Time for another Protest against WTO(annual) this coming September...If you can't make it to Mexico,let's have great "Battle in Phoenix" Protest!

Call to Action! Sept. 13 Day of Protest

Dear Friends:

As you may know, The World Trade Organization (WTO) will be holding its 5th Ministerial meeting this September in Cancún, Mexico.

In response, Global Exchange, along with hundreds of other organizations throughout the world, is urging communities to organize local actions timed to influence the last day of the WTO negotiations, September 13th. Please consider organizing a local/global action on this day, "The World Says No to the WTO: Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War".

Mobilizing on this day will allow us to connect local economic issues to global trade negotiations, and organize against the twin evils of privatization and militarization. It will provide a valuable opportunity for recruiting interest for participation in the upcoming FTAA Ministerial in Miami this November.

If you have any questions about this call to action--or want ideas on how to organize an event in your community--please contact Deborah James at deborahglobalexchange.org. We look forward to working together for local and global justice!

In this email you will also find a shockingly honest Editorial from last Sunday's New York Times about the effects of the WTO on farmers in the Philippines, pasted below the Call to Action.

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The World Says No to the WTO September 13
Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War

Kicking off a Fall Campaign of Action for Peace and Justice

From September 10 to 14, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its Fifth Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Pushed by multinational corporations, the United States, the European Union, and other developed countries are seeking to launch a new round of "free trade" negotiations and expand corporate globalization - further eroding human rights, workers' rights, environmental protections, and democracy - in the interest of corporate control.

Popular movements in Mexico and their international allies will mark these meetings with massive demonstrations to demand a world that puts democracy and human dignity ahead of corporate profits. Solidarity actions around the world will focus on September 13 as a Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War. We call on people throughout the United States to join this global uprising for peace and justice by organizing events in your community throughout the week leading up to the WTO Ministerial and on September 13. Resist the WTO and the failed model of corporate globalization, militarism and "free trade," through a wide variety of creative means: teach-ins, vigils, protests, direct action, street theater, festivals of resistance, cultural events, meetings with elected officials, public forums, and so on.

These September actions to derail the WTO will kick off a powerful autumn campaign of action for peace and justice, involving major mobilizations for immigrant rights, against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and against militarism and occupation.

Whose Trade Organization? The WTO is designed and managed for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of most of the world's population and the environment. The neoliberal agenda of "free trade," deregulation, privatization and special corporate protections enshrined in the WTO leads to greater poverty, inequity, gender inequality and indebtedness, while concentrating the world's wealth in the hands of a few. The corporate agenda implemented by the WTO pits worker against worker and nation against nation in a race to the bottom.

The last time the WTO met in North America, in late 1999, tens of thousands of people converged on Seattle to expose the real agenda behind "free trade": devastating the environment and eroding basic rights, protections, and services for the vast majority of the world's population. Four years after the historic showdown at the 3rd WTO Ministerial in Seattle, we live in a changed and even more dangerous world. Using the horrible terrorist attacks against the U.S. of 2001 as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration is on a reckless quest for empire, combining the global might of the United States military with the global reach of massive corporations. The Bush doctrine of preemptive strike and permanent warfare goes hand-in-hand with a program of economic domination through "free trade," and, not coincidentally, masks the woeful U.S. economic situation.

The "Watchtower State": Under the rules of the WTO and proposed agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the government role in regulating the market place to promote fair labor conditions, access to basic services, safe products and a clean environment are strictly constrained. WTO rules provide a "security exception" that protects and fosters weapons manufacture and the arms trade. Under agreements being negotiated now, virtually all other governmental services - including schools, health care, public transit, water supply and other public utilities - could be subject to corporate takeover. Basic worker and consumer rights and environmental protections could be jettisoned as "unfair barriers to trade." The vision of government enshrined in the WTO and the FTAA is a "watchtower state" - a fortress security state on a permanent war footing.

The Assault on Immigrant Rights: Corporate globalization has destroyed the lives and livelihood of millions of workers and farmers throughout the world. Many are forced to leave their homes, their land, and often their countries in search of increasingly scarce jobs. Yet trade agreements that protect the flow of money and goods across borders don't allow the free movement of people. Borders are militarized and immigrants are criminalized - even as millions of people are dislocated by "free trade."

More than nine million undocumented workers who live in the United States today lack basic legal protections and human rights, living in constant fear of round-ups, detentions, and deportation. The WTO and FTAA would create new injustices for immigrants by giving corporations the right to import people to work in industrialized countries like the United States, while maintaining the low wages and minimal worker protections of their home countries, creating a system of legalized sweatshops.

Another World Is Possible: We have before us a choice--the world of militarism and corporate globalization, or a world built on global solidarity, rooted in a foundation of democracy, dignity, sustainability, and cooperation. This fall we have an opportunity to bring our vision to life, through a series of actions and campaigns that will build toward a better world.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

September 9-12: Days of Global Action against the WTO. Use your creativity to organize non-violent actions in your community, including vigils, teach-ins, direct action, community meetings, meetings with elected officials, street theater, press conferences, concerts, etc. For more information on Cancun, contact http://www.cancuncommittee.org, the local Welcome to Cancun Coalition.

September 13: Day of Global Demonstrations against the Corporate Agenda and War. Join movements around the world and send a powerful message to trade negotiators at the WTO meetings in Cancun. Organize local demonstrations, festivals of resistance, and teach-ins. No Business As Usual! For an Action Pack on How to Organize Against the FTAA and WTO, including How-To Guides and info sheets you can copy and distribute, contact tradeglobalexchange.org.

FTAA Ballot initiative: Join the AFL-CIO, the Alliance for Responsible Trade, Jobs with Justice, Citizens Trade Campaign, Witness for Peace and hundreds of organizations to vote NO on the FTAA. Ballots are available at http://www.aflcio.org/stopftaa, http://www.citizenstrade.org and http://www.jwj.org.

Sept 20 - Oct 4: Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement, immigrant workers and allies will set out from eight major U.S. cities and cross the country in buses in late September 2003, converging on Washington, DC, to meet with members of Congress and then traveling to New York City for a mass rally on October 4, 2003. For more information on this important mobilization, check out http://www.iwfr.org.

October 25: March on the Pentagon. International march on the Pentagon will include delegations from around the world demonstrating that the World Unites Against US Militarism.

November 19-21: FTAA demonstrations in Miami. Demonstrations, teach-ins and alternative conferences, as trade ministers from 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere continue negotiations on the FTAA. Check out two important websites for local info: http://www.stopftaa.org and http://www.flfairtrade.org

November 22-23: Vigil and Direct Action at School of the Americas. Join thousands from across the Americas from November 22-23, 2003 at the gates of the U.S. military base Fort Benning in Georgia - home of the notorious School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), where the US trains the military muscle that enforces the corporate agenda throughout Latin America. Look up more about the School of the Americas Watch at http://www.soaw.org.