This year, the final stops will be pulled, and NAFTA will be the great train derailing everything in sight. On 90.7FM (KPFK) in Los Angeles, I heard a wonderful interview (can't remember who it was with) but essentially, this is what's happening -- we're pulling the final stops on any restrictions (tarriffs, etc) on our huge corporate agribusiness companies' exports of corn and beans to Mexico, this year.
What does this mean?
In simple terms, we're putting the rural campesino, the rural farmer who grows and sustains his family on corn or beans, two of Mexico's staple crops since Aztec and mayan times, IN DIRECT COMPETITION with ConAgra and other huuuuuuuge multimillion dollar multimillion acre American companies.
How so? (read on...)
Mexican rural farmers will be buying our corn and beans from the United States. And they won't be able to compete because we're bigger, badder, and yes, our government subsidizes these goods. So not only is the rural campesino pitted against big American corporate business, we're given the unfair advantage of heavily subsidized (therefore cheaper to the mexican govt than their own farmers' goods) goods. Yes, yes. And 80% of "illegal immigrants" (for those in america who have the gall to call ANYONE illegal) come from rural parts of Mexico. It's not so hard to connect the dots.
Oh yes! The show was Connect the Dots -- where I heard this interview. NOW it's all making sense.
I've not gone into how NAFTA hurts American farmers, that will be saved for another post. other than the quick mention that more than 1 million US jobs have been lost as a result of NAFTA, wages have stagnated, and outsourcing became the norm because of NAFTA.
But this brings me to this point -- who of the leading democratic candidates is passionate about repealing NAFTA's unfair "free trade" that benefits NEITHER mexicans NOR working Americans (only benefits the corporate elites on either side). Who? ONLY John Edwards. Because he cares about the workers, the middle class.
I'm feeling Obama's talk and his visions of hope, and yes they're very moving, but underneath that talk I'm not feeling any commitment to the middle class on issues of "free trade". Very recently he supported a unilateral USA-Peru Free Trade Agreement. When the US cannot con a whole region into believing the virtues of its free trade, it attempts to create unilateral free trade agreements where other countries can be manipulated a bit more. And this is what happened with Peru. If you look at the details of the US/Peru free trade agreement, it helps NEITHER the middle class in Peru, NOR the middle class in the United States. [of note, and of IMPORTANT note -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton didn't even show up for the vote on the US-Peru free trade issue, but they both noted their support for it previous to the vote].
It's all pretty infuriating. There's not much making me feel like a vote for Obama or a vote for Clinton would be a vote for the status quo of the democratic party (the party that pushed through NAFTA). Not to say they couldn't be nudged to the left if one of them wins the dem nomination. But come on, people want change. And change shouldn't have to be nudged right now.
Yano?
Is it too much to ask to NOT have to nudge? To not beg and plead?