Restoring accountability to our nation's political system is a long-term fight. The rich and powerful will always be with us, but thankfully citizens who care about the environment, workers, human rights, peace, and social justice are engaged in hundreds of struggles in Bloomington and elsewhere to advance fundamental social change.

Occasionally a short-term opportunity also presents itself, an opportunity to redefine the political debate and shift the balance of power that is too important to pass up. Such an opportunity may be the 2004 Presidential nomination process, and how the candidates position themselves on issues relating to the global economy.

No question, we do live in a global economy. And no question, the rules of the global economy have been written to promote the interests of powerful multinational corporations at the expense of the rest of us. The corporations have an agenda, and the U.S. government under both Republican and Democratic administrations has worked with them hand-in-glove to pass NAFTA, create the WTO, and use the mechanisms of the World Bank and IMF to promote the "Washington Consensus." Regrettably, we see the sad results at home and abroad as factories leave Bloomington, the maquiladora zone in Mexico is polluted, Chinese workers are exploited, and other injustices prevail.

Now we come to an interesting and important part of the American political system, that rare time when there is actually competition among candidates, not just for money, but for votes, even the votes of those of us on the political left. There are nine Democrats seeking the nomination of their party in 2004, representing views across the political spectrum. We have choices; no one can (yet) tell us, "you have nowhere else to go."

There are a number of ways to push this field of candidates to address the core issues around corporate power, but none may be more salient than global trade and the rules of the global economy. Why? Because there are very real decisions that the next President will make on which direction the global economy will head. Will the next President continue the failed NAFTA model for global integration, or develop a new model that better protects the interests of workers, the environment, and human rights?

The last Congress, with the regrettable support of Rep. Baron Hill and Sen. Evan Bayh, passed the Fast Track trade legislation sought by the Bush administration, giving the administration a green light to negotiate new trade deals. The expansion of the WTO and the extension of NAFTA to the entire hemisphere through a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) are at the top of the list.

These agreements are not being negotiated with the interests of workers or the environment in mind. In fact, an emerging threat which holds the potential of making the FTAA much worse than NAFTA is the corporate "trade in services" agenda.

What multinational corporations are seeking, through these agreements, is protection for their investments in the 70% of the economy which is called "services." This includes a vast array of activity, including education, health care, public services, construction, transportation, and "environmental services" such as water supply, waste disposal, and electricity generation.

Multinational businesses seek to use new trade agreements to promote their agenda of privatization and deregulation by moving these issues from the public policy arena to a trade regime where decisions are made like commercial disputes; i.e., by lawyers behind closed doors, where our power can't reach.

Of course, for a variety of reasons (including the competition for money) the tendency of some of the candidates will be to skirt the questions around the global economy. As long as some candidates can court Microsoft and Boeing and GE, while all along telling us how much they support the interests of workers and the environment, they will.

A project by Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is designed to prevent that from happening in the 2004 Presidential nomination process. Here is a unique opportunity for citizens to organize and insist that the Presidential candidates oppose the kind of trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO that have been so adverse to our well-being. This is the time for trade unions, environmentalists, human rights advocates, and others to speak to our collective interest in a new set of rules for the global economy, make sure that the political debate addresses these choices, and secure commitments from the candidates.

We really haven't had such an opportunity since 1992, given the Clinton-Gore years in between. Major decisions will by made by the White House in 2005 which will set the direction of the global economy for decades to come. These rules of global trade are a major tool that multinatinal corporations use to advance their interests. The public is wise to Enron, and more skeptical of big business than it has been for decades. Surely, this is the time to try to bring some accountability to the political process around the global economy, and insist that the candidates make a choice.

Are they for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) based on the NAFTA model, or will they reject such an agreement when they are in the White House? Do they support extension of trade and investment agreements into the public sector, to our water supply, and to other essential public services? Or will they oppose the corporate "trade in services" agenda?

The answers to these questions, and others, will allow us to see who is really with us, and who is not. We don't want to wake up in 2005 with a Democrat in the White House and find out that the new President has just signed trade agreements negotiated by George Bush that undermine the interests of the very groups of voters who put him or her in office. The time to prevent that nightmare, and begin to move our nation's global economic agenda to one of respect for workers, the environment, and human rights, is now.

Jim Jontz is a former Indiana congressman who heads the Regime Change 2004 project for the Americans for Democratic Action – ... - where he serves as president emeritus.