From the editor.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah warned long ago: "Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst."

We clearly live in a similar day. People all over the world are being led into political, economic and spiritual bondage even as they are told that "freedom" is spreading.

As this special issue of TNA shows, the so-called free trade agreements--the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas--have nothing to do with genuine free trade. They have everything to do with creating regional governing bodies on the road to world government.

The regional approach to world government is most advanced in Europe, where the European Union is now consolidating governmental powers once exercised by independent nation states. On our own continent, NAFTA is already infringing on our national independence. It is also harming our economy. But the harmful effects of NAFTA would become much worse if the FTAA is created. The FTAA would encompass not just North America but the Western Hemisphere, and it would possess more powers than NAFTA. It would also, according to its promoters, be modeled after the EU.

Of course, this is not what we were told when NAFTA was pushed through Congress in 1993, and this is not what we will be told when the FTAA agreement is ready for congressional approval. The party line, then and now, is that these so-called free trade agreements will create jobs and prosperity by eliminating trade barriers and opening up markets. That was the same party line, by the way, that was employed to trick the peoples of Europe into accepting the "Common Market," a forerunner to the EU.

Should we allow our own country to become a part of a supranational government of the Americas? There are many good reasons for not doing so:

* A fully developed FTAA would open our borders to a tidal wave of "migrants" far surpassing the present flood of illegal immigrants. But unlike the illegal immigrants, the "migrants" would arrive here legally, and they would come in such large numbers that they would overwhelm our welfare and health-care systems.

* The FTAA would make it much easier for terrorists and drug traffickers to cross our borders. It would also benefit the trade in immigrant sex slaves, a little-known problem that has already begun plaguing our country. Moreover, the increase in crime and terrorism would provide impetus for police-state measures.

* The FTAA would accelerate the outsourcing of American jobs already occurring under NAFTA. It would also widen the gap between the higher-paying jobs that are being lost and the lower-paying jobs that are being created, particularly in the service economy. In general, it would decimate the American middle class, the backbone of our free society.

* The FTAA would gradually rob the American people of our ability to determine our own destiny. Under a supranational government of the Western Hemisphere, the United States would continue to exist in name only--its laws brought into conformity with the new Western Hemispheric laws and regulations. Our precious Constitution and freedoms would be lost.

There are many "honourable" Americans from all walks of life who are "famished," as Isaiah said, with a desire to know the truth. These Americans want to know where our nation is being led and why.

Moreover, there are multitudes "dried up with thirst" for the knowledge and the tools that will make them more effective in the fight to defeat the FTAA. This special issue is this magazine's effort to aid in that epic undertaking.