Yes, it's a scary time, because the Executive Branch is acting outside the powers given to them by the Constitution. The President cannot make treaties with other countries without the Senate's approval. Currently, these deals between the US, Canada and Mexico are being passed off as trade agreements, not treaties. But a dissolution of our borders is not a trade agreement.

Welcome to the sift, by the way.

In reply to this comment by Jordass:
Wasnt endorsing Globalization just wanted to know more. Thanks for all the information, it was very informative and more people should familiarize themseleves with the organizations you metioned

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Well, the reason for the US Dollar losing it's value is a separate issue, altogether, and we don't need a North American Union to increase its value. That aside, this debate really comes down to whether you'd prefer to remain a sovereign nation or not. The borders between Canada, the US and Mexico will effectively disappear if there's a NAU, because the NAU goes much further than just currency and trade. The purpose of our Declaration of Independence was to claim our Union of States' independence. The NAU will render that document obsolete, and shortly thereafter the Constitution would be obsolete, because it cannot exist without our DoI. This isn't something to shrug at, because the changes won't come hard and fast, and most likely the general population would never notice their liberties and freedoms being taken away.

If you'd prefer the notion of a one world government (the true end to the globilization means), then you should be for the NAU, because that is step number two. Step number one was the EU, and next will be the Asian Union, then the African Union. Eventually, all of the "Unions" will probably become a one world union. And, if you still think all the nations that used to be sovereign would retain their "current governments" or "identities", as you put it, then I don't know what else I can say to you other than support globalization because, boy oh boy, does it sound nifty.

Take a little time to research the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). While you're at it, research the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and see how many of the current candidates are part of the CFR. If, after all of that, you still don't see how globalization is a bad idea for our sovereign nation, then, well support globalization. Support a one world government. A one world police force. Oh, what a happier utopia this world will be.

Wasnt endorsing Globalization just wanted to know more. Thanks for all the information, it was very informative and more people should familiarize themseleves with the organizations you metioned

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Well, the reason for the US Dollar losing it's value is a separate issue, altogether, and we don't need a North American Union to increase its value. That aside, this debate really comes down to whether you'd prefer to remain a sovereign nation or not. The borders between Canada, the US and Mexico will effectively disappear if there's a NAU, because the NAU goes much further than just currency and trade. The purpose of our Declaration of Independence was to claim our Union of States' independence. The NAU will render that document obsolete, and shortly thereafter the Constitution would be obsolete, because it cannot exist without our DoI. This isn't something to shrug at, because the changes won't come hard and fast, and most likely the general population would never notice their liberties and freedoms being taken away.

If you'd prefer the notion of a one world government (the true end to the globilization means), then you should be for the NAU, because that is step number two. Step number one was the EU, and next will be the Asian Union, then the African Union. Eventually, all of the "Unions" will probably become a one world union. And, if you still think all the nations that used to be sovereign would retain their "current governments" or "identities", as you put it, then I don't know what else I can say to you other than support globalization because, boy oh boy, does it sound nifty.

Take a little time to research the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). While you're at it, research the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and see how many of the current candidates are part of the CFR. If, after all of that, you still don't see how globalization is a bad idea for our sovereign nation, then, well support globalization. Support a one world government. A one world police force. Oh, what a happier utopia this world will be.

Well, the reason for the US Dollar losing it's value is a separate issue, altogether, and we don't need a North American Union to increase its value. That aside, this debate really comes down to whether you'd prefer to remain a sovereign nation or not. The borders between Canada, the US and Mexico will effectively disappear if there's a NAU, because the NAU goes much further than just currency and trade. The purpose of our Declaration of Independence was to claim our Union of States' independence. The NAU will render that document obsolete, and shortly thereafter the Constitution would be obsolete, because it cannot exist without our DoI. This isn't something to shrug at, because the changes won't come hard and fast, and most likely the general population would never notice their liberties and freedoms being taken away.

If you'd prefer the notion of a one world government (the true end to the globilization means), then you should be for the NAU, because that is step number two. Step number one was the EU, and next will be the Asian Union, then the African Union. Eventually, all of the "Unions" will probably become a one world union. And, if you still think all the nations that used to be sovereign would retain their "current governments" or "identities", as you put it, then I don't know what else I can say to you other than support globalization because, boy oh boy, does it sound nifty.

Take a little time to research the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). While you're at it, research the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and see how many of the current candidates are part of the CFR. If, after all of that, you still don't see how globalization is a bad idea for our sovereign nation, then, well support globalization. Support a one world government. A one world police force. Oh, what a happier utopia this world will be.

OK, ok. He saw a UFO. One that he thought was piloted by aliens. UFO = spaceship and "you damn well know it." And no, it's really not a military term.

I didn't listen to it with any prejudice.
"So you'd meet person to person, back door of the state department?" "Are you kidding? This is about world peace." - Yes his answer was in context of the interviewer's question. That's what answers are supposed to be. But I think it would have sounded a lot less Miss America to say "Are you kidding? This is about bringing peace to warring regions." Much more attainable than a world where there is no murder, famine or crime.

And if he said "Screw world leaders!" I would have been incredibly disgusted.

[Edit] twiddles, we posted at the same time. I don't want him as president for several reasons: 1)He wants to prevent privatization of social security. I don't know about you, but I like to keep as much money as I can, so for me to pay out into that system knowing I'll never get it back ticks me off. 2)He wants to abolish the death penalty. (This will start another debate, I know) But this will save our prison systems hundreds of thousands of dollars and prevent homicidal maniacs from ever getting on the streets again. 3)He wants to legalize gay marriage (another debate) 4)he wants to legalize abortion.

That said, what I do like about him is that 1)He wants out of the NAFTA and WTO, 2)He wants to restore rural communities 3)His pursuit of clean energy, 4)He wants to repeal the Patriot act.

So it's not that only focus on the bad things. But Paul still has my vote.

written by Krupo in that thread. (unless you've got it bookmarked you wouldn't know the thread was updated )

Good in '71 Bad in '72. It's a short track record. I'm not saying he was perfect, but have you considered that external governments could also try and screw with Chile and their currency? I haven't done extensive research into it, but it *is* a threat these days - IMF/WTO spook the global markets (because money is all about perception rather than reality), and the country in question is SCREWED.

And although the regime was accused of various things, those are accusations rather than convictions. I'm sure Chile has an impeachment process like any other country. Why should you get the military involved immediately, if at all? There's a reason you have elections - to foster an orderly handover of power. I'm sure millions of Americans would be pleased if some F-16's attacked Dubya, but that's not the way you do things.

In an effort to add a bit more depth, I poked around a bit more. Turns out you need a 2/3 majority for the resolution you refer to to have legal force. So using the word "passed" is a bit misleading - that's a 63.3% margin, close, but not legally binding (source is WikiTalk, but I'll buy it unless someone has evidence to the contrary).

Do check out that Wiki-talk page, looks like there's some lively to and forth on the topic.





In reply to this comment by reason:
Why not address these facts?

On August 22, 1973 the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies passed, by 81 to 47 votes, a resolution entitled "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy", which called upon the military to "put an immediate end" to what they described as "breach[es of] the Constitution… with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence among Chileans."

The resolution declared that the Allende government was seeking "...to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system," and claimed that it had made "violations of the Constitution" into "a permanent system of conduct." Many of the charges came down to disregarding the separation of powers and arrogating the prerogatives of both the legislature and judiciary within the executive.

Among other particulars, the regime was accused of:

* ruling by decree, thus thwarting the normal system of adopting legislation
* refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its own partisans and "not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives"
* ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office
* various offenses related to the media, including usurping control of the National Television Network and "applying ... economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government..."
* allowing its supporters to assemble even when armed, while preventing legal assembly by its opponents
* "...supporting more than 1,500 illegal 'takings' of farms..."
* illegal repression of the El Teniente strike
* illegally limiting emigration

The resolution finally condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups which... are headed towards a confrontation with the Armed Forces." Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and police, which he could not trust in their current forms, were characterized as "notorious attempts to use the Armed and Police Forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks."


And as for the economic boom?

In 1972, the monetary policies of an increase in the amount of currency, which had been adopted by the Minister of Economics, Pedro Vuskovic, led to a devaluation of the escudo and to renewed inflation, which reached 140% in 1972.

Good in '71 Bad in '72. It's a short track record. I'm not saying he was perfect, but have you considered that external governments could also try and screw with Chile and their currency? I haven't done extensive research into it, but it *is* a threat these days - IMF/WTO spook the global markets (because money is all about perception rather than reality), and the country in question is SCREWED.

And although the regime was accused of various things, those are accusations rather than convictions. I'm sure Chile has an impeachment process like any other country. Why should you get the military involved immediately, if at all? There's a reason you have elections - to foster an orderly handover of power. I'm sure millions of Americans would be pleased if some F-16's attacked Dubya, but that's not the way you do things.

In an effort to add a bit more depth, I poked around a bit more. Turns out you need a 2/3 majority for the resolution you refer to to have legal force. So using the word "passed" is a bit misleading - that's a 63.3% margin, close, but not legally binding (source is WikiTalk, but I'll buy it unless someone has evidence to the contrary).

Do check out that Wiki-talk page, looks like there's some lively to and forth on the topic.

Well I hope so. They been throwing money at Africa for over 30 years, over a trillion dollars. You can't solve something without looking at root causes.

Hunger in Africa is prevalent because the agricultural markets are never allowed to develop because of mass food dumping and restrictive exporting rules from the 1st world. The WTO is a great website which shows just how many anti-dumping attacks the first world have carried out on the third world which only makes this worse. Nothing but protectionism and agricultural subsidization. 70% of Africa's economy is Agriculturally based, what do the EU and US expect them to develop? CPU factories overnight? What are they supposed to trade with?

Poor Africans cant do anything for themselves. I hate this attitude that is created because of this. Instead of bringing someone from Africa to break down WHY this keeps happening they grab a celebrity to talk for an entire CONTINENT.

Goofball,

You go ahead and try to protest on public property. You'll find that many of the rules are changed. If it is a meeting, say of WTO, G8, RNC, DNC, just about anything really, there will be offcial "Free Speech Zones". They have changed laws. It is now illegal to not show an ID or give your real name and address in many states. Wearing a mask laws have been revived (clan based laws) to prevent protestors from hiding their appearance from police videocams. Just about anywhere there is a large march, you'll find police waiting for you to step onto the road (assuming you don't have an official permit to close down a street). Signs not made of paper are illegal (like the wood stake that hold up your sign).

This is a college campus in the USofA. There are probably 2000 more protest videos showing that Free Speech isn't anymore.

The right to peaceful assembly is gone. I could cite thousands of examples, but the mere fact that you write like this and dismiss it is telling. You don't even realize what you are missing.

Mark Sidran was actually the Seattle City Attorney at the time of the WTO protests of 1999. If I remember correctly he was a mayoral candidate as well a few years back. He was definitely a 'forgetting' imbecile.

Dupe. Was discarded when this one was submitted....

http://www.videosift.com/video/James-Inman-On-the-Siege-of-Seattle-WTO-Protest-1999#116292

Protesting I agree with, peacefully showing disagreement with certain aspects of society. You will remember that Tiananmen Square also started out peacefully and it's only after the army moved in to quell opposition did a actual riot take place.

Rioting in the sense I am talking is when people attack private property, or wreck a McDonald's or a Starbucks or people's lively hood becuase of one issues or another. It makes you look irrational and instantly the other party will not listen to you, this is what is commonly seen at the G8, IMF, and WTO meetings. There are countless other groups that work from within to institute change.

I don't speak of this merely as such, but because I have seen peaceful rallys for education and Palestinian issues degrade to violent confrontations with police and subsequently riot police and a ton of damage was done to public buildings and businesses close by because there were elements of anarchists, people who wanted to stir trouble and general dicks. The issues we were out there for the day were lost, on the day we were reported as rioters who wrecked property and buildings...

So yeah... rioters = stupid.

These guys are full-blown. Who can sue for what kind of libel?? Like the dick uniform at the WTO, if everyone wanted the bullshit to end, we could en masse with similar actions, create an MLK-ish,non-voilent,non-linear arena for and end to a hobbled paradigm, controlled and orchestrated by folks that you probably would not want to know if you met them......cockroaches, who have friends at DOW

I would give credence to your statement had the proper market enviroment been given to Africa to allow it's economic development.

Currently that is not the case.

If you are interested go to World Trade Organization see how First World nation 'donors' abuse their anti-dumping laws against agricultural produce coming from the Third world. Or how how the EU wastes it's budget on the Common Agricultural Policy.

As I said earlier the large trade wall created by subsidization of agricultural products in the West snuffs out development of the agricultural markets of Africa. Where 70% of the population relies on agriculture. The subsidization in the west creates a false demand response on the behalf of it's farmers who try to produce more and more as the government will purchase their produce or subsidize them so they actually stop. This is what lead ultimately to the current chicks-in-iron baskets syndrome in the agricultural market in the West, too much is being produced, false demand signal, farmers think they can make more, so they invest in newer and newer technologies to grow chickens, plants and many many more things. This is where genetic engineering came from, as farmers wanted to maximize their output.

But line that subsidized market with a natural labor based agricultural market in the third world and it cannot compete on price. What the EU started doing, is actually buying the surplus output from the farmers, and then dumping it on the world market. This is how I ended up eating bananas grown in the EU in South Africa. The price fall created basically kills the import/export competitiveness of this primary sector of the economy. So what happens is that you have off shot investments in other fields, leading to micro transaction banks and alternative investments like the provision of infrastructure like cellular phones. This increases business activity. If you don't know that business activity is increased through better communication, look at your daily life compared to just a few years ago.

Time and time again I see the West take the same misguided steps in trying to alleviate poverty in the Africa. The only solution presented to people is send more money, buy this CD, go to this concert, wear this t-shirt, wear this bracelet.

Over the last 30 years the first world has transferred over a trillion dollars in aid, yet GDP levels are actually lower then levels at independence. Clearly this approach doesn't work.

Yet Bob Geldof and other world wide NGOs hold the same misguided idea that pumping more money would somehow solve everything. When in reality it's creating a larger problem, it's reaching a point where local entrepreneurship is dying out because people just expect NGOs to come solve everything. Of course eventually they do, give the population some complicated piece of machinery, that breaks 3 days later and no one knows how to fix, and the parts of course aren't available in Africa.

What about food aid? There is wasn't a more ironic name for it. Food Aid is usually dumped by donor nations to the country, of course it alleviates short term hunger problems. But the west dumps so much aid (because western agricultural industries are overproducing) that in the long term it destroys the local agricultural market. The local agricultural market goes into subsistence mode, producing only for itself, how do you compete with free dumped food? So what happens is that the nation is again set up for the same thing to happen, the market never recovers to provide for the population.

What the First world should do is open up borders between African nations so that food supply shocks are handled by the agricultural market within Africa. Aid packages even come with stipulations that WTO, IMF and other donors can set.

What Africa needs is directed foreign investment, skilled labor that can train the population, sustainable growth initiatives instead of hand outs. Once you raise the welfare of the people problems such as AIDs and other diseases would decreased as people get educated and increase their standard of living. You can't solve the problem if you don't attack it's roots.

Why not protest about the restrictive agricultural subsidies and tariff systems that the EU and US possess that destroy the import/export competitiveness of agricultural products from Africa? (Africa is mostly agriculturally based) Of course you won't your governments will warn you of dangerous lower food standards in the Third World, which is so ironic considering food borne diseases sprung up in the UK first with BSE.

Try this next time at Live 8 Aid, ask an NGO representative how they want to actually promote change, you will receive ambiguous answers that show no understanding of the situation on the ground... How I ever managed not to punch out my colleagues and their delusional views, I don't know... NGO people think they are just morally superior because they have a good humanitarian agenda, but don't realize that even good causes can be carried out poorly, like the Democrats.

"the lesser of two evils" argument kind of failed.. and most Repubs now realize they voted for the most evil of evils. Whatever your hypothetical worst case scenario.. America could never be worse off than what Bush has done. The economy. Your security (ask people from NOLA). Your liberty and freedoms (Patriot Act, Torture Bill, Habeaus Corpus, Posse Commitatus, the Marshall Law executive order). Foreign diplomacy. The state of the US military (taking prisoners, lowest admission standards, enlistment age up to 42 yrs now). Corporate welfare & cronyism (Energy policy, Enron, Oil company profits, Big Pharma, bankruptcy laws, NAFTA / CAFTA / WTO / outsourcing AND getting a write off for sending jobs overseas).