For more information about the issues behind the protests I suggest going to the Nation on-line. You will find quite a few articles covering different aspects of the "Free Trade" issue.

My 16 year old son has been reading and reporting on Orwell's "1984" lately, and I have been reintroduced to that amazing book. The one problem with Orwell's vision, was that it foresaw totalitarian states dictating the lives of the citizen-workers. What we are moving rapidly toward is corporate dictatorship; a world in which corporations are so large and pervasive that they are no longer responsible to any national authority. Where is the freedom for individuals when their laws and governments become irrelevant?

People like Mav have shouted "communism" for so long when they want to scare the children that they don't realize that the totalitarianism represented by Russia, Cuba and China is no longer the boogie man. That vision of hell is in retreat. But, change Orwell's language just a little, change Big Brother to Bill Gates, and you have a hell for the new millenium. And NAFTA and the FTAA just lay the groundwork. One hemisphere, united in our consumerism, spurred on by the profit motive, with eyes fixed securely on the bottom line.

Remember that one of the control mechanism's in Orwell's vision was the manipulation of language by the power elite to frame every discussion and control of every situation, regardless of the underlying reality. We're seeing it in our political discussions all the time. It's at the heart of the "Free Trade" question. There is nothing free being offered here, folks. There is just the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of those at the top of the pyramid and the degradation of the quality of life for the rest of us.