It’s simple – Free Trade is a euphemism for Free for All. It’s merely a license for Corporations to have a hey day with other people’s resources. Under Free Trade Agreements, a company can “develop” another country’s forests, minerals, crops and labor and go home with the profits. In many cases, they don’t even have to clean up the mess!
Yep, other countries are easy picking for the heavily muscled corporations of the developed world. They don’t have protective government agencies like EPA or OSHA to butt heads with and the locals will work for peanuts.
So George W Bush, the leader of the fattest country in the world, swaggers on down to South American to push his capitalistic, extractive agenda and (oopsy) sparks a rash of violent demonstrations.
According to this story:
POLICIES OF PAST FAILED
(Argentinean) Marchers urged the region’s leaders to pursue alternatives to the U.S.-backed free-market recipes, which dominated in the region in the 1990s but failed to reduce poverty and inequality.
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner echoed Argentines’ anger with the policies of the past as he opened the summit.
“We criticize the policies because we saw the results in Argentina’s crisis in 2001 and the fall of various democratic governments in the region,” said Kirchner, with Bush and the other leaders looking on.
