Tammy's views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy's neighbors, Earl Fisher, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, Rita Bernhard, her grand kids, Tony Hyde, Pat Robertson,Debi Corsiglia's dog, or Claudia Eagle's Cat.
This Tammy's Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she won't take crap off of anyone.

The Pacific Rim Mining Company is a Vancouver based company who has been searching for gold in El Salvador since 2002, the company discovered a huge deposit of gold and silver, the site is  called the  El Dorado deposit, and is in close proximity of the country's capital San Salvador. When the people found out their lands were to become a huge mining facility and that their water would be contaminated with cyanide and other toxic mining chemicals, a process that would require an estimated 22 million liters of water and 950 tons of cyanide.

They decided to fight back to save their way of life. After an intense campaign by local, and regional people, the El Salvadoran government refused to grant Pacific Rim permits to continue mining at El Dorado. This  angered Pacific Rim mining who immediately sprang into legal action and hired the D.C.-based law firm Crowell & Morring to file a lawsuit against El Salvador, they are suing for $700 million in compensation for lost investment, under provisions in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S.

The mining companies who have filed 25 permit applications for projects to extract  about 12 million ounces of gold and nearly 78 million ounces of silver,  will fight to get their permits no matter what it takes, these companies are looking to make their fortunes at any cost, even if it destroys the lives of the poor people of El Salvador.

"free trade" agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA provide protection for U.S. and Canadian companies who seek to exploit the wealth buried beneath the soil of poorer Latin American countries. No matter how Nafta or Cafta was represented by American or Canadian leaders, the bottom line is, profit  first for American and Canadian corporations, and people last. Why would any one think differently, our leaders make their decisions based on who donates the most to their political campaigns.

I hope the people and the government of El Salvador win against these greedy corporations.

Corporations have way too much power all around the world, we need to thank the Bushes, the Clintons, Republicans and Democrats alike, for passing these horrible free trade bills. All they have done is to allow corporations a free reign of abuse on poor people, breaking unions, lowering our wages, exploiting the working class and the poor.

These trade laws should all be rescinded for the betterment of people not corporations.