Government butter and cheese and Obama

[livetohike]

I have to weigh in on this issue of bitterness. I have commented in other threads, but this hits home too hard to not start a thread of its own.

In the early 80's, Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas (West Virginia, eastern Ohio) lost hundreds of thousands of jobs due to government decisions and the steel industry. The Detroit area is feeling it now with the loss of auto industry jobs.

Many Steelworkers lost their jobs and had to go down to their union halls to get an allotment of government surplus butter and cheese. These were proud men and women who would not have thought of themselves as ever needing help from the government. WIC and food stamps were now a part of these workers lives. Free breakfasts and lunches at the schools were now part of their lives. It was humiliating for a man or woman to admit they needed this help and to share all of their personal information on government forms in order to get the help.

Non-profits tried to help with job retraining programs including computer training and health field training (nursing assistants). These programs included job search training since most steelworkers did not have experience in any other field - many did not have a High School diploma or GED - one didn't need that to work in the mill. Soon other large employers (Westinghouse) started to lay off. The largest employers in the area weren't hiring anymore. If you could get a job in another state and move your family, you needed money to move.

These were good paying jobs that left. Nothing has ever happened in this area to replace the hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. All the retraining in the world would not have allowed everyone to stay in the area who wanted to stay here. Was this a long time ago? To some, I suppose it is, but the repercussions have lasted through a couple of generations now.

Obama understands the bitterness. The first step in finding a solution is to understand the problem. As a native southwestern Pennsylvanian, I'm glad he recognizes the problem.

Now let's get on to some solutions.

[Fovea]

1. An economy that makes things again

and the recreation of an ethos that says the best item to buy is the best made one that lasts the longest.

It took a decade of advertising to get Americans to buy plastic. It will take as long to get them to buy steel. But it has to be done.

[livetohike]

3. Going green could provide some great jobs here in SW PA but

it will take some venture capitalists to get it going. I heard Obama speak about a steel plant in Eastern PA that is making windmills for the use in creating power...

[Berry Cool]

28. Technically, they're turbines, not mills, because they're not milling anything.

But I think they offer one of the most promising manufacturing job-creating opportunities out there. Wind power is going to be really big, and there aren't enough turbines to build all the projects out there waiting to be built.

If factories for making turbines can be built here, with incentives to place them here and keep them here rather than outsourcing the work cheaply someplace else...

The big issue is, there are always going to be people in this world who are never going to be able to do work as well any other way as with their hands, or who can do other work but are best at that kind of labor. Those people deserve jobs that pay well and that allow them to suppor themselves and a family. Not everybody is meant to be a knowledge worker. Right now, we're trying to tell everyone they either have to retrain to be a knowledge worker, or they will have to spend the rest of their lives in a low-skill service job that doesn't pay them enough to live on. That's wrong.

[livetohike]

30. Since returning to PA in 2007 I've seen ads from the unions

(brick layers, electricians, etc.) to recruit workers! They provide the training...

It's a good sign, because you're 100% correct in the statement that not everyone is going to be a knowledge worker (nor does everyone want to be one). That was much of the problem with the retraining programs. Computers were the up and coming thing, but many steelworkers did not want to sit at a desk all day and operate one.

[DemReadingDU]

46. Many computer jobs have been sent to Mexico & India

Who knew back in the 80's when people were retrained from manufacturing jobs to computer jobs, that their computer jobs would also be sent overseas in the 2000's. There have not been new types of jobs to retrain the hundreds of thousands who have been laid off again. Not everyone can afford to go back to college for another knowledge job. Union labor type jobs are excellent for their training, but many builders are seeing a slowdown in construction. What's left? Minimum wage jobs? People cannot provide for their families on minimum wage jobs. We definitely need some solutions.

[livetohike]

56. Hence the bitterness......

It does affect generations. I hope this doesn't happen anywhere else in the country. Most people in the US haven't seen anything like that in their lifetimes (the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in one area).

[Fovea]

47. That is interesting.

Here in Kansas we call them windmills, though 99% of the ones doing work are pumping water.

By your lights, they should be windpumps.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. I ate government cheese in college in the 80s.

Not because I was poor, but the father of one my fraternity brothers was an eye doctor. Sadly, a number of his patients were people who were otherwise good working people, but in Buffalo, NY, in the 80s, they were people who ended up screwn, and so had to go on government help. My friend's father was a very kind, generous man, and he let many of his patients be serviced for free - and some of them would offer him their government cheese and other government product as gifts.

The family had too much of that cheese, and so much was sent with their son to college and we ate it. Basically, it was shitty Velveeta. Which is saying something.

[livetohike]

5. It melted really good though

Your friend's father was a good man....

[Life Long Dem]

8. It's manufactured.

I was looking in the audience when Clinton was giving her response and when she said Obama said they are bitter, two black girls behind her started laughing. She had a lot of blacks behind her. Now I wonder if they were paid plants? I saw it on CNN today.

[livetohike]

10. I saw it too

I'm sure everyone hand picks who gets to sit behind the candidate in these events. (I was involved in a Congressional campaign back in 2004 as a volunteer coordinator).

[Life Long Dem]

14. Hillary saying Obama said people are bitter I suppose is a laugh.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. What? Do you seriously think that I thought that government cheese occurred naturally?

:wtf:

[crispini]

22. I always thought it grew on trees.

:rofl:

[juno jones]

50. A friend of mine had a conspiracy thoery

That it caused increased fertility and resulted in more cannon fodder.

[H2O Man]

4. Great OP!

Thank you for this.

We have to remember that the problems that Obama was talking about are real -- and they are an every day part of life for families and individuals in communities across the country. Too often, there is a disconnect, and we see two politicians (McCain and Clinton) attempting to capitalize on this. This OP helps us understand the reality that Obama was discussing.

Nominated.

[livetohike]

7. Thank you H2O man

:hug:

[boston bean]

6. So white people become bigoted because they don't have a job? really.

talk about the real issue here. It's not about generalized bitterness. He was saying people won't vote for him because he believes their bigoted.

[livetohike]

9. Uhhhh, there were many people of color working in the steel mills

back then too.

You can read "bigot" into those comments. Our own Governor Rendell (a Clinton supporter) claims he knows real Pennsylvanians who won't vote for Obama because of his race.

[boston bean]

23. I will give you that, bigotry knows no color.

[Blondbostonian]

13. You live in a fantasyland.

I hope you aren't from Massachusetts.

[boston bean]

24. From Hope to Bitterness. LOL nt

[quakerboy]

42. You got it backwards.

Bitterness to hope. Bitter is where we have been. Hope is where we are. Better is where we aim to be.

I am sorry that your candidate has chosen to stand in the way of that, because I don't plan to give up hope to kowtow to any one politicians ambition.

[AnnieBW]

25. Yep. They do.

You lose your job, and have to go on unemployment. At the same time, you see the rise of civil rights. All of the sudden, you see African-Americans starting to make gains while you're losing, and you think that they're "getting all of the breaks". Or you blame the environmentalists for shutting down the steel plant - never mind that the owners shut the plant down because they'd rather throw everybody out of work than clean up their mess. Then you lose out on a potential job or slot in a training program to an AA, and you automatically think that it was because of quotas or "reverse racism". Then Ronnie Ray-gun starts talking about Welfare Queens in their Cadillacs, and it resonates with you. You vote for him because, in your reality, he's making sense. Of course, Ronnie Ray-gun never does anything to bring jobs back to Outer Slobovia, but he's going to cut those "Welfare Queens who never worked a day in their lives" off of public assistance. You wait for eight years, but your job still doesn't come back. So you vote for Poppy Bush, because he's Ray-gun Lite. Four years later, and you're worse off than before. You vote for Bill Clinton, because he "feels your pain". Or maybe Ross Perot. Then Bill signs NAFTA, and you have someone new to blame for your troubles - the Mexicans.

Don't tell me that this didn't happen. I lived through this crap. Fortunately, my Dad was a teacher, and my Mom worked as a bank teller. We lived in a community that has more Repubs than Dems, mostly because they were a generation removed from their fathers who worked in the mills. But my uncles still worked in the mills, or in the trades, and were really impacted by this. Thank the Gods for the GI Bill, which my Dad used to get an education and get the hell out of the cycle.

[progressoid]

33. Hey, nice synopsis AnnieBW.

I'm from the midwest so the circumstances are slightly different but the attitude is the same.

[livetohike]

39. Perfectly stated AnnieBW

I heard it all from my Dad, Uncles and assorted friends. Don't forget that when women started getting jobs in the mills, they were taking away jobs too :eyes:.

[TahitiNut]

44. That's an apt description of the "Reagan Democrats."

Bravo. :applause:

In distracting the victims of economic predation with the social blame-shifting, the corporate colonialists repeat a centuries-old tactic in subduing a "native" population. This has been repeated many times ... in Viet Nam, in Latin American countries (it's HUGE in Mexico), and in the Middle East.

[juno jones]

11. I feel your bitter

I have been bitter damn near thirty years now. My former hometown in Il has been a ghost town since the 1980's.

As part of the Reagan-era midwestern diaspora, I shout a hearty 'FUCK YOU REPUBLICANS!' and 'I'M MAD AS HELL,' etc.

edit to add FU Clinton, you put the nail in the coffin of what we had left.

[livetohike]

15. I left PA in '78 and '83 and 2001

and I am back (retired now though). I was a teacher in '78 and '83 here (Pittsburgh area). No jobs, people left and took their kids with them - no need for full-time teachers :-(.

:hug: for you

[juno jones]

49. And ...

:hug: to you.

Solidarity. We are all in this together.

My cousins grew up near Allentown. One of my best friends grew up in a coal-mining town not far from there. PA has many fond memories for me.

It has been too bad for too long for many of us.

[kevinmc]

16. American Jobs cannot afford another Bush (McCain) or Clinton Presidency.....n/t

[livetohike]

20. None of them have provided any solutions to this region

especially Reagan who started it all.

[enid602]

17. incentives

The Government built the west by relocating airplane manufacturing plants to Los Angeles in WWI, building Hoover Dam in the 30's, building highways, etc. Now, we know there's not enough water to sustain continued development in the Southwest; no reason the Government can't incentivize people and industries to move back to the Rust Belt.

[livetohike]

18. That's a great idea!

Now we're talking solutions! I guess the local politicians may have been trying to get this- John Murtha has been around a long, long time. It must be hard to convince the rest of the Senate and Congress to act on a "local problem", or else something would have been done a long time ago.

[Penndems]

26. I've been attempting to do this here in the D.C. area

Before we moved back home to Virginia in 2003, our county Dem chairman said, "Don't forget us. Too many people who've left here have." We assured her we wouldn't.

Every chance I get, I'm talking with business leaders about opportunity in Pennsylvania. Whenever opportunities present themselves, I post links to Pennsylvania economic development sites (like www.teampa.com).

My better half and I do whatever we can to illuminate the positives of doing business in PA - and we're not even from there!.

[livetohike]

27. Thanks for your efforts Penndems

:hi:

[Penndems]

29. You know Hike, I'm a Southerner but I do love PA!

They are some of the most decent, salt-of-the-earth and funniest people I've ever met. Pennsylvanians are as honest as New Yorkers, but they can couch their bluntness in such a manner as to not be overtly offensive. If one company in Northern Virginia left and relocated to The Keystone State, it wouldn't matter to me one whit. We have more than enough wealth here, and can afford to help out our neighbors.

You know, an event which occurred while I was working on the '02 Rendell campaign came to mind last evening. Nobody outside the campaign knew about it, so you're seeing it on this thread for the first time.

During a campaign stop, then-Mayor Rendell met with a city official to discuss development opportunities and economic outreach programs. This particular mayor pleaded with him: "Ed, you've gotta help us, we're dying up here. This city has gone from a population of almost fifteen thousand people to forty-five hundred." Mayor Rendell listened intently to this mayor's appeals for assistance, and they began discussing the "Plan for a New Pennsylvania".

At this particular point in their conversation, the mayor looked at Rendell and said, "But Ed, the skilled workers we need aren't here. The smart people left and the stupid ones stayed behind."

Ed Rendell and I had the same reaction when we first heard that comment: Our jaws hit the floor. The only difference is The Guv was there to give this particular public official a dressing-down concerning his callous, foolish remark.

[livetohike]

31. OMG! What an idiotic comment, but there is a little truth in it

Those who could find decent jobs out of state moved. I've lived in SC,TX,MN,CA (twice) and NY and I met people from this region everywhere I went. Most would have given anything to move back to the 'Burgh if they could find a job.

The only reason we were able to come back is that we are retired.

Pennsylvanians will tell you like it is - no matter how blunt their statement :-). Just like NYers, you're right!

[Penndems]

34. Hike, I am waiting for that one enterprising college student to start his/her own company and grow

it into a mega-corporation there that creates thousands of jobs. You know what I mean: A Bill-Gates, creative type who sees the potential PA has to offer, and wants to make a contribution for the greater good.

I know that student is up there somewhere. He or she might be at Penn State, Slippery Rock, Cheyney, UPenn, Pitt, CMU, Temple, Villanova, or Franklin and Marshall - wherever that person is matriculating, I hope s/he bucks the urge to leave and takes a chance on that state.

The end result will more than justify their decision to remain.

[livetohike]

37. Exactly! My husband and I talk about that all the time

I am not smart enough to do so :-).

[Penndems]

38. I don't believe for one minute that you're "not smart enough to do so"

You sound like a very bright lady to me! :) :hi:

[livetohike]

40. Thanks!

I should have said "I'm too lazy.". I'm still enjoying being retired. Maybe one day I'll do something productive again :hi:.

[juno jones]

51. I have to ask,

where in CA?

Many years spent surviving in CA ;).

And that bluntness is what I love about my PA cousins. They used to crack me and my sisters up with their talk.

[livetohike]

55. Seven years in Ventura County (Newbury Park) and another

six years in San Diego County (Oceanside).:hi:

Where did you do your time? :-)

[juno jones]

59. A Bit Farther North

:hi:

A couple of years in The Bay Area (mostly Berkeley) and then up and down the highway 80 corridor from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe. Mostly did my time along the Sierras, which being John Muir/Ansel Adams country made things pretty bearable. It's easy on the eyes. :)

Mr. Feb is originally from San Jose and is totally homesick right now, but my son and I really love the PNW. He'll come around, I hope.

It has always amused me how people who've never lived there have no conception as to the size of CA. My Chicago-area sister used to vacation in San Diego and would always say, "Well, we were thinking that while we were here, we'd take a day and drive up to see you. What's the drive, like 3 or 4 hours?..." :rofl:

[AnnieBW]

19. I agree

I'm from Pittsburgh originally. So are many people that work in the government agency that I do. So many that we have our own "Steeler Fan" list on our internal e-mail system. The observation that I've made for 20 years is that there are so many Pittsburghers in the DC/Baltimore area is because there's no jobs in Pittsburgh.

A lot of that is changing with the high-tech and green communities. I've thought about quitting the Gubmint and moving back to take care of my parents, since both me and my husband are techies. But, give me three days with my parents and I run screaming back to DC. :D

[livetohike]

21. LOL, we came back to take care of our elderly mothers

:hi: That's why we live two hours away and not closer to Pittsburgh.

We were in CA twice for jobs and belonged to the "Black and Gold Brigade" who met in sports bars all over the area. We met a lot of transplanted Pittsburghers (and many Steeler fans who never set foot in Pgh!).

[Lyric]

32. I'm a native of north central WV (Morgantown)

who grew up during the "hard times" period, and remembers the USDA cheese, butter and other foods very well. I live an hour south of Pittsburgh, in a city that has lost all of its industry, and has truly become a city that exists solely for college students and doctors. I grew up in a trailer park, here--my Dad was a carpenter, and my Mom a clerk at a convenience store. Neither of them finished high school. I *still* live in a trailer park, and I am still poor--but I'm also in college, working my ass off to make something more out of the bitter hand I was dealt.

People around here like to claim that Clinton's base is "uneducated", "stupid", "ill-informed", etc. You'd be surprised just how wrong that is. I live in the midst of these "working class" people, and they are far from stupid. What they are is frightened. Obama does not alleviate their fear with his talk of hope and change, because these people have heard it all before. They're far more interested in hedging their bets on the candidate that represents (to them) an era where their lives were a little easier. These people don't care much about the accusations of hypocritical statements and behavior, the nuances of attacks about DOMA, NAFTA, etc. They don't care, because they believe that all politicians are basically the same, and that Obama would likely commit similar offenses if given the power to do so. Their most pressing concern is a tangible improvement in their lives. They believe that the Clintons have proven themselves capable of providing this.

We might not agree with that belief, but disagreement does not have to lead to the accusations of stupidity and latent racism that I see thrown around here in regard to the poorer voters. It's not because they're dumb, and it's not because he's black--it's because they're suffering, and they believe that voting for Hillary Clinton has a good chance of bringing back the security, safety, and jobs of the 90's. If people want to change the minds of the working class, then the accusations of being stupid and/or racist must stop. Insults like that only make them dig their heels in harder--being stubborn is a survival tactic when the odds are stacked against you, and these people know it well.

Talk to them about how Obama is going to make their lives a little less brutal. Promising to work at raising the minimum wage to a livable level (something even the recent raises do not do), providing additional funding to health and human services (like welfare, Food Stamps, health departments, mass transit), and doing something to restore America's industry jobs--THAT is what the working class wants to hear. Not hope, not change--healing and restoration. That is how you change the minds of the working poor. It needs to happen sooner rather than later, because if Obama doesn't reach out soon to tell them what they desperately need to hear, rest assured, McCain *will*. He'll be lying, of course, but his words will be powerful in their ears nonetheless, because he'll appeal to their faith in God--the last resort of people who feel like they're drowning. If the Democrats don't embrace the plight of the working people, then we will not win. In the end, America exists because of the people at the bottom whose labor holds everyone else up. We'd best remember that and honor it with more than words--soon.

[livetohike]

35. Thank you oktoberain

You should have started a new thread - this is a great post. :hi:

[OzarkDem]

36. And in the 1990's Clinton helped them

by bringing some of the steel jobs back and protecting the ones still there.

He also helped by providing funds to help the unemployed and get them retrained for new jobs. Al Gore would have continued the same plan for economic recovery had the election been a fair one in 2000.

Instead we were stuck with 8 years of reversal all the progress and improvements Bill and Al got started.

Hillary will pick up where Bill and Al left off and will bring jobs back to these areas.

Obama, who knows what he was up to in the 90's. Hanging out with Rezko and advancing his political career.

[livetohike]

41. I hope you're right about Hillary Clinton

Bill gave us NAFTA - ask some of the locals here in Pgh. about that. If my Dad was still alive, he'd educate you on what Bill Clinton gave the steel workers.

[stillcool]

57. Obama in the 90's...

This article appears in the January 1993 issue of Chicago Magazine.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-1993/Vote-of-Confidence/
Vote of Confidence
A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape—and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama.
By Gretchen Reynolds
--------------------------------------------
In the final, climactic buildup to November's general election, with George Bush gaining ground on Bill Clinton in Illinois and the once-unstoppable campaign of senatorial candidate Carol Moseley Braun embroiled in allegations about her mother's Medicare liability, one of the most important local stories managed to go virtually unreported: The number of new voter registrations before the election hit an all-time high.
-----------------------------------------
At the head of this effort was a little-known 31-year-old African-American lawyer, community organizer, and writer: Barack Obama. The son of a black Kenyan political activist and a white American anthropologist, Obama was born in Hawaii, received a degree in political science and English literature from Columbia University, and, in 1990, became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. In 1984, after Columbia but before Harvard, Obama moved to Chicago. "I came because of Harold Washington," he says. "I wanted to do community organizing, and I couldn't think of a better city than one as energized and hopeful as Chicago was then." He went to work for a South Side church-affiliated development group and "was heartened by the enthusiasm." But barely three years later, Washington died, and Obama, convinced he needed additional skills, enrolled at Harvard Law School. The African-American community he left, rent by political divisions and without a clear leader, went into a steep decline. By 1991, when Obama, law degree in hand, returned to Chicago to work on a book about race relations-having turned his back on the Supreme Court clerkship that is almost a given for the law review's top editor-black voter registration and turnout in the city were at their lowest points since record keeping began.

Six months after he took the helm of Chicago's Project Vote!, those conditions had been reversed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The name Barack Obama surfaced. "I was asking around among community activists in Chicago and around the country, and they kept mentioning him," Newman says. Obama by then was working with church and community leaders on the West Side, and he was writing a book that the publisher Simon & Schuster had contracted for while he was editor of the law review. He was 30 years old.

When Newman called, Obama agreed to put his other work aside. "I'm still not quite sure why," Newman says. ''This was not glamorous, high-paying work. But I am certainly grateful. He did one hell of a job."

Within a few months, Obama, a tall, affable workaholic, had recruited staff and volunteers from black churches, community groups, and politicians. He helped train 700 deputy registrars, out of a total of 11,000 citywide. And he began a saturation media campaign with the help of black-owned Brainstorm Communications. (The company's president, Terri Gardner, is the sister of Gary Gardner, president of Soft Sheen Products, Inc., which donated thousands of dollars to Project Voters efforts.) The group's slogan-"It's a Power Thing"-was ubiquitous in African-American neighborhoods. Posters were put up. Black-oriented radio stations aired the group's ads and announced where people could go to register. Minority owners of McDonald's restaurants allowed registrars on site and donated paid radio time to Project Vote! Labor unions provided funding, as, in late fall, did the Clin¬ton/Gore campaign, whose national voter-registration drive was being directed by Chicago alderman Bobby Rush.

"It was overwhelming," says Joseph Gardner, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the director of the steering committee for Project Vote! "The black community in this city had not been so energized and so single-minded since Harold died."

Burrell agrees. "We were registering hundreds a day, and we weren't having to search them out. They came looking for us. African Americans were just so eager to have a say again, to feel they counted."

"I think it's fair to say we reinvigorated a slumbering constituency," says Obama. "We got people to take notice."
------------------------------------------------------

As for Project Vote! itself, its operations in Chicago have officially closed down. Barack Obama has returned to work on his book, which he plans to complete this month. He also is teaching a class at the University of Chicago law school, and is an attorney at Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland. But he continues to consult with the church, community, and political groups involved in the monumental registration drive. "We won't let the momentum die," he says. "I'll take personal responsibility for that. We plan to hold politicians' feet to the flames in 1993, to remind them that we can produce a bloc of voters large enough that it cannot be ignored."
-----------------------------
Obama shrugs off the possibility of running for office. "Who knows?" he says. "But probably not immediately." He smiles. "Was that a sufficiently politic 'maybe'? My sincere answer is, I'll run if I feel I can accomplish more that way than agitating from the outside. I don't know if that's true right now. Let's wait and see what happens in 1993. If the politicians in place now at city and state levels respond to African-American voters' needs, we'll gladly work with and support them. If they don't, we'll work to replace them. That's the message I want Project Vote! to have sent."

[stillcool]

58. NAFTA in the 90's

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Economics/ThreeYears_NAFTA.html
THREE YEARS OF NAFTA:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !
by Scott Cooper

On July 10, 1997, Bill Clinton released his Administration's report on three years of the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA).
By law, Clinton was required to release the report by July 1. But he missed the deadline-no doubt to ensure that the report would vindicate NAFTA, which has been under constant scrutiny and criticism since well before its ratification. As InterPress Service (IPS) reported on July 3, 'The delay appears reminiscent of the Administration's handling of a recent investigation of plant closings and labor practices under NAFTA, observers say. Release of that report was delayed for months, during which time the Administration repeatedly disputed allegations it was seeking to suppress and sanitize the document."

And what did the Clinton Administration conclude?
NAFTA had a modest positive effect," says the report's executive summary, i'on U.S. net exports, income, investment and jobs supported by exports."
In his cover letter to the report, Clinton wrote: "The Congress and the administration are right to be proud of this historic agreement. This report provides solid evidence that NAFTA has already proved its worth to the United States during the three years it has been in effect. We can look forward to realizing NAFTA's full benefits in the years ahead."
Why has the Administration been so keen on ensuring a positive assessment of NAFTA? Clinton is seeking Congressional support in the fall for so-called "fast track" authority to negotiate new trade accords, including the expansion of NAFTA to include Chile as well as the planned establishment of a hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This means legislators would agree either to approve or reject-but not amend-trade accords the president negotiates. Administration officials believe they need this authority to signal other countries that they can negotiate without fear that U.S. Iawmakers will amend deals beyond recognition.
But, as trade officials have acknowledged in recent weeks there is concern that whatever public and political support for tree trade might have existed is waning. Given the stakes. the IPS report continued, the pressure has grown for officials to portray NAFTA as an engine of economic growth."
As London's Financial Times reported on July 9: "President Clinton believes he will need to expend a significant amount of capital on Capitol Hill to get fast-track authority. He does not want to spend it at least until the autumn, when the battle over the balanced budget is over."

Devastating effects
The run-up to the release of Clinton's report touched off a flurry of activity. The week before Clinton's report was released, six research groups-the Economic Policy Institute, the Institute for Policy Studies, the International Labor Rights Fund. Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch campaign, the Sierra Club. and the U.S. Business and Industrial Council Educational Foundation- issued a counter-report. titled '-The Failed Experiment: NAFTA at Three Years," the report is a scathing indictment of the treaty.

Here are some of the highlights regarding the United States.
For nearly two decades, the real wages of American blue-collar workers have been declining. Imports from low-wage countries are an especially important cause of increasing wage inequality, and Mexico is one of America's most important low-wage trading partners."
Many firms have used the threat of moving to Mexico as a weapon against wage increases and union organization. In a survey commissioned by the NAFTA Labor Secretariat, Professor Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell found that over half of the firms used threats to shut down operations to fight union organizing drives When forced to bargain with a union, 15% of firms actually closed part or all of a plant-triple the rate found in the late 1980s, before NAFTA."
Based on standard employment multipliers, the increase in the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has cost the U.S. 420,000 jobs since 1993 ('50,710 associated with changes in the trade balance with Mexico, and 169,498 with Canada). NAFTA was responsible for 38% of the decline in manufacturing employment since 1989. NAFTA and globalization generally have changed the composition of employment in America, stimulating the growth of lower paying services industries and accelerating the deindustrialization of our economy."
The Clinton report claims that U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico supported an estimated 2.3 million U.S. jobs in 1996, "an increase of 311,000 jobs since 1993." But Lori Wallach, director of the Global Trade Watch program at Public Citizen, had a different assessment: The administration's NAFTA report must be from Mars, which would explain both the delay and the amazing whoppers and omissions."
The "Failed Experiment" report illustrates how the 1995 peso crisis in Mexico, "commonly used to excuse the sharp deterioration of the U.S. trade balance with Mexico," in fact resulted from an engineered effort to support an aggressive export-led growth strategy in Mexico. The artificially high peso "held down inflation in Mexico" and "helped to win votes" in Congress for passage of NAFTA.
'The peso collapse has devastated Mexico's economy. The number of unemployed workers doubled between mid-1993 and mid-1995, to nearly 1.7 million. Additionally, there were 2.7 million workers employed in precarious conditions in 1996. To make ends meet, many families are forced to send their children-as many as 10 million-to work, violating Mexico's own child labor law. An estimated ~8.000 small businesses in Mexico have been destroyed by competition with huge foreign multinationals and their Mexican partners. Real hourly wages in 1996 were 7% lower than in 1994 and 37% below 1980 levels. Of the 1995 working population of 33.6 million, 19% worked for less than the minimum wage, 66% lacked any benefits, and 30% worked fewer than 35 hours per week. During three years of NAFTA, the portion of Mexican citizens who are 'extremely poor' has risen from 31 to 51%, and 8 million people have fallen from the middle class into poverty.'
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Those conclusions should be enough to convince every trade unionist and activist for social change from the Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego that the fight to stop NAFTA's expansion throughout the hemisphere should be a top priority. But if not. consider the scandalous report released on June 1 by the three nation North American Commission on Labor Cooperation on "Plant Closings and Labor Rights" under NAFTA. It had also been delayed-by some eight months-while commission officials sanitized the findings (not surprisingly, a charge they deny). IPS picks up the story. ' The study not only white-washes data, it also under-reports it.' Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University. was quoted as saying at the time.
"In research undertaken for the commission's report, Bronfenbrenner found a marked increase in U.S. employers threatening to move jobs to Mexico under NAFTA as a way of dissuading their workers from joining unions. When this effort failed. some 15 percent of employers actually closed their plants.
"These findings were expunged from the commission's report, " Bronfenbrenner told IPS. Even worse, the final conclusion of the report basically states that labor law is working effectively to deal with these problems and their only recommendation for the future is that there be more research.''
The job displacement effects and downward pressure on wages in the United States due to NAFTA is well documented. Here are a few examples.
In Pocohantas, Arkansas-with a population of only 6151- some 400 workers were laid off at the Brown Croup's shoe manufacturing plant due to "increased imports from Canada'' resulting from NAFTA, according to the report of the U.S. Department of Labor's NAFTA Transitional Adjustment Assistance Program. (Dec. 16, 1996)
Under NAFTA, JVC shifted production of television sets from its Elmwood Park, New Jersey plant to Tijuana, Mexico. laying off 198 workers in the process-according to the Labor Department. The New Jersey workers averaged $360 in weekly earnings, while the Tijuana workers get $50 on average. Some 24,600 workers in Tijuana are employed in the television manufacturing industry. (Miami Herald. May '4, 1996)
According to an Institute of Policy Studies report, an estimated 69,048 U.S. jobs in motor vehicle-related industries were lost in 1995 due to trade with Mexico. Meanwhile, an internal memo revealed that Chrysler invested $300 million in facilities in Coahuila, Mexico between 1994 and late 1996.
According to the U.S. Labor Department report cited above, more than 100,000 U.S. workers had lost their jobs directly due to NAFTA by the end of last year. The Economic Policy Institute puts the real number at 600,000.

[PA Democrat]

43. I was born in McKeesport, PA a steel mill town in western PA.

I remember the McKeesport of my childhood with the booming steel mills, a vibrant shopping district, theaters, parks and good public schools.

Today, all of the mills are shut down, the shopping district is nothing but boarded up abandoned storefronts, housing prices are severely depressed, and many of the people who did not get out while they could are shadows of the proud working class people they once were.

It breaks my heart to drive through the town now, because the soul of that town died along with the steel industry. The jobs left in the 1980's and nothing has been done to help the people who lost their way of life. I know people who lost their jobs. Many moved, few are doing as well financially as they once were when they worked in the mills.

Yes, there's a lot of anger and bitterness here still. The booming economy of the Clinton years did not reach McKeesport, PA.

Hunting, especially deer hunting, has always been a popular sport in western PA. Today, for some people, it's more than a sport; it's a way to feed their families when your food budget is stretched to the limit.

The people still living in the area are also deeply religious. For many of them, their faith is one of the few things they have left. I don't think Obama was mocking them; I think he sees very clearly what these people have lost and how they do indeed cling to what they have left. He also knows how the GOP has tried to co-opt these same people into believing that those dirty liberals are trying to take away the few sources of comfort and pride that they have left. I think Hillary knows that also, but she has instead chosen do as other politicians have done and use the pain of these people to advance her own political career.

[livetohike]

45. Excellent post and I think you are exactly right

I worked in McKeesport back in 1999-2000 for the Census. I met many of the residents and politicians. Obama is right on this one.

[cooolandrew]

48. Let's more rephrase bitter to disatisfied it makes us look far less negative really.

[livetohike]

53. Bitterness lasts - that's the problem it is not "disatisfied"

Sadly.

[Avalux]

52. Great post, thank you.

I grew up in Altoona and know the bitterness. Obama does understand it, and talking about it is the first step towards change.

[livetohike]

54. Thanks sparosnare

:hi: It's far reaching in our area. He nailed it and he wasn't afraid to say it.....I guess that's one thing I really like about him.

[democrattotheend]

60. How are most people you know in PA reacting?

Any idea how your friends/neighbors are reacting? Have you done any canvassing? Do you think this will hurt him a lot in your neck of the woods?

I canvassed in South Philly over the weekend, mostly in middle class Italian neighborhoods, and nobody that I talked to brought it up.