Thursday, August 14, 2008

Hillary Clinton's convenient turnabout on NAFTA and free trade

Hillary Clinton wasn't home baking cookies during this period in history. She was deeply involved or remained silent about the attack on workers across the world. Here is a published letter providing a time line:

Friday, March 07, 2008
Cleveland Plain Dealer Letters Editorial Page


1980s - While Hillary Clinton was on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart, about 1,000 U.S. factories were moved to Mexico.

1992 - 2,000 maquiladora factories in Mexico.

1994 - NAFTA is passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton; number of factories moved to Mexico doubles to more than 4,000; reports tell of "dirty manufacturing" in Mexico causing health problems and birth defects.

1995 - President Clinton rushes $20 billion to save the Mexican economy. Then he uses other means to rush even more money to Mexico. ( President asked Congress for $40 billion but they gave him just $20 billion instead- he said he would use other means to get the extra money to bail out the Mexican peso )

1996 - Hillary says NAFTA is good for everyone

2000 - Hillary, at an economic forum in Switzerland, praises business efforts in supporting NAFTA.

None of the above stopped the flood of Mexican workers to the United States seeking economic survival.

Now, after all of that, Hillary says free trade has to be tweaked at bit.

Teddy Roosevelt said the major threat to America are corrupt politicians tied to corrupt businesses.

Franklin Roosevelt said economic diseases are highly communicable.

Pope John Paul said workers are not tools of Capitalism.
(Nor, are they tools of state run economies like in China and other totalitarian nations.)

Henry Ford said workers should be partners in business.

Rerum Novarum says it is shameful to use men as things for gain.

The main commodities of Free Trade are workers not products. Free Trade degrades human dignity. Workers are put on a world trading block to compete down to the lowest common denominators of wage slave and even child labor. Production is made mobile ready to move again and again if workers protest too much for a living wage.