Plundering Plutocrats Behind NAFTA Expansion

• Behind every globalization scheme there are mattoids like David Rockefeller pulling the strings.

Secretary of State Colin Powell re vealed more of what the emerging "American Union" will be like in a speech May 7 at the Council of the Americas Washington conference in Washington.

The council is chaired by David Rocke feller, a major player in Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission.

(See the adjacent chart on page 3 for the complete list of board of directors.)

The Free Trade Area of the Americas is to begin functioning as a hemisphere-wide economic entity in 2005. At the behest of government, U.S. banks will have more consumers for their predatory lending practices, corporations will move more industry south of the border and U.S. taxpayer dollars will be spread throughout Central and South America to feed the poor and educate the young, Powell said.

President Bush spoke later, asking the international financiers to "help bring sanity to the United States Congress" by pressuring lawmakers to give him fast-track authority to negotiate the hemispheric free-trade zone.

Under fast-track, the president could strike a deal that Congress would vote up or down but not change. His father had fast track, but it expired in 1994.

In his speech, Powell said the Summit of the Americas in Quebec had approved important "initiatives."

"Especially exciting is a $10 million down payment for centers of excellence to boost teacher skills and performance ... to make sure we are educating all of the youngsters of the Americas to take advantage of the opportunities of the new world," Powell said.

"In Quebec, we were all excited about the possibilities of closing the digital divide to make sure that nobody's child, nobody's school, is left behind ... by doing so, we would increase economic integration, bring the poor and marginalized into fuller participation," Powell said.

Describing a peasant woman and mother in a Latin America who "is just trying to put food on the table every day" and "needs medicine" and "wants an education," Powell said "all our efforts have to ultimately be about Maria Soledad."

In spite of the rhetoric, Powell failed to note that the benefits afforded to corporations, banks and international speculators outweigh the gains made by average people, including North Americans.

Translated from bureaucratese, FTAA critics point out, Powell was really saying that American middle class taxpayers will be backing usurious bank loans for education and welfare for the multitudes in the southern part of the "American Union."

The FTAA, in Powell's words, would pave the way for AOL-Time Warner to provide Internet access to starving people in the ghettos of Central and South America, provide jobs that increase the profit margins of multinational corporations; and arrange for Citibank to provide loans at usurious rates so poor nations can build schools.

Critics of the FTAA point out that, for U.S. citizens, the free trade region will only expand the devastation wrought by NAF TA. Wages in the manufacturing sector will further decrease as industry's flight out of the United States increases and the domestic job mar ket constricts.

For more on the Council of the Americas, visit the web site at www.counciloftheamericas.org.

Copyright 2001 Liberty Lobby Inc. All rights reserved.