Kucinich on pulling out of NAFTA

I'm off the fence now.

Submitted by kucinich.us on Thu, 2006-11-16 12:27.

By pulling out of NAFTA, we can return jobs that have been lost, including high-wage jobs in the information technology field. By initiating a WPA-style jobs program that puts Americans back to work rebuilding America, we can create millions of jobs and simultaneously improve our quality of life.

As a nation, we face a predicament of either buy American, or bye-bye America. Unless we cancel the WTO and pull out of NAFTA, corporations will continue to move jobs out of the country and produce goods in developing and third-world nations (with great costs to those countries' workers and environment). In order to buy American, we have to assure that goods are still being produced in America. That's why we must first cancel the WTO and pull out of NAFTA, which have lost us millions of jobs and spurred a soaring trade deficit.

more...http://kucinich.us/issues/jobs.php

on track, as well as helping the poor and homeless.

This is the way you fight poverty, by bringing our jobs back.

And you are right about Universal Health Care, medical bills are one of the major reasons for bankruptcy.

But, while Dennis echoes my sentiments and yours, the rest of the country has been bushwhacked. And your avatar looks alot like you!

He's tearing up the office right about now.

From a purely political pov, free/fair trade seems like a winner for us - I've seen anti-NAFTA billboards in otherwise deep-red parts of South Carolina. The party as a whole needs to get the hell over the fear of economic populism.

God, we're gonna miss Molly.

:toast:

do I know you? Missed a nickname change?

You helped me back to a hotel one evening.

He alone has a vision of the world I'd prefer to live in.

k & r,
sw

I've played with myself. But yeah, Kucinich is pretty much it.

believe in, instead of messing around with calculations and triangulations?

I categorically reject the kind of world the elites want to design for the rest of us. Fuck 'em all. They may very well get their way, but they will NEVER have my consent!

sw

I hope with all my being we can create a juggernaut throughout the land as well as on this board for the 08 election.

He is the only choice right now.

NT!

:thumbsup:

Fairness Doctrine reestablished (which he is attempting to do, as I understand), then he very well COULD be president, as we all wish.

The problem is the republican media will continue to poke fun at him and pound their fists about what a socialist/liberal he is 24/7/365, and he'll never get the air time he should with what he is saying.

If everyone who watches the news could see what Kucinich is really, TRULY, about, he'd be popular with A GREAT many more of the "independents", as well as a huge majority of Dems. He just knows what the problems are, and he's willing to correct them.

:kick:

he is exactly right. we have been fucked over since the mid 70`s and clinton`s nafta was the last blow...i`m to old to worry about ever getting a decent job again but at least my kids generation should have a chance to actually have a chance to know what it`s like to build something.

They get to help rebuild the country.

when a kid out of high school, or maybe that quit high school, could go down to the plant where the Old Man worked, hire on as an apprentice and in four years be making a pretty damn good living.
The "some temporary economic dislocations", that I will never be able to forgive Clinton and Gore for, are now well into there second decade and we're still waiting for all those good, high-paying jobs that free-trade will bring us.

If Gore or Hillary Clinton are elected president, despite their opposite positions on the war, it would probably mean the end of the anti-NAFTA movement.

I'd wager that Obama is a free-trader as well... he doesn't really get into populist rhetoric.

Certain Dems who voted against CAFTA when a Republican proposed it would have authored the exact same free trade measures, including the FTAA (with non-binding "fair trade" articles thrown in, just like NAFTA) if they themselves were President.

Interestingly, a poster recently noted that CAFTA is requiring the country of Costa Rica to privatize all its state-owned utilities, etc.

Don't forget Gore lobbyed on behalf of drug companies rights to withhold patents for generic AIDS drugs in Africa in WTO court -- unlike fair trade provisions, patent and liability protection for US corporations is binding on WTO members -- a low point for Gore.

He may have changed since then, perhaps someone has heard him repudiate his past support for NAFTA and the WTO.

Oh yeah, he sold us out the second he got in office, too. Forgot that part.

In other words, he lied. Yet some revere him while eating their mac n' cheeze paid for with their diminishing-in-value slave wages.

It sucks that he doesn't get more play.

Think any candidate would consider him for a VP position?

but I'm more than willing to be surprised.

I just can't imagine who it would be.

Two guys with the right ideas and values. Plus, two straight-shooters who I can trust.

If memory serves, Bill R. is fairly conservative as Dems go. I'll grant you that it would be an intriguing ticket...

and I don't always agree with him, but I do agree with the way he does things. I respect him. BR and DK would be a great pair.

Could be an interesting thing.

in this election so far should be chiselled to the Dem platform in letters an inch deep.

mmmhmmm.

the capitalists don't like criticism.

DK, I love you! This is a very sensible solution to a serious problem, and along with your other proposals,I think I now have a candidate to back for 2008!

It's not that I'm horrified at much of the rest of the field this time, but this brings it home for me. I have my candidate now.

For me, there's really no other choice (except Gore -- IF he runs and IF he runs on the same sort of platform.)

sw

Dream ticket: Gore/Kucinich.

Man, that would be amazing.

If only the rest had the courage to follow

--start NOW to get delegates committed to Kucinich. He isn't going to do well in regular primary "beauty contests", but a significant presense of Kucinich delegates at a brokered convention from caucus states could give us a lot of bargaining power in terms of making whoever is the candidate throw us some bones on fair trade and universal health care.

Very few people show up to a caucus primary, so your presence can make a big difference. Bring your friends and some print outs to illustrate that Dennis is the man of the people.

But we don't just want bargaining power, Dennis CAN WIN and he will win if we all stop being naysayers and do whatever we can to fight for him. Look what he has been doing to fight for us, the least we can do is not give up before we even get started.

Who knows what might happen under those circumstances? Win or lose, we can advance his agenda.

Because, almost 15 years later, NAFTA has proven even worse for the Mexicans than for Americans.

The wage disparity has gone from 5:1 to 8:1 after NAFTA; the WTO makes it cost-ineffective to go to HAITI, much less Mexico.

Free trade in theory, much like socialism, looks great on paper. Then American corporations find a way to screw it up, screwing workers and citizens, in favor of a higher profit for the richest one percent.

type of international trade is good? Is there a good middle ground between unrestricted trade and building high walls around the country?

- rules that favor the large corporations who's interests are represented by the WTO.

So it's not so much about restricted versus unrestricted trade, it's about what the rules should be and about who should make the rules.
A good start would be not to demand of developping nations that enter the global market to remove "trade barriers"
such as Unions, worker rights and environmental regulations.


Globalization insider and anti-globalist Joseph Stiglitz has well defined ideas about how to fix it:

17th lecture on Globalization
nov 10 2006
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/globaliseringslezing/artikelen/30470543/
(real video, see righthand side of the page)


Joseph Stiglitz:
One of the most prominent critics of World Bank and IMF policies
Former advisor to president Clinton
Former Chief Economist for the World Bank
Nobel prize for Economics in 2001
Author of Globalization and its discontents and Making Globalization Work
Professor at Colombia University


quotes:

"Globalization drives wages down."

"We tried to help Bolivia, it went under. We tried to help Brazil, it exploded. We tried to help Indonesia, it was burning in riots.
Maybe there's a pattern here.
Our systems for eliminating barriers, eliminating unions, cause pain - but not pain that leads to gain, it's pain that leads to collapse, failure and economic death."
(these remarks got Stiglitz fired from the World Bank)
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=128&row=1

"A good start would be not to demand of developing nations that enter the global market to remove "trade barriers"
such as Unions, worker rights and environmental regulations."

And sorry for my use of the term unrestricted trade. I did not mean that for the current definition of free trade, just as some kind of abstract end of trading options.

Also, did we force China to remove "Unions, worker rights and environmental regulations"? I had the impression that their current government wanted it that way.

Corporations only need to 'force' those governments that do not want to cooperate on their own accord.

China still has a totalitarian regime; it is not government "of, for and by the people".

It is when a government does not want to cooperate that we see coups, assassinations and regime change - usually under the pretense of fighting communism (or today more commonly, fighting terrorism). See the history of US foreign policy in Latin America and elsewhere (ie Iran/Mosadeq in the early 1950's).

on edit:
re Iran/Mossadeq see
Operation Ajax
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=118966&mesg_id=118966


2nd edit:
Elections in China
BBC
China village democracy skin deep
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4319954.stm

Direct elections of local officials by almost a million villages across the country have in recent years been widely welcomed as a possible first step towards a multi-party state.
...
A popular web forum was closed down after it provided coverage and debate on the continuing confrontation between village residents - who accused Chen Jingshen of corruption involving a huge land deal - and regional officials and police who resisted their attempts to remove him and hold new elections.

The lawyer who helped the villagers with their claim has reportedly been arrested, and a political activist involved in the dispute reportedly beaten up.

"The Government responded in a violent and reckless way," said Hou Wenzhuo, director of the Empowerment and Rights Institute, a non-governmental activists' group in Beijing.

"At first they reluctantly allowed the petition. But then up to 1,000 police raided the village and acted like gangsters, using water hoses on the farmers and arresting 48 local inhabitants, including old women."
...

applying various forms of pressure on the Third World to make their countries more "hospitable" to for our corporations. That history is of course despicable. Each country and its people should be free to adopt whatever economic model they choose.

China is a totalitarian regime, and has been since 1949 and probably much earlier than that. Their only change recently is in the economic model that the totalitarian regime has chosen to pursue. Since much of the debate now about outsourcing and fair trade involve China, how do we deal with them?

Do we pursue a "hands-off" policy of letting the Chinese people change their own government when they are ready? (Something we should have done for the Iraqi people.) Or do we "get involved" in their society and tell them how to run their factories and treat their people, if they are going to trade with us? (If we do that with China, do we also tell other countries how to run their economies (something we have done too much of in the past and I would hope that we would strive to stop doing), as well?)

economic policies both in the US/the West and abroad.

Then if we're serious about "spreading democracy" -genuine democracy- then we'd have to pursue diplomatic means, as opposed to allowing 'our' corporations to negotiate trade agreements with just any government, without oversight by our government. And we certainly should not send in our 'intelligence' agencies to assassinate or otherwise overthrow democratically elected governments that do not have global corporate interests at heart.

Once genuine democracy has been established, in all likelihood those countries will not implement economic policies that benefit large financial interests at the expense of The People.

interests that dictate economic policies both in the US/the West and abroad."

We could enact new regulations on our corporations and how they do business here and abroad, but that will not change how China conducts its economic affairs. China, and to a lesser extent India, South Korea, Taiwan, have a vested interest in maintaining the WTO and GATT as they are now. I suppose that longer term we could hope to cause the WTO and GATT to change their rules to incorporate such things as labor rights, environmental protections, working conditions, etc. But even that would have to be an undertaking that was eventually agreed to internationally, not imposed by us.

Are we trying to change how all countries trade with each other, or just how they trade with us (because we are special)? If we had (or, if you prefer, since we have) the power to impose a new, more progressive, set of rules for international trade, should we? (Not have we in the past. I think we can agree that we have and that was not a good thing.)

But we do because not-so-influential people like you and me do not dictate the policies, but instead large corporate/financial interests dictate the policies. If for no other reason than lobbying, but also because of corruption and fraud.

I'm not in favor of imposing anything. As i said: a think we should first pursue diplomatic means to help created genuine democracy in nations that are governed by interests that are opposite to the interests of the people of those nations, be it oppressive regimes or fake democracies such as the US.

Corporate interests have not just been trying to change how countries trade with one another, and with the US - they have succeeded, for the most part. Low wages, weak worker rights and weak environmental regulations help corporations make more profits. That's what many if not most big corporations want, and that's what they get - thanks to their own efforts. That's why most current trade agreements are as they are.
I say if we're going to try to change anything, i prefer to try and change it for the better. And i think the focus should not be on trade, but first and foremost on democracy - real democracy, by diplomatic means.

it will become to expensive to ship

It will cost as much as is needed to offset the cost of extraction and shipping.

I have my issues with the WTO, but NAFTA has nothing to do with China or India. Are we really losing IT jobs to Mexico? Cancelling NAFTA will do nothing to stop the flow to India, and US corporations have jumped right over Mexico to go right to even lower labor sources in China and elsewhere.

I think the loss of jobs could be addressed at least in part with tarriffs that compensate for other countries lack of environmental controls, health care, copyright/patent protection, and worker safety rules.

I know I differ from most other liberals in not strenuously opposing NAFTA. I think it could have and should have worked better. I'm sure it's flawed, but the time was right to try something like that. it should have made a difference in the immigrant issue too, but since China has flung open her doors, NAFTA is largely moot.

Hi Uly! :hi:

because NAFTA creates economic circumstances that motivate Mexicans to go to the US for jobs (i'm not blaming Mexicans for that).

NAFTA is similar to trade agreements with China in that it is to the benefit of large financial interests (that have a strong influence on the creation of those trade agreements), at the expense of The People of all nations involved, including the US.

I have contacted the Kucinich campaign to ask for volunteer information because I don't have to worry about where he stands or if special interest money somewhere is affecting his plans for America or his integrity.

Sealing the borders eliminates leverage this country can have in enacting positive change in Mexico...which I believe many of the early proponents of NAFTA believed. They thoughts not only would jobs flow across the borders, but so would unions and ideas and ideals. The jobs did, the rest didn't. This bill was perverted by the large corporations to union bust and enrich the wealthy on both sides of the border.

Scrapping NAFTA totally would jack up prices on all sides...Canada included...that in-turn could lead to jobs vanishing in Mexico and encourage the multi-nationals to flaunt other international conduits for cheap, non-union labor. Having some binding law is important, but it needs to be revised so that the maximum numebr of people in all countries can benefit.

There needs to be re-negotiations where the rights of unions and a concerted effort by the US & Canada to pressure Mexico into opening its oligarchy up and require similar wages and benefits paid in Mexico for the same work done in Ohio or Manitoba.

Fair trade doesn't mean only goods...it means labor and living standards as well. Without any formal treaty in place, we start from zero and waste years, instead of revising what's existing (which does have some benefits through no taxes or tarrifs) and focusing on the inequality of the labor forces in the member countries.

Cong. Kucinich is in the right place here, but destroying NAFTA could result in more job losses and further consolidation in short term...pushing the economic difference between Mexico and the US further out of whack (more immigration anyone?) and encourage the Mexican government to ingore a myriad of issues, including immigration, polution and water use.

But Hillary, Edwards and Obama get all the coverage. None of them is fit to be President. It's down to Kucinich or Gore.

He is right on the issues and looks out more for the ordinary person rather than corporations. He will sadly never get into office, even if it requires a bullet with his name on it. Sad to be so cynical, but I firmly believe this to be the truth. Doesn't mean I still won't continue to support, work and vote for him, I would love to see him in office. I'm just stating the reality as I see it.

nt

It's all part of the MSM's plan to keep us all screwed. Why is the USA virtually the only country in the world without universal health care, and why are we allowing all these companies to run our jobs overseas??

thanks again Democratic Underground!!!

If Gore doesn't run, DK is looking better and better :thumbsup:

Anything less, and the Democrats are simply a lesser of evils choice

He really should be ashamed, as if to say there are no human beings worthing of buying goods and services from outside of the US.

at the moment.

See, if we buy most of our goods from Walmart and US Corporations who hire workers from other countries, who buy and supply all goods from other countries because profit is their bottom line and congress passed NAFTA to appease their greed, then we lose all of our jobs in the US.
The corporations are packing up and leaving. We aren't making many things in this country anymore.

can be laid squarely at the feet of the architects of NAFTA.