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Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 12:33 AM
Subject: [mobilize-globally] Fw: [democracyaction] (Action Alert) All Call against the
FTAA - THURSDAY
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:27 PM
Subject: [democracyaction] (Action Alert) All Call against the FTAA - THURSDAY
(*please excuse any cross postings)
From: "Michael Dolan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
U.S. based Fair Trade activists are encouraged to call
the Congress this Thursday to proclaim our opposition
to the latest multilateral trade scam: NAFTA for the
Americas. The Action Alert is set forth below; and
liberal cross-posting is further encouraged.
Several of our recent victories against the
multinational 'free trade' lobby -- including "Fast
Track" ('97-98), the MAI ('98) and the WTO Ministerial
(Seattle '99) -- resulted directly from the
application of such coordinated grassroots pressure.
Working together, we will win again.
___________________
Please post widely!
ACTION ALERT - ACTION ALERT - ACTION ALERT
All-Call Day to Congress Thursday, January 25th: "NO
NAFTA for the Americas - NO FTAA"!
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Thanks to the good work of fair trade advocates, a
Congressional majority rejected so-called "Fast Track"
trade negotiating authority a few years ago, which
President Clinton requested to expand NAFTA. Well,
the White House decided to ignore the will of Congress
and the public. The U.S. Trade Representative's
office has spent the last several years working behind
closed doors to create "NAFTA for the Americas" -- a
hemisphere-wide NAFTA expansion formally called the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), including 34
countries.
The fact that these talks are going on is an insult to
democratic decision-making, but the likely effects are
a horror. And now President-Elect Bush has named FTAA
a top priority of his new Administration! Based on
the seven-year legacy of NAFTA, here's what we can
expect from this proposed agreement:
* Challenges before free-trade panels on laws and
regulations that protect public and workplace health
and safety, and the environment.
* A push for privatization and corporate control of
education, water utilities and other essential
services on which we all depend.
* Continuing the "race-to-the-bottom" where
multinational corporations cut living-wage union jobs
in the U.S. and relocate in Latin America, where they
can avoid labor laws and unions, and exploit sweatshop
workers instead.
* More "investor-to-state" disputes, allowing big
business to sue governments directly if they feel that
their profits are being limited by regulations that
protect workers, citizens and the environment.
BUT THE BIGGEST CATCH IS THAT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS --
THE ONES WITH CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY TO OVERSEE
THESE NEGOTIATIONS -- DON'T KNOW ABOUT THESE "NAFTA
FOR THE AMERICAS" NEGOTIATIONS! The USTR has never
gotten Congressional approval to enter into
negotiations that will eventually bind the U.S. to
this agreement. For the most part, Members of
Congress don't even know it's going on. Since the USTR
isn't exactly knocking on Congressional doors to
reveal what it's up to, it is our job to make
sure that our elected officials and our communities
get informed about these outrageous negotiations that
are now taking place! A summit meeting between all the
countries in the hemisphere is coming up in Quebec
City, Canada in April. There, concrete negotiations
will start around a draft text of the FTAA! These
negotiations will include MAI-like investment issues,
services, food and farm policy, privatization,
deregulation, and investor-to-state disputes. Thousand
of activists will gather in Quebec and there will be
dozens of Solidarity Actions around the hemisphere in
opposition to the FTAA negotiations (stay tuned for
more information about creating or joining a local
solidarity action in your community).
On Thursday, January 25th, government officials and
corporate fat-cats from around the world will meet in
Davos, Switzerland to work out ways to keep the
profits-over-people system going. That same day,
thousands of civil society representatives will meet
in Porto Alegre, Brazil to organize resistance to
corporate rule and the FTAA. Here in the U.S.,
let's use the 25th to deliver a
first-of-the-new-Congress wake-up call to our
representatives! Let's flood their offices and make
sure that they get a loud and clear message from the
people that got them elected:
NO "NAFTA for the Americas" - NO FTAA!
Call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask
the trade staffers for your Representative and
Senators:
* Do they know that NAFTA expansion negotiations are
going on?
* Will they ask USTR to make the FTAA draft text and
related U.S. documents public?
* Will they commit to oppose the "NAFTA for the
Americas"?
For more information on "NAFTA for the Americas" and
how YOU can be part of the Campaign of Inquiry to
uncover the truth about these negotiations, visit
www.tradewatch.org or call Public Citizen's Global
Trade Watch at 202-546-4996.
/s/ Mike Dolan
Global Trade Watch West
415-934-1142 (new number!)
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