Difficult to know where to start with your last comment. At no point does it have the appearance of logic, so it’s necessary to focus on a small part of the nonsense in order to be able to conquer it in any degree.

First of all, you talk like having Colombian-made products is a bad thing. I know plenty of North-Americans on your side of the political spectrum that would be thrilled to be able to purchase so many goods “Made in the U.S.A.” My favorite clothing store is Pat Primo, where I can get casual to elegant pants and shirts from 15-30$ a piece (using US$ because it seems like you’re writing from the U.S.). If I need shoes I can go to any Bucaramanga shoe store and get some decent ones starting at $20. I do my food shopping at Exito, a now French-Colombian enterprise that was homegrown here. Lowest prices that I’ve found, narrowly beating the also-Colombian Olympica, and pretty even with the French Carrefour. For my baby we’ve been shopping a lot at the GEF store, which is French-owned with major fabrication points in Medellín. We bought 4 outfits of the high-quality “Baby Fresh” line for $25 (at the outlet). Speaking of babies, we just got a baby bog from Totto, another Colombian company, a bag of good quality for less than $30. When we want to go out to eat, one of our favorite restaurants is the Bogotano Crepes y Waffles, which offers casual-elegant dining at 4-7$ a plate, or 20$ total including dessert for a couple. A bonus of this restaurant is that, being a national chain, they are invested in the social welfare of Colombia, as evidenced by their policy of employing primarily mother heads-of-households, and offering relatively good benefits.

As you’ll notice, not all of the items I’ve listed above are local products, which brings me to my next point: If you’re really griping about free trade between Colombia and the rest of the world, you’re not paying attention. If you’re talking about free trade just with the U.S., you should say so, although I doubt the FTA would radically change the fact that as it is now in Colombia, Nestle, Kelloggs, Nabisco, and Frito Lay are edging towards a monopoly on their respective food lines. A package of Oreos, the last I checked, cost half the price of the Colombian Papa Noel version. I personally hunt for Yupi or Servipan chips when I want a snack, just because I don’t like FritoLay and prefer to support local industry, but it’s getting harder every day to find these Colombian products. Most people seem to prefer Fritos.

So when I see you bemoaning the poor “choices of goods, efficiencies for manufacturing, lower prices for everyone, and access to new markets,” and compare your perspective with my own observations, I’m left only with the conclusion that you have no idea what you’re talking about. The Colombia that I’ve lived in for over a year enjoys a huge choice of goods and ridiculously low prices, even by Colombian standards. The only prices I’ve found lower in the U.S. is for electronics on sites such as amazon or newegg, and I imagine that’s due to the sheer quantity that’s being sold. Colombia, as I’ve shown with a few examples, does manufacture its own products (although perhaps by “efficiencies for manufacturing” you’re referring to the transport network, about which I’m not very informed). Perhaps they do need to improve with their “access to new markets,” although your idea that this would somehow help the majority of Colombians — and not only the richest owners of these soon-to-be multinational corporations — is naive at best and cynical at worst.

I think Camilla is green, has wings and dwells in a secret room at the top of the Chrysler Building. Of course I have as much proof of that as she has of the statement quoted above.

You’re on firmer ground when you point out that Colombia has a dispersed array of cities. There is, for example, no comparable “primate city” like Lima in Peru. (Lima, if I recall, has something like one-fourth the population of Peru.) The reasons for that dispersion in Colombia point to regional isolation, true enough, although several other factors also come into play (Colombian historian Marco Palacios has written about this).

The dynamic between center and periphery in Colombia has long been the subject of debate. The historic system of party clientelism (clientelismo) has been one response to connect the two. But we now well know the exclusionary effects of this system, and those are highly negative.

To say that free trade would radically change the characteristics of a “hermit country” and be a blessing to Colombians—and which Colombians, by the way?—is a simplistic assumption on your part. And not a well-thought-out one, I might add.

And to imply that Congressman McGovern and his “pal” Jones are pro-FARC and have no interest in the welfare of Colombians is so outrageous that it reduces your credibility to near zero on other matters. Beyond this, it inspires some of us to want to meet this fearsome duo: the errant congressman and his radical sidekick. Down here, we like that sort of thing.

So now a deeply entrenched pattern of population (several cities) is supposed to disappear by the stroke of a pen signing the FTA. First, I don’t have a problem with Colombians living in several cities. Probably if I were to design the country from scratch I would have done things differently. But I’m not going to let stuff that happened centuries ago become an obsession driving current policy. Second, the solution to the problem of infrastructure is to build more infrastructure and one way that we know fails is to turn the contracting over to shaky firms with ties to the paramilitary. That doesn’t stop Colombia from trying it, though. Third, Colombia already trades with the rest of the world. Fourth, Colombia already trades with the rest of the world. Fifth, Colombia already… oh never mind. Life’s too short to keep beating this dead horse.

I’m pretty sure that defending the FTA puts food on Camilla’s table and therefore any argument with any remote semblance of plausibility will do when it comes to it. But, at least in this forum you don’t have to be such a work stiff and you can allow yourself to discuss rationally under cover of the pseudonym. So, first piece of advice: stop pretending that the FTA will bring that novel idea of free trade to Colombia.

And yeah, I think FARC does have its pals in US Congress. It’s an Alinskyite technique to deny it, however.

It’s all she’s got.