[Cronos]

They're not socialists no more than the Stock Exchange Board is socialist. In fact they do less than the Securities Exchange board and have less powers, faar less powers. All the WTO (derived from GATT) is, is a forum for countries and trading blocs to settle disputes. If the WTO rules against, say, the EU ( as it did in the bananas case when it ruled FOR THE USA), that bloc CAN ignore it, but they don't. It's NOT a world government, it's NOT a socialist conspiracy, all it is, is a place to settle disputes, not even a court.

[hedgetrimmer]

The FTAA Deception--William Norman Grigg


But from the very beginning, the European Union was intended to become a socialist regional government, functioning as an administrative unit of a UN-based global government. This was laid out with commendable candor in the Resolutions on Political Union at the 1948 Congress of Europe: "The creation of a United Europe must be regarded as an essential step towards the creation of a United World."

The FTAA is designed to be nothing less than the Western Hemisphere counterpart to the European Union. The FTAA would enlarge upon the so-called North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, under which the United States, Canada, and Mexico have begun the process of merging our economies and political systems.

In a 2002 address in Madrid, Spain, Mexican President Vicente Fox was remarkably blunt in his description of the purposes to be served by NAFTA and the FTAA: "Eventually our long-range objective is to establish with the United States, but also with Canada, our other regional partner, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union."

[hedgetrimmer]

In 1989, when I first worked in multilateral diplomacy at the OAS as deputy to Ambassador Luigi Eiunadi, thinking about how the OAS could be active in strengthening democracy was in its infancy, and playing a role in fighting corruption and evaluating individual country performances in fighting narcotics was anathema. But the OAS has changed. It must now change again to meet new challenges. These include:

applying the Inter-American Democratic Charter to all the hemispheric countries, leaving no country out;

enhancing all the OAS entities that deal with strengthening democracy in efforts to make the institutional changes needed to permit social mobility through equality of opportunity;

doing realistic work with institutions in member countries to complement the march toward a Free Trade Agreement for the Americas—the key to jobs, growth, and fighting poverty effectively;

following through in ways that address realistically the post 9/11 security threats from international and home-grown terrorists, and international crime;

helping countries deal effectively with burgeoning domestic crime at a time of high citizen insecurity in both urban and rural areas throughout the hemisphere;

and implementing the new governance mandate of the upcoming Special Summit of the Americas.

An OAS Update on Democracy and Development in the Western Hemisphere

Ambassador John Maisto, U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States
Remarks to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, DC
June 3, 2003