hate illegal Latino immigrants for taking American jobs?

[ulysses]

Do any of you folks give a rat's fat ass about NAFTA? Does anyone spouting about how DU is classist give a damn about all the manufacturing jobs that got shipped *to* Mexico and then to Asia, where it was even easier to exploit workers? Or does the fact that Bill Clinton herded NAFTA through a Democratic Congress in 1993 just make it easier to scapegoat Latinos for the whole mess?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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

[ulysses]

2. LOL!

No, but welcome to DU. :D

[foreigncorrespondent]

3. Gosh!

How "liberal" of you!

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. You are a bad boy

I was just getting ready to retire for the evening but now that I see you are starting something here, I may stay up a bit longer. :popcorn: :popcorn:

[ulysses]

6. probably not worth staying up.

My being mistaken for a freeper for the 90th time because I dared to criticize BC is probably as exciting as this is going to get. :)

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Okay I'm game

I like diversity. I am glad I have so many Hispanic neighbors here in the midwest.

I have mixed feelings about NAFTA. At the time, I felt it was probably inevitable. We have a world economy and can't be isolationists. But I sure feel for friends and family who have lost jobs in the past decade. My hometown is Sprint world headquarters. The cutbacks there have been devastating to our local economy. I can't even count the number of people I know who have been laid off by Sprint.

Selfishly, I am glad I teach and have job security. My son is in college now and wants to teach. I told him the same thing my dad told me - you won't end up rich, but you'll always be able to work.

[ulysses]

10. I'm actually headed to bed in a second.

Economic globalism probably is inevitable, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The current form it's taken wasn't inevitable, though. :)

[rman]

16. Let me try resolve your mixed feelings about NAFTA

The short version: NAFTA is a scam for enrichment of transnational corporations, and the "world economy / can't be isolationists" thing is one of several bogus arguments for it.

The longer version:
Did you now that under NAFTA corporations have the power to sue entire nations for "unrealized profits", that there's such a thing as the NAFTA court which is de facto more powerful then the International Criminal Court? That's how Mexico got fined 17.5 Million to be paid to the corporation that wasn't allowed by Mexico to build a chemical waste dump on top of an aquafer somewhere in Mexico. All that Mexico did was refer to its environmental laws - problem is that environmental laws, much like labor rights and Unions, are in the context of Globalization considered to be "trade barriers". Obviously barriers need to be removed.
NAFTA and similar agreements (FTAA, GATT) along with the rules and regulations that go with it, are created behind closed doors, entirely undemocratically. NAFTA court is more powerful then the ICC in that the ICC can (apparently) not be called upon as a higher authority to question the legitimacy of the NAFTA court.

google: NAFTA Mexico Metalclad.
The least you'll find is that i didn't just make up this story.


NAFTA's chapter 11
"...gives corporations rights to sue governments in special tribunals, for unlimited compensation for profits lost due to normal governments activities."

"...there have been cases, like "Metalclad".
An American company called "Metalclad" went down to Mexico to build a toxic waste dump on an aquafer; the local supply of water. The government said "no, this goes against our environmental laws".
The people are getting poisoned from the water - what corporation has a right to poison our water? The government passed a law that said "no, you can't operate this thing".
They said "that's to bad, we have rights as a corporation that outweigh your human rights". They sued them for 17.5 million dollars saying it was a barrier to fee trade.
This US corporation takes the Mexican government to a NAFTA court, sues under this chapter eleven, and the ruling is - the Mexican government has to pay millions of dollars in "penalties", for "lost profits" of this corporation."

from the documentary "Trading Freedom" (Indymedia)
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/284511.html

also documented at

Berkeley University
http://are.berkeley.edu/courses/EEP131/classpresentations/Metalclad.pdf (PDF)
(turns out the amount in penalties to be payed by the Mexican government was reduced, but "...the judge agreed with the NAFTA panel on the merits that the actions of the Governor constituted expropriation".

New York Law Journal
http://www.clm.com/pubs/pub-990359_1.html

Stop FTAA
http://www.stopftaa.org/article.php?id=37

"NAFTA Chapter 11 Investor-to-State Cases: Bankrupting Democracy"
http://are.berkeley.edu/courses/EEP131/Nafta_Chapter11.pdf (PDF)


There are plenty more examples where that came from.
Can you name even one concrete example where NAFTA did any good for 'ordinary people'?

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Thanks

good information

[foreigncorrespondent]

5. I agree!

Looking for scapegoats isn't the answer to getting jobs back into the country.

Let's talk about Sapph, who has been unemployed and struggling since the dot com crash of 2000. How come she can't get a job, I hear you ask? Simple! Her job went to India!

But no! Let's not blame the government for the job losses, let's just blame those pesky illegal immigrants and be done with it! Yep! That makes a whole hell of a lot of sense to me. NOT!

Excellent post, my friend!

[ulysses]

7. thanks, fc!

:hi:

[foreigncorrespondent]

8. Welcome!

:hi:

[Celeborn Skywalker]

11. I don't really mind the illegal workers

It's the corporations that hire them and use them as slaves that I want to go after. And yes, I hate NAFTA too.

[Robert Oak]

12. well, I'll bite

on this "pickin a fight" style of post but
I'll say in terms of decimating the US and middle class it goes
like this in order or damage

1. China PNTR
2. WTO
3. Fast Track authority
4. Nafta
5. Corporate tax loopholes/offshore incorporation use
of US based subsidiaries
6. Not stopping government/state jobs from being outsourced
as well as not discouraging it through tax cuts and R&D
incentives (VC tax breaks for exclusive US investment, including
hiring US workers)
7. budget deficit
8. illegal border hopping

That said, this underground economy/illegal immigration is massive
(est. @ 23M)
the studies are pouring in on the strains it's putting on US social
services.

but, if the intent of this post is seemingly there is a lack of focus
on those frigging trade agreements and yup, NAFTA hurt Mexicans immensely and that's one of the reasons (add their completely
corrupt government and all $$/power in the hands of about 20 families)
they are jumping the border...to escape abject poverty.

If the focus of this post is to bring back the issue of
trade agreements that only benefit multinational corporations,
ruin local economies and decimate the middle class...
I agree..that is very much a fundamental issue and I don't like
see the focus off of that insanity (trade policy).

Few want to look at what Clinton did and frankly I didn't notice
it at the time because I sided w/ him due to the Monica thing...
but he really did screw the American people for his administration
signed NAFTA, joined the WTO, signed and pushed for that ultimate
trade giveaway, the China PNTR and we're paying big time for this
sell out.

[Robert Oak]

14. oops

add use of H-1B visa to bring in cheaper foreigners and fire
Americans (increase labor pool supply plus break salary stds
and age discrimination).
One of the major discussions in the WTO
is to create "unlimited worker VISAS" via GATS that will enable
any corporation to import foreigners, not subject to US worker
laws, the VISA status is under the control of that corporation,
like a H-1B VISA, undercut US salaries and wages (replace/fire Americans
w/ cheaper foreigners)....


Hopefully a pattern is starting to be seen and illegal immigration
is part of it...
erosion of salaries, workers rights, protections, wages...

i.e. heading towards a surf/slave economy in a global world
run by multinationals.

[norml]

13. Employers who employ workers from poorer countries should be fined

for every worker from a poorer country they employ, for every day they employ them. All the jobs that can leave the country, to go to workers in poorer countries, are already gone. Now it's a matter of not having workers from poorer countries brought in to take jobs here. Allowing employers to employ workers from poorer countries, drives down wages and working conditions, for everyone living here. Oh, and by the way, the border is just a distraction. If there are no jobs offers, workers from poorer countries, will not come, and will go home. If jobs are offered, no amount of border guarding will keep them out. Exemptions for certain seasonal migrant agricultural labor, would of course, remain in place.

[Selatius]

15. I blame our current system

It generates greed. It rewards those who are the most ruthless in the marketplace with market share and wealth beyond imagination. It says that we must compete and try to beat each other so that a winner may emerge.

Things such as free trade agreements and issues of illegal immigrant workers are merely symptoms of people who are trying to find ways to either make more money or get ahead of everyone else.

Preferring to pay a Chinese assembly-line worker 60 cents an hour as opposed to a unionized assembly-line worker in the US 10 or 20 dollars an hour is, to put it bluntly, "economically feasible." It makes pure sense from a dollars and cents point of view.

Do I justify it? No. My principles simply prevent me from doing so. I'm a libertarian socialist. I favor moving towards a way of life built on mutual cooperation and sustainability not just for the survival of humanity but for the survival of the planet as a life-sustaining system as well. I believe it is the long-term solution.

Rather than ripping each other down, shouldn't we express solidarity with all the workers of the world? All the people of the world who simply want to provide for themselves and their families? Ultimately, aren't we all neighbors? Aren't we all in the same boat?