FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

APPLETON, WIFeb. 17, 2004The John Birch Society has launched an all-out drive to combat the globalist plan to establish a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). More than ten years in the making, the FTAA is "designed to unite all Western Hemisphere nations except Cuba into exactly the kind of sovereignty-destroying arrangement that is costing the nations of the European Union their independence." So states John McManus, Chairman of the Societys new campaign.

President Bush has endorsed the plans for an FTAA. His administration is committed to negotiating an agreement by January 2005, which must then be submitted to Congress for its approval. Although FTAA proponents argue that the FTAA will raise prosperity throughout the Hemisphere, McManus claims that consenting to the FTAA will mean "a huge increase in the number of jobs leaving this nation; a dramatic swelling of immigrants entering the U.S.; and eventual destruction of our nation's hard-won independence."

The Society launched its Activate Congress: STOP the FTAA campaign to alert Americans to what it terms "the suicidal path being laid out for our nation." The campaign urges the American people to demand that their congressmen and senators reject all pressures that would have them approve FTAA membership for the United States.

McManus insists: "The FTAA is being falsely promoted under the misleading label of free trade." Likening the pact to similar agreements already approved, he points to their "hundreds of pages of regulations in NAFTA and the WTO that have cost jobs, opened borders, and already superseded some of our nation's laws." And he adds, "The entanglements weren't really about free trade at all, but about empowering a vast new prosperity-discouraging socialist bureaucracy."

McManus believes that, like its predecessors in NAFTA and WTO, "the FTAA is poisonous bait on a barbed hook." After studying how "the European Union has virtually destroyed the sovereignty of its member nations," he is convinced that "America is being led down an identical path that will cost us in numerous ways, most importantly in our nation's independence." If the FTAA isn't blocked, McManus contends, "Americans will end up having as much control over their lives as the people of Cuba currently have over theirs."

The Societys STOP the FTAA campaign plans to enlist Americans from coast to coast who are concerned about jobs, immigration policies, and preserving national independence. But it will also seek to arouse many who haven't yet felt the effect of already enacted trade agreements. For more information on the campaign, or to schedule a media appearance with Mr. McManus or another STOP the FTAA speaker, contact Melinda Dutcher, 920-749-3780.

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2004 http://www.stoptheftaa.org/ is a campaign of The John Birch Society Privacy Policy Contact the Public Affairs Department