FTAA & globalization harm animals & humans

[Guest guest]

http://Boston.EarthSave.org/Awareness/Michael_Greger_Speech.htm

 

Speech by Michael Greger, MD: How FTAA and globalization negatively impact

animals and human health

 

A quote from the Animal Welfare Institute: " As far as animals are

concerned, the WTO is the single most destructive international

organization ever formed. " WTO-World Trade Organization Patricia Forkan,

the executive VP of the world's largest animal protection organization, the

Humane Society of the United States, actually addressed the World Trade

Organization and said " In all my years working on these issues, there has

never been a bigger threat to animal protection than that posed by GATT and

the WTO. " GATT-General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade The Animal Protection

Institute has come out and said " The greatest threat to our work, hence to

the animals themselves, might be the MAI. " MAI-Multilateral Agreement on

Investments

 

Whether you care deeply about fur, factory farming, animal testing,

endangered species, or little baby harp seals, or whales, cats, dogs or

dolphins-You should care deeply about the FTAA. The what? The Free Trade

Area of the Americas, the latest manifestation of corporate globalization.

Wait a second I don't care about corporate globalawhosamawhatsit, I care

about animals. OK, I'll tell you about animals.

 

In the 1950s tuna fleets in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean developed a

diabolical technique for catching tuna called purse-sein nets. Knowing that

schools of tuna frequently swim beneath dolphins, fishing vessels would

trap a pod by dolphins by encircling them with a net that could be up to a

mile long and 300 feet deep. The vessel then purses the net closed by

winching in cables at the bottom and top of the net thereby gathering its

entire contents. The dolphins are scooped up in these nets with the tuna,

where they eventually drown or are crushed to death in winches on board,

and finally their corpses are tossed overboard as bycatch. Over the years,

the tuna industry has murdered 7 million dolphins using this method.

 

The public was rightly outraged and pressured Congress to pass the Marine

Mammal Protection Act in 1972, which required the U.S. tuna industry to use

special dolphin saving techniques. Dolphin deaths dropped over 90%, from

about 100,000 a year to but a few thousand (of course the annual tuna death

rate continued at about 20 million, but...) The reason that there was such

a dramatic drop was that the US fishing fleet had a virtual monopoly, but

by the 1980's other countries got into the tuna business and with no

restrictions from their governments, the dolphin death rate again started

to soar.

 

Concerned with these high foreign kill rates, the public again demanded

action. So in 1984 Congress inserted a provision into the Marine Mammal

Protection Act which prohibiting the importation of tuna from nations that

did not have dolphin friendly programs in place. And we're the biggest

consumers of canned tuna in the world, so for us to close our markets to

dolphin-deadly tuna was going to be a big deal.

 

As it so often happens with pro-animal legislation, however, it was all

talk and no action. But after being sued for dragging their feet for 7

years the U.S. finally implemented tuna embargoes against any nation that

continued to wipe out dolphins. Mexico, however, was not going to take the

embargo lying down; they challenged the ban under the rules of GATT, and

they won. That challenge to the Marine Mammal Protection Act was to change

the course of history-animal and environmental protection would never be

the same... What the hell's the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade?

 

After World War II international power brokers sat down in New Hampshire

and created the World Bank, the IMF- International Monetary Fund-and GATT.

The GATT started out as it's name implies, trying to reducing tariff rates,

but it soon turned to other so-called " non-tariff " barriers to trade.

So-called " unfair " trade barriers like dolphins.

 

GATT prohibits a country from restricting imports-which is what the tuna

ban did, but there was a provision called article 20 which listed

restrictions that were supposedly exempt from GATT rules. It states:

" nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or

enforcement... of measures necessary to protect human, animal or plant life

or health; or relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural

resources. " Piece of cake, the dophin protection law seemed in the clear.

If purse-sein nets didn't have anything to do with animal health or

conservation what did?

 

The US went for the obvious, arguing that the ban should be exempted from

the GATT rules because it was necessary to protect animal health. The GATT

panel rejected the argument. What? The panel said well, obviously it wasn't

necessary, because you passed the law in 1984, remember, but didn't even

start enforcing it until 1991-can't be that necessary.

 

Wait a second. Who's on this panel? The panels consist of 3 professional

trade officials-usually heads of corporations-who meet in secret in

Switzerland. Who votes them in? Uh, no one. They are unelected,

unaccountable. Only government trade reps are allowed to participate, no

animal or consumer advocates, the press isn't even allowed in. All

documents, transcripts, and proceedings are kept secret. No outside appeal,

no outside review. Yikes!

 

So, OK, the US says " Fine, forget the animal health thing, but it's got to

be exempted under the conservation of natural resources clause, I mean come

on! " Remember any restriction " relating to the conservation of exhaustible

natural resources " is supposedly exempted. " Panel rejected that too. What?!

What kind of reasoning did they use? The GATT panel said " Hey, if you want

to go around conserving your own natural resources that's fine. But these

dolphins were out in the ocean. They are outside of your jurisdiction. " The

panel accused the United States of trying to impose its values

extraterritorially-thus engaging in a type of eco-imperialism. So if we

want to save like Mississippi river dolphins it's no problem, but

otherwise... So nope, our tuna ban didn't qualify for any of the

exemptions, so the final ruling was that it was in violation of GATT

because it was a restriction on imports.

 

Under trmendous public pressure to save the dolphins, however, the US

didn't budge. How could the US just ignore the GATT ruling? Because there

was no enforcement mechanism. In fact, all GATT rulings technically

required consensus-all countries, even the country in violation, had to

agree on a ruling for it to be valid. So all countries effectively had veto

power over any GATT decision. Well, that's kind of silly. All that

worrying and all the US had to do is say, fine, the GATT council ruled

against us, we veto the ruling. That was easy. What's the point of having

this whole thing if it can't be enforced? And you know, transnational

corporations were thinking the exact same thing. They and their puppets in

government were thinking, " Boy, we need to put some teeth in this thing. We

can't let democracy impinge on our profits. We need some kind of World

Trade Organization.

 

And that's what they got. January 1st, 1995, the WTO went into effect. The

WTO flipped it around. Now when a GATT ruling came down, you needed a

consensus to block the ruling. Well obviously every ruling has some winner

and they're not going to block the ruling, so basically every ruling

stands, period. And now GATT got teeth. If a country is found in violation,

it's got three choices: (1) Change their laws to comply with the WTO, (2)

pay compensation to the winning country, or (3) face severe trade sanctions.

 

So Mexico got busy on presenting their tuna case to the WTO. To appease

Mexico, the Clinton administration pushed Congress to sign what the Earth

Island Institute dubbed " The Dolphin Death Act. " Thanks to a republican

majority, they were able to gut the Marine Mammal Protection Act and start

allowing the sale of dolphin-deadly tuna in the United States. Well, wait a

second all the tuna I still says " dolphin-safe. " Well, allowing their tuna

in was not enough for the Mexican tuna industry, they demanded that the

definition of " dolphin-safe " be changed to allow tuna caught by chasing and

encircling dolphins to be labeled " dolphin-safe. " The Secretary of Commerce

complied, rendering " dolphin-safe " basically meaningless. And note that

Mexico didn't even have to file a WTO complaint, just threaten that they

were going to and poof animal protection legislation that we fought decades

for disappears.

 

Sea turtle protection was up next. Sea turtles are one of the world's

oldest animals. They have been on this planet for more then 150 million

years since before the time of the dinosaurs. Oh, well. Time's up!

 

Sea turtles are on teh brink of extinction. The leading threat to sea

turtle survival is shrimp trawl fishing, one of the world's most

destructive fishing practices, in which sea turtles become accidentally

caught in these huge nets and drown from being dragged underwater for

hours. An estimated 150,000 sea turtles are drowned in shrimp nets every

single year. An inexpensive device was developed, however, called a turtle

excluder device or TED, which is like an escape hatch in the net which lets

the turtles to escape. TEDs reduce the number of turtles killed by shrimp

fishing by 97 percent. Simple, cheap, effective-no excuse not to use them.

 

So since 1987, federal regulations have required U.S. shrimp trawlers to

use TEDs. In '89, Congress amended the U.S. Endangered Species Act to

prohibit the import of shrimp from foreign countries that continue killing

turtles. Once again, after years of being sued for foot dragging the US

finally started banning shrimp from over 40 countries. Within months, four

shrimp-fishing nations, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan, issued a

WTO challenge against the US- " You can't do that; it's a restriction on

imports. "

 

Aware of the danger that an adverse ruling by the WTO would pose to the

world's endangered sea turtles, more than 200 scientists from 25 countries

signed a petitioned demanding that the WTO panel " not interfere in anyway

with the right of countries to... protect endangered species. " On the other

side of the fence were corporate lackeys like Teresa Platt. Before she was

executive director of the fur commission, she was head of the fisherman's

coalition. She called the sea turtle protection law eco-extortion,

racketeering. The panel sided with Teresa and ruled that indeed the turtle

protection law was an unfair trade barrier. They said the US law was guilty

of " arbitrary... [and] unjustifiable discrimination. " But what about that

conserving exhaustible resources exception-if it's not going to apply to a

restriction designed to save an endangered species from extinction, then

what's it going to apply to? Nope, denied. Why?

 

Using probably the most subjective provision in all it's 30,000 pages, the

WTO gave itself the power to rule against any law that " undermine the

WTO. " How could one little sea turtle law threaten the WTO? The panel

explained: " We are of the view that a type of measure adopted by a Member

which, on its own, may appear to have a relatively minor impact... may

nonetheless raise a serious threat to that system if similar measures are

adopted by the same or other Members.... we must determine not only whether

the measure on its own undermines the WTO... but also whether such type of

measure, if it were to be adopted by other Members, would threaten the

security and predictability of the multilateral trading system " . In other

words, if we let this through maybe other countries will start protecting

endangered species and then where the hell would we be?! Maybe we'd be with

some sea turles left. Oh well.

What about whales? In 1993 Norway resumed commercial whaling in violation

of a global ban. The US threatened to impose an embargo on Norwegian

products. Norway in turn threatened the US with GATT. The US backed down.

The whales lost.

In 1996, the US threatened trade sanctions if Canada didn't stop its

bowhead whale hunt. Canada said, " Oh, yeah, tough guy? Oh WTOo " Clinton

backed down; no sanctions. Whales lost again.

You thought purse-seine nets were bad? How about driftnets? Each net can be

up to 10 miles long; Greenpeace dubbed them " walls of death. " Reporting

that the majority of the world's major fishing grounds had been devastated

by over-fishing, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for a

global moratorium on all high-seas driftnet fishing. The US said " OK " and

passed the 1992 driftnet act, which prohibited the import of fish from

countries that continued to illegally driftnet.

As a result, several countries like Taiwan and China stopped using

driftnets. One country, however, did not. Italy refused to withdraw its 600

driftnet vessels from the world's oceans. OK, but the wording of the US law

was clear-if Italy didn't halt driftnetting, trade sanctions would be

imposed. But the Clinton administration refused, so the Humane Society sued

them and won. By this time, though, the WTO was in effect and the US

continued and continues to import fish from Italy which continues to

driftnet the oceans dry.

OK, so between the fish, whales, dolphins and turtles, sea life certainly's

been screwed, but what about other animals? One of the key victories for

the animals in the 1990's was a European ban on the importation of pelts

from any country that still used the barbaric and indiscriminate steeljaw

leghold trap. Where do they get a lot of their pelts from? North America.

Who still uses the leghold trap? North America. So the US and Canada claim

they'd lose $33 million dollars a year if Europe barred their pelts, so did

they decide to ban the evil trap? No, they threatened to go to the

WTO. Again, all they had to do was threaten. Long story short after years

of delay, Europe capitulated to the US, Canada and Russia and to this day

we continue to export out steel-jaw trapped animals to Europe. So much for

that victory.

But the most amazing win for animals in the 90's was Europe's promise to

ban the sale of all cosmetics tested on animals. Surely this would have

meant the virtual end to cosmetics testing worldwide; companies wouldn't

want to lose the European market. The ban was to go into effect January

1st, 1998. It never happened. Knowing that it would never survive a WTO

challenge, Europe is probably just going to settle for a ban on cosmetic

testing within their borders. So cosmetics companies will just do their

animal testing outside Europe and import them in. The victory of the decade

abandoned.

There is actually one example of countries refusing to change a law

declared illegal by the WTO. For more than thirty years U.S. farmers have

used both natural and artificial hormones to increase the growth rates of

livestock. The USDA doesn't like to call them growth hormones, they call

them " meat quality enhancers, " which they note is a " more consumer friendly

term. " According to the USDA, the hormones can eliminate as many as 21 days

of feeding time-saves lots of money. But Europe in the eighties had just

gotten over this thing where little babies started growing breasts after

eating baby food made from veal calves pumped with the hormone DES and then

there were all these cancers and genital deformities and so they passed a

law stopping the use of hormones and they told the US sorry, we're not

importing any more of your hormone laden beef. The US said, oh yes you are

and Europe said oh no we're not and so the US went to the GATT council and

said " Europe's not playin' fair; they're not importing any of our beef,

make 'em stop, make 'em stop. " The GATT agreed that the public health law

was an unfair trade barrier and Europe said " You're not my mommy you can't

tell me what to do " And true, it was 1985 and the GATT had no enforcement

powers. But a decade later the WTO rolled into town and said " Now who's

your daddy? "

Major beef exporters such as Argentina. Australia, New Zealand, Brazil all

agreed to ship hormone free meat to Europe, but America wasn't going to be

stopped. Not only would the profits of the beef industry suffer (and we

know how much the beef industry doesn't like to see things suffer), the

profits of the hormone manufacturers, Monsanto, Eli Lilly, Upjohn would

take a hit. And as powerful as the beef lobby is, you do not f*ck with the

pharmaceutical industry. The US (and Canada) took the European Union before

the WTO. And of course, Europe lost. Europe was making an " arbitrary and

unjustifiable distinction between meat treated with hormones and meat not

treated with hormones. "

Europe said " Bullsh*t, tumors and genital abnormalities are not arbitrary

nor unjustifiable. " And in response the US and Canada levelled a very

interesting charge. The USDA accused Europe of having the ban not to

protect human health, but to protect animal welfare. In a press release

the USDA puzzlingly noted that " [animal well-being] is taken seriously by

the European ministers of agriculture... the public seem to be opposed to

any form of industrialized stock-raising. " And indeed Europe argued that

there were animal welfare grounds to maintain the ban. And the WTO said

" Umm, animal welfare? We don't see anything in our exemptions about animal

welfare. " And the European Union said, what about the clause protecting

" animal life or health. " Oh that, " the WTO said, " well we've decided to

interpret that to apply strictly to preventing the spread of animal

diseases that affect humans. "

So the WTO demanded Europe drop the ban or face stiff penalties. And Europe

decided to maintain the ban and stomach the financial consequences, which

it has for years now. See, Europe is rich enough to stand it's ground. But

imagine what this would do to a Third World country. They'd be crushed into

bankruptcy. This is just one way of how the WTO rules favor the largest,

richest, most powerful nations. For example, as a public health measure

Thailand tried to ban the importation of American cigarettes. US said, yeah

right and had the WTO just squash them.

While the WTO has already had a tremenduos negative impact on animal

protection, the worst may be yet to come. The USDA was right about Europe.

Not only did they try to ban leghold traps and cosmetics testing, in1999

all of Europe adopted a ban of battery cages for egg-laying hens. As of

2012, hens will go from having 450 square cm (this is the size they spend

their entire life in) to... wait for it, wait for it. Yes, 750 cm! Oh

yeah, baby by 2012. Party in the hen house! OK, so it's not a great law,

but there are other stipulations in terms of ventilation and other welfare

features. But it doesn't matter. The law states that it must undergo a WTO

review in 2005 before continuing the phase-out. If we still have a WTO in

2005, the hens are going to be back to this.

To talk about the MAI or the FTAA, we must first talk about NAFTA, the

North American Free Trade Agreement. From the point of view of

trans-national corporations, the WTO was good, but NAFTA was going to be

better. Passed in 1994 over strenuous popular opposition, NAFTA allowed

corporations for the first time to sue governments directly if governments

did anything that interfered with their profits under so-called Chapter 11

provisions.

For example, there's this gasoline additive called MMT. Considered to be

neurotoxic, Canada banned it in 1997. The makers of MMT, the US based Ethyl

corporation, said " Hey you can't do that, we'll lose money if you ban it. "

So under NAFTA the corporation threatened to sue the Canadian government

for the gall to pass a public health law like that. They argued that

Canada's ban constituted an unfair " taking " of Ethyl's property - that

property beings the profits Ethyl expected to earn from the sale of MMT in

Canada. Ethyl also claimed the ban damaged their reputation, another thing

corporations could sue for under NAFTA. What did Canada do?: Did they say,

" What? You slimy little corporation, you should be paying us for all the

poison you've been selling us over the years! " No. They repealed the ban.

Paid Ethyl Corp $10 million for the profits they lost while the ban was in

effect and they declared MMT safe-one moment the Prime Minister is calling

MMT a " dangerous neurotoxin " the next- " safe. "

That's what happenes when corporations come into power.These cases go on

and on, in one case Canada got fined 50 million for trying to not pollute

the world with PCBs, one US company wants $65 million from Mexico, because

Mexico didn't let the company build a toxic waste dump on top of an aquifer

which provided the region's water supply. The bottom line is that that

governments are gonna think twice before enacting any more environmental or

public health laws.

And that's one of the scariest things about these so-called free trade

agreements, the chilling effect they have on future legislation. Countries

are now required by the WTO to take into account whether or not any new

proposed law will conform with the WTO. Check out the irony; remember back

in the beginning where the US was accused of eco-imperialism, trying to get

other country's to change their laws to save dolphins? See when you're

trying to save dolphins or the environment, that's against the rules,

that's eco-imperialism, but when corporations change other nations' laws to

destroy the environment, poison people that's OK. That's free trade. Are

you getting a sense of what kind of game this all is? It's the countries

with the lowest standard that forces everyone else to change. So there's

this race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator.

There's a strong movement, for example, in Europe to prohibit sow gestation

crates. The European Commission's Scientific Veterinary Committee even came

out in favor of the ban. It's not going to happen because of the WTO.

Activists want Europe to ban live animal exports; it's not going to happen

because of the WTO. This last Tuesday was an international day of protest

against Canadian seal hunts. Thinking about trying to get the seal

slaughter stopped by perhaps banning the cruel trade of baby seal penis's

(which are sold to Asia as aphrodesiacs). Too bad; it's not going to happen

because of the WTO.

Has there been any protest? Any resistance to this? Well, under NAFTA,

Mexico was required to change the land reform provisions of its

constitution to allow U.S. and Canadian investors to buy up large tracts of

land which threatened a massive dislocation of peasant farmers. So a little

after midnight New Year's day 1994, the day NAFTA came into effect, two

thousand indigenous peoples from several groups came out from the mountains

and forests of Chiapas, the Southern-most state of Mexico. Masked, armed

and calling themselves Zapatistas, their battle cry was " Ya Basta " " Enough

is Enough " .

In 1996, the Zapatistas, with trepidation as they thought no one might

come, put out a call for a gathering of international activists and

intellectuals to meet in Chiapas and discuss common tactics, problems,

solutions. 6000 people showed up. It marked the beginning of a global

grassroots resistance movement against corporate power. Demonstrations

against the WTO erupted across the globe. 200,000 Indian farmers, 50,000

Brazilian workers, etc etc.

We Americans are usually a bit slow on the uptake, but by November 1999,

the WTO became a household word as 50.000 protesters greeted WTO delegates

in Seattle, Washington. Animal rights groups reportedly played a " major

role " in the Seattle demonstration. 200 marched in sea turtle costume,

which became the worldwide symbol of opposition to the WTO. Earth Island

Institute brought a 22-foot-long inflated blue dolphin. Greenpeace handed

out condoms to journalists with the message " practice safe trade. " PeTA was

there, the Animal Welfare Institute , the Humane Society, the National

Wildlife Federation, the World Wildlife Fund. The Rainforest Action Network

dropped a banner from a giant downtown construction crane, resulting in six

arrests. Friends of the Earth hung banners like " The WTO is a global no

protest zone, " " Defend our forests; clearcut the WTO, " and " WTO: Keep Your

Paws off Animal Protection Laws! " As the Sierra Club put it, " The WTO is a

government of, by and for the corporations. "

Transnational corporations. Of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are

Transnational Corporations and 49 are nations. Corporations all over the

world looked at NAFTA and started drooling. Chapter 11, the right to sue

governments for lost profits. Auuauauauu... The problem was that it was

just that, a North American agreement. So the OECD, the Organization for

Economic Cooperation, a rich men's club of the 29 richest and most powerful

nations got together and drafted up the MAI, the Multilateral Agreement on

Investments. NAFTA on steroids. Not only would the MAI spread NAFTA

principles around the world, but it included all sorts of scary new

provisions. For example, not only would governments have to stop any new

legislation that was at odds with the MAI, governments would be expected to

go through all their old federal, state and local laws and eliminate

anything already on the books that didn't conform. The director general of

the WTO actually described the MAI rather honestly: " We are writing the

constitution for a single global economy. "

Under the WTO only states could sue; under NAFTA, corporations could sue

too. Under the MAI, even individual foreign investors could challenge any

law that prevented them from " effective enjoyment " of their investments. I

love that clause. It also gives investors the " right " to " protection from

strife. " Protection from " civil disturbances. " And, in contrast to all

existing treaties, once governments entered into the MAI, they couldn't

back out for 20 years-they'd be locked in.

It gets worse. Corporations realized that sure, you could make a lot of

money selling goods, but you could make even more selling services. For

example you can make a lot of money selling Pepsi, but think how much money

you could make selling water, by taking over the water supply of a country.

The world spends about a trillion dollars on water every year, 2 trillion

on education, 3 trillion on healthcare. Now we're talkin'! " Services " is

the fastest growing sector in international trade and MAI " service

provisions, " for the first time would open up public services at all levels

of government for competition from for-profit corporations anywhere around

the globe. So if Massachusetts decides to sell off our water utility,

bidders worldwide must be given the same access as local providers. Ready

to call Indonesia when your water is cut off? How about privatizing your

local public elementary school to some Algerian investor? Oh yeah.

This truly is science fiction come true. A quote from the vice Pres of the

World Bank: " The wars of the 21st century will be about water. " Blue gold.

We are evidently rapidly running out of fresh water sources. The World Bank

actually sat down and debated whether or not water is a human right, or a

just human need. This was not just semantics, if they ruled it was just a

human need, then it could be sold off to corporations, whereas if it's

classified as a human right, it's harder to profit from it. So they

debated. She has a right to water? She just wants water. She has a right to

water? She just wants water. She has a right to water? She just wants

water. They ruled that water was not a human right. And so as a test case

they demanded that the government in Bolivia sell off it's public water

system to the private sector.

So Bechtel Corp, a huge transnational bought it and before they even hung

up their shingle, they doubled water prices, what the hell. Which meant

water in the country then costed more than food, water bills started

accounting for half the monthly budgets of the Bolivian poor. All the

sudden community wells required permits to access them. Ready for this?

Peasants and small farmers had to buy permits to gather rainwater on their

property. Hey, no unfair competition from the skies. Then the world bank

demanded Bolivia sell their public transportation system, their education

system...

F*ck that s*it said the people who took to the streets. General

strike.-everybody stopped working. The government declared martial law,

sent in the army. Closed down the TV, radio stations. So the protesters got

on a computer and sent emails to everyone they could think of. This

international distress call spread over the internet like wildfire.

Activists from all over the world all over flooded the Bechtel corporation

with emails, protested at corporate offices, brought them out of the

shadows and (are you ready for this?) kicked their ass out of

Bolivia. WhooHoo!

We'll show them, mumbled the corporations, as they set out to get the MAI

adopted. The problem was, how're they going to get countries to sign up?

Well, how did corporations ram the WTO through Congress? They kept the

whole thing a big secret and convened a post-election what-they-call

" lame-duck " session of Congress, where many Members voting in favor of the

WTO had been defeated in recent elections or were retiring, and hence were

unaccountable to voters. This kind of perversion of democracy happened in

country after country. Corporations didn't know if they could pull it off a

second time, so they lobbied for " Fast Track " legislation which gives the

President unparalleled executive power to negotiate trade agreements

without congressional oversight and public awareness. Instead, the

legislation would establish an advisory committee for the president

composed of 500 corporate executives.

Despite the entire US power structure-including the media-being in favor of

Fast Track, the public continued to oppose the legislation thinking that

somehow they ought to know what is happening to them and have a voice in

what's going on. And because of that, Fast Track bit the dust.

So all the corporations now had was secrecy. That's how the WTO got

through; that's how NAFTA got through. How can anyone be against the MAI if

they don't even know what it says? Congress demanded a copy of the MAI

draft text.The administration denied that such a draft existed. Boy were

they embarrassed when it was leaked to the world. Activists got it and

posted it to the internet. Once the people of the world saw this thing,

once its protective veil of secrecy was lifted, it was dead in the water.

MAI RIP 1998. Rest in Peace. We won! One of the greatest triumphs of 20th

century democracy, the killing of the MAI. But like any good vampire,

although it couldn't survive once we shed a little sunlight on it, it has a

tendency to rise from the dead. Enter the FTAA

The WTO was worse than GATT. NAFTA had provisions that were worse than the

WTO and the MAI was trying to be NAFTA of the world. That didn't work, so

corporations decided, for the moment, that they'd have to settle for half

the world. The proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas would extend NAFTA

from the Northernmost tip of Greenland to the southernmost tip of Chile.

April '98, trade representatives and the corporate world met in Santiago,

broke up into working groups and agreed to churn out a proposed draft for

the FTAA for their next meeting, to be held April 2001-five weeks from

Saturday (ironically on Earth Day)-in Quebec City , a 6 hour drive north.

See where this is going?

Like all the others, the FTAA is being drafted in secret. What we do know

comes out of some documents the Canadian government released, testimony

from trade officials, a few little leaks here and there. We do know that it

contains the same MAI " service provisions, " regarding water privatization,

etc.; we do know that it's being modeled after NAFTA.

Well, NAFTA's been around 6 years now, how's it going? Well, great for US

investors and Mexican elites, the rest of the Mexican population, hoewver

sank into impoverished misery. Two million Mexicans lost their jobs, half a

million US workers lost their jobs, environment's going to hell, etc.

For our discussion here, though, there actually was a NAFTA case regarding

puppy mills. The Animal Protection Institute and some other groups tried to

stop the exportation of puppies from US puppy mills into Canada. Though the

puppy mills are not such big players, financially speaking, the US

government refused to implement the ban because in principle, they said, it

violated NAFTA. See, now no one even has to threaten, the WTO kills the law

before it's even written.

One shouldn't point out a problem without offering a solution. So what have

the demands been of the animal protection groups that have been working on

this? HSUS, the Humane Society of the United States, wants two words.

Remember in article 20 there were these exceptions: human/animal health,

conservation. Well they are lobbying to add the words " animal welfare " into

that section.

First of all, as we've seen over and over, it's a scam; it doesn't matter

what the words say, because look who the final judges are. Those three

trade bureaucrats don't care about animals, they care about trade; they

don't care about the letter of the law they care about the spirit of the

thing which is profits at all costs. The environment is always going to

take the back burner to the economy and animals aren't even on the stove.

The WTO was asked why they don't allow NGOS, nongovernmental organizations,

like consumer groups, animal rights groups, to even offer their input to

the WTO and a WTO official was quoted in the Financial Times as saying " The

WTO is the place where governments collude in private against their

domestic pressure groups. Allowing NGOs in could open the doors to . . .

all kinds of lobbyists opposed to free trade. " Uh, isn't that the point?

But listen to that " The WTO is the place where governments collude in

private against their domestic pressure groups... " meaning their

populations, you know democracy.

Many groups have duibbed these free trade agreements as corporate rights

agreements and talk about struggling with the need to balance the rights of

corporations with the rights to people, animals, etc. Noam Chomsky,

linguist, activist, coolest guy in the universe, calls corporations

unaccountable private tyrannies. He' says " To speak of granting rights to

the king, or the dictator, or the slaveowner, is to give away too much

ground. " He asks " Why should [corporations] have any rights at all? "

The second problem I see with the Humane Society's reformist approach is

how it looks to other social justice movements. Teamsters and turtles

together at last was one of the beauties of Seattle. So, does the Humane

Society use this a bridging issue, to build solidarity , to build

coalitions? No, we just care about our own little pet issue (no pun

intended). We just want the words " animal welfare " implanted, then you can

do whatever you want with your little WTO thing, we're fine.

I think the future of the animal liberation movement depends on our ability

to unite with other social justice movements. And corporate globalization

is the issue we've been waiting for all our lives. Environmentalists and

human rights advocates are our natural allies. This issue affects us all.

Instead of just each working against one instance of oppression we can all

work together against the entire framework of exploitation. It could allow

us to focus on common goals, to educate each other. The way the system wins

is by splintering us, exaggerating our differences. Organizing is just a

fancy word for building relationships. Let's do it!

The animal rights group Compassion over Killingdescribed their experience

at the DC World Bank protest last April. " The collective efforts of

activists from so many social justice movements was nothing short of

beautiful. And the support animal rights activists received was wholly

empowering. Marching from blockade to blockade, under a huge banner

reading: " Animal Rights Activists Say NO to Globalization, " we were met

with cheers and support. Many voices joined ours as we chanted, " World

Bank, IMF-Human Suffering! Animal Death! " For many, it was clear that A16

was the first time they recognized the interconnectedness of all of our

efforts to fight for the liberation of all. "

Contrast that with the position that PeTA took-the People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals. Quoting from a PeTA press release " This week in

Washington, D.C., the World Bank... will come under attack from a coalition

of animal protection, social justice, and environmental organizations. Most

outraged [ though] will be animal rights groups... " Oh really. You can

imagine how this might push other groups away. Unfortunately, animal rights

groups in general have a history of alienating other movements.

Groups like the Fund for Animals and Farm Sanctuary would have us send

campaign contributions to arch-conservative republicans like Senator Rob

Smith because of how he votes on our narrow issue. No wonder the gay

rights movement doesn't embrace us. At last year's Vegetarian Summerfest

Karen Davis, head of United Poultry Concerns, gave a talk called " Can

Compassion go too Far? Not all Social Justice Issues are Compatible. "

Quoting from her position paper " In particular, we are concerned that

animal advocates would support making it more comfortable for people to

work for the poultry industry. " I asked her what she meant by more

comfortable. She is opposed to campaigns which attempt to improve worker

safety in processing plants. As long as people are treated as commodities,

animals will be treated as commodities. It's like when I hear

anti-vivisection activists saying we should experiment instead on

prisoners. No wonder the human rights movement doesn't embrace us.

Meanwhile PeTA's running joint campaigns with Playboy, PeTA had an ad with

a half-naked woman on her knees with a chain around her neck with the

caption " Even the wildest animal doesn't belong in chains. " No wonder the

feminist movement doesn't embrace us. As long as we objectify women we will

objectify animals. As long as we treat women like meat we will treat meat

like meat. I am not saying that animal rights activists should drop what

they're doing and take up other political concerns, we just need to

recognize the ideological connections we have and stop engaging in acts

that needlessly alienate other progressives.

But of course it goes both ways. Speaking generally, progressives will

boycott table grapes but not meat. To quote from Animal Liberation " When

non-vegetarians say that 'human problems come first,' I cannot help

wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that

compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of

farm animals. " As King wrote in his " Letter from a Birmingham Jail "

" Privileged groups seldom give up their privilege voluntarily. " Reminds me

of 60's activists who refused to confront their own sexism, because hey,

they were anti-war, we got enough to worry about.

Again I'm not asking them to take up the case. I personally just find that

animal rights issues are often not taken seriously by progressives. You

know I'll be sitting down with my social justice buddies and they'll order

meat. Would they sit down with their feminist friends and like whip out a

Hustler? I don't think so. You don't just want a little bite, don't just

want to look at a few pictures. You can eat around the-you can just read

around the pornography. As Henry Salt put it in 1894, it's just the day to

day problem of how to live among savages. But, they probably think the

same way about us buying our little nonleather shoes at sweatshop centrals

like PayLess.

All right enough of a rant, what concrete practical things can we do to

join the resistance and prevent the FTAA from ever becoming a reality?

First, educate yourself and everyone you know. There are teach-ins

happening literally every week. You can bring one to your school or group.

How do you find out what's happening locally in terms of meetings,

teach-ins, etc? Well, if you have access to email you can sign up on the

local listserve at bgan-ftaa.

One of the most exciting campaigns is the so-called Liberate the Text

campaign. Remember, their Achilles heal is the secrecy. The FTAA cannot

survive in the sunlight. That's how we killed the MAI. There is, as we

speak, a draft of the text of the FTAA. 500 corporate representatives have

security clearance and access to the text. But the 34 " democracies " now

negotiating it refuse to release the text.

S o what are we going to do? Another protest like Seattle? Sure, but so

many of our responses have been on their terms. They name the time, they

name the place. We always seem to just be reacting to their moves. But the

group in Canada that helped defeat the MAI, decided for once to take a

proactive stance, on our own terms. Well, here are our terms: By March

20th, 2001. Five damn days from now, the Canadian Foreign Ministry will

release not one copy, but 21,500 copies of the draft text, or we're going

to come and get it. If that demand isn't met, on April 2, activists are

going to Ottawa to the Trade and Finance building,where they have the draft

hidden away, and we're going to go in and get it. Kind of a search and

seizure mission. Illegal. Oh, yeah-a very interesting civil disobedience

move. If you want to keep tabs on that, or better yet, join them, they're

at http://www.alternatives-aaction.org/salami.

Other groups organizing protests against the FTAA include OQP at

http://www.oqp2001.org. OQP is a coalition of 25 groups, but they exclude

some of the more radical elements. If that's what you're looking for you

can check out http://www.quebec2001.net which is the site of Le CLAC, the

more radical anarchist contingent.

Regardless whether the text is actually liberated, people are coming from

all over the hemisphere to protest at the FTAA meeting in Quebec City April

20-22-that's a weekend. George W. Bush is going to be there-inside of

course-his first major foreign policy move. If you want to be there and

need info about housing, border crossing, direct action, calendar of

events, weather, whatever, there's a Field Guide at

http://riseup.net/democracyinmotion/.

For those of you averse to travel there will be local solidarity actions

here in Boston. The protest is going to be so fricken huge, that in the

subsequent weeks we can capitalize on the publicity by getting people to

workshops, lectures, educating like crazy.

Last thing, in Quebec there's going to be a People's Summit, where they are

hammering out kind of the people's alternative to the FTAA in a document

called the People's Hemispheric Agreement. You can read the draft at

http://www.web.net/comfront/alts4americas/eng/eng.html. There is not a

single word, however, about animals. Maybe some of us should go to the

People's Summit and change that. They are taking registrations now.

--------

HEART FAILURE

Diary of a Third Year Medical Student

Full text now available free at http://upalumni.org/medschool

Michael Greger, MD

185 South Street #6

(617) 524-8064

Jamaica Plain, MA 02130