Rail/Trail Maybe
Right Of Way Study Okayed

At their Nov. 4 meeting, ACC Commissioners split over the practicality of eventually rebuilding old train trestles for a rail-trail, but voted $50,000 to determine exactly what right-of-way the county would need to purchase for such a project.

Citing "broad community support" for the project, Commissioner David Lynn said he didn't want to "close the door" on the possibility of a level rail-trail between the planned multi-modal transportation center on Foundry St. and Barnett Shoals Road (near Carmike Cinemas). Commissioners States McCarter and Harry Sims voted against the expenditure. McCarter chaired the county's first committee on converting the old railroad line into a walking and bicycling trail and said he regrets that it is too late for the county to purchase the old railroad line all the way to Winterville.

"We lost it," he said, since most of that right-of-way has already been sold. McCarter predicted that a shortened rail-trail won't attract "hordes of people." McCarter has advocated the rail-trail be built without reconstructing any of the trestles or railroad bridges that have already been dismantled. That would make it steeper, but cheaper.

Rebuilding the trestles could drive the cost to over $2 million, and no funding sources have yet been identified for such a project. Several citizens spoke in favor of a rail-trail both as a tourist attraction and for local transportation. Others criticized this and other projects as "elitism" that ignores people's real needs.

John Huie

John Huie attends a lot of meetings.

Park Will Happen
East Athens Has Waited Years

The East Athens Park, delayed for two years by a lawsuit over land acquisition, may start construction in December. The 114-acre park is presently an undeveloped, forested area inside the Loop 10 bypass between Peter Street and Trail Creek Street. Most of the park's $3.1 million budget ended up going to a single landowner who fought the county's offer price in court and was awarded an unexpectedly large value by a jury.

In September, Commissioners budgeted an additional $980,000 for the park, and construction bids may be approved this month. Plans will be shown (and suggestions taken) by ACC Leisure Services at a meeting at East Athens Community Center at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 17. Plans are for two lighted baseball fields and concession area, with a parking lot and a small lake. Eventually, tennis courts and a football/soccer field will be added, as well as nature trails.

County SPLOST manager Jeff Prine says it is a "beautiful piece of property" and that plans have been made with the trees and topography in mind. Trail Creek runs through the land. Initially the park's only entrance will be from Trail Creek Street; later a Peter Street entrance will be added.

The park will be the first for the historically black residential area of East Athens. It was approved in a 1994 SPLOST (sales tax) vote, but without a specific location. The new Southeast Clarke Community Park opposite Wal-Mart was approved at the same time, but is already finished. The East Athens park won't actually open to the public until Fall of 2005, according to Prine.

John Huie

John Huie can be reached at jhuie@athens.net.

Institute Index
Wal-Mart Woes

o Hourly wages paid to undocumented cleaning staff contracted by Wal-Mart: $2

o Net worth of the Walton family which owns Wal-Mart, in billions: $102

o Percent of Wal-Mart workers who can't afford company health insurance: 67

o Number of states in which Wal-Mart faces lawsuits for making employees work "off the clock": 38

o Number of states in which Wal-Mart has been charged with worker's rights violations: 25

o Number of states in which Wal-Mart is the largest employer: 25

Institute for Southern Studies, P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702. (919) 419-8311. www.southernstudies.org.

Resist Or Bust
'Fair Trade' Fight Coming

On the morning of November 21, 2003, trade ministers from 34 nations across the Western Hemisphere will awaken to the sounds of throngs of protesters outside their hotel in Miami, determined to derail their much-anticipated trade summit. These nations are engaged in negotiations to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to Central and South America. The new trade agreement is being called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and is expected to be implemented by 2005.

Critics in Miami - including at least a dozen from Athens - hope to draw enough attention to these negotiations to create a state of civil and congressional outrage and a collapse of the negotiations. The trade talks have been operating in almost complete secrecy, receiving input only from corporate interest groups such as the Americas Business Forum (ABF).

While these negotiations remain secret, the FTAA is expected to look very similar to NAFTA. In the years since NAFTA was implemented, "conditions not only have not improved, they have deteriorated in many areas," according to a five-year report card on NAFTA published by the widely-respected consumer watchdog group Public Citizen. The report concludes, "The only fair grade for NAFTA is a failing one."

The decimation of America's manufacturing sector, particularly in the Southeast and Midwest, can be attributed in large part to free trade agreements like NAFTA, which enable corporations to roam the world in search of the cheapest labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, over 525,000 American manufacturing workers have been laid off due to NAFTA - including over 500 here in the Athens area - as of December 2002. In Mexico's maquiladoras (sweatshops), which have grown quickly since NAFTA began, many corporations will not allow union organizing and often fire anyone who complains. The promise of weaker labor and environmental laws has lured U.S. corporations to relocate, taking away U.S. jobs and exploiting Mexican workers.

With the FTAA, workers in Mexico will be leveraged against even more desperate workers in Haiti, Guatemala, Bolivia or any of the other 34 nations involved in the agreement.

The FTAA is also expected to include a provision almost identical to NAFTA's Chapter 11, which allows corporations to sue governments directly over "unfair barriers to trade," outside of any domestic court and before a NAFTA tribunal. These tribunals operate in almost complete institutional secrecy. Their actions cannot be appealed except under special circumstances; documents are restricted to the nations involved in the dispute; due process requirements are absent; citizen participation is denied, and their decisions may not be publicized unless the parties involved choose to make them public.

The supremacy these cases hold over national environmental and public health laws endangers the public interest and national sovereignty. There have already been many cases brought to the tribunal over non-tariff trade barriers that corporations claim are "expropriating future profits." One case was filed by the U.S.-based Ethyl Corporation. It sued Canada for $250 million after Canada banned the gasoline additive MMT because the additive posed health risks and clogged vehicles' catalytic converters. Ethyl claimed the ban violated NAFTA because it took away future profits and damaged Ethyl's reputation. After learning that the NAFTA tribunal was likely to rule against its position, the Canadian government revoked the ban and paid Ethyl $13 million. While there are many other cases that threaten democratic sovereignty, the environment, workers and public safety, this case clearly shows the inherently undemocratic, unjust and harmful policies that could be included in the FTAA.

It is also expected that the FTAA will include something similar to a "global free logging agreement" (GFLA), similar to the one proposed, but defeated, at the WTO meetings in Seattle. If this is included, it would be a push to increase production and sale of forest products by eliminating tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers (NTB) to all forest products. With something similar to a GFLA, U.S. laws designed to protect forests, the environment and small locally owned mills could be challenged under the FTAA as Non-Tariff Trade Barriers (NTB). If challenged and defeated, these laws would have to be eliminated. The agreement could be the silver bullet that would allow corporations to decimate the last of the world's endangered native forests.

These are just a few of the detrimental impacts that concern opponents of the FTAA. A major grassroots campaign is in full swing with the intention to stop the FTAA, and it has the potential to bring negotiations to a grinding halt until the critics' voices are heard.

Brian Holland

Brian Holland is a member of the Athens Global Justice Collective and can be reached at BriHollan2@yahoo.com.

Animal Control
Last Week's Scorecard

Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 52 calls.

5 complaints of animal cruelty

1 bite case

5 complaints of barking dogs

5 ordinance violations

14 dogs impounded

22 dogs placed:

6 adopted

3 reclaimed

13 turned over to other agencies

ACC Animal Control press release for the week of Oct. 30 to Nov. 5.

Faits Accomplis
Don't Get Fooled Again

Republicans weren't just out to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans when they cut federal income taxes. They created the biggest budget deficit in the history of the world - $6 trillion projected over the next decade - in order to starve the federal government.

Don't take my word for it. Here's Milton Friedman, the founding father of the supply-side economic theory espoused by Reagan and both Bushes: "History suggests," argues Friedman, "that Washington spends whatever it receives in taxes plus as much more as it can get away with... how can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes. Resulting deficits will be an effective - I would go so far as to say, the only effective - restraint on the spending propensities of the executive branch and the legislature." Bush and other supply-siders parrot Friedman's starve-the-government philosophy even more frequently than their bromides about rising tides lifting all boats.

When a Democrat moves into the White House - which may be sooner rather than later - he'll face a deficit crisis. Reversing the Bush tax cuts won't be an attractive option, since Republicans can always convince an ahistorical citizenry that he's "raising taxes." He'll probably do what Clinton did when he inherited the $1 trillion Reagan-Bush deficit in 1993 - slash the budget. One thing's for sure: there won't be any money for the big new spending programs that Democrats use to build loyalty among working-class voters. Even if the economy has begun to recover from the current recession by then, it will be impossible to fund big ideas like national health care and high-speed rail.

Republicans don't waste time. Throughout their tenure they set things up so that their policies are enforced by judges and other political appointees who outlive their rule.

Put yourself in the role of an incoming Democratic president in, say, January 2005. You probably have a very different view of the world from George W. Bush, but you won't get much chance to act on it. You'll inherit Bush's occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, his Department of Homeland Security and the concentration camp at Guantánamo. Even if you, like most of the main Democratic contenders, spoke out against invading Iraq, you'll think twice before pulling out our troops yourself. Sure, you'd save the two or three guys we're losing daily, but Iraq would surely fragment into a Kurdish state opposed by Turkey and an Arab region rent by a Sunni-Shia civil war. You'll probably be tempted to lay off the 120,000 do-nothing federal employees of HomeSec - and because the GOP insisted that they not be represented by unions, you'll be able to do it. And common decency will certainly prompt you to send the Afghan teenagers rotting in Gitmo dog cages back to south Asia. But how will you respond to the inevitable charge that you're soft on terrorism?

At the Oct. 10 presidential debate, Howard Dean - who parlayed opposition to the Iraq war into front-runner status - conceded that he'd be stuck to the Bushies' Iraqi tar baby: "Now that we're there, we can't pull out responsibly, because if we do, there are more Al Qaeda in Iraq than before the president went in. If they establish a foothold in Iraq, or if a fundamentalist Shiite regime comes in, allied with Iran, that is a real security danger to the United States when one did not exist before."

It's high time that victorious Democrats stop being suckered by reckless Republicans into cleaning up their messes. Walking behind the elephant with a pail and a smelly broom might be the right thing to do, but it doesn't earn you any respect after the parade. All Democrats worthy of the name ought to sign a pledge to ignore problems caused by Republican administrations and leave them to their Republican successors. Let the GOP deficit ride, and pass socialized medicine while you're at it. Keep the bloated HomeSec bureaucracy on the payroll, and change its mission to something useful, like making a serious attempt to guard our borders. Run up the deficit like there's no tomorrow. Withdraw our troops; when the Iraqi civil war spreads throughout the region, some smart future Republican president will figure it out.

I can hear you grumbling: but that's irresponsible! Yes. It. Is. But playing the sap to Republican fait accomplis is like paying off your drunken kid's gambling debts. It makes you an enabler of destructive behavior - and that's even worse than throwing your hands up in the air and walking away. Let's give the GOP some tough love.

Ted Rall

Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue To Afghanistan and Back.