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Myth The FTAA will enhance democracy and prosperity throughout the Americas.

Reality The agreement, being negotiated in secret by unelected trade ministers, will create an

unprecedented windfall for transnational corporations. Factories will spring up wherever the

lowest wages and weakest environmental protections exist. Workers' rights, the environment,

and standards of living all figure to be weakened under the agreement. Corporations will have

expanded powers to sue governments that pass any law that hinders trade.

"We reiterate our commitment to avoid to the greatest extent possible the adoption of policies or

measures that adversely affect trade and investment in the Hemisphere," declares one FTAA

resolution.

Myth The FTAA is just about business and therefore has little to do with our everyday

lives.

Reality The scope of the FTAA's power includes but is not limited to: individual privacy,

environmental issues, drug use, education, health care, the food we eat and grow, energy use and

distribution, intellectual property.

Myth "Governments in the Western Hemisphere have committed to transparency in the

negotiating process."

Reality While the FTAA has formed a Committee on Civil Society which will accept comments

from labor, environmental, and academic groups, that committee is under no obligation to

respond to or even to consider the submitted comments. Furthermore, hundreds of non-

governmental organizations have been stonewalled in their attempt to learn more about the

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details of the proposed trade agreement, which will affect 650 million people and $9 trillion in

capital. To date, Canada is the only country of the 34 involved to make public its official

negotiating texts. Even more disturbing, more than 500 corporate representatives have been

given access to negotiating documents, not to mention access to the negotiators themselves.

Myth The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a good thing, and the

FTAA will be even better.

Reality More than one million U.S. jobs have been lost due to corporations relocating to Mexico

since NAFTA went into effect six years ago. Some eight million Mexicans have fallen from the

middle class into poverty, and an explosion in industry-related illnesses and birth defects have

been reported along the U.S.-Mexico border. The malignant effects of NAFTA were anticipated

by the indigenous people of the Mexican state of Chiapasthe Zapatistaswho revolted the very day

it went into effect.

Myth Opponents of the FTAA are protectionists or isolationists who oppose trade.

Reality Most opponents of the FTAA support trade if resources are distributed equitably,

production stems from a healthy relationship with the environment, and workers control the

means of production. Unfortunately, the FTAA is just the latest gambit to further concentrate

wealth into the hands of a few through a process of systematic exploitation. Fortunately, just as

capitalism is now global, so is resistance to it.

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Myth What's the point of opposing the FTAA? Corporations can get away with whatever

they want.

Reality Though it's true that corporations exercise a terrifying amount of control over our lives,

resistance is far from futile. A genuine grassroots campaign in 1995 and 1997 led to the defeat of

Fast Track negotiating authority, which would have allowed President Clinton to broker

international trade deals without input from Congress. President Bush has said that if the new

Congress doesn't approve Fast Track, U.S. involvement in the FTAA will be hindered. (NY

Times article) In Chiapas, after seven years of low-intensity war, government troops have been

ordered to withdrawa clear victory for the poet-warrior Zapatistas. And closer to home,

thousands of militant, creative, non-violent protestors in Seattle succeeded in throwing the World

Trade Organizations' ministerial meeting off its tracks in Nov.-Dec. 1999. This helped spell

defeat for the dreaded Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI), which would have greatly

expanded corporate rights and powers while crippling the ability of local, state and federal

governments to pass laws protecting the environment and workers. The astounding victory in

Seattle awakened millions to the evils of global capitalism and proved that the people can win,

no matter the odds. The 2001 Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec will be our next big

chance to hammer another nail into the coffin of greed.