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To: texastoo; mjolnir
You might also be interested in this Canadian website, discussing NAFTA's failures. I haven't read everything on here, naturally, but it does make some pertinent criticisms.

NAFTA at Ten - Lessons from Nafta

The corporate and political advocates of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) continue to defend this trade deal and even to claim that its effects on the workers and consumers of all three countries--Canada, the United States, and Mexico--have been enormously beneficial.

In fact, the impact of NAFTA on most of the people in all three countries has been devastating. The agreement has destroyed more jobs than it has created, depressed wages, worsened poverty and inequality, eroded social programs, undermined democracy, enfeebled governments, and greatly increased the rights and power of corporations, investors, and property holders.

NAFTA has also been used to weaken Canada’s sovereignty and promote its economic assimilation by the United States. It has led to greater pressure on Canada and Mexico to conform to U.S. foreign policy objectives. Most alarmingly, the three governments are bent on extending this failed model to other countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean in the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Before leaping into that abyss, citizens and policy-makers throughout the hemisphere should stop and look at the concrete results of this trilateral trade agreement.

[snip]


641 posted on 05/22/2006 6:37:34 AM PDT by nicmarlo (Bush is the Best President Ever. Rah. Rah.)
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To: nicmarlo

Thanks for the article. I'll be back later today and continue the discussion.


643 posted on 05/22/2006 7:02:33 AM PDT by texastoo ("trash the treaties")
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To: nicmarlo
You might also be interested in this Canadian website, discussing NAFTA's failures. I haven't read everything on here, naturally, but it does make some pertinent criticisms.

I agree it's good to get perspectives from other nations, but the website you site is full of anti-American Canadian socialist propaganda or which their opposition to free markets is just a part. Look at their take on Stephen Harper:

Across the country last night, Canadians who have been fighting for national social programs, day care, women's and worker's rights, equality for gays and lesbians, public education, medicare, aboriginal justice, environmental stewardship and Canadian sovereignty breathed a sigh of relief. The threat of a Harper majority, so close just a week ago, disappeared and the Conservatives barely made minority status.

Or their "Blue Planet Project": an international effort begun by The Council of Canadians to protect the world's fresh water from the growing threats of trade and privatization.--- in other words, like the anti-free trade leftist Garrett Hardin, they want to keep the enviromental commons under the control of governments. http://www.canadians.org/browse_categories.htm?COC_token=&step=2&catid=122&iscat=1

Or see their "Beyond Factory Farming" http://www.canadians.org/browse_categories.htm?COC_token=&step=2&catid=277&iscat=1

Or their pathetic position on the WOT http://www.canadians.org/display_document.htm?COC_token=COC_token&id=1417&isdoc=1&catid=377

Or their identification with leftist reporters in the media, although they think the media in Canada is biased to the right http://www.canadians.org/browse_categories.htm?COC_token=COC_token&step=2&catid=384&iscat=1 :

you are a social or political activist, you have heard the declaration a hundred times: the media is terrible – how can we win with such a biased media? The problem is that everyone complains about the media but few do anything about it. Word Warriors is designed to help you quit complaining and start acting.

As biased as they are, newspapers are still privately owned public institutions. We must, if we are serious, take advantage where we can. And one place is the letters to the editor pages – the one egalitarian part of the newspaper to which ordinary people have some access.

Letters to the editor are important political tools for two very practical reasons. First, the majority of Canadians share progressive social values, yet most feel they are alone when they read newspapers and watch TV. If people see their values expressed in letters to the editor their values are reinforced – their gut sense that things are terribly wrong is given a voice. People’s values start to become part of a collective consciousness.

Secondly, many if not most reporters are actually on the centre or left of the political spectrum. In many cases, they are simply not permitted to cover the issues they want to write about. Often the story ideas of reporters are rejected with the claim that “No one cares about [poverty] [P3s] [private health care]...” By writing letters about these issues we give reporters the evidence they need to convince their editors that these stories are important.

Word Warriors is a collective letter writing project whereby I send out periodic suggestions for letters to the editor along with data and analysis, and you use these to write letters to your local paper. If there are enough of us writing enough letters we can help change the political landscape.

653 posted on 05/22/2006 8:06:34 AM PDT by mjolnir ("All great change in America begins at the dinner table.")
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