http://www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publi ... _130.shtml

The Unfolding FTAA Battle
William F. Jasper

The New American, May 3, 2004

Understanding the dynamics involved in previous congressional votes on NAFTA and other so-called trade pacts is key to stopping the dangerous erosion of our sovereignty.


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In December 1994, President Bill Clinton hosted the Summit of the Americas in Miami. Together with the leaders of the nations of North and South America and the Caribbean, he committed to completing an agreement for a Western Hemispheric trade bloc by January 2005. At the Quebec Summit of the Americas in April 2001, our newly elected President George W. Bush pledged his support for the same plan. Like Clinton, President Bush signed on to a timetable that calls for completing an agreement for a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by January 2005, and a follow-through commitment to obtain congressional ratification that would make the hemispheric union a reality by December 2005. Since that time, President Bush and his top officials have repeatedly stated that creation of the FTAA is one of the administration’s top priorities.

Click here to view How They Voted
Click here
to view "How They Voted"
Those 2005 deadlines are rapidly approaching, and the FTAA proponents are busily building support in Congress. Very belatedly, many Americans are awakening to the hidden dangers lurking in the FTAA plan and the enormous destructive forces that would be unleashed if the agreement is adopted. This article and the accompanying index of congressional votes are intended to provide key information that will help committed patriots defeat one of the most serious assaults ever on the American economy and our national sovereignty.

As we will show, the current FTAA effort is part of a step-by-step process initiated over a decade ago with the campaign for NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Senate and House votes in the index provide a track record showing how individual members voted on these earlier steps toward the FTAA. As such, they provide reliable indicators regarding which direction a particular member is likely to be leaning on the FTAA. This record of past performance can help us influence the future. These votes provide powerful ammunition that we can use during this crucial election year to make Congress far more responsive to the electorate and more conscious of the consequences of violating their oaths to defend and preserve the Constitution.

For the past decade, FTAA promoters have carried out a huge stealth campaign to build support and momentum for their plan among corporate, political and media elites. During that same period, THE NEW AMERICAN has repeatedly exposed the real goals and game plan of the FTAA architects. If the American public allows Congress to vote in favor of U.S. membership in the deceptively misnamed FTAA, we will have allowed our elected representatives and senators to take a huge step down the road toward the final signing away of our freedom, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our borders and our national sovereignty. The FTAA schemers intend that step to be an irreversible one that will signal the end of our nationhood, our prosperity and our freedom. The upcoming battle in Congress is that serious.

FTAA: Fraudulent Trade Area of the Americas

The Free Trade Area of the Americas has nothing to do with “free trade,â€? as understood and defined by classical economists. Genuine free trade would not require establishing a huge, supranational, socialist bureaucracy to regulate not only trade, but every aspect of life in the Western Hemisphere. Yet that is what the proposed FTAA would eventually do. It is essential to realize that the FTAA is not a concise, concrete, clearly defined document. It is, in fact, an ongoing, open-ended process designed constantly to evolve and expand â€â€