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Guest Editorial/Column
Green Party of Michigan on CAFTA
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August 17, 2005
Guest Editorial/Column -- Green Party of Michigan on CAFTA
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Michigan has suffered worse from NAFTA than any other state. That
treaty for 'free trade' of the multinationals, by the multinationals,
and for the multinationals cost Michigan over 118,000 jobs since 1993.
Our net loss of 63,000 jobs is 1.44% of the state's total employment at
the end of last year -- almost double the national average. Hard times
for small farmers and small businesses throughout Michigan can be
traced back to NAFTA.
And as if NAFTA wasn't bad enough, now we're going to hafta
suffer through CAFTA, too.
Technically, it's now 'DR-CAFTA', with the Dominican Republic
tacked onto the Central American Free Trade Agreement. But, according
to the World Bank, that still leaves our new trading partners with a
total GDP last year of only $84 billion -- about the economic size of
Tampa and its suburbs. Not a lot of disposable income there for people
to buy U.S.-made goods . . . and not a lot of support among the people
of DR or CA.
But the 'DR' does serve a purpose -- as a reminder that both
Democrats and Republicans are to blame for this fiasco. Along with
their senior partners . . . Corporate America.
More Republicans than Democrats voted for CAFTA, in the Senate
June 30 and in the House July 27 -- and 28. The House vote took place
over two days because Republican leaders had to hold the '15-minute
roll-call vote' open for over an hour, cheating as well as bribing and
threatening their way to a 217-215 victory at 12:03am. (If you wonder
what evidence there is that pork and pressure entered into the vote,
consider that the _National Journal_/_Congress Daily_ surveyed House
members on CAFTA for its July *26* issue -- and reported a 50-vote
margin against the treaty.)
Bush, Cheney, Rove, and the whole team were up on Capitol Hill
twisting arms 'into one thousand pieces', as one yes-voting GOP
Congressman from Arizona put it. Still, at the end of the allotted 15
minutes, the vote count was 180 to 175 against CAFTA, so the Republican
leadership kept the vote -- and the bullying tactics -- going.
After about 30 minutes, the vote count seemed to stall at 214 yes
and 211 no . . . with eight Republicans who had committed to oppose
CAFTA -- most of them from textile states -- yet to vote. They
jockeyed for position for half an hour more, over who would be allowed
to vote against the bill and save face back home. One of them now
claims his 'no' vote was mis-recorded as 'not voting'. The other 'NV'
was cast by a Virginia Congresswoman whose spokesman said she 'would
have voted against CAFTA but was on her way to her district to attend
a Boy Scout Jamboree event'. The event was canceled because of bad
weather.
But, even with all that, CAFTA would have been defeated if one
more US Representative had voted 'no' instead of 'yes'. And 15 House
Democrats, several of them in safe seats, voted yes.
So did six members of Michigan's Congressional delegation. Vernon
Ehlers of the 3rd District, was 'officially' undecided when -- at his
annual town hall meeting in April -- he told farmers who knew better
that NAFTA had been good for Michigan and that trade agreements like
NAFTA create jobs, not lose them. When a Michigan Farmers Union
representative told Ehlers NAFTA has done nothing for Michigan, Ehlers
ignored the applauding audience and dismissed the statement, saying
that some of CAFTA's best friends were farmers . . and really only the
sugar-beet farmers opposed it.
2nd District Representative Peter Hoekstra belonged to a clique of
bread-now-or-bombs-later Congressmembers who invoked the War on Terror
and the red menace of an alternative trade vision from Castro's Cuba
and the latest leftist bugaboo, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Dan Burton of
Indiana even raised the spectre of Che Guevara -- literally, since
Guevara was assassinated by the CIA decades ago.
Joe Schwarz echoed Hoekstra's 'national security' rhetoric and
Ehlers' economic misinformation -- despite a poll in his 7th District's
largest city, Battle Creek, showing 85% opposition to CAFTA.
Hoekstra, Ehlers, and Schwarz were joined in the pro-CAFTA camp by
4th District Representative Dave Camp -- after enough protections for
sugar producers were thrown in to sweeten the deal -- as well as Fred
Upton of the 6th District, and Joe Knollenberg of the 9th District.
The Green Party of Michigan has long opposed NAFTA, the World
Trade Organization, and the whole alphabet soup of efforts to 'create
new rights for investors, global rights which will override local
democracy, community economics, and human rights', as GPMI.s platform
puts it.
'Republicans and Democrats compete over which can best advance
'globalization' of corporate power; Greens wish to reverse it. We are
against corporate control of government and subordination of
constitutional self-government to international trade bodies, and for
limitations on corporate power'.
If you support fair trade that benefits people, not corporations,
vote yes for the Green Party.
Sylvia Inwood, Chair/Green Party of Michigan
e-mail: ezilizora@yahoo.com
cell phone: 313-333-1064
John La Pietra, Media Committee/GPMI
e-mail: jalp@internet1.net
phone: 269-781-9478
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Source for NAFTA net-job-loss figures:
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Analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau statistics by
the Economic Policy Institute -- see Issue Brief #214 (7/20/05):
'NAFTA's cautionary tale: Recent history suggests CAFTA could lead to
further U.S. job displacement'.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib214 OR
http://www.epinet.org/issuebriefs/214/ib214.pdf
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Other Contacts:
Green Party of Michigan
548 S Main St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734-663-3555
info@migreens.org
posted to web 18 August 2005