that have been created under NAFTA have been in sweatshops on the Mexican/US border, where high levels of pollution and low wages exist.
The FTAA will encourage the trend of the sweatshop proliferation, because more barriers of trade will be dismantled, making it easier for multinational corporations to move across borders to exploit natural resources and labor. Sweatshops are associated with high levels of pollution, depressed wages and horrendous working conditions.
What do you suggest as an alternative?
We want real democracy, not the spoon-fed version of democracy that the business and government elites have been feeding us. Direct democracy involves the voices of all the people that will be affected by a decision. The FTAA has no inclination to hear the voices of civil society especially of the indigenous people. The corporationsš idea of democracy is a sham.
We want people that live in their communities to be able to make the decisions about their culture and environment. International free trade agreements impede peoplešs right to make decisions over their own lives and grants this right to the corporations.
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