Posted on 08/31/2003 9:18:30 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Deborah Smith remembers seeing the crazed-looking protesters at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle on television.
"They looked like a bunch of young punk rockers," said Smith, a Jupiter Farms resident. "I didn't understand what it was about."
Now, the 45-year-old former high school history teacher and secretary is becoming one of them. Not a punk rocker but a free-trade protester of the nonviolent sort.
She's heading Stop FTAA Palm Beach County/Treasure Coast, a recently formed coalition of six groups such as the Sierra Club and the Green Party who oppose the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. The pact would turn 34 nations in the Americas and the Caribbean into a giant free-trade zone.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial meeting in Miami Nov. 20-21 is expected to attract anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 protesters, according to estimates from the U.S. Trade Representative's Office and the summit's Miami organizers.
Smith and her group are making plans to go to Miami on buses with a projected 10,000 people from Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast's AFL-CIO and other organizations.
"This is becoming very mainstream," Smith said. "The people protesting this don't normally protest. These are middle-aged working families concerned about jobs and public services, water, education and critical services they do not want to see privatized."
Stop FTAA is working on costumes, posters and giant puppet heads of President Bush, other world leaders and corporate chiefs to take to the Miami protest.
Formed in May with 30 core members, Stop FTAA is having its kickoff event on Labor Day at Carlin Park in Jupiter.
Wil Van Natta, a longtime political activist and 48-year-old lifeguard on Palm Beach County's beaches, plans to swim 12 miles from the Lake Worth Inlet to the beach at Carlin to draw attention to the cause.
"It is America at stake right now," said Van Natta, a union member who, if his mini-marathon is successful will be greeted by attendees of an AFL-CIO picnic.
Two large Florida industries, citrus and sugar, have launched campaigns against provisions of the trade pact. Citrus growers say that if they lose current tariffs on foreign orange juice, particularly from Brazil, they won't be able to compete. Sugar interests say their industry could be ruined by any increase in foreign sugar imports.
Protests of trade pacts and globalization are nothing new, said Antonio Villamil, vice chairman of Florida FTAA Inc., which is organizing the November meeting and wants Miami to become the permanent secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas after its expected signing in 2005.
"Everybody needs to be heard in terms of their perspectives," Villamil said.
The University of Miami's North-South Center is coordinating workshops Nov. 17-19, at which people who have concerns about the trade pact will be able to express their opinions "under the rule of law," Villamil said.
For Stop FTAA members, those opinions are sharper than they used to be. Pat Scanlon, 51, of Lake Park is a retired schoolteacher who learned about the trade pact when she attended a Leesburg retreat run by Pax Christi, a Catholic peace and social justice group.
"I did not know what went on with NAFTA and the FTAA," Scanlon said. "Now it is horrifying me, and it is scaring me to death.... The whole purpose of FTAA is that corporations make a profit at the expense of the people."
But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
~Karl Marx, "On the Question of Free Trade" - January 9, 1848
Examples:
1. Marx was in favor of free-trade, and someone else is in favor of free-trade, therefore that person is a Marxist.
The middle term is "free-trader." While "Marx" and "someone else" share the property of being free-traders, it doesn't follow that the someone in question is a Marxist; he may be a libertarian.
2. All Russians were revolutionists, and all anarchists were revolutionist, therefore all anarchists were Russians.
The middle term is "revolutionist." While both "Russians" and "anarchists" share the common property of being revolutionist, they may be separate groups of revolutionists, and so we cannot conclude that anarchists are otherwise the same as Russians in any way. Example from Copi and Cohen, 208.
Proof: Show how each of the two categories identified in the conclusion could be separate groups even though they share a common property.
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
--Ronald Reagan, September 25, 1987
Setting aside the issue of whether or not someone "understands" the greater context of Marx's remarks, that quote that Willie adores so much contains the pesky clause, "It is in this revolutionary sense alone . . . ." Seeing that a proletarian revolution is not what free-traders seek, use of that quote to suggest that free-traders are somehow Marxist in their beliefs should cause most sentient humans to burst-out in laughter.
You'd think so wouldn't you? But proponets of protectionism trot out that quote out of context as if to imply that that free trade is is a marxist construct when it actually is just the opposite. They fool some of the people. I don't know why I feel compelled to point out the obvious. Might have something to do with my lack of faith in our socialist edu. system.
Although you are fond of posting that statement by Karl Marx made 155 years ago, the fact that the above groups oppose free trade today should tell you that it must be good for America or they wouldn't object. Are you proud to be associated wih the Green Party, the Sierra Club, et al.?
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