Essay About North America And North American Free Trade Agreement

False Democracy
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I believe a revolution is necessary. However, I dont
think that it necessarily has to be a violent
uprising. I think that what is needed first of all is
a revolution of the mindset of the general public of
North America (hell, Europe too but Ill stick to our
side of the ocean). Our democracy is not the problem,
the fact that our democracy has sold its soul to
capitalism is the problem; transnational corporations
have extreme amounts of control and their grip on
earth and its people is strengthening (If you get a
chance to watch THE CORPORATION then do so, it
explains this all very well and why it is terrible).
The idea that capitalism has hijacked our democracy is
evident through the actions our governmental leaders
take. Well first, when I say “capitalism” I mean the
train of thought that money/profit has higher
importance then everything else (human/worker/animal
rights, environmental concerns/realities, etc. etc.).
The World Trade Organization (WTO
www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/wto/”) is a prime
example of this, along with trade “agreements” like
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA
and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA
www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/ftaa/topten.html”).
With the WTO, NAFTA and FTAA (not to mention CAFTA,
the IMF/World Bank) we see government
“representatives” from many countries gathering behind
closed doors holding meetings in secret about trade
policies that directly and/or indirectly affect every
human being in the countries represented; millions of
people who have no input into policies that will
decide their future. Theyd rather us all just shut
up, or better yet, to not even know of this. When you
hear in the news, IF you hear in the news, of large
protests at say the FTAA ministerial meetings the
articles will focus on protestor/police clashes, which
are usually rather biased, but never seriously address
the question of WHY tens of thousands of people deemed
it of importance to travel from their homes in order
to protest the FTAA. But back to those affected: For
NAFTA its CAN/US/MEX, for FTAA its every country in
the Americas (34 I believe, minus Cuba), for the WTO
its at about 146 countries now. There are so many
facets to what these trade policies involve (good 43
page reading on this is “A Peoples Guide to the WTO
and the FTAA”
but the key thing that can be seen over and over again
is that anything that gets in the way of corporate
profit is marginalized or complete
deconstructed/removed. A countrys environmental laws
are seen as in the way of trade and dismantled,
workers rights and unions threatened, human rights
ignored, social securities privatized (health care,
water, energy, post-secondary,