This is the second installment in a series of articles
looking at the forces behind the scenes propelling us toward globalization
through NAFTA, the FTAA and the WTO.
John
Sweeney — Thanks to the financial and moral support of AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney, the "anti-globalization" charade — frequently accompanied by riots
and destruction — has provided the spectacle needed for the appearance of
popular opposition. If the anti-FTAA/WTO demonstrations relied solely on the
radical Greens, with their peculiar (and often repellent) appearance and
extreme, anti-human proposals, they would alienate far more people than they
attracted. The labor unions provide some balance, with lots of normal-looking
"working guys." Union-chartered buses transport thousands of union activists to
marches and demonstrations; millions of dollars of union dues help fund the
AFL-CIO’s anti-FTAA/WTO campaign.
But it is not truly an anti-FTAA campaign. Sweeney (CFR) told activists at a
Miami rally on November 19, 2003 that they must "radically rewrite" the FTAA to
"protect workers from profit-hungry multinationals and repressive governments."
This fits with his other proposals to empower the UN’s International Labor
Organization to enforce a global labor code. It also dovetails with his support
for the Clinton and Bush amnesty proposals for illegal aliens, a very definite
blow to the U.S. citizens who make up most of his union member base and whose
jobs are being taken by a continuing deluge of foreign workers. Like most of the
phony opponents of the FTAA, Sweeney is comfortable in both the pro and con
camps. Some of his staunchest supporters in the union are Communist Party
loyalists and 1960s radicals from the Institute for Policy Studies, Democratic
Socialists of America and the American Friends Service Committee. But he is also
invited to elite gatherings of the World Economic Forum, David Rockefeller’s
Trilateral Commission and Council of the Americas, and Gorbachev’s State of the
World Forum.