Victory in Argentina!

Unlike the government here, governments in Latin America understand that street protests are capable of leading to regime change, so they sensibly took no action severe enough to provoke greater violence.

As a result, the free peoples of Latin America were able to dominate the streets in Argentina. This was but a sample of what awaits any government south of the Rio Grande stupid enough to ratify AFTA, CAFTA, the FTAA, or any other such deal.

While Chavez's call to formally "bury" and finish off the FTAA didn't gain traction, the refusal of the nations of the south to even discuss the FTAA itself has nearly the same effect with less of a formal rebuke to the United States. The FTAA may not yet be buried, but is sure stinks of something that is dead and needs to be buried promptly before it starts spreading disease.

Protestors in Argentina, like those before in Miami and Quebec, have just about dug the grave of the FTAA, even if political leaders still lack the courage to finish driving the stake into the FTAA's heart,close the lid, put the coffin in the grave and cover it over.

How is this relevent to events in US cities? I will use WSQT's home town of Washington DC as an example. We have a mayor who essentially uses the same economic model as trhe IMF and World Bank. I'm sure this model is also common in many other US cities where the government intentionally encourages gentrification and wages war on the poor and on the homeless.

The Washington "Neo-Nationals"baseball stadium, closing Randall Shelter(a homeless shelter shut down last year) and selling it to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, ,massive displacement of the poor to make way for the rich(such as the razing of the Arthur Capper housing project and plans to kll the Sursum Corda housing project as well), and the general restructuring("structurally adjusting!") of the economy to suit big business are the heart of the Mayor's agenda here, and almost identical economics are being pushed abroad by the US Trade Representative's office, the WTO, and the IMF and World Bank.

In fact, if DC was south of the Rio Grande, the World Bank would probably be providing the loans for the Neo-Nationals stadium and the Hope VI projects.

If we wish to stop this kind of economics in DC, we need to stand up to it the way people in Latin America are fighting back to expel the US/WTO economic model!