Three NAFTA Leaders Sit In for the Last Time

[Judi Lynn]

April 30, 2008
Three NAFTA Leaders Sit In for the Last Time
Bad Jazz in New Orleans
By JOHN ROSS

New Orleans.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon was not having a good day. His plan to arrive in New Orleans for the NAFTA Summit April 21-22 with a freshly minted law privatizing Mexico's oil industry in his pocket had been foiled by the opposition's takeover of congress. Now after repeatedly promising his U.S. backers that privatizing was a done deal, he was flying up the Gulf empty-handed. Moreover, the Mexican Congress had waited until the last minute to grant him permission to travel to New Orleans. He practically had to beg for the permission, an acute embarrassment to Calderon, more than half of whose compatriots do not think he was legitimately elected president.

Just to add to the bad juju, the mariachis who were selected to welcome Felipe Calderon at Louis Armstrong International Airport had been stopped by Homeland Security and stripped of their instruments. The six members of the Mariachi Mexico Tipico who had motored over from Houston for the occasion in their wide sequined sombreros and tight silver-studded pants, waited disconsolately outside of the barricaded terminal for the return of their violins, guitars, and guitarones.

In their stead, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, that venerable posse of oldsters, were assembled on the tarmac to tootle "When The Saints Go Marching In" when the Mexican president's plane touched down - it wasn't "Caminos de Michoacan", Calderon's favorite mariachi tune, but it would have to do.

Although still seriously scarred three years after Hurricane Katrina struck home, the cradle of jazz was chosen to play host to the fourth Summit of North American Leaders and the last one with Bush on board. Indeed, the U.S. president was returning to the scene of his greatest disaster (arguably - there have been so many) hauling a wagonload of bad baggage. Bush's ratings have plummeted to the lowest ever for an outgoing U.S. head of state and over 62% of the American public consider his presidency a catastrophe, according to a consensus of the polls.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross04302008.html

[Demeter]

1. He Shoulda Stood in Bed

I've had years like that. Everything Bush touches turns to mierde.

[pberq]

2. Karma is tough, isn't it?

Poor guy. After years of ripping off the little guy, he had a tough day.

[pberq]

3. NAFTA is back in the news

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross04302008.html

. . .


NAFTA is back in the news after a 14-year absence in which no one paid any attention whatsoever to the millions of workers and farmers on both sides of the border decrying the deprivations that the trade treaty has dumped upon them. But in recent weeks, the dueling Dem frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been barnstorming rust belt states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana where NAFTA impacts are poignant - during the Pennsylvania campaign, the Hershey Corporation, the nation's most emblematic chocolate maker, announced it was moving hundreds of production jobs from its Hershey Pennsylvania plant to Mexico - and renegotiating the trade treaty has become a hot button campaign issue.

[Judi Lynn]

4. The Labor Movement's Principled Position on Colombia FTA

The Labor Movement's Principled Position on Colombia FTA
Posted April 30, 2008 | 09:10 PM (EST)

Lately, in numerous news sources, including the New York Times, Miami Herald, and New York Post, the U.S. labor movement has been accused of "lying" about the violence confronting unionists in Colombia.

Really, while the articles in these papers claim the union movement is telling untruths, the heart of their argument is that labor is overstating the problem. Thus, their argument goes, "only" 39 unionists were killed last year in Colombia, a much better figure than previous years.

The commentators in these articles claim that the union movement, to make its case about how bad the labor situation in Colombia is, relies upon "outdated" statistics, such as numbers from prior years which, when totaled, show that over 2,300 unionists have been killed since 1991.
As an initial matter, the U.S. labor movement believes, not incredibly, that 39 unionists killed in a year is way too many. It remains the worst level of anti-union violence in the world.

Commentators who use "only" and "merely" to describe 39 murders, we believe, do not value the sanctity of human life.

In addition, they ignore the important fact that, even while union killings declined in 2007, the Colombian military's share of such killings actually rose. Thus, while only two unionists were killed by the military in 2006, the Colombian military was responsible for at least five union killings in 2007.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/the-labor-movements-princ_b_99521.html