The Intricacies of Displacing Persons

WTO: The World Trade Organization (Really, formerly GATT). People like the WTO because it breaks down trade barriers that make it harder for weak economies to trade with strong economies, eg. The US places tariffs on things like Steel and or Corn, which makes it harder for other countries to sell those things at a similar price. The WTO doesn't allow these tariffs.
People don't like the WTO because if you are a member of the WTO and you have environmental laws in place that prohibit the productivity of a corporation in your country, that corporation can sue you and you will have to pay the corporation an amount equal to the lost productivity. The same is true with labor laws. In short, the WTO supercedes concerns for the environment or labor for the sake of productivity, which allows corporations to more easily abuse economic situations (eg. sweatshops, pollution, and child labor).

FTAA: The Free Trade Area of the Americas. In the works for years, the FTAA is an attempt to unite the countries of the Americas (yes there are two! Neither of them is us!) into an free trade zone so that production and money can more easily flow between us. It is, in many ways, a WTO just for us, and carries the same pros and cons. Additional cons might be that conflict and narcotics might more easily flow throughout. Think if there were no checkpoints between here and Columbia. You could pave the streets in bricks of cocaine. And perhaps find members of FARC hiding in your yard.

Immigration Issues: Here's the thing, I have no idea what each side wants and I have no idea where I stand. Is it a problem that unchecked persons are making their way across our porous borders? No. Is it a fact that illegal immigrants provide a slice of productivity and economy that is unrealized by the general populace? Yes. Can we stop people from crossing our borders? No. Can we make it safer and perhaps easier for them to cross said borders? Yes. Is that a good idea? I don't know. The chance that you are an immigrant to this country is very high. Is an immigrant today different from one 200 years ago? Are Mexican lives less valuable than European? Is the US so afraid of terrorists that we are willing to become xenophobic fear-mongerers?

See, it all sort of ties in together. We're coming around full circle. The openness of free trade, the mingling of different cultures and problems, the loss of security and justice with the mix of rich and poor. There are answers somewhere, I think. But pursuing those answers means giving up comfort, making hard choices where the choice we didn't make seems so close to the right one.

It is like trying to unravel the world's largest ball of string. But we can all tug on a thread.