Reply #20: Under NAFTA and the WTO, governments give up their sovereignty ...

[rhite5]

That applies to strong nations as well as weak nations. Their legislatures and even their presidents cannot decide or modify trade policies. All such decisions are made by the corporations.

We have seen the results in most of the countries of the southern hemisphere where corporations are raping countries of their natural resources. (Timber, Oil, Minerals). Indigenous people have been dislocated. Farmers' productive farmlands have been taken over by multi-national corporations and the farm families have been forced to move to cities where they find work at miserable wages if they are lucky (working for some other multi-national corporation making cheap goods to sell in North America and Europe).

Some countries have even been forced to give up their natural resources to pay exhorbitant interest on their debts to the WTO. Some corporations have even taken over the water systems within some countries and then sell the water to consumers there.

But the key thing about it is the lack of sovereignty for all the nations involved. Even if the U.S. had an honest, responsible Congress or an honest, responsible President, nothing could be done about it. The corporate multi-nationals are beyond their reach.

So-called "Free Trade" is the biggest crime ever pulled on the population of the world. And the sad thing is, both Republicans and Democrats in our country went for it.

Most of the U.S. public does not have a clue, I am sorry to say.

Understanding this, makes you realize how significant the recent success of Chavez in Venezuela was.