FTAA - The next Attack on American Workers
FTAA - The next Attack on American Workers
Date: Thursday, December 18, 2003 11:24 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
In this series of three articles, William F. Jasper explains how bad
the FTAA is. For those of you that missed the miniscule coverage in the
national press, FTAA stands for Free Trade Area of the Americas and it
is an attempt to make a large trade agreement with about 32 Latin
American countries that will be modeled on NAFTA.
These articles are long so I cut some excerpts that should raise your
eyebrows:
* The FTAA architects have designed the envisioned organization as the
hemispheric equivalent of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area), which
now encompasses the United States, Canada and Mexico. It is also
planned as a regional adjunct of the WTO. The FTAA proponents intend
that their new creation will expand rapidly beyond trade issues and,
following the model of the European Union, absorb the sovereign nations
of the Western Hemisphere into a supranational government.
* The answer is that, like Mr. Zoellick, most of these business leaders
pushing the FTAA free-trade scam are corporate, one-world socialists
who know that the trade policies and regulatory regimes they are
supporting will wipe out most of their smaller competitors.
* The FTAA would vastly multiply the devastation already wrought by
NAFTA, the WTO and other so-called free-trade agreements negotiated by
the Clinton and Bush administrations. Millions of jobs and virtually
every U.S. industry sector - from agriculture and basic manufacturing
to information technology and financial services - are on the line.
* If the U.S. Congress approves the FTAA, these terrorists [Hezbollah,
Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the PLO, PFLP and other Middle Eastern and
Islamic terrorist organizations], along with others in Latin America,
will eventually have free access to the U.S.
* A free-trade agreement promoting the free movement of capital,
people, goods and services across borders (goes the argument) will
create a rising tide of prosperity that will lift all boats - big and
small businesses, the poor as well as the rich - in Latin America and
the Caribbean.
* Immigration is one of the most contentious issues in the FTAA
process. That process would eventually abolish our national borders - a
prospect explicitly acknowledged, and welcomed, by Mexican President
Vicente Fox. But because of public and congressional opposition, the
Bush administration is carefully avoiding the issue in FTAA
negotiations - a tactical decision understood by Open Borders
ideologues who know that the subject can be taken up again when the
pact is finished.
The "New American" magazine often features insightful articles such the
ones below. If you want some complimentary copies of the New American
magazine, contact Don Crowell.
Don Crowell
(573) 221-5995
bluerocket@sbcglobal.net
Here are some issues that are relevant to Job Destruction. I read them
and was amazed at the depth of research that every article contains.
Engineered Extinction (I haven't read it yet)
Your Job May Be Next (I recommend this as the #1 choice)
The Media Cartel
Abolishing Our Borders
The United Nations: The Growing Threat
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/12-29-2003/insider/ftaa.htm
Vol. 19, No. 26
December 29, 2003
Hemispheric Integration by the Installment Plan
When in 1913 Senator Nelson Aldrich (R-R.I.), acting on behalf of a
power-hungry elite cabal, proposed a framework for the Federal Reserve,
President Woodrow Wilson opposed the plan as inadequate. Wilson
ardently sought the creation of a European-style central bank, and the
Aldrich plan fell short. Presidential confidant Edward Mandell House,
who like Aldrich was wired into the Power Elite, persuaded Wilson to
accept the Aldrich plan.
"The President ... was distrustful of the Aldrich theory, but I early
succeeded in talking him out of that," recalled House decades later. "I
told him that it would be physically impossible for us to produce at
one stroke an ideal bill. We could only frame one as close as possible
to the ideal, and trust to time to amend its mistakes." Significantly,
House wasnt able to convince Wilson to display similar flexibility
regarding the League of Nations Covenant. As a result, the Power Elite
got the Federal Reserve, but had to wait until later to get its world
government framework (re-christened the United Nations).
Today, the Power Elites top priority is completion by 2005 of the
so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas. The FTAA would integrate the
nations of the Western Hemisphere into a single political and economic
entity modeled after the socialist European Union. The road to a
supranational government of the Americas will be difficult, and, as
William F. Jasper pointed out in his on-site report from the recent
FTAA summit in Miami (see "FTAA Falters on Road to 2005" in our
December 15 issue), the pacts promoters have "hit some snags." But
the promoters are approaching the FTAA as a "process" rather than a
result. This means, ` la House and the Federal Reserve, securing
agreements in principle that can be revisited later in the process.
For instance, immigration is one of the most contentious issues in the
FTAA process. That process would eventually abolish our national
borders - a prospect explicitly acknowledged, and welcomed, by Mexican
President Vicente Fox. But because of public and congressional
opposition, the Bush administration is carefully avoiding the issue in
FTAA negotiations - a tactical decision understood by Open Borders
ideologues who know that the subject can be taken up again when the
pact is finished.
" Other potentially deal-breaking issues will be similarly deferred in
the interest of finishing an FTAA agreement - any FTAA agreement - that
can be revised and strengthened later on.
* Americans must understand, however, that this process will ultimately
lead to the abolition of our national independence, the creation of an
unaccountable supranational socialist bureaucracy, a larger tax burden,
and a radical reduction in our standard of living. Thats why it must
be stopped - now.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/12-15-2003/2005.htm
FTAA Falters on Road to 2005
by William F. Jasper
The recent negotiation impasse at the Free Trade Area of the Americas
summit in Miami shows that the globalist plan to merge the hemisphere
can still be stopped.
Vol. 19, No. 25
December 15, 2003
Morality Matters
Plans to merge 34 countries of North and South America and the
Caribbean into a supra-national government modeled after the European
Union hit some snags at the recent hemispheric summit in Miami.
However, the Bush administration is continuing the Clinton
administrations commitment to complete a formal agreement on the
merger by 2005. To this end, it has announced a stepped-up schedule to
negotiate a series of bilateral, multilateral and regional trade
agreements aimed at achieving the hemispheric merger piecemeal and
applying pressure to countries that are resisting economic and
political convergence.
The weeklong Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) summit in Miami
ended abruptly on Thursday, November 20, a day earlier than scheduled.
Though U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and many of his
foreign counterparts attending the conference termed the gathering a
success, it was clear that they were putting a happy face on a
negotiated framework agreement that had become mired in trade disputes
and had fallen far short of expectations.
At a surprise press conference hurriedly called Thursday night, Mr.
Zoellick announced that the trade and finance ministers had completed
their work earlier than expected. "We got our work done a few hours
early," he announced. "We are moving the FTAA - into a new phase. We
are negotiating it, not just seeking it." Brazils Celso Amorim, who
co-chaired the summit with Zoellick, contrasted the events
conclusion with the collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
talks in Cancun, Mexico, in September. The Cancun summit ended in
deadlock, as several countries walked out over disputes concerning
agricultural tariffs and subsidies, intellectual property rights and
other hotly contested issues. "The great difference [at Cancun] is that
everyone was dancing to the beat of their own drum," said Amorim.
"Today we have reached a result that was all common."
But the image of sweet unity and harmony projected by Zoellick and
Amorim was an attempt to cover over contentious issues that had
threatened to turn Miami into another Cancun donnybrook. The Miami
declaration provides the framework for the next round of FTAA
negotiations, which will begin early next year. The document reaffirms
the commitment signed by President George W. Bush and other hemispheric
leaders at the Quebec Summit of the Americas in 2001 to achieve a final
agreement by January 2005, with the FTAA going into effect by the end
of that year. The declaration gives a deadline of September 30, 2004
for final tariff negotiations but sets no dates for other matters, such
as environmental regulation, labor codes, immigration and health care -
all of which have been proposed for FTAA jurisdiction.
To avoid an impasse, the U.S. agreed to a weaker treaty draft that
would allow countries to opt out of FTAA regulations they dont like.
The agreement, for example, allows Brazil to opt out of the FTAA on
intellectual property rights, opening services markets, and new laws
protecting foreign investors. Zoellick pointedly contested critics
characterizations of the Miami agreement as "FTAA Lite" or "ALCA Lite"
- ALCA being the Spanish acronym for FTAA. "I dont accept your
presumption that what we negotiated was an ALCA Lite," Zoellick told
Latin American critics during a Thursday afternoon session.
However, the U.S. trade representatives actions belied his words. On
November 19, after negotiations had reached a deadlock, Zoellick
announced that he would launch a new flurry of negotiations for
bilateral trade pacts with at least six countries. Those named were the
Dominican Republic, Panama, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Although Zoellick has been pursuing bilateral trade pacts with these
and many other countries over the past two years, the announcement
signaled a new high-pressure effort by the administration to draft
reluctant countries into the FTAA with the threat of being isolated
from access to the coveted U.S. market.
David Lewis, a Washington-based trade adviser attending the Miami FTAA
business forums, explained the U.S. bilateral strategy to the Miami
Herald this way: "Basically what it says is, OK, if we cant close
a good FTAA, well close some good bilateral [treaties]. Before
you know it, you may not have an FTAA. But what you have in the
bilaterals may be equal to an FTAA."
Amalgamating the Americas
That, of course, is the plan. The FTAA architects have designed the
envisioned organization as the hemispheric equivalent of NAFTA (North
American Free Trade Area), which now encompasses the United States,
Canada and Mexico. It is also planned as a regional adjunct of the WTO.
The FTAA proponents intend that their new creation will expand rapidly
beyond trade issues and, following the model of the European Union,
absorb the sovereign nations of the Western Hemisphere into a
supranational government.
The crucial sovereignty issue was a major bone of contention at the
2001 Quebec summit. In an April 23, 2001 Associated Press story
entitled "Biggest Obstacle to Selling Trade Pact Is Sovereignty,"
writer David E. Sanger highlighted the central issue at stake in the
so-called free-trade pact. "The biggest problem," Sanger noted, "comes
down to one word: sovereignty."
As with NAFTA, the FTAA would turn over control of trade issues, as
well as a growing list of add-on issues, to an international
bureaucracy that can override national and local laws and
constitutions. But there was virtually no mention of sovereignty at the
Miami summit, at least none that made it out to the press.
The conference was one of the most hermetically sealed trade summits
ever convened, with almost all of the sessions taking place behind
closed doors at the Intercontinental and Hyatt Regency hotels in
Miamis downtown oceanfront. Due to the violent riots that had
plagued the Seattle WTO summit, the Quebec FTAA summit and other
international gatherings, the Miami conference took place within a
police cordon that sealed off several city blocks behind barricades and
an overwhelming police presence on land and sea and in the air. No one
was allowed into the area unless registered with the event and in
possession of an official photo I.D. issued by FTAA organizers. Even
registered members of the media were severely restricted and forced to
go through repeated searches, metal detectors, and "wandings" for the
few press conferences and photo ops that were made available.
The FTAA media center in the Hyatt was provided video feeds of some of
the speeches, but most of the sessions took place two blocks away at
the Intercontinental and were off-limits to the press. When we were
allowed to attend events, we were escorted by guards and not permitted
to mingle with any of the conference delegates. When the official
sessions ended, delegates were usually spirited off to dinners and
evening events that also were closed to the press. As a result, even
those of us who were staying in the Hyatt, where most of the delegates
also were staying, found little opportunity to interview the main FTAA
participants. This was according to plan; the summit organizers wanted
to be sure that exposure of delegates to the media was kept to an
absolute minimum and that news coverage would be largely reduced to
regurgitation of official FTAA press releases. With this tightly
controlled media setup, FTAA organizers could greatly curtail
expressions of dissent, present a general image of agreement, and make
it appear that the radical street protesters were the only opposition
to the "trade liberalization" proposed under the FTAA.
Controlled "Opposition"
The only other voices of opposition heard in Miami came from supposed
conservative quarters in the business and political communities, where
the criticism was that the declaration did not go far enough! The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, dominated by large corporate influences that stand
to gain by moving even more of their production to cheaper Latin
American venues, warned that Zoellicks new bilateral strategy "must
not distract from the effort to complete the Free Trade Area of the
Americas, which remains our top hemispheric priority."
Likewise, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) expressed
concern that the watered-down agreement might not be acceptable to
them. "This is not the way we want to go," said NAM international vice
president Frank Vargo. "If it is not a high-quality agreement, we are
not going to support it." By high quality, Vargo means an FTAA with
broad powers and real regulatory teeth. It is unlikely that the
hundreds of thousands of small- and medium-sized businesses that make
up the U.S. Chamber and the NAM fully realize that their leaders are
lobbying to saddle them with an unaccountable international regulatory
bureaucracy. Those American businesses are already staggering under
regulatory overload. If the FTAA goes through, they will not only find
themselves hit with an ever-increasing welter of FTAA regulations,
mandates and lawsuits, but they will see what remaining market share
they now have eroded by a flood of less expensive foreign products. Of
course, many of those products will come from the foreign plants of big
corporate NAM and Chamber members that are not subject to the same
socialist burdens forced on the smaller members who produce
domestically.
Many of these same corporate business leaders also expressed dismay
that the Miami summit failed to decide on a location for the FTAA
Secretariat, the new bureaucracy that would administer the planned
explosion of "international law" spawned by the new organization. The
location of the Secretariat was one of the highly anticipated outcomes
of the summit that failed to materialize. Miami appears to be the
leading candidate for the permanent headquarters, and officials for
Florida and the City of Miami have been campaigning for this political
plum for the past several years.
In view of the "FTAA Lite" accord, many delegates openly expressed
doubt that the FTAA would have sufficient regulatory duties to justify
a large and impressive staff. Not to worry, said Carl Cira, the FTAA
would still be a force to reckon with. Mr. Cira, the director of the
Summit of the Americas Center at Florida International University,
insisted: "It would be the World Trade Organization of this hemisphere.
Its still worth fighting for that."
The NAMs director of international trade policy Scott Otteman was
less enthusiastic than Cira. "I would have more respect for it if it
was a secretariat administering a broad, comprehensive agreement,
Otteman stated. Chuck Cobb, the leading cheerleader of the Sunshine
States business community, has urged his fellow Floridians to see a
silver lining in the weaker FTAA declaration. According to Mr. Cobb,
the "bright side" is the possibility that the profusion of loopholes
and exceptions in the agreement will make it more complex and therefore
require a larger staff than otherwise would be necessary.
The Miami Herald reported:
Florida FTAA Chairman Chuck Cobb and others counter that the looser
treaty proposed Wednesday - which would let countries opt out of FTAA
rules they dont like - could spawn an even larger bureaucracy for
the headquarters, since it would have a more sprawling matrix of
regulations to administer.
So why are these business leaders so anxious to subject themselves to
the ministrations of a new level of international bureaucrats? Many in
the business community have undoubtedly succumbed to the fabulous
promises of immense wealth to be made from exporting U.S.-made products
to these new markets. The same promises were made concerning NAFTA and
the WTO. Instead, we have seen an accelerated hemorrhage of jobs,
manufacturing and technology to Asia, Mexico and Latin America. How
could any businessman consider erecting a new WTO for this hemisphere
to be a good thing? Why would a representative for the manufacturing
industry want a new regulatory monstrosity to be given "broad,
comprehensive" administrative authority? Why would a business leader
hope for "an even larger bureaucracy" with "a more sprawling mix of
regulations"?
The answer is that, like Mr. Zoellick, most of these business leaders
pushing the FTAA free-trade scam are corporate, one-world socialists
who know that the trade policies and regulatory regimes they are
supporting will wipe out most of their smaller competitors. They also
know that each of these so-called free-trade agreements includes
billions of dollars for the taking, ladled out by USAID, the World
Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary
Fund and other entities to those corporations with the right political
connections.
Like Mr. Zoellick, most of the leading lights of the FTAA crusade are
members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which has been in
the forefront of virtually every effort to promote regional governance
schemes as a stepping stone to world government.
Global Governance
The FTAA is a prime example of the favored model of
"transgovernmentalism," described by Harvard Law School Professor
Anne-Marie Slaughter (CFR) in the September-October 1997 issue of
Foreign Affairs, the CFR journal. In her essay entitled "The Real New
World Order," Professor Slaughter declared that "Transgovernmentalism
is emerging as the real new world order, rapidly becoming the most
widespread and effective mode of international governance."
Transgovernmentalism is the developing wave of supra-national
government networks that incorporate big business and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) into the governing mix. According to Slaughter,
these "government networks are government for the information age. They
offer the world a blueprint for the international architecture of the
21st century." "The result," she says "is not world government, but
global governance."
According to Slaughter, this transgovernmentalist strategy of
networking has the advantage of not providing a centralized target like
the UN for conservatives to demonize. However, Slaughter goes on to
contradict her nonsensical governance-government distinction by
admitting that the transgovernmental model she champions is indeed a
form of world government. The new networks, she says, "can work with
their subnational and supranational counterparts, creating a genuinely
new world order in which networked institutions perform the functions
of a world government - legislation, administration, and adjudication -
without the form."
Of course, once the "functions of a world government" are established
in a network of institutions, it is a rather elementary matter to
formalize an actual world government in a concrete, centralized
structure. While many of the business leaders chasing the elusive trade
dollar may not see this design behind the FTAA, you can be sure that
Robert Zoellick, Anne-Marie Slaughter and their fellow one-worlders at
the CFR most certainly do.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/12-29-2003/ftaa.htm
Vol. 19, No. 26
December 29, 2003
Welcome Mat for Terrorists
by William F. Jasper
With Marxist regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Haiti, and
Communist movements in other Latin American countries, the FTAA poses
an enormous security nightmare.
Could the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, now galloping
toward completion, actually spur the spread of Marxist revolution
throughout Latin America? Would a completed FTAA result in the
political and economic merger of the United States with Marxist-run
countries in the region, including, ultimately, Fidel Castros
Communist regime in Cuba? Will the FTAA make it easier for terrorists
from Latin America and throughout the world, including the Middle East,
to enter the United States? The answer to each of these questions is a
resounding - and alarming - yes.
Previous articles in THE NEW AMERICAN have reported on the destructive
impact that this proposed "common market" for the Western Hemisphere
would have on U.S. jobs and industry. The FTAA would vastly multiply
the devastation already wrought by NAFTA, the WTO and other so-called
free-trade agreements negotiated by the Clinton and Bush
administrations. Millions of jobs and virtually every U.S. industry
sector - from agriculture and basic manufacturing to information
technology and financial services - are on the line. We have also
exposed the blueprint behind the FTAA to use the trade issue as simply
the opening step in an ongoing process that will lead to a hemispheric
supranational government, just as the Common Market in Europe led to a
merger of nations in the European Union.* This puts our Constitution
and our very existence as a sovereign nation at stake.
Opening the Door for Terrorism
The FTAA, however, poses an additional enormous danger that should be
of paramount concern to every U.S. citizen, especially in light of the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the ongoing terror war. For
the past 40 years, Fidel Castro has maintained Havana as the center for
international terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. He maintains close
ties with every recognized terror regime - Iran, Syria, North Korea,
Libya, Algeria and Lebanon as well as with Russia and China. He was one
of Saddam Husseins most loyal allies and defenders.
Following the 9-11 attacks, Castro hosted a global terror summit in
Havana that included representatives from the "axis of evil" regimes
and top terrorist groups. And, unbeknownst to most U.S. citizens,
Comrade Fidel is bosom buddy to the Marxist presidents of our new FTAA
partners Brazil and Venezuela. These two regimes, along with several
others in the area, have become terrorist havens for Hezbollah, Islamic
Jihad, Hamas, the PLO, PFLP and other Middle Eastern and Islamic
terrorist organizations.
If the U.S. Congress approves the FTAA, these terrorists, along with
others in Latin America, will eventually have free access to the U.S.
Whats more, the FTAA planners intend to bring Communist Cuba itself
into the hemispheric union as well.
The plan for the FTAA would not even have gotten off the ground in 1994
if there had been any hint that Fidel Castros regime might some day
be included in what then was being sold merely as a trade pact.
President Bill Clinton knew that when he presided over the 1994 Summit
of the Americas in Miami that launched the FTAA process. Floridas
influential Cuban-American community and their traditional
anti-Communist allies would have forced Congress to torpedo any effort
to lift the U.S. embargo of Castro, let alone give him the preferential
trade status to be conferred on FTAA countries.
So Cuba, alone among the 35 countries of the Western Hemisphere, was
pointedly excluded from the 1994 Miami summit and all succeeding FTAA
gatherings, including the most recent Ministerial summit held in Miami
during November 16-20, 2003. Castros exclusion, together with rosy
assessments that envision a hemisphere growing ever more prosperous,
stable and democratic, have won over many FTAA skeptics and opponents.
A free-trade agreement promoting the free movement of capital, people,
goods and services across borders (goes the argument) will create a
rising tide of prosperity that will lift all boats - big and small
businesses, the poor as well as the rich - in Latin America and the
Caribbean. This, in turn, say the FTAA advocates, will undercut any
residual attraction to the bankrupt policies of Marxism. The rhetoric
has worked well. Cuban-American business leaders are among the most
enthusiastic supporters of the trade pact. Republicans who claim
conservative, anti-Castro credentials form the hard core of FTAA
support in Congress.
However, many of the FTAAs most fervent supporters are being taken
for a ride. Besides the immense problems that the trade pact will cause
the U.S. in terms of dislocation, job loss, market loss and trade
deficits, there is also an enormous security issue that has been
totally papered over. The FTAAs architects know that Communist
movements and terrorist organizations that were relatively quiet
throughout the 1990s have roared back into action throughout the
Americas. Openly Marxist, pro-Castro governments have taken over two of
our most critical trading partners in the region: Brazil and Venezuela.
Communist China is investing heavily throughout the region and controls
key shipping ports, including the ports of Balboa and Cristobal
strategically located at each end of the Panama Canal, and the huge new
port in the Bahamas built by Beijings global acquisition agent,
Hutchison Whampoa, Inc. A Communist madman runs Haiti. Colombia is
tottering between narco-terrorists and "soft" Marxists. Peru faces a
possible slide back into anarchy and terrorism. In Nicaragua, the
Communist Sandinistas may well come back openly to power.
In addition, virtually every country in the proposed FTAA is awash in
debt and beyond bankrupt. And weve barely scratched the surface. In
short, Latin America is already an enormous security problem for the
United States. Protecting our borders and getting some handle on the
millions of illegal aliens now in our country are already daunting
challenges. The FTAA architects would make the problem infinitely worse
by accelerating the abolition of our borders. The hemispheric merger
they are pushing would completely enmesh the political and economic
systems of the region to allow free migration between countries, as now
allowed in the European Union. To top it off, they intend to include
Cuba in this new common market after all. Yes, all of the key players
in the FTAA game plan have long supported normalizing relations with
Fidel Castro, welcoming him into all international organizations, and
showering his Communist regime with loans, credits and foreign aid. If
the United States joins the FTAA, you can be sure that it wont be
long until all of those outrages become official U.S. policy.
FTAA - Castros Brainchild
And why shouldnt Communist Cuba be a full-fledged FTAA member? After
all, Comrade Fidel can legitimately lay claim to being one of the
earliest proponents of this Marxist-Leninist concept, decades before
the rest of us even heard of such a thing. Less than five months after
taking control of Cuba, the bearded dictator advocated the creation of
a common market for the Western Hemisphere. In a speech delivered on
May 2, 1959 to an inter-American economic conference in Buenos Aires,
Castro urged the United States to join in the creation of a so-called
Latin American common market. He proposed that the U.S. provide $30
billion in credit over 10 years for the economic development of Latin
America.
Incredibly, Castros proposal became U.S. policy. Herbert Matthews,
Fidels leading champion at the New York Times, later wrote of
Castros Buenos Aires speech: "The American delegation dismissed the
idea with amused contempt. But less than two years later President
Kennedy put forward the proposal for his Alliance for Progress,
pledging $10 billion for the first ten years. Later President Johnson
promised another $10 billion for the first ten years."
What we are now witnessing as the unfolding FTAA began as a
revolutionary program of the Kennedy administration under the lofty
sounding title of Alliance for Progress. The Alliance for Progress,
designed on the pattern of the Marshall Plan, was established to funnel
billions of foreign aid dollars to socialist parties and Communist
movements in Latin America, with the aim of melding all of the
regions countries into a common market, just as the Marshall
Planners had done after World War II in Europe.
Stripped of its phony rhetoric about "free markets," Castros support
of a regional common market makes perfect sense; it is in complete
accord with Communist strategy. "Divide the world into regional groups
as a transitional stage to world government," Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin wrote in his book Marxism and the National Question.
"Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalties to a
vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later, the
regionals can be brought all the way into a single world
dictatorship...."
So Fidel was merely following his ideological masters. What most
Americans will find astounding is that top U.S. government officials
not only adopted the same program, but did so with the aim of
establishing the same regional approach to global socialism. However,
this scheme had to be sold to the American public as a cure to stop the
spread of Communism in Latin America.
Unholy Alliance
The Kennedy administration was loaded with many of the same one-world
ideologues and pro-Communists who had dominated the Roosevelt, Truman
and Eisenhower administrations. This continuing claque of policymakers
invariably saw allies in Stalin, Mao Zedong, Josip Broz Tito, Ho Chi
Minh, Gamal Nasser and other Communists.
The Kennedy brain trust drew from the usual stable: the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, the Brookings Institution, Harvard
University, the Ford Foundation, and, most importantly, the Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR). Adolph Berle, McGeorge Bundy, William Bundy,
Arthur Schlesinger, Richard Goodwin, Lincoln Gordon and Walt Rostow -
all CFR apparatchiks - together with other Establishment leftists,
launched the regionalization effort for the Americas advocated by
Stalin and Castro.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger described in his book A Thousand Days some
of what he witnessed as a participant in that process. Schlesinger, a
radical Fabian Socialist and New Dealer, recalled a Washington, D.C.,
meeting President John F. Kennedy and some of his advisers had with Dr.
Cheddi Jagan, the Communist leader of Guyana. Kennedy and Jagan found
much common ground, especially in their mutual admiration of one of
Britains leading Fabian Socialist icons, Professor Harold Laski.
Schlesinger writes:
Recalling Jagans words of admiration for Harold Laski on Meet the
Press, Kennedy observed that he himself had studied for a term under
Laski at the London School of Economics and that his older brother had
visited the Soviet Union with him. Jagan replied that the first book of
Laskis he had read was The American Presidency; he considered
himself, he added, a Bevanite. We all responded agreeably to this,
citing Bevans - belief that the struggle of the future would be
between democratic socialism and Communism....
Kennedys Latin American policy, crafted by his CFR brain trust, was
based on this premise that the Western Hemisphere - and mankind in
general - had only two viable options: socialism or Communism. It was a
continuation of the CFR-hatched policies that had steered post-war
Europe along the socialist track. To give this revolutionary plan a
respectable face, the Kennedy administration resorted to a common ploy
of governments, as well as institutions that aspire to govern: It set
up a "task force" on Latin American policy. The man chosen to head the
task force was Adolph Berle (CFR), a New Deal lawyer who implemented
President Franklin D. Roosevelts "good neighbor" policy and later
served as U.S. ambassador to Brazil.
Berles task force issued a report in 1961 that laid out what became,
essentially, the FTAA program. It recommended that the United States
support "a long-range economic plan for the whole hemisphere." This
plan should provide "integrated development programs covering several
years in advance, prepared first on a national basis -nd then combined
into a region-wide effort." The Berle report urged the U.S. to end its
"doctrinaire opposition" to socialism and revolutionary movements and
to encourage "diverse social systems in different countries." U.S.
military force should not be used, it said, to "stabilize the dying
reactionary situations." By which the authors clearly meant that
anti-Communist allies in Latin America should not be assisted when
under attack by Soviet-sponsored "progressive" forces. These
"reactionary" regimes were presumed to be corrupt by virtue of the
simple fact that they did not embrace socialism. However, according to
the task force, the U.S. military may be justifiably deployed to aid a
Leftist regime pursuing the socialist holy grail.
The Kennedy-Berle plan was officially launched as the Alliance for
Progress at the Inter-American Economic and Social Council conference
in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961. The U.S. representative at
the summit, C. Douglas Dillon (a longtime CFR director and vice
chairman of the board), found himself facing opposition to the scheme
from virtually every country - except Castros Cuba. Schlesinger
noted this was because "Cuba was in sympathy with many of the
Alliances objectives...." Castro recognized the pro-Communist
reality beneath the Kennedy administrations anti-Communist rhetoric.
Thus, says Schlesinger, "Word soon went round the conference that there
were only two left-wing governments present - Cuba and the United
States...."
The Elite Castro Lobby
With billions of Alliance for Progress dollars voted by Congress, the
administration began the process of luring, bribing and bludgeoning
reluctant Latin American countries into the hemispheric merger.
Additional U.S. taxpayer funds provided through the World Bank, the
Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund
further greased the skids.
However, perhaps just as important to the success of the Alliance for
Progress plan for hemispheric integration as official U.S. policy
was (and is) the support provided by powerful private organizations.
Foremost among these, in addition to the Council on Foreign Relations,
is the Council of the Americas (COA). Officially established in 1965,
just after the Alliance for Progress got up and running, the COA moved
in to make sure the policies and aid dollars were advancing the
objectives outlined by the Berle task force.
The COA was founded by (and for many years chaired by) mega-banker
David Rockefeller. Mr. Rockefeller remains today as honorary chairman
of the organization, while William R. Rhodes (CFR) serves as the
COAs current chairman. David Rockefeller was uniquely qualified to
head this venture, having a few years before been a central player in
the plan to regionalize and socialize Europe. In 1947 he had served as
secretary of the CFR study group on "Reconstruction in Western Europe,"
what later became known as the Marshall Plan. That scheme to build the
Common Market (now the European Union) was officially administered in
Europe by Rockefellers longtime CFR colleague John J. McCloy.
The COAs membership has included some of the top members of the
CFRs circles of power in government, business, the media and
academe. The COAs corporate members comprise a Whos Who of
business and finance: Bank of America, Citibank, AOL Time Warner, Ford,
GM, Lucent Technologies, Coca Cola, Pepsico, McDonalds, Microsoft,
IBM, Johnson & Johnson, etc. With this kind of political and economic
clout, the COA leadership has been well positioned to reward or punish
Latin American business and political leaders. "The Council regularly
hosts Presidents, cabinet ministers, central bankers, government
officials, and leading experts in economics, politics, business, and
finance," the COAs website boasts. "This programming," it notes,
"gives our members unique access to information and insights into the
evolution of the region...." Indeed it does. And the COA and CFR have
worked hand in hand to use this "unique access" to direct the
"evolution of the region" in a corporate-socialist direction - while
claiming to advance free markets.
Operating through the COA and other fronts such as the Inter-American
Dialogue, the CFR has drawn most of Latin Americas movers and
shakers into its sway. It even has national CFR affiliates throughout
the hemisphere to push the process more directly. Page 12 of the
CFRs 2003 Annual Report features a photo of "The first Hemispheric
meeting of the Councils on Foreign Relations - held in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, March 30-31, 2003." Pictured are representatives from
mini-CFRs in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Paraguay.
CFR Tells Lulu on Lula
The presence of well-known corporate giants and business moguls in the
CFR-COA membership rolls leads many observers to conclude that these
men are conservative businessmen who would have no truck with socialism
and revolution. But in reality, these people are, by and large, not
free market entrepreneurs but transnational corporatists. They know
that the international regulations and agreements they promote favor
huge economies of scale that will wipe out their smaller competitors
and challengers. They bear no national allegiance; in fact, they
support world government. They prattle endlessly about the virtues of
globalization, global governance and international law - and support
policies to implement the same.
The CFR establishments perspective on the Communist background and
government of Brazils president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, more
commonly known as Lula, is typical of the continuing socialist program
directed by these elites. On December 5, 2002, the CFRs Kenneth R.
Maxwell penned a blistering diatribe for the New York Review of Books
taking on Lulas U.S. critics. Mr. Maxwell is the "Nelson and David
Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Inter-American Studies" at the CFR and
the councils director of Latin America Studies - ergo, the
"experts expert."
Mr. Maxwell explained that he had returned from Brazil, where Mr. Lula
had just been elected president in a tremendous upset. And Maxwell was
upset that the "United States was not celebrating this remarkable
demonstration of democratic civility."
"Lulas triumph seemed like the realization of an American dream,"
wrote the CFRs expert, and he couldnt understand why U.S.
conservatives were painting the new president as a dangerous,
pro-Castro radical. He was irate that critics had linked Lula to the
Sao Paulo Forum and had described the SPF as a center of international
terrorism.
"No one I met in Brazil thinks that Lula would see Cuba, let alone
Venezuela, as a model," said Maxwell. "Even the best-informed experts I
talked to in Brazil had never heard of the Sao Paulo Forum," he
insisted. And "the charge that it is a secret Castroist cabal,
aimed at promoting international terrorism, is exaggerated to say the
least," he averred.
For the record, the Sao Paulo Forum is indeed a Castroist cabal that
may justly be called a continuation of the terrorist Tricontinental
network Fidel launched in the 1960s. Its membership includes such
notorious terrorist groups as the FARC and ELN of Colombia, the MIR of
Chile, the FMLN of El Salvador and the FSLN of Nicaragua, as well as
the Communist Parties of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba,
Peru, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. The first SPF gathering
was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was hosted by Lula and his
(Communist) Workers Party. Lula has since then publicly attended many
of the SPFs annual confabs, including the one hosted by Fidel Castro
in Havana in December 2001. His economic and political policies
indicate he does indeed see Cuba and Venezuela as models for his
socialist state.
All of this information on Lula and the SPF - and much more besides -
is publicly available on Communist and pro-Castro websites on the
Internet. How did all of this escape the notice of the CFRs top
Latin American expert? Interestingly, it didnt; Maxwell simply
chooses to dismiss it as irrelevant. He acknowledges:
No one doubts that the stakes involved in the election of a candidate
of the left in Brazil are high and the risks great, or that Lula and
the Workers Party have longstanding socialist credentials, or that he
has met with Castro, or received a victory "Bolivarian saber" from
Venezuelan president Chavez, or that his closest adviser, Jose Dirceu,
was trained as a guerrilla in Cuba and returned to Brazil decades ago
with a face altered by plastic surgery to disguise him.
Maxwell and his fellow CFR revolutionists would have you believe all
that is superfluous. Likewise, the fact that Lulas first official
guests as president of Brazil were Fidel Castro and Venezuelas
Marxist President Hugo Chavez. But Maxwell wouldnt see that as a
problem, since the CFR favors normalizing relations with Castro, just
as it led the charge to aid, and trade with, Communist China,
Saddams Iraq, and Communist Vietnam.
Mr. Chavez has also been given remarkably friendly treatment by the CFR
experts, though he makes no attempt to conceal his Communist colors.
Since taking power in 1999, Hugo Chavez has marched Venezuela steadily
leftward toward a Castro-type dictatorship. With him go Venezuelas
oil reserves, the worlds largest proven deposits.
Chavez has publicly aligned himself with the terrorist-sponsoring
regimes of Cuba, China, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Iran and North
Korea. He has repeatedly unleashed his "Bolivarian Circles," armed
thugs and neighborhood spies, patterned after Castros Committees for
the Defense of the Revolution, to beat, intimidate and murder his
opposition.
Lula and Chavez appear to be throwing left-handed wrenches into the
FTAA works with their revolutionary rhetoric, their demands for trade
exemptions and concessions, and their pursuit of their own South
American common market known as Mercosur. But that is a feint supported
by the COA-CFR elitists. Contrary to the claims of some observers, the
regional Mercosur is not incompatible with FTAA.
Indeed, one of the top FTAA architects, C. Fred Bergsten (CFR), has
repeatedly soothed his fellow globalists who have become concerned that
sub-regional trade areas would undermine the larger hemispheric plan.
To the contrary, says Bergsten in Open Regionalism, a 1997 working
paper from the Institute for International Economics, these smaller
trade zones actually create "incentives for other regions and
individual countries to follow suit and thus to ratchet up the
global process."
Thus the CFR elites are not unduly bothered by heated bombast from the
likes of Lula, Chavez or Haitis President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In
fact they are happy to shovel billions more taxpayer dollars into these
Marxist hellholes, as these regimes push their own regional trade
pacts. According to Bergsten, it is only necessary to assure that these
"regional agreements will in practice be building blocks for further
global liberalization rather than stumbling blocks that deter such
progress."
* See selected articles at www.thenewamerican.com /focus/ftaa/.
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