Let's make CAFTA the last trade agreement a politician will ever vote for.

[Joanne98]

C-span one is taking calls on CAFTA! This trade agreement will LOWER wages for workers in BOTH countries just like all the others did. The Senate already passed it. We need to make SURE the house members know that if they vote for CAFTA they're FIRED!

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Can you make voting obligatory?

[Joanne98]

3. lol

[Joanne98]

2. DO NOT believe the crap about CAFTA it's BAD BAD BAD........

JULY 14, 2005
3:27 PM
CONTACT: Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

State Legislators From 21 States Launch Anti-CAFTA Effort
Legislators Send Letter to Congress Highlighting How CAFTA's Foreign Investor Protections Would Undermine State Authority


WASHINGTON - July 14 - State legislators from Tennessee and California today sent a letter to Congress signed by legislators from 21 states urging opposition to the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). On a telephone press conference, the legislators explained their objections to CAFTA's foreign investor protection provisions. CAFTA, under its Chapter 10 provisions, would expand on similar provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that provide foreign investors operating within the United States property rights that extend beyond U.S. Constitutional dictates and permit foreign investors to sue the U.S. government in international tribunals to obtain compensation for policies that undermine these new rights.
Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis and California state Sen. Liz Figueroa talked about the dire threat CAFTA would pose to the U.S. system of federalism and said they are currently lobbying their congressional delegation to oppose the deal. CAFTA's Article 104 requires that the federal government force states to adopt the 1,000 pages of CAFTA international law, to which both the U.S. government and states would be bound.

"It is incredible that CAFTA, as proposed by the Bush administration, would enable foreign corporations to sue the U.S. for cash compensation over federal, state and local policies designed to safeguard public health and safety in instances when Americans or U.S. businesses would have no such right," said Kernell, senior member of the Tennessee House Environment and Conservation committee. "As a state legislator, I find this to be an unacceptable threat to our sovereignty and democracy."

"NAFTA's investor rules are already having a chilling effect on our ability to address the concerns of our constituents. In addition to the direct challenges brought by private Canadian corporations against two California laws protecting public health and the environment, last year Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed bipartisan legislation for fear of a NAFTA trade dispute," said Sen. Figueroa, referring to a bill that aimed to recycle used tires for paving California roadways. "I fully support trade. However, trade should not be valued above our hard-won and long cherished, self-governing freedoms. Extending the provisions of the NAFTA model through CAFTA has drastic implications for California, its residents and its representative government. I urge Congress to reject this flawed agreement."


http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0714-13.htm

[Joanne98]

4. Send your congressperson this............

You need adobe reader.....

http://www.citizen.org/documents/tradewars.pdf

As the Bush administration steps up efforts to obtain congressional approval for a the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) NAFTA expansion, Public Citizen released a new report documenting the fate of promises made to members of Congress since 1992 in exchange for their support of controversial trade agreements. The report, "Trade Wars – Revenge of the Myth: When Trade Vote Deals Go Bad" reveals that of the more than 90 promises made to win trade votes since NAFTA, just 16 were kept.

[Joanne98]

5. The WTO is Fascist Headquarters. We need to pull out of it.

Whose Trade Organization?
A Comprehensive Guide To the WTO
By Lori Wallach and Patrick Woodall
Published by The New Press, Distributed by Norton

Globalization affects our lives every day in myriad ways – often for the worse. Yet, as this eye-opening exposé documents, the current terms of corporate-led globalization are not inevitable, merely one option being imposed by the powerful, secretive and profoundly undemocratic World Trade Organization.

Here is the definitive guide to the WTO. It reveals which WTO terms have led to U.S. job losses, the race to the bottom in wages, unsafe food, attacks on environmental and health laws, and burgeoning international inequality. Want to know why the WTO attracts passionate protests all over the world? Public Citizen advocates Wallach and Woodall carefully document the WTO’s nine-year track record with riveting case-by-case accounts. And, trade is the least of it: this book shows how the WTO chills government actions to fight sweatshops, make life-saving drugs available, and protect endangered species- and even limits our elected governments’ ability to maintain policies on everything from meat inspection to media concentration.

Whose Trade Organization? Offers first steps toward a democratic, accountable alternative. It reminds us that change is not only necessary – it’s possible.

Lori Wallach is the best damned expert on the WTO. If you read her you will really understand this monster.


http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7304

[Joanne98]

6. CAFTA is going to LOSE.......

June 30, 2005

CAFTA Limps to House Where Its Fate Will Be Sealed

54-45 CAFTA Passage is Closest Senate Trade Vote Since NAFTA

Statement by Lori M. Wallach, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

Because the proposed CAFTA expansion of NAFTA to six additional nations faces stiff opposition in the House, its supporters pushed for a Senate vote first, given that the Senate typically provides easy approvals of any and all trade deals. CAFTA’s narrow margin of approval in the Senate is the antithesis of momentum.

The Senate margin of approval for this NAFTA expansion (54-45) is the tightest Senate trade vote in the past dozen years, showing the depth of opposition to the NAFTA model that has been built by 11 years of living with NAFTA’s negative impacts. NAFTA’s 61-vote Senate passage in 1993 was the tightest previous Senate trade vote.

A majority of House members, including a significant number of Republicans, now oppose CAFTA while another sizeable bloc of GOP House members remains uncommitted. The Bush administration, having failed at selling CAFTA on its merits, is trying to make “deals” to buy votes. However, wariness about constituents’ lingering anger over damaging U.S. trade policies and the past record of deals-for-trade-votes not being fulfilled has made this ugly process less effective.

Pacts like CAFTA are no longer just about tariffs and quotas, but rather dictate what land use, food safety, drug patent, procurement, environmental, energy and other service policies signatory nations must implement.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1983

[sadiesworld]

7. .

[rman]

8. AP: U.S. Blocked Release of CAFTA Reports

AP: U.S. Blocked Release of CAFTA Reports
By Larry Margasak
Associated Press Writer
Published: Jun 29, 2005 1:09 PM EST
http://ap.lancasteronline.com/6/free_trade_studies

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Labor Department worked for more than a year to maintain secrecy for studies that were critical of working conditions in Central America, the region the Bush administration wants in a new trade pact.

The contractor hired by the department in 2002 to conduct the studies has become a major opponent of the administration's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

The government-paid studies concluded that countries proposed for free-trade status have poor working environments and fail to protect workers' rights. The department dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to government and contractor documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The Senate Finance Committee, which approved the agreement by a voice vote Wednesday, sent it to the full Senate for consideration this week or after the Independence Day recess.

The contractor is the International Labor Rights Fund.

<more...>

[PsycheCC]

9. Here 's the link to email the house of Reps., in case anyone needs it.

Congressman Sherrod Brown from Ohio was on the House floor last week saying that they still don't have the votes to pass it, or they would have scheduled the vote by now.

It has already passed in the Senate. The House is our only hope. Please, make your voice heard. Here's the link:

http://www.house.gov /

Also, each representative has people who tally your opinion if you prefer to call them. Their numbers are also listed at the above site.

Go get 'em, Economic Patriots! :patriot: :woohoo: :applause: :yourock: