Dennis Kucincih would repeal NAFTA. For those of you that support NAFTA, here is some news

[IndianaGreen]

of the impact of NAFTA on the Mexican working class:

Solidarity with Striking Mineworkers in Cananea, Mexico

March 03, 2010

Orlando, Fla.
AFL-CIO Executive Council statement

Since July 30, 2007, 1,200 members of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) have been on strike in Cananea, Mexico. The Mexican government and the employer, Grupo Mexico, have tried unsuccessfully to break the strike and destroy the union. Three times the Federal Labor Board declared the strike illegal, and each time the courts overturned this declaration.

The company then asked the Labor Board for permission to fire the striking workers, arguing that the strike had rendered the mine's machinery inoperable. Refusing to consider evidence presented by the union, the board granted Grupo Mexico's request. On February 11, 2010, a panel of the Mexican Supreme Court upheld this decision, effectively exterminating the right to strike in Mexico. The government is now threatening to send troops to remove the strikers, who continue to occupy the mine.

This decision is only the latest in a series of actions intended to destroy the SNTMMSRM. In the past three years the Mexican government has:

• Refused to certify the election of the union's General Secretary Napoleón Gómez and other Executive Committee members;
• Filed bogus criminal charges against Gómez and other union leaders;
• Imprisoned union leader Juan Linares since December 2008 despite multiple court rulings that the charges against him are baseless;
• Frozen the union's bank accounts, arguing that if the funds are released they will be used for drug trafficking;
• Sanctioned violence by government security forces and company thugs that has resulted in the deaths of four SNTMMSRM members.

These attacks are just part of a broader pattern of attacks on democratic union organizing in Mexico. In October 2009, the federal government fired 44,000 members of the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME). The murder of FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz in April 2007 has not been investigated. The government's proposed labor law reform would reduce worker benefits and facilitate subcontracting at a time when the global economic crisis has caused Mexico's GDP to shrink 6.5 percent in the past year. As U.S. companies continue to move jobs to Mexico, the Mexican government has made it clear that it will not hesitate to use repression and violence to keep wages low.

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec03032010m.cfm

[Dinger]

1. K & R (nt)

[BrklynLiberal]

2. K&R

[Oregone]

3. Even Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA (leveraging the threat of an opt out)

He also said he wouldn't sign a health care bill without a public option

[johnaries]

4. I think it's pretty well established that DUer's hate NAFTA.

But thank you for reinforcing that.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Au contraire! There is a distinct faction that supports NAFTA in here

and they are opposed to those that are resisting neoliberal policies.

[rhett o rick]

6. The DU-DLC club supports NAFTA. nt

[IndianaGreen]

7. No shit!

They sure do!

[truedelphi]

8. Citibank crushed the excellent TV coverage that was going on when the

Very first Chiapas revolt began back in Jan of 2004.

The coverage was on going and very intense. Some of the Big Networks sent their young up and coming journalists down to the Chiapas area, and the journalists were going into the farmer's huts,and pointing to the dirt floors and to the single set of eating utensils that people shared in order to get through their day.

It was a type of poverty that is not even believable to those of us who grew up in this nation.

The coverage started out on Monday and started amping up. By Friday of that week, I was quite excited about seeing where the TV Coverage would be leading. And I was looking forward to a whole new generation of Ed Murrow style documentary news makers.

But it was not to be. By noon of that Friday,a bulletin came across the TV, and it announced that ice skater Nancy Kerrigan had been attacked by someone possibly in the pay of Tonya Harding.

And that was the last of the news coming from Mexico.

It took years before I even found out that it was Citibank that quashed these news reports.
A short mention of the fact surfaced in a related story in Rolling Stone.

[Ohio Metal]

18. Totally agree

but...."Very first Chiapas revolt began back in Jan of 2004."
Don't you mean 1994? Also, we haven't heard a whole lot about the EZLN either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation

[truedelphi]

25. I am so sorry - yes, I DO MEAN 1994. I'm almost

Sixty and starting to feel that if I eliminate a few years here and there, I'll be and feel younger!

God helps us all if I live to be eighty. "Now, kiddies, I remember way back in 2004, when Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon... And then President Eisenhower congratulated him..."

[truedelphi]

9. K & R number 14. n/t

[tranche]

10. Kucinich can't get more than 2% of Democratic primary voters.

How the hell would he manage to repeal NAFTA? It must be great to believe in such a loser so blindly. Kucinich would do this, Kucinich would do that, Kucinich would.... if he would only be given a chance. Sure he will. :eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

11. Do you support the Mexican oligarchs against the workers?

Because in the final analysis, that is really what is at stake here. American workers see their jobs go overseas, even after making concessions. The workers in those foreign countries are oppressed, persecuted, and even murdered in order to keep labour costs extremely low in order to keep the foreign investors.

[tranche]

12. No I don't. But believing Kucinich is going to effect that is like believing in little green men.

[IndianaGreen]

13. My opposition to NAFTA and support of the Mexican workers is not predicated on Kucinich

or on anyone else.

At least Kucinich opposes NAFTA, unlike the political elites in this country.

[JoeyT]

14. While that may be the case

apparently believing President Obama when he said he would do something about it is exactly the same.

[NoPasaran]

15. Kucinich has as much chance of repealing NAFTA

Kucinich has as much chance of repealing NAFTA as he does of flying to the Moon on gossamer wings. All he actually does is crank out political junk food for the adoring nutroots.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. Wrong. He speaks for millions of Democrats. Sorry that bugs ya.

All your low level snark about gossamer wings will not change the fact that Dennis is a man of principle, whereas Obama is a man who borrows principles to fit the moment, one day he has Olympia Snowe principles, the next, he's with Rick Warren, then with Blanche....
The President states that my family is not a real family, that his sky God does not approve of us. Talk about having faith in 'gossamer wings' and all, he thinks his delusions and selected materials from pro slavery writings justify his own bigotry. His delusions he demands be law. His cosmology of angels and the idea that some groups of people are 'sanctified by God' while others are cursed by that same God is twisted, but he and his surrogates preach that insanity. Demons, raptures, curses from the sky. I think I'll stick with gossamer wings over vicious hatred and prejudice in the name of gossamer gods.

[Dawgs]

19. Speaking for millions of Democrats is a lot different that leading for real change.

He's been no more effective than Michael Moore or Glen Beck. He's all talk and no progress. He has become the enemy of the good by being unwilling to compromise on anything that isn't perfect.

[dionysus]

26. too bad there's not even a million americans who even know who he is...

:shrug:

i don't like nafta either, does that make me a hero?

:shrug:

[cali]

16. so would I. That Dennis would repeal it is about as meaningful

as that I would.

[AzDar]

20. K & R

[newtothegame]

21. Why did the employer have to get permission to fire a striking worker?

If you are occupying their workspace but not working, shouldn't your employer have the right to fire you and replace you with someone who will?

:shrug:

[Lord Helmet]

22. How is he going to do that with 2% of the popular vote?

[onenote]

23. More accurate: Kucinich supports repealing NAFTA, along with these folks

Dennis can't "repeal" NAFTA - he can and does support legislation to repeal it. Here are his co-sponsors:

Rep Arcuri, Michael A.
Rep Baca, Joe
Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G.
Rep Braley, Bruce L.
Rep Capuano, Michael E.
Rep Costello, Jerry F.
Rep DeFazio, Peter A.
Rep Filner, Bob
Rep Grijalva, Raul M.
Rep Hare, Phil
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D.
Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr.
Rep Kagen, Steve
Rep Kaptur, Marcy
Rep Kildee, Dale E.
Rep Kissell, Larry
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J.
Rep Massa, Eric J. J.
Rep McIntyre, Mike
Rep Michaud, Michael H.
Rep Paul, Ron
Rep Schauer, Mark H.
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete
Rep Stupak, Bart
Rep Visclosky, Peter J.
Rep Wilson, Charles A.
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C.

[Phx_Dem]

24. He's going to repeal it with what? His enormous power and huge popularity?!

:rofl:

[dionysus]

27. the flying unicorn adds +35 to his attack level?