Check in if you've been affected by NAFTA or any of our "Free Trade" road to serfdom policies.

[Union Yes]

If a candidate for federal office had the audacity to boldly state..

"If elected, I will introduce or push for legislation that will repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT."

Would that candidate immediately grasp your interest?


I'll say it as clearly as I can..

NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT are the FUCKING ENEMIES of the people.

[AllentownJake]

1. I live in Allentown

We were the case study on the result of free-trade and its effects on a community.

[Mojambo]

2. I think they would probably get my vote

Even if I disagreed with them on a lot of other issues.

That's how important trade policy is to me.

[Union Yes]

63. It'll be a deciding factor whether I support a candidadte or not from now on.

That's how important it is to me.

I totally agree with what you said.

:thumbsup:

[OhioChick]

3. Ohio has been fucked by "free trade." n/t

[Union Yes]

21. Yup, Ohio manufacturing has been decimated by "Free Trade".

I'm a midwesterner and the whole region has been thoroughly fucked by FT.

Vacancy, blight, blocks of decay. All due to NAFTA.

Thanks for checking in.

Peace

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

4. Rec. I'd like to see NAFTA buried 30 miles deep in the Antarctic and forgotten.

[NYC_SKP]

8. I'd take a shovel, dig a hole and bury NAFTA, then dig another hole and bury the shovel. n/t

(from an episode of TV show "Coach")...

Coach Hayden Fox: I know women. You wanna know how you make this right with Judy?

Dauber: Well ya.

Coach Hayden Fox: You gotta bury it! Bury it! Bury it with a shovel and then bury the shovel!

:P

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

10. Damn Good!

[Union Yes]

12. Word! .. I'll help.

:hi:

[Union Yes]

11. Nice! I agree.

:fistbump:

[Ikonoklast]

5. I lost a job to NAFTA.

I always wanted to personally thank Bill Clinton for that steaming pile.

[unabelladonna]

36. al gore was relentless

about the benefits of free trade...remember the ridicule that was heaped upon ross perot?

[Union Yes]

39. I lost agreat paying union job due to NAFTA. Plant closed and moved to Mexico in 2000. nt

[blue_onyx]

43. Yes, Clinton and other Dems who helped

If all the Dems had stuck together, it wouldn't have mattered what Clinton wanted. Some Dems who are well-liked on DU voted for NAFTA (Kerry, Kennedy, Biden).

Both of Michigan's senators voted against NAFTA and yet we were the hardest hit.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

6. never lucky enough to have a union job

but I sure get tired of hearing the free traders chime in about "trade policies result in a net increase of jobs". Are these people for real, and do they live in the same country as I do? Where and what type of jobs might these be? Retail clerks? Are they serious? 50 good paying middle class union jobs have been replaced with 2 middle managers (who work 50-60 salary non-overtime hours a week), and the rest are under $10 a hour retail clerks and store stockers?

As far as I can tell, this free trade economy just means that mega crap is cheap, but housing (mortgages), education and healthcare have been priced out of the reach of many middle class families. What a f'up system that is.

What part of free trade non-union just means that multi-national corps will go where ever labor is the least expensive don't they get?

[safeinOhio]

27. I always hear that from my brother

A net job increase because of it. We are the largest exporters. But then I hit him with "please explain the trade deficit with China" and he can never explain it.
By the way, I'm enlisting in the army as soon as I can find where to do it. That be the army to fight in the coming trade war.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

7. Unrecs seen on thread

The DLC thanx youse POS.

[Jokinomx]

9. Michigan has been decimated by NAFTA...

Since 97 I have worked for 3 different companies that have shut their doors and moved out of the country.

:grr:

[Union Yes]

13. Perhaps hit harder than any other state.

What NAFTA has done to Michigam is a fucking disgraceful shame.

NAFTA has decimated the middle class in America.

Thanks for checking in.

[Gman2]

14. My whole industry was lost to nafta. Molds. Without us, we are a nation on our knees.

I knew that Reagans globalism would lead to it. Paper shuffling doesnt impress nations that already do the work. They can just as easily shuffle the papers. Fucking imbecile. Reagan, not Clinton's nafta did us in.

[Union Yes]

65. Totally agree Ray-gun started the wrecking ball in motion with little enforcment of existing..

trade laws. Continued under Bush until Clinton finally signed NAFTA into law.

[RB TexLa]

15. Unrecommended, both economic and political isolationism belong in the ash bin of history.

[Unvanguard]

This. n/t

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

16. I admire your fortitude, but you are wrong.

America First is me.

[OhioChick]

17. Right on cue.

:eyes:

[yourout]

18. I will see your Unrec and raise you a rec.

Free trade is NOT fair trade.

You need to listen to Thom Hartman.

[Union Yes]

19. What belongs in the dust bin is the war against the middle class.

The war the middle class is losing.

[alittlelark]

22. Uh, yeah......

Globalization is inevitable, but should be allowed to EVOLVE w/o Corporatist legislation that slices the Corporatists 90% of the pie.

[HughBeaumont]

35. Yep, I don't know why he's still here either.

Your shit Friedmanite rhetoric disgusts me beyond belief.

[anigbrowl]

38. Agreed. Protectionism is a sham that debases all

However, I feel we need to take a tougher line with countries that want access to our markets but won't open their own.

[omega minimo]

56. Figures you'd be tone deaf on this one too. Did you even read the OP?

[Elwood P Dowd]

42. You should be unrecommended.

You support everything that is WRONG about our trade policies and have been doing it here on DU for years. Why the mods continue to allow you to continue to post that crap here is beyond me. Some of your crap is word for word from republican think tanks.

[omega minimo]

55. with all the American jobs

:patriot:

[jgraz]

69. So... that's a NO. You haven't been affected.

Nice to see the Randites are still well represented on DU. :eyes:

[pampango]

20. Blame GATT on FDR and Truman. It was their idea to promote trade and avoid the tariff battles

of the 1930's.

They wanted to avoid a return to the Smoot-Hawley-Hoover (all republicans, of course) tariffs in the US that were matched by other countries. They believed, as most European progressives do today, that trade helps promote peace and prosperity.

Even if we revive Smoot/Hawley tariff legislation (and bring Hoover back from the dead to sign the bill) it won't make the 1950's come back. Our industries exported all over the world then with little competition since, of course, the industrial infrastructure of Europe and Japan had been destroyed. That is part of the reason that it was a good era for jobs and pay. Likewise we had little competition from imports here for the same reason. We could sell our stuff all over the world with little competition and no one else made enough stuff to compete with us on our home turf. It was the best of all worlds (for us-not for Europe and Japan, of course).

Those days ended as was inevitable when the rest of the world recovered from the devastation of WWII. Now Europe and Japan have been joined by China, India and others who not only make their own stuff, but compete with us in our export markets and here at home; things that didn't happen in the 1950's.

When you get rid of the trade agreements and raise those tariffs so high that Americans have no choice but to buy made-in-America, remember that you also have to be careful to keep the immigrants out as well. Just keeping foreign stuff out of our country will do little good if you let the foreigners in to make the same things here. Once you get rid of the foreign stuff and keep out the foreign people, I'm sure happy days will be here again. Good luck!

[truedelphi]

61. You mention some very decent points.

I had never really considered how much of the world that used to not produce any goods is now producing massive amounts. That was worth considering.

However, since we are the leading consumers per capita, it took a lot of hard work on the part of our top CEO's to do this to us. I remember a Michael Moore clip from one of his TV shows. On the very week that Proctor and Gamble announced a 1 Billion plus profit, they were down sizing their American operations and putting them overseas.

If the Commies had successfully attacked us and forced us at gunpoint to offshore our steel, and auto, other heavy industries, people would have died in the streets to protect their jobs, because without jobs what are our lives worth?

But because this was done in Corporate Board Rooms by "Americans" with Ivy league degrees, it was all accepted.

And those CEO's were smart enough to not do it all at once. It began with the textile trades in the North as they moved to Southern states. And then eventually to Belize and Columbia and Haiti and Bangladesh.

And then by the end of the eighties, it hit the auto makers in Michigan.

I remember some of my copmuter programming friends, who were all into the philosophical statements of "Well what did they expect? They could have gone to college and gotten a degree and had good jobs."

But then when the programmers got sent home from their 60K plus a year jobs, because software and hardware engineers could be had for a pittance in Pakistan and India, they woke up and they realized what it was all about.


But by then it was the mid nineties and it was pretty late in the game.

[treestar]

23. I don't know

I really don't know whether I've been impacted by it.

But if you have been, would it be too much to ask to explain how? What parts of NAFTA had what effect?

[OhioChick]

24. Being a lawyer, I wouldn't think you'd be affected.....

But who cares, you got yours.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Union Yes]

25. Financial ruin that I still have not recovered from..

I lost a great paying union machinist job in 2000 when my plant closed and moved to Mexico. Then in 2005 they moved to China.

It's been a life of poverty for me since.

And the same for oh so many Americans.

[treestar]

30. How do you tie that to NAFTA?

You have been unemployed since 2000?

[Elwood P Dowd]

46. Are you blind?

Thanks to NAFTA, his job was shipped to Mexico. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs because of insane free trade deals that you support. Why are you even here defending this insanity?

[OhioChick]

48. Blind as a bat, apparently....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4180791&mesg_id=4181929

[Elwood P Dowd]

49. Deaf, dumb, and blind.

The wreckage is all around them, yet this same small group of DU free traitors keep coming back with the same ole republican/corporate talking points.

[safeinOhio]

28. About 80% of the tool and die and machine shops in the midwest

are now gone.

[Midwestern Democrat]

26. Trade policy is my main litmus test when picking a candidate in the

presidential primaries - I look at all the candidates who are plausibly viable and always go with the one with the best trade views. In 2004, that was Gephardt; in 2008, that was Edwards - I didn't think either of those men would ultimately get the nomination but I didn't care - "free trade" Democrats aren't getting my vote in the primaries. I may have to vote for whatever free trader our party nominates (since the alternative is far worse) but I sure don't have to help him win the nomination.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. The factory where I worked between college and graduate school

went to the Mexican border after the founder died. (His philosophy was "Treat your workers right, and they'll give you a good day's work." How quaint. :sarcasm: ) Five hundred people lost their jobs.

This was before NAFTA, but we knew some of the executives, and they were gleefully looking to hire illegal immigrants.

Poetic justice: the company had extreme ups and downs for the rest of its life till purchase by a larger company in the same field put it out of its misery.

[treestar]

34. NAFTA wouldn't have to do with illegal immigrants though

It's not going to allow for them to be hired.

I've never really understood it and supposedly it is a zillion pages long. And no one seems to explain why it caused the factories to move. We see much about jobs going to India and China too and that can't be NAFTA.

It just sounds like a convenient scapegoat that no one understands.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. The reason that it allows factories to move is that it allows

products made in Mexico into the U.S. with no tariffs and completely free movement of capital across borders.

Since Mexican wages are a fraction of U.S. wages, the lack of tariffs makes it attractive to manufacture products in Mexico for the U.S. market.

However, unlike the EU, it does not allow completely free movement of people.

[kenny blankenship]

53. NAFTA's impact on Mexican agriculture has meant streams of people headed to cities

and thence to the United States in search of work. The treaty forced Mexican family farmers to compete at growing corn with the likes of Archer Daniels Midland and ConAgra, which of course they can't hope to do. So yeah, NAFTA was also implicated in the explosion of migrant labor into this country from Mexico, from early on. People tended to forget about that in this decade as the housing bubble expanded. They had got used to the idea of endless streams of immigrant labor, much of it crossing the border illegally, and thought it was just natural --and even good-- without questioning what these folks used to do to make a living in Mexico. NAFTA has been an unmitigated disaster on both sides of the US/Mexico border.

[pampango]

62. Why hasn't the European Union been an "unmitigated disaster on both sides of"

all the borders in Europe? If "free trade" is at the root of all our problems, why aren't progressives in Europe (who seem to be successful in structuring their societies to work for their people) working hard to get rid of "free trade" in Europe?

To the contrary it is the far right wing parties like the British National Party that are campaigning to dismantle the EU so that countries can once again put up barriers against the people and goods from other European countries.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

68. The gap between the countries of Europe is far less than that between

the U.S. and Mexico.

There actually have been some complaints among progressives of Eastern Europeans coming in as cheap labor and displacing low income people in Western Europe. This is particularly acute in the UK.

On the other hand, it expands opportunities for middle-income and upper-income people to work or settle in other countries. It's almost impossible, for example, for a U.S. citizen to get a job teaching English in Continental Europe, because hiring someone from the UK or Ireland requires so many fewer bureaucratic hoops to jump through.

[pampango]

74. Actually per capita incomes in Romania and Bulgaria are lower than in Mexico.

They were admitted to the EU in 2007.

The backlash against immigrants has been manifested in the right wing parties like the British National Party in the UK, not in the left wing or socialist parties.

[pampango]

64. One other major difference between NAFTA and the EU is that the latter requires countries

to meet many standards before they are allowed to join the EU. Among those standards are an open economy with European-style laws regarding labor and the environment, dealing with corruption, reforming the judiciary, open/democratic government and many others.

One would think that the elites in these aspiring EU member countries might fight hard against joining the EU. They are probably reluctant to start following labor and environmental regulations that are quite strict in the EU, existing corruption undoubtedly benefits them given their positions of power, and they have undue influence in governments that are not as open as they will be after joining the EU.

Yet history shows that, despite the reservations that the elite may have, people in these aspiring EU member countries see the benefits of joining the EU so much that their governments are forced to make the substantive changes for the better that make them eligible to become members.

Of course the far right parties, like the BNP, don't like this. When you allow Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and others to join the EU, the people in those countries benefit from better governments, rapidly rising wages and freedom of movement in Europe, but the conservatives worry (there as here) that now all these people who speak a different language and have a different culture are free to live, work, travel and trade with the rest of Europe.

That's why the BNP (and other right wing parties in Europe) wants to dissolve the EU, so that the UK (in the BNP's case) can go back to restricting trade and immigration with other European countries. Fortunately, so far progressives in Europe have kept the far right from having the power to enact any of these policies.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. And not just in the US... and I know this comes as a surprise to people

As well as chinese free trade.

Here is the part that many unions don't like to hear. This is no longer a national struggle. They've gone transnational... Well guess what, high time the unions go transnational.

[donheld]

40. My job is now in India

[Mimosa]

41. NAFTA CAFTA & GATT gave us the 'rustbelt' n/t

[upi402]

45. All of America has! Clinton and Gore suck

They know it, or are in denial, or are uninformed/misinformed.

You are 100% right OP.

[SandWalker1984]

47. The manufacturing plant I worked put 350+ out of work by moving overseas

I was the benefits administrator at a manufacturing plant in the southeast. After NAFTA was passed, they moved all 350 plus jobs overseas and closed down the plant. Very few found other well paying jobs with health insurance and benefits.

One of my brothers, a highly paid IT programmer, lost his 6 figure job for a huge credit card company when they moved the jobs to India several years ago. He's now pounding nails, remodeling homes with another brother for a fraction of his former income.

NAFTA and Clinton can kiss my ass.

[Union Yes]

50. Same here..

My union plant shut down and sent 450 jobs to Mexico in 2000.

I lost a good paying job and crashed into financial ruin.

[omega minimo]

51. That would be all of us.

[Union Yes]

54. That's the whole point I'm trying to make.

:fistbump:

[Greyhound]

52. It wiped my whole family out.

I went from paying $40K - $60K in taxes to nothing.

[Union Yes]

57. NAFTA was originally sold as a policy that would increase our tax base.

Your example blows a hole through the lie called NAFTA.

I just wish we didn't have to sacrifice the livelihoods of good people like you to show just how evil "Free Trade" really is.

[Greyhound]

58. None of the benefit promised by its advocates has come to pass, everything Perot warned of has.

This causes me to ask the question, were the trade agreement purveyors just unbelievably stupid of was this the idea all along? If this was planned from the beginning, isn't it proof that a vast conspiracy did and does in fact exist, and if this is so, isn't a criminal conspiracy to deprive a nation of it's source of wealth something that merits punishment?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Having spent time at two Ivy League schools (for grad school), I think

a lot of corporate leaders grow up and spend their lives in a bubble. Case in point, a number of the undergraduates I knew couldn't believe that I couldn't finance a year in Japan on my own. Not only that, my parents couldn't afford it. Their minds were blown by these two concepts, because didn't everyone have lots of money, except for those invisible, most African-American people who served the meals and cleaned the buildings?

That class of person (unless tempered by life-changing experiences) thinks of ordinary middle-class Americans in the same way that a lot of DUers think of working class people, as objects of ridicule or disdain.

Once Yale played an off-season game against Southern Connecticut, and the Yalies jeered, "State school, state school."

It's no wonder that town-gown relations were bad.

Anyway, if you grow up going to wealthy suburban schools or urban private schools or prep schools, attend college at one of the Ivies or something similar, and then go straight to work at your uncle's brokerage house or law firm, you're not going to have a lot of empathy for a steelworker.

[Union Yes]

60. I think you should write that as an OP..

people need to know this stuff and I totally agree with what you said.

I hate to rip on prestigous institutions of higher learning like Harvard and Yale. But they have produced more than their fair share of warpig, military/industrial complex puppet "leaders" than any other institution.

Are they brainwashed there or is secret society/good ole boy networks that keep churnin out the warpigs?

Sorry, I'm just venting.

Peace

:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

67. The secret societies MAY play a part, but mostly they produce

graduates who are insulated from the real concerns of ordinary people and who socialize mostly with one another. They also tend to be doubtful of the worthiness of graduates of non-Ivies.

Media such as The New York Times, Time, PBS, and Newsweek hire Yalies right out of college. Yale does have a daily newspaper, but it's not so fantastic that its graduates are automatically entitled to write or produce for these national media. I'm convinced that the unpaid internship plays a role here. While ordinary mortals are out waiting tables during the summers between their college years, the more affluent Yalies are working 40 hours a week in unpaid internships in New York or Washington, something that only the upper reaches of American income levels can afford on top of tuition.

[Edweird]

66. We've all been screwed by 'free trade'. I would support a protectionist candidate

in a heart beat.

[jgraz]

70. No American who actually works for a living can honestly answer NO to this.

Even if you haven't personally lost your job to global predatory capitalism, you can bet that your current salary would be a helluva lot higher if there weren't an across-the-board wage depression caused by globalism's race to the bottom.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

71. I would imagine not one person HASN'T been affected by NAFTA

One way or the other...

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

73. Best post on the thread.

[Union Yes]

75. That's the exact point I'm trying to make. Thanks =) .. nt

[WT Fuheck]

72. I'd vote for an anti-NAFTA candidate.

That's a pro-labor prerequisite.

[Union Yes]

76. Welcome to DU and I totally agree. An anti- NAFTA candidate gets my support quick.