	6/25/2005

Group of Democrats Back Pact on Central American Trade

From the NYT

In a paid advertisement scheduled to be published tomorrow in The Washington Post, three dozen Democrats, including prominent officials in the administrations of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, said the agreement negotiated by the Bush administration "is good for the United States and Central America."

"The president and Republicans are desperate for the president to win, and Democrats just as strongly would like for him to lose," said one signer, Robert A. Pastor, former director of Latin American and Caribbean affairs in the National Security Council during the Carter administration and now a professor at American University...

...Yet with the administration pushing Cafta up on the legislative agenda and a Senate vote expected as early as next week, the signing Democrats - including former Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher; former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry; a former National Security adviser, Samuel R. Berger; and a former ambassador to the United Nations, Richard C. Holbrooke - are trying to provide Democrats with some cover to change their minds.

So now paid advertisments that have not yet run in a national "competing" paper are news? While the uninitiated might buy the NYT's false banner that this is an effort lead by prominent Democrats, a studied observer will note that every single "Democrat" listed in those two paragraphs is a member of the world's most prominent organization promoting world wide socialism --- NOT free markets and free trade between willing buyers and sellers.

CAFTA is not Free Trade it is manged trade and ultimate rule by a powerful elite accountable only unto themselves.

2:55:56 PM

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Billboard Castration

Silly us to imagine we could post a jab at politicians on a commercial billboard. With sign ordinance laws and local political powers to be as they are, there is simply no way our original billboard concept was going to fly. Not just a Fairway policy;same deal at Lamar. While we might imagine ourselves to still have free speech, if you are company whose product placement is dependent on various layers of government you tread lightly or not at all when a politician's image is on the line.

A picture named CAFTAPCsm2.jpg Even this modified concept showing only the politicians stated public positions on CAFTA was deemed to risky to put up. Fairway was quite cordial in trying to work out something for us and provided gratis revised artwork which they could approve. We might go with the Fairway design as it is actually a more readable message for a billboard people will be driving by at 45 miles/hr. But, the clock for a vote is ticking down and some of our contributors are less enthusiastic about spending their money on neutered advertising. A picture named Cnafta.jpg

I wonder if we could run an add in a newspaper and get another newspaper to do a story on it? (see below.)

Update: Had my duh! moment this afternoon when I realized that this is the local place I need to be advertising on CAFTA. Lots of politically motivated types to rely on there.

2:54:37 PM

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