Funding socialism for Latin America: U.S. Insiders are proposing "a new Marshall Plan" to transfer tens of billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to corrupt, socialist Latin American governments

New American, The, Sept 6, 2004 by William F. Jasper

Most American taxpayers are completely unaware that the architects of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) are planning the most massive transfer of wealth in world history--from the U.S. middle class to Latin American socialist regimes. These planners do not think small; they are proposing sums in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Yes, hundreds of billions in direct transfers, through various foreign aid programs.

These direct government-to-government transfers are only part of the equation, but they are an absolutely essential part. They are essential to the next step of the equation: the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars of private capital, as businesses close up shop in the U.S. and move south of the border, lured by U.S. trade, taxation and regulatory policies. Thousands of U.S. companies that can't or won't relocate to the low-cost, tax-subsidized FTAA business zones would simply go out of business, unable to compete with imports from our new FTAA neighbors. Millions more Americans would lose their jobs.

This is quite a different picture from the glowing FTAA testimonials presented by the Clinton and Bush administrations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Council on Foreign Relations and other cheerleaders of so-called "free trade." When appealing for support from middle America and the business community, the FTAA advocates speak in terms of "free markets" and the "free movement of capital, goods and services" that will open new export markets to U.S. producers and bring prosperity to all.

However, within the pages of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Economist and other influential publications intended for like-minded internationalists, the organized one-worlders have been more open about the essentially socialist nature of the FTAA program. In these publications, and in their speeches at relatively closed conferences, they have been calling for new funding transfers for Latin America similar to the post-World War II Marshall Plan for Europe and the Kennedy-Johnson Alliance for Progress foreign aid program for Latin America.

Contrary to a widely held misconception, the Marshall Plan was not responsible for rebuilding Europe after World War II or for saving Western Europe from Communism. The reality is that the Marshall Plan was used to funnel billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to socialist parties, politicians and political movements--including the European Movement--all of which aimed at destroying the independence of the countries of Europe and merging them into a socialist, centralized suprastate now known as the EU.

The Alliance for Progress was crafted by some of the same CFR brain trusters in the Kennedy administration who had earlier put together the Marshall Plan. Like the Marshall Plan in Europe, the Alliance for Progress transferred billions of dollars from the U.S. middle class to the wealthy leaders of Latin America and their friends among the U.S. corporate and banking elite.

Integrating with "Justice"

One of the most brazen calls for the new Latin American Marshall Plan came at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, in January 2004. The call came from Nestor Kirchner, the new Marxist president of Argentina. President Kirchner was interviewed at Monterrey by Poder magazine, a U.S. Hispanic business journal. Here is an excerpt from the interview, which appeared in the February 2004 issue of Poder:

   Q. You spoke of a new Marshall Plan
   for Latin America. Isn't that a utopia?
   A. No, not at all. It is possible; why
   not? People talk about [economic] integration,
   but integration with injustice
   is impossible. The European Economic
   Community was built based on
   joint funds, structural funds for those
   who were in an unfavorable situation,
   seeking balance and economic development.
   Integration must include
   policies that will allow us to strengthen
   the region....

There are several important points of interest in President Kirchner's comment:

* He is campaigning for a massive foreign aid program for Latin America.

* He uses the Marxist claim that income inequality is an "injustice." For him, and others like him, "justice" will not be attained until U.S. incomes have been leveled down by transfers to Latin America.

* He appeals directly to the Common Market/European Union experience.

* As with the EU experience, he expects the U.S. aid to help "integrate" the countries of the Western Hemisphere into a supranational, regional entity.

In the Poder interview, Kirchner also reiterated his demand that 75 percent of Argentina's foreign debt be written off. Which is really another way of saying that U.S. taxpayers (primarily) should be saddled with paying off the loans that the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Inter-American Development Bank and large commercial banks had made to Argentina's previous socialist governments,

Mr. Kirchner is one of the newer members of Latin America's growing radical alliance, whose most prominent leaders are presidents Lula de Silva of Brazil and Chavez of Venezuela. Both are unabashed Marxist-Leninists.