NAFTA is a crime against United States citizens.

[wlubin]

It was a scheme drawn up by the corpers to help them at the expense of the citizens of the United States. I would say this means war. The 200 million citizens of the United States of America vs the 15 rogue individuals running the multinational corporations who are trying to brainwash the ppl of the usa into helping them, at the expense of the ppl of the usa.

Please read The high price of free trade

Below is a table from the above link.

[Bouncy Ball]

1. California, Michigan, Texas and New York

seem to have lost the most jobs. I'd love to see those numbers expressed as a percentage of population, too.

That's just freaking SAD.

[w4rma]

2. NAFTA has been an utter failure for this nation. (nt)

[Bouncy Ball]

3. Hey can someone give me the

quick Cliff Notes version of what exactly NAFTA is? I mean, I have a vague general idea, but I'd like a quick run down summary. What does it do and what has it done?

What was it SUPPOSED to do, anyway?

[wlubin]

5. NAFTA makes it easier to import export to/from this country between

Mexico and Canada by breaking down tariffs and the like. When we export we create jobs, when we import we lose jobs. When NAFTA was pushed the corpers lied and said we will export a whole bunch more if it was passed. But what we have actually done is imported a whole bunch more, thereby losing a whole bunch of jobs. There is also other crap in the bill that guarantees that if an investor invests in the countries were NAFTA applies they will get a profit. And from what i can tell there are 27 law suits wanting us tax payers to give them money because they did not see a profit for there investments into NAFTA.

In other words punk corpers are taking us everyday citizens of the usa as suckers. I think it is time for war.

[Bouncy Ball]

7. What in the world does the US export anymore?

I mean our food exports are even way way way down.

What else is there? Don't we import nearly everything?

[wlubin]

8. I think we may be exporting the parts to make the items that we are

importing, such are refrigerator parts exported down to Mexico so they can manufacture the refrigerators that we import, etc........

[area51]

36. "What in the world does the US export anymore?"

We export our jobs. Shrub is determined to kill off the middle class here.

[idiosyncratic]

48. "cotton, hides, scrap metal"

In the Frontline show about Wal-Mart the interviewer is in Long Beach and they are remarking about all the container ships and all the containers full of goods coming into this country.

The interviewer asked the Port spokesperson, "What are they shipping in and what are we shipping back?"

    YVONNE SMITH: Well, we're bringing in consumer products. We're
    bringing in about $36 billion worth of machinery,
    toys, clothing, footwear.

    HEDRICK SMITH: That's $36 billion right here in Long Beach?

    YVONNE SMITH: About $36 billion comes through Long Beach from
    China alone– consumer products.

    HEDRICK SMITH: And what are we shipping back?

    YVONNE SMITH: We're shipping out about $3 billion worth of
    raw materials. We export cotton. We bring in clothing.
    We export hides. We bring in shoes. We export scrap metal.
    We bring back machinery.

    HEDRICK SMITH: So they're doing all the– we're like a third world country.

----------------------

There is our Trade Deficit. Thirty-six billion vs. three billion.

Is Wal-Mart Good For America transcript

[w4rma]

10. NAFTA is the best known "free" trade agreement. There have been quite

a few similar ones with more countires since then.

NAFTA appears to work quite well between wealthy countries with a strong middle class. However, the problems with NAFTA and similar trade agreements appear when these agreements are made with nations that are poor or have no middle class (i.e. very wealthy few, very oppressed poor, noone in the middle).

With trade agreements between poor/opressed countries and America the problem is that now corporatists have a new option. They have access to millions of people who will work for pennies, or less. China has a HUGE oppressed population that lives outside the cities in rural China. An unlimited number of folks who are very very oppressed and who have little choice but to work in these factories that have cut corners on safety, wages, and everything else that American workers have fought for over the past 100 years.

So the corporatists shut down the unions here in America with threats to go to China. Then they shut down the factories here in America anyway because even working at minimum wage in America under the most dangerous working conditions the American factory can NOT compete against a Chinese factory that works these folks to death, literally, for an amount of money, per month, that is less than the cost of a movie, in America.

NAFTA is like a big monkeywrench in the American economic ecosystem. It kills ALL American manufacturing since *any* Chinese factory can undercut an American factory's prices without tariffs on those goods, which NAFTA and the WTO say are illegal.

I've left alot out. But, maybe this is a good introduction for you to the subject.

[wlubin]

4. It is going exactly according to plan for the corporations who now rule

this nation. We, the citizens of the United States of America, should declare war against them one of these days soon. All we need to do is fix the voting system, and then decide right here at DU how we will vote in each election. We pick who will be the next president, and then we all go out and vote that way. We decide who we vote for in the Senate and House, and we then all go out and vote that way. In fact, why don't we even generate the the candidate for president right here from DU, and then vote that person in on election day. We know our choice would certainly have the money from the grass roots.

[sam sarrha]

6. Minimum wage in Mexico is $4.58 a DAY, they are the 8 richest country

in the world, higher standard of living than FRANCE. because of the state practice of slavery for the native people.

they have exported 10% of their population, the poorest, to the USA. they export their poverty up here to raise the standard of living of the richest. and the 20,000,000 Mexicans exported here are taking jobs from us and lowering the wages for the middle class..get used to it they aren't going back.

[Tinoire]

9. Welcome to DU Wlubin! Makes me miss Perot

:toast:

Thanks for posting that!

Perot doesn't seem so silly in retrospect anymore.

LEHRER: Mr. Perot, based on your experience at General Motors, where do you come down on this? This has been thrown about, back and forth, during this campaign from the very beginning about jobs and CAFE standards.

PEROT: Well, everybody's nibbling around the edges. Let's go to the center of the bull's-eye, the core problem. And believe me, everybody on the factory floor all over this country knows it. You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and you're going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country right at a time when we need the tax base to pay the debt and pay down the interest on the debt and get our house back in order.

1992 presidential debates

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestiny/92debates/3prez2.html

On Free Trade: NAFTA’s main beneficiary: 36 people who own half of Mexico
(When the Mexican media announced NAFTA, they) did not identify the tiny handful of people in Mexico who would gain the most from this trade pact. They are the 36 businessmen who own Mexico’s 39 largest conglomerates. Collectively, their companies control 54% of Mexico’s Gross National Product. These companies dominate virtually every sector of the Mexican economy of any consequence. When the Mexican government sold off big chunks of Mexico’s state-run companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this tiny handful of people quickly acquired control.
In 1993, President Salinas hosted a private dinner for 29 of these Mexican elite. He asked the businessmen to each make a $25 million political contribution to his party, the PRI. All said that they would contribute. For these men, it would be money well invested because NAFTA would guarantee the advantages that President Salinas had gained for them.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 2

On Labor & Farming: US is becoming a nation of hamburger flippers
The US is swapping good manufacturing jobs for lower paying service jobs. For instance, the University of South Carolina reports that between 1978 and 1990 South Carolina lost more than 58,000 manufacturing jobs. At the same time, the biggest job gains in South Carolina were in restaurants, bars, and grocery stores-more than 72,000 service jobs were created in such establishments. It’s a bad tradeoff. The lost manufacturing jobs paid an average of $279 per week. The replacement service jobs pay only $127 a week-less than half as much. The result: the living standards of working men and women are declining, and America is becoming a nation of hamburger-flippers.
How can Congress consider NAFTA, which will destroy urban jobs, at the same time that it is considering the Clinton Administration’s urban empowerment program, which will try to create urban jobs by spending $800 million a year of taxpayers’ money over the next 5 years to provide incentives for businesses to locate in urban areas?

Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 35

On Labor & Farming: Jobs lost to NAFTA are not replaced at same pay
In study after study, the US Department of Labor has found that displaced workers have an increasingly difficult time finding new jobs. The Labor Department reports that:
The lower the skill of the displaced workers, the less likely they are to be re-employed ever.
Blacks and Hispanics are less likely to find new jobs than whites.
Women are less likely than men to find new jobs and more likely to drop out of the work force.
Of every 100 American workers who lost their jobs in the 1980s, at least 61 had not reached the same standard of living they had before losing their job. The hard fact of life is that a majority of the American workers who will be thrown out of work if NAFTA is passed will have to take less pay and fewer benefits to get another job-and that’s if they can find someone willing to hire them.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 37



Too bad we didn't pay enough attention to the issue.

[Deja Q]

33. My respect for Perot has jumped up a thousand percent.

(He would have been better than *-enabling Clinton as well, but I can only say that in retrospect.)

Perot really was bright.

The US is boned.

[idlisambar]

50. Ross Perot in a nutshell....

Wrong man with the right message.

[proudbluestater]

11. Ah, NAFTA. Where Clinton stabbed his union supporters in the back.

[Freddie Stubbs]

46. Clinton supported NAFTA before he was elected

He didn't stab anyone in the back on NAFTA. If union members wanted someone who opposed NAFTA, they could have voted for Perot.

[ulysses]

47. but wait - if they'd voted for Perot,

wouldn't you have spent the next four years telling them what horrible people they were and that you hoped they were happy with another four years of GHWB?

[wlubin]

12. I don't get it. There are what, 200 million of us, and how many filthy

corper pigs, like 10? Can't say 1/4 of us, that would be 50 million of us, go at these 10 corper pigs, with 22 caliber pistols and be done with it? Think about it. It would end all of that annoying brainwashing propaganda, that seems to have worked on half the population since the 1930's, but annoys the other half, our half, forever.

[eg101]

14. when lots of white middle class people start getting poor

....then that is what will happen.

I think one reason it has not yet happened is that technology has made basic foodstuffs so cheap that sober people can come up with enough money to stay alive as long as they have housing.

Where we are losing ground is not food, but in quality of life, mainly because of deterioration of the workplace and loss or laggin of healthcare quality.

[solinvictus]

18. Housing..

Is where it's all going to come apart. In most areas, a two income family living on minimum wage can't afford an apartment and utilities. Now, consider how many people have joined the ranks of the working poor over the past five or so years. We're becoming like a banana republic composed of rich and poor with the middle evaporating.

[eg101]

19. medical care has to be big, too

I really hope Mike Moore's next doc. is going to compare American healthccare system to that of European countries. THat could stir up a real revolution!

[wlubin]

24. And the corporate propaganda machine has brainwashed people into

thinking that universal health care is tantamount to socialism. It is amazing how these corpers can succeed at their propaganda strategy. To steal a democracy you don't need guns, all you need is propaganda to make the people vote the way you want them to. But of course with the advent of black box voting machines they probably don't need propaganda anymore. Maybe one good aspect of the black box voting machines is that it will bring an end to all that annoying corporate relations propaganda crap haha.

[newyawker99]

35. Hi eg101!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[InvisibleBallots]

13. NAFTA is Anti-American - politicians took BRIBES to pass it

Corporate America BRIBED politicians - both Democrats and Republicans - to pass NAFTA. The CEOs who did it, and the politicians that took the bribes, should be in PRISON.

[wlubin]

15. I think we need to pass a law banning corporations from engaging

in politics. If you can make a law against insider trading, certainly you can pass a law banning corps from engaging in politics.

[reprobate]

25. The problem there lies in the false premise that corps are persons.

They have all the rights of persons with none of the responsibilities. In fact the USSC never decided that, but it was written in to the case notes of a case of a railroad vs. a county in california. The decision did not involve the 'corporate personhood' arguement, but the clerk who wrote up the case notes had worked for the railroad involved in the case before coming to the court. It has been seen as gospel ever since.

So you see that even back then (1889 I think) corporations ran the gov't . If they couldn't buy it done, they cheated it done. Like today.

Your attitude of 'can't we just shoot them' is likely to cause you some trouble if the spies are around today. I believe that you do, however, reflect a growing attitude among many americans today.

I have often thought that the corp powers that be are much too short sighted to realize what they are creating. Any time that too much wealth is horded by the rich and not enough left for the masses, it doesn't take much to start a revolution. It happened here in the 18th century, in russia in the 20th centurey and in france in the 18th century, as well as many times before.

Another thing that they forget is that this is an armed nation. I think that there are more guns than people here, and many were trained by the gov't to be killers. That's real dangerous if trouble starts. Also, they are destroying the military with their fiasco in iraq, so if they depend on the military to put down an uprising they may just may be unpleasantly surprised.. Please understand that I do not advocate this, I am just taking lessons from history.

[Deja Q]

34. Corporate bribery has been going on for decades. Let's face it:

The US government is a sham of a travesty of a joke of a sham. It's not a government, it's a well paid figurehead for corporate america's activities.

ANd how those who get elected raise their own wages, benefits, and post-service perks... ALL Americans should be turning their backs in disgrace.

[LWolf]

38. I know one politician who has staunchly opposed it;

opposed NAFTA, the WTO, and corporate "personhood." I voted for him in my primary last March.

[seabeyond]

16. and clinton embraced it. didnt make sense to me without tough

rules, but figured, wtf..........maybe i was wrong. seemed so basic it wouldnt work. lookie, it doesnt

[genieroze]

17. NAFTA ticked me off more than his stupid BJ did.

Actually I could care less about his sex life it didn't effect me but this did.

[barb162]

23. remember all the people marching against it? I remember

being VERY against it as it was clear what would happen. And it has happened and it will continue. NAFTA does not benefit the American people by and large. Jobs haven't been created.

[Elwood P Dowd]

20. You should really try some of the Mexican fruits and veggies

coming in thanks to NAFTA. They're coated in that delicious DDT we love so much. Plus, the fields are irrigated with sewage water, giving the produce that scrumptious taste. The ideal meal would be a combo of Tyson chicken and imported Mexican vegetables. It's guaranteed to make you forget politics for a few hours.

When Bush and the repuke congress force CAFTA and FTAA upon us, you're going to witness something much more insidious than NAFTA. These two combined are NAFTA on steroids. It's a NAFTA for all of Central and South America. No more US grown fruits and vegetables. No more Florida orange juice. No more American sugar. No more manufacturing.

[genieroze]

21. Aren't the sugar growers going to pitch a fit?

[Elwood P Dowd]

22. I'm sure Bush will throw them a bone

and then take it away as soon as he gets the votes. It will probably be similar to what Clinton did with the so called "side agreements".

[Elwood P Dowd]

26. Clinton contributed to us losing the 2000 election

because of his support for NAFTA, GATT/WTO, and the Telecommunications Bill.

He turned his back on unions and working people with the trade agreements. He allowed for more Clear Channel and Fox propaganda with the Telecommunications Bill. This country would be in so much better shape if those three bills had been trashed by Clinton.

He did absolutely nothing to stop the corporate takeover of our political process. In fact, he embraced it! Now look at the mess we're in.

[OneTwentyoNine]

32. The telecommunications bill didn't exclude Dems from owning 1000 stations

I'll agree in principle that it really opened the door for CC but...Clear Channel has been around since 1972,they already owned a boat load of stations.

SO..why didn't a Democrat or 20 Democrats with liberal leanings and a fat wallet buy 10 stations,100 or a 1,000?? They were no more prevented from a purchase than CC.

Go through the dial on your AM today. If its like around here there must be 20 stations that play classical music or have bible thumpers on. Most of those are owned by mom and pop owners. They could be bought out easily if Dems are serious about a radio network.

Actually around here CC doesn't carry hate radio,its Entercom.

[robcon]

27. NAFTA is a triumph of the Clinton administration.

It will be part of his legacy - providing jobs and growth for decades. Clinton not only supported the treaty, his arm-twisting of Congress was crucial for its implementation.

History will judge NAFTA as one of the most important treaties ever signed by the U.S. - not only because of its effects on Canada, Mexico and the U.S., but its effect on other countries, and their desire not to be undercut by NAFTA. No country wants to have higher tariffs entering the largest economy in the world. And the results... CAFTA, Australia, Chile, etc. will continue to raise living standards all over the world.

[Elwood P Dowd]

29. Yes, it's just wonderful

:wtf:

[eg101]

30. NAFTA--> a triumph of corporate greed over workers, facilitated by Clinton

It sure will be part of his legacy. Years from now, when working Americans finally get broke enough to break from the corporate propaganda, they will revile him as the most traitorous Democratic president in history.

[Elise]

56. Absolutely!

Also remember Clinton got rid of 'welfare as we know it' as he pulled the party to the right in order to get elected!

[Tinoire]

40. It's a triumph for the coporate loving DLC & the corporations

It's an absolute disaster for Americans who are fast becoming a nation of "hamburger flippers" as Perot had warned.

All the high tech jobs that NAFTA advocates promised would remain in the US have moved to Asia and India.

Then of course we have the hamburger flippers aka soldiers fighting in Iraq. Their McWorker resumes come straight out of the US Labor Report.

It's kind of telling that Bush and the DLC want to reclassify fast food jobs as MANUFACTURING jobs for the corporations. Talk about vodoo! What spawns of Satan would even suggest reclassifying hamburger flipping as manufacturing?


"But many older people are also working because they need the money - because their pensions are too slim, their debt loads too high or their savings too meager. Whatever the reason, older people snapped up about a third of the 1.5 million jobs created since August. About 250,000 went to people 60 to 64 years old, and about the same number to people 65 and up."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/business/yourmoney/18view.html

Washington -- White House economists wonder whether hamburger flippers at fast-food restaurants should be considered manufacturers.

Not a chance, said Edson Pardo, manager of the McDonald's around the corner from the White House. "We don't flip hamburgers," he said. "We just heat them up."

[robcon]

28. The statistics are undermined by a peculiar consistency.

No matter what "kind" of state (export-intense, import-intense, manufacturing-intense, service-intennse, high-growth, declining) the results - the ratio of import jobs "destroyed" to export jobs "gained" is consistent. See below...

Ratio of import jobs destroyed to export jobs gained:

CA 2.2961
MI 2.1201
IL 2.1257
DC 2.1295
CO 2.1043
TX 2.0387
RI 2.0017
NY 2.2230
PA 2.1000
NC 2.2317
NJ 2.1904

I think the methodology is suspect. There is no economic theory that would explain the decline of jobs overall... and certainly no theory that would support the idea that the effect was everywhere almost identical!!!!! (If anyone thinks, for example, the economies of Texas and the District of Columbia would be affected similarly by NAFTA, I think they are mistaken, to say the least.)

[eg101]

31. I always take into account the motivations and interests of any viewpoint

Corporate power wants NAFTA, basically without exception. Workers mostly do not. Political economy is a negotiation process between capital and labor. When I walk into a car lot to buy a car, the salesman and I are at odds; we have conflicting goals. It is a zero sum game; always have been and always will be. Same thing for negotiations of political economy between capital and labor.

[wlubin]

41. But there is more of us than there is of them. In a Democracy

they are supposed to lose.

[robcon]

43. But the individuals won!!!!!

NAFTA is an enormous win for U.S. consumers/workers, and an enormous loss for most corporations. Most corporations wanted "lower tariffs" except on those goods they sell - where they wanted high tariffs to "defend" Ameircan jobs.

NAFTA was win/win.

[wlubin]

44. that doesn't sound right. I think the corpies got what they wanted.

Any easy way to get slave labor to manufacture the goods in mexico, and be able to import the final product to the us cheaply. Isn't this the true story?

[Elise]

57. Yes.

n/t

[hollowdweller]

37. Perot was right about the "giant sucking sound" he was right about the

deficit too. We need somebody with the $$ to be able to bring these things back into the national debate in a major way.

[DS1]

39. NAMBLA is a crime against everyone

The fuckers should be executed.

[flygal]

42. LOL - I was just reading Jon Stewart's America

NAMBLA pops up in a few places

[MissBrooks]

45. NAMBLA has nothing to do with NAFTA

[DS1]

55. Yes, I know

I made a funnay

[JanMichael]

49. Since Americans have benefited from a Century of Imperialism I wonder...

...if that's such a "Bad" thing?

A good majority of this country's wealth is due to its domination of weaker "Third World" countries.

Sure, individuals in those "Third World" nations aren't really doing that well with their new Corpo jobs, what with Union Busting and other such practices keeping wages low, but why should Joe Six-Pack keep his benefits from a corrupt Plutocracy?

He's a Prole, whether he likes it or not, but for a long time hasn't recognized that.

Perhaps NOW they will see whose Leg is attached to the Boot on their neck?

[Al-CIAda]

51. NAFTA is just the beginning. The FTAA is next....

Trading Freedom: the secret life of the FTAA
Video by indymedia ftaa video workgroup
Produced October 2002, 56 minutes

Offers an explanation of what the FTAA is, what it will mean, and how people across the Americas are resisting it.

DOWNLOAD 600MB
http://frazer.rice.edu/~tish/video.mov

-----

http://mysite.verizon.net/res7dhyg/id3.html

[robcon]

52. FTAA will be even better than NAFTA.

The momentum for free trade is tremendous.

[wlubin]

53. I believe "Free Trade" is good for the corpers and big money ppl

but not good for everyday citizens. The entire mechinism by which Free Trade is made good for the corpers is bu screwing the common citizen. Hey robcon I believe possibly that the corper brainwash propaganda designed to get common citizens to shoot themselves in the foot for the benefit of the corps has worked on you. Are you one of their success stories? Are you a member of the brainwashed repubs?

[robcon]

54. NAFTA is one of the great legacies of the Clinton administration.

Since the vast majority of corporations were against it, I think they know their best interests better than you do.

Free trade is the best hope for prosperity and peace throughout the world.