Bush wields Colombia trade deal to halt Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Source: AFP

Bush wields Colombia trade deal to halt Venezuela
5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush's contention that a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia is key to halting the influence of Venezuela's leftist president in Latin America has convinced few in the US Congress.

Opposition Democrats that control Congress have refused to ratify the agreement -- which Washington and Bogota signed in December 2006 -- in part concerned over ties between President Alvaro Uribe's government and a right-wing paramilitary group involved in human rights violations and drug trafficking on the US list of terrorist organizations.

To help get the agreement approved, Bush is now presenting the FTA as the main US policy tool to halt the influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a firebrand leftist who famously described Bush as "the devil" at the United Nations.
(snip)

Democrats however were unswayed by Bush's browbeating. "The concerns among Democrats regarding Colombia's record on labor union killings are strong and deep," said Cunningham. "At this point, passage (of the FTA) is far from assured."





Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gSzlP8YVQzkso-H7mySuze4RkTFA

[OHdem10]

1. Which Democrats will cave to giver Bush the votes he needs

"spread Democracy to Colmbia and stop Chavez?"

I can hear it now. "The Democrats support Chavez and will bring
Socialism to Us. The Democrats do not support Democracy to Colombia.
The Democrats do not want to help the poor in Colombia""

How long will it take for them to cave. At least enough to make
more poor people in the US. Forget Democracy in our own country.

Some are already chanting his Mantra on Iran and NIE

"Nothing has changed--Iran is still Dangerous".

Will the Colombian Trade Deal Pass:::

[Peace Patriot]

3. Never a discouraging word, eh? Just kidding. That's the reality...

...and I'm the last person in the world not to appreciate a realistic assessment of our situation, with party leadership that has betrayed us time and again, and virtually none of whom can prove that they were actually elected, because of their enthusiastic support, promotion and black-holing as a matter of knowledge and discussion by the American people, the catastrophic spread of highly riggable electronic voting machines all over the country, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audi/recount controls.

What can we expect from the Diebold II Congress, except more fascist policy, which is exactly what we have gotten? We should rejoice at the few rare pockets of real representatives of the people in this Congress--like those opposing "free trade" with Colombia (i.e., Bush's and Rumsfeld's economic war on the poor of South America, with their client state Colombia as the launching pad). There are some good folks in Congress, here and there. I supposed there were a few good folks in the Vatican during the Inquisition, too. There are always good folks around, even among the rotten powerful--and the lower on the social scale you go, the more good folks do you find.

Sorry. Like you, I'm finding it hard to see anything positive coming out of Diebold/ES&S's decisions about who should rule over us. Until we fix that, we are fucked.

And ain't it cute that Venezuela, which has the most transparent elections on earth, is hated by the Bushites, their global corporate predator pals and Democratic colluders, with vitriol that is hardly to be believed, it is so acidic, while our elections are the least transparent on earth, outside of Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia.

You can cut the hypocrisy cake with a knife, in Washington DC--if you'd ever want to eat Bush cake with Cheney frosting and Rumsfeld candles. Happy birthday, South America! Let them eat shit!

I'm going to stop this comment, and start a new one.

[pdefalla]

2. Venezuela is NOT THE ISSUE

As long as we let Bush frame the issue, we will never win. Democratic response must deal with the stupidity of FTA's in general and with a corrupt government in particular. This is another attempt to siphon off Colombian resources at bargain prices for multinational corporations with the complicity of of the Colombian President Velez. I'm surprised that Bush has not played the terrorism card....this is actually kind of imaginative, if nonsensical.

[Judi Lynn]

4. It would indicate he's scratching the bottom of the barrel in desperation. He counts on Colombia to

be his perpetual base of operations in a continent which is attempting to right-itself after decades and decades of relentless manipulation and corruption of its officials, and violent regime changes of the leftists the people elected.

If _Bush can't have total access to Colombia, running in mercenaries, soldiers, weaponry, etc. at will, and keeping them on a leash of complete dependency through a horrendous aid program (3rd largest in the world) which they will NEVER give up, as long as they are run by fascists betraying the people, he won't have any decent place to stay from which he can conduct proxy wars, and launch air attacks, etc. other than Paraguay, since he is losing Ecuador in 2009.

If he doesn't grease the wheels for Colombia, that country can easily be bought by the growing South American unity countries: the President has already flirted with the idea of moving closer to them, already.

He's desperate, and everyone knows it who pays attention, which would not include all of the right-wingers who can't be bothered to keep up, and trust the Republican pResident and Fox News to tell them what they need to know.

[Peace Patriot]

7. The "terrorism card" HAS been played. See Rumsfeld's op-ed in WaPo last weekend,

the day before the referendum in Venezuela. They're playing the terrorism card in several ways--both calling Chavez a terrorist sympathizer, and using terrorist tactics against him and the Venezuelan voters.

Rumsfeld calls Chavez a "tyrant" who is "threatening his neighbors."

Rumsfeld implies that Chavez is pro-terrorist (FARC) because he was trying to negotiate for hostages release.

Rumsfeld threatens U.S. military intervention in Venezuela in support of another rightwing military coup (should the very close Venezuelan vote have gone the other, in support of Chavez's proposals).

Rumsfeld proposes that we join forces with the rightwing terrorists in Colombia (who are closely tied to the Colombian government) in a "free trade" pact to make economic war on other countries that won't bend to Rumsfeld's will (and Exxon Mobile's), namely Venezuela (but he also means Venezuela's allies, particularly oil/gas rich Ecuador and Bolivia).

"...we face a moment when swift decisions by the United States and like-thinking nations could dramatically help, supporting friends and allies with the courage to oppose an aspiring dictator with regional ambitions." --Rumsfeld

"Swift U.S. ratification of the ("free trade" pact with Colombia) would send an unequivocal message to the people of Colombia, the opposition in Venezuela and the wider region that they do not stand alone against Chávez." --Rumsfeld

And the lies that Rumsfeld tells, to make these points, are mind-bogglingly Alice in Wonderlandish (upside down, inside out and backwards), as we have come to expect from this psychotic liar, torturer and mass murderer. It's as if we have a serial killer as an honored guest on WaPo's editorial page, telling us how best to stalk, torture and kill people we don't like.

It is an extraordinary piece of work. He goes on to propose basically dismantling Congress and any remnants of the "balance of power" in our government that might obstruct the global corporate predator agenda.

He even targets you and me: "Meanwhile, a new generation of foes has mastered the tools of the information age -- chat rooms, blogs, cellphones, social-networking Web sites -- and exploits them to spread propaganda..." --Donald Rumsfeld

So the strategy is two-prong--to identify any truly democratic countries, and any democratic elements within this or other countries, with terrorism, and to use war tactics (terror on a massive scale)--whether military or economic war--to defeat them, in favor of the ungodly profits of the super-rich.

The fate of union organizers, small peasant farmers and political leftists, in Colombia, is to be the fate of us all: chainsawed and our body parts thrown into mass graves--after Rumsfeld gets rid of fusty old institutions like Congress and the UN.

That's the M.O. of the fascists that Rumsfeld is colluding with in South America--torture and mass graves for leftists. The "signal" he wants the U.S. to send to the rightwing death squads in Colombia, the rightwing coup plotters in Venezuela, and anyone else into torture, death, poverty and oppression for the majority in "the wider region" (Bolivia, Ecuador, probably Argentina) is that leftist presidents and leaders of these countries are fair game, as are their democracies and their mostly poor supporters.

The lie that Rumsfeld tells about the FARC hostage negotiation is particularly important. The rightwing president of Colombia (who has been exposed as having very close ties to rightwing paramilitary death squads) INVITED Chavez to try to negotiate a release of hostages. Chavez proceeded to do so, and got to the first step ("proof of life"), at which point Uribe pulled the plug on the negotiation (using a lame excuse), days before the Venezuelan referendum. Uribe then captured some FARC negotiators and tried to take credit for the "proof of life" that they possessed. But the hostages families quickly contradicted that, and credited Chavez.

I think we can conclude from the way Rumsfeld uses this incident that it was a set-up, and that he was disappointed in the outcome. He strains to make Chavez the bad guy. Chavez obviously was not. What had they planned? To assassinate him? To embarrass him in some way? To get the hostages and/or Chavez killed in crossfire (as rehearsed in a mysterious incident some months ago, in which an unknown group of shooters attacked a FARC camp and targeted some other hostages)

What this all tells us is that Uribe is most likely irredeemably bad. There had been hopes that he might be trying to distance himself from the Bushites and from plots to kill Chavez and other democratic leaders. But he is clearly Rumsfeld's tool. There was no good reason to stop this long sought after hostage release (American and Belgian-Colombian hostages included), and stopping it just before the Venezuelan referendum, to try to deny Chavez any credit for the progress he had made, was quite clearly an order from Washington DC. THAT is who Rumsfeld wants to lard with billions more in military aid, and carte blanche "free trade," which will mostly benefit Chiquita (convicted of paying death squads to kill union organizers), Monsanto, Exxon-Mobile and other global malefactors, with Uribe and pals ripping some cream off the top.

Rumsfeld-"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chavez" 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

Discussion at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x323889

[Judi Lynn]

5. Dems' Protectionist Plans at Odds with Jewish Community

Dems' Protectionist Plans at Odds with Jewish Community


Friday, December 7, 2007 By: Noah Silverman

Final action by Congress this week to approve a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Peru was hailed by leading Jewish advocacy groups, such as B'nai B'rith International and the American Jewish Committee. AJC's Dina Siegel Vann noted that in addition to the economic benefits, expanded trade is also "a tool to generate sustained development" and an instrument for bolstering vital strategic links.

While these advocates reflect the prevailing view in the Jewish community -- a recent Pew study examining variances in public opinion among religious groups found that Jews are the group most likely to approve of expanded trade -- the leaders of the Democratic Party are running as fast as they can away from the Jewish community ­and the national interest.

The Peru agreement was just one of four pending accords House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team had pledged to pass in exchange for unprecedented concessions by the Bush administration ­ agreeing to condition FTAs on other nations' upgrading labor protections and strengthening environmental rules.

But Pelosi has signaled retreat in the face of what one newspaper described as a "revolt" by anti-trade extremists in her caucus, the very same freshman members whose victories last year made her Speaker. These newcomers voted 30-13 against the relatively uncontroversial Peru agreement. (Likewise, freshman Democrats in the Senate opposed the Peru measure 6-3.) Pelosi now apparently intends to renege on her agreement to pass FTAs with Panama, South Korea, and beleaguered ally Colombia.

More:
http://www.rjchq.org/News.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID=1257
(Press release from the Republican Jewish Coalition)

[Peace Patriot]

9. I suspect that the "Republican Jewish Coalition" is about as reliable a gage of

Jewish opinion, as Fox News is of the American people as a whole.

I don't know the Pew poll they cite, but if they respect facts the way Bushites do, they probably left something out, like, Jews are ALSO the biggest supporters of INCLUDING labor and environmental protections in any "free trade" deals.

Their phrase "anti-trade extremists" is a dead giveaway of their own extremist views. "Fair trade" is a CENTRIST position among, oh, 99% of the world's people (just guessing, maybe more, 99.9%--leaving a handful of fascist CEOs and a gaggle of their sychopants as the only people on earth who don't want labor and environmental protections). Rightwing extremists don't tell the truth, as we have learned time and again. And "Jewish Republicans" are a discredited lot of NeoCons, war profiteers, thieves and mass murderers like other Bushites. THEY are the extremists--not the Democrats in Congress who are advocating a centrist position on trade deals. And Nancy Pelosi's position on this (if stated truly above) is about the only thing she's done that merits a "D" by her name. It may end up being this Diebold II Congress' only accomplishment, that they blocked a "free trade" deal with the bloody murderers and fascists and drug and weapons traffickers in charge of the Colombian government. "Beleaguered ally," my ass.

[leaninglib]

6. I thought a treaty had to be ratified by 2/3 of the Senate.

Oh, how clever; just call it an "agreement" and the Constitution is easily circumvented.

[Peace Patriot]

8. You should take a gander at what Rumsfeld says about our fusty old rule of law,

which is getting in the way (slightly) of global corporate predator profit, and attendant torture, murder and rightwing rule.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

It's fascinating in the sense that you can see, nakedly laid out, WHY global corporate predators had to get direct control over our vote counting system (with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code in all the new electronic voting machines). To get to the little brown people in South America, who are asserting independence and sovereignty over their own resources, and remove them (the vast majority) from power--with violence, torture, murder, destabilization, election theft, economic warfare, and outright invasion--they have to GET PAST US.

It's a sort of left-handed compliment (so to speak). We are the most potentially powerful force for peace and justice, and progressive policy, in the world. We, the American people. Our votes MUST be 'disappeared.' Our Constitution must be shredded. Our devotion to peace must be shattered. Our long history of devotion to justice must be erased. Our Congress must be controlled or "reformed" (Rumsfeld's language--to "reform" Congress, to bring it more to heel). And all our laws, rules, regulations, policies, traditions, etc., that empower the voice of the people in any way, and seek a "balance of power" in our government, must be overturned, as obstructive of the global corporate agenda.

Fussy little legal points like "treaty" vs. "agreement" will be (and already have been, to a large extent--thanks to the Clintons) swept away. We already know of the Bushites view of anti-torture laws as "quaint." But what they really believe is that our entire system of government is "quaint." And I think their purpose is becoming pretty clear--to, first of all, disable us as any kind of check on global corporate powers, and secondly, to loot us blind, among other things, in order to create a stateless global corporate entity, that operates from places like Dubai (where Halliburton just moved its headquarters to), outside the reach of our corporate charter laws, and of course, of any labor or environmental regulation, and with its own mercenary army (Blackwater, Cacci, Titan--developed with our money), to gobble up and control the resources, infrastructure and tax base of any vulnerable nation, and enslave its workers in stateless "free trade" zones (like the one on the Jamaican docks, outside Jamaican law).

It was a joke in the 1960s. Remember "CHAOS" (global corporate bad guys) on the TV show "Get Smart"? And of course it's been spoofed time and again in James Bond movies (and in a very funny and wonderful movie with Bruce Willis called "The Fifth Element").

It's Rumsfeld's dream. We are just a stepping stone.

I hope we've all learned by now that Rumsfeld's dreams are OUR nightmares. I think most people understand this. Unfortunately, the first part--dismantling our democracy--is well on its way.

The thing about South Americans, though, is they're not going along. They are massively resisting with the tools of...get this...democracy!

You gotta laugh when Rumsfeld calls Chavez a "tyrant"--Chavez, who has been repeatedly elected by Venezuelan voters, with ever increasing margins, in one of the most transparent election systems on earth. THAT is funny--and, of course, also nightmarish.

[Judi Lynn]

10. OAS observer to Colombia peace process receives death threats

OAS observer to Colombia peace process receives death threats

2007-12-13 02:17:31 -

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - The Organization of American States said Wednesday that one of its diplomats has been threatened with death unless she leaves Colombia and abandons her work as an observer to the government's peace process with right-wing paramilitaries.
Sergio Caramagna, head of the OAS peace mission in Colombia, told The Associated Press that the diplomat was threatened while attending a community event Nov. 13 in Medellin.

Caramagna would not identify the diplomat or her rank, out of concern for her safety, but said she remained at her post while authorities investigated the threats. Washington-based Human Rights Watch, in a statement condemning the incident, said the diplomat was the head of the OAS peace mission in Medellin.

«I have the fullest faith that authorities are taking the threat seriously,» Caramagna said.
The threat was delivered to the diplomat's chauffeur while she was attending an event in the Comuna 13, a mountainside slum that until a few years ago was controlled by right-wing death squads that also ran much of the city's drug trade.
Arriving on a motorcycle with a helmet covering his face, a man told the chauffeur that his boss would be killed if she didn't leave Colombia and stop her work.
(sdnip)

«This threat suggests that armed actors in Medellin are becoming so increasingly bold that they now feel comfortable enough to intimidate even international observers,» said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.
(snip)

But Caramagna, in a report last month to the OAS Secretary General, said about 3,000 militia members in Medellin and elsewhere have recently rearmed and joined criminal networks devoted to drug trafficking.

More:
http://www.pr-inside.com/print345900.htm

[Judi Lynn]

11. Colombian lawmaker sentenced to six years in jail for paramilitary ties

Posted on Wed, Dec. 19, 2007 10:15
Colombian lawmaker sentenced to six years in jail for paramilitary ties
By JOSHUA GOODMAN
The Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia | Colombia’s Supreme Court convicted a pro-government congressman Wednesday for conspiring with far-right paramilitaries, the first guilty verdict handed down by the high court in a scandal linking dozens of lawmakers to the violent militias.

Rep. Eric Morris, of the small Colombia Democratic party, was sentenced to six years in jail and ordered to pay a $432,000 fine.

Morris was one of a trio of lawmakers from Sucre province whose arrest last year led to the “para-politics” scandal that has tarnished President Alvaro Uribe’s image abroad.

The congressman’s conviction was based partly on the testimony of a former paramilitary who, from exile in Canada, said he was at a meeting with Morris when the then-governor of Sucre promised to divert state funds to the militias who had backed his successful campaign.

Sucre, along the Caribbean coast, was the epicenter of a brutal offensive launched by paramilitaries in the late 1990s to “cleanse” the zone of leftist rebels, their sympathizers and anyone that stood in their way. Hundreds were killed or disappeared during the offensive.

More:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/411016.html

[robcon]

12. Venezuels is indeed, not the issue. Getting more FTA's is.

Free Trade (or at least freer trade) should be the object of every politician. Peace, prosperity and sharing the economic growth among all countries should be the goals.

[High Plains]

13. How about fair trade?

[robcon]

14. So far every Free Trade Agreement has been better than the status quo.

I think it is a mistake to forgo the benefits of freer trade for some special interest protections like minimum wages in third world countries. Let me legislate their own labor policies - don't make free trade with the U.S. dependent on their pricing themselves out of the world market.

[Peace Patriot]

16. Tell that to the small local dairy farmers in Jamaica who were ruined by U.S.

ag dumping, driven out of businesses they'd run for generations, by U.S.-dominated "free trade," so that Jamaicans can no longer provide their communities with fresh dairy products. Tell that to the Jamaican banana growers. Same story. Ruination of local agriculture. Tell that to the poor rice and food farmers of Asia, thousands of whom have committed suicide, due to "free trade" destruction of their businesses and their way of life. Tell that to the young poor Asian women who are flown to Saipan, indentured for their passage, and put to work at slave wages, with no human or labor rights, to sew Gap jeans. Tell that to the Mexican factory workers, who at first benefited from "free trade" with jobs--until they formed unions and try to improve pittance wages and poor labor conditions--only to have the corporate thugs pull out and move it all to Cambodia, so they won't be bothered with unions.

Tell that to Argentinians, whose economy was smashed to pieces, and the country turned into a basketcase, by a combination of "free trade" and World Bank/IMF policy, which often work together to destroy local sovereignty and to loot people blind, impoverishing millions and millions of people worldwide. Tell that to the poor cloth-makers in Africa who can't compete with first world monopolies.

Your description of "minimum wages" as "special interest protections" is a dead giveaway of your political outlook, Robcon. Do you consider the interests of people who earn twenty-five cents a day--child labor, slave labor--which, at the other end of the "food chain" makes multi-billionaires out of those who roam the globe, seeking the least protected labor on earth--a "special interest"? Right. I'll call them a "special interest" when they have a $750,000/year lobbyist Washington DC.

Even your typos give you away. ("Let *me* legislate their own labor policies.") But presuming that you meant "Let THEM legislate their own labor policies," what do make of the Jamaican "free trade" zone at the docks, where Jamaican law does not apply--arranged by rightwing politicians on the take from global corporate predators and the World Bank? What do you make of the sweatshops in Saipan--where the global corporate predator clothing retailers put a "Made in USA" label on their clothes, because Saipan is a U.S. "territory," but where U.S. labor laws do not apply?

"Free trade" is a means of DESTROYING U.S. labor laws and the long tradition of fair pay and benefits that U.S. labor leaders fought so hard for, against every kind of brutal repression. It is the "robber barons" redux, this time to loot the entire world. It is the end of the U.S. as a manufacturing economy and a country with plentiful good jobs. It is the end of the progressive U.S. middle class, which has been such a strong force at home and abroad on labor rights, on human rights, on civil rights, on world peace and disarmament, and on every other good policy we ever stood for.

Fair trade is a progressive force--always has been, always will be. But "free trade" by global corporate predator monopolies in the service of the rich is a FASCIST force. And that, also, always has been, and always will be. You are mixing the two up. Monopolies are NOT FREE. Predation by the rich DOES NOT LIBERATE PEOPLE. It ENSLAVES them! It rips their natural resources out of their control, destroys local agriculture and local autonomy, grievously oppresses workers, and cannot be maintained except by corrupt, fascist government.

And this truth is why the governments of South America--coming to power in elections that put our own to shame for their transparency--are, one after the other, rejecting U.S.-dominated, global corporate predator-dominated, "free trade" and the neo-liberal economics (anti-social justice economics) that attend it. Their goals are independence and self-determination--control of their own resources, finances, development and social policy. "Free trade" is the enemy. "FAIR trade"--which they are actively encouraging and organizing in regional trade groups and financial institutions--is the engine of progress. Education. Health care. Infrastructure development. Pouring profit back into PEOPLE. "Free trade" destroys prosperity. "FAIR trade" creates it.

Venezuela, prior to Chavez, not only let global predators TAKE AWAY most of the oil profits, but they also IMPORTED all the parts and technical expertise needed to run the oil industry. Now they are building factories to make their own parts, and providing FREE and widespread education, through university, to develop a LOCAL engineering corps, and business and manufacturing professionals, to create national and regional self-sufficiency.

"Free trade" loots them. "FAIR trade" gives them a future.

Why should the future belong to the billionaires at Exxon-Mobile? Why shouldn't a dirt poor mother in a barrio in Caracas have an equal chance at a future? Why should her intelligent, talented son have no future but as a thief and gang member? Why should THEY have a future with no hope in order to add a third mansion to the already bloated possessions of a corporate CEO in the U.S., or a banker in Switzerland, whose riches are acquired by looting the resources of that poor woman's country, and by grossly underpaying workers all over the world? "Free trade" serves the rich. "FAIR trade" serves the vast poor majority, and is the system that values human beings for their inherent worth, not for their investment portfolios. It is the system that thrives in democracy and promotes social justice.

"FAIR trade" means FAIR rules. No monopolies. Democracy REGULATES private monopolies out of existence. Small businesses, which provide the best services and often the best products, can then FAIRLY compete. No unfair tax structure. "FAIR trade" means the rich pay more. It's called a "progressive tax," and, when we had a "progressive tax" here in the U.S. is when we had a middle class and an upwardly mobile poor class that were the envy of the world. Money generated from a "progressive tax" is poured into helping the poor and middle class, to create a more even playing field, and into the "Commons"--parks, preserves, environmental protection, schools, hospitals, libraries, roads and public works of all kinds-- to create a good society and the public spaces necessary to a good democracy.

"Free trade" (global corporate predation) has destroyed all of these things, in every country where it has gotten a stranglehold, including, now, our own. "FAIR trade" opposes these monopolistic and anti-democratic practices, and reasserts a competitive marketplace, the most creative human institution ever devised. Combined with democracy, social justice, compassion, decency, accountability, and highly developed political and business ETHICS--all of which "FAIR trade" encourages--it is an unbeatable system for the creation of prosperity and the furtherance of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Our corporate rulers have ABANDONED this democratic/"Fair trade" system. The South Americans are just discovering it. They are fighting the "British East India Company," in a sense. They are "dumping the tea in the harbor." Well, good on them! We, the subjects and peons of King George, are going to suffer impoverishment and become the biggest "Banana Republic" on earth, while the "banana republics" that we have permitted our government and U.S.-based global corporate predators to exploit, are declaring their independence, and are establishing the FAIRNESS that the "free trade" liars promised them and didn't deliver--and never intended to deliver.

The South American and other third world countries who are rejecting "free trade" are not "pricing themselves out of the world market," Robcon. They are CREATING the market they want--one in which minimum wages and a decent life for workers is a requirement of doing business. "FAIR trade" and democracy go hand in hand. That is their assertion. And that was once our assertion as well. Decent wages and worker rights are NOT "special interest protections." They are the bottom line of a good society. Without them, what we have is the tyranny of the rich and their monarchs. Nice irony, that the South Americans are showing us what we once were--and what we have let slip away. Democracy and its companion, FAIRNESS.

[Judi Lynn]

17. You post is destined to be saved for future reference by many readers. Without fairness, free trade

is hideous.

Your post is perfect because it is true. Thank you for taking the time to illuminate the difference.

Anyone who has taken the time to actually think about free trade knows you couldn't be more correct.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Colombian lawmaker sentenced to 6 years in jail for paramilitary ties

Colombian lawmaker sentenced to 6 years in jail for paramilitary ties

The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia's Supreme Court convicted a pro-government congressman Wednesday for conspiring with far-right paramilitaries, the first conviction handed down by the high court in a scandal linking dozens of lawmakers to the violent militias.

Rep. Eric Morris, of the small Colombia Democratic party, was sentenced to six years in jail and ordered to pay a US$432,000 (€300,000) fine.

Morris was one of a trio of lawmakers from Sucre province whose arrest last year led to the "para-politics" scandal that has tarnished President Alvaro Uribe's image abroad and stiffening opposition in the U.S. Congress to a pending free trade agreement with the Andean nation.

The congressman's conviction was based partly on the testimony of a former paramilitary who, from exile in Canada, said he was present at a meeting with Morris when the then-governor of Sucre promised to divert state funds to the militias who had backed his successful campaign.

Sucre, along the Caribbean coast, was the epicenter of a brutal offensive launched by paramilitaries in the late 1990s to "cleanse" the zone of leftist rebels, their sympathizers and anyone that stood in their way. Hundreds were killed or disappeared during the offensive.

Another 44 politicians are under investigation, and 14 congressmen already jailed, for receiving electoral support, siphoning off state funds and even plotting murder with the paramilitaries. Most are staunch supporters of Uribe.

More:
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8832809



Rep. Erik Morris

[annabanana]

18. Kicking for post #16!!

[Zorra]

19. Folks in South America are not nearly as backwards and ignorant as Bu*h

believes.

They won't buy it.

[Bacchus39]

they won't buy what?

Colombia wants the agreement.

[humbled_opinion]

20. With help from his many Accompli in the Democratic Congress...

I"m Sure :crazy: