The Problem is Free Trade-Not Immigrants!
The Problem is Free Trade-Not Immigrants!
Adam Weissman
NYC People’s Referendum on Free Trade
My name is Adam Weissman, and I’m a member of Wetlands Activism Collectve. We’e a member of the NYC People’s Referendum on Free Trade, a group fighting against trade agreements that harm workers, the environment, small farmers, medical patients, users of public services, students, animals-really everyone but multinational corporations.
This week is the one year anniversary of one of the greatest days of protest in the history of this country! On May Day, May 1, 2006, millions around the country took to the streets to send a message loud and clear to the Washington elites-no more racist scapegoating of immigrants!
We’ve heard so many racist lies about immigrants-I won’t even dignify them by repeating them here. But what the white men in suits in Washington never tell us is how the economic policies they are responsible for are forcing immigration in the first place.
So-called “free trade” agreements like NAFTA have destroyed the traditional economies of people in developing countries in the interest of expanding profits for big US corporations, forcing people to either become a part of the sweatshop economy in their home countries or emigrate to the United States to provided a better life for their families.
According to an article by Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter on Common Dreams.org:
• NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'
• NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
• Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.
NAFTA promised economic development for Mexico, but in reality all NAFTA did was serve it’s real agenda-make rich corporations even richer, at the expense of workers in Mexico and the United States.
Now, the corporate executives and sleazy politicians may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. They know that if the general public catches wind of how we ALL got screwed to make the rich even richer, then the people of this country will show the politicians responsible for these policies the door.
So, they use their weapons of mass distraction-idiots like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter,-to focus the frustration of US workers facing mass layoffs on immigrants, rather than recognizing that the same free trade policies that are destroying the national economies of nations in the global south are also leading to the outsourcing of jobs-one of the REAL causes of lost jobs for US workers.
For the corporations, it’s a perfect arrangement. First, they destroy people’s traditional livelihoods in global south countries. Then they layoff US workers and “rescue” the people whose lives they’ve destroyed in the global south by hiring them to work in sweatshops and on plantations growing cash crops for export. A percentage of those people head northward, entering the US without the benefit of documentation, looking for employment so that they can send money home to their families. Wal-marts and corporate farms hire them at pathetic wages, and they often work under terrible conditions. Thus, Bush, presenting himself as a “moderate” on immigration with his “guest worker” program-providing the corporations the labor they need while doing little to benefit the workers. Meanwhile, firebreathing Republicans elected officials decry immigration while providing political cover for the corporations and policies drivng immigration in the first place.
Unfortunately, NAFTA was only the beginning. In 2005, Congress passed the Dominican Republic- Central America Free Trade Agreement. And in 2006, in a typical example of Bush administration hypocrisy, the same government who now justifies its war on Iraq in the name of spreading democracy and freedom apparently had no problem pasing a trade agreement with Oman, an absolute monarchy where labor unions are illegal and which has been linked to human trafficking.
But for the Bush administration, hypocrisy and trade deals go hand in hand. How else can we explain why Bush, Mr. War on Terror, is so zealous to pass a trade agreement with Colombia, the country with the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere- a country whose president is directly linked to the AUC, Colombia’s murderous right-wing paramilitary, an organization formally recognized by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization?
And while we keep hearing about how we need more patrolling to stop the importation of illegal drugs, the Bush administration has little to say about the fact that farmers in Colombia have warned that if their livelihoods in growing corn, rice, and beans are destroyed by a flood of US exports subsequent to a trade deal, they will have no choice but to grow opium poppies and coca-the stuff that gets turned into cocaine.
At the same time that it is trying to move ahead on a trade deal with Colombia, the Bush administration is trying push Congress to ratify trade agreements with Peru, South Korea, and Panama. Farmers in South Korea are so convinced that the trade deal will destroy their livelihoods, that several have committed suicide in protest.
Under US law, Congress is required to wait 90 days after a trade deal is introduced by the Adminstration before voting on it. We are in the midst of those 90 days right now on all four of these trade deals with the bills ready to be voted on by June 30. With Democrats now controlling Congress, we have a chance that these terrible trade deals won’t pass, but Democrats have been known to sell out-15 of them voted for DR-CAFTA, allowing the bill to pass-by only ONE VOTE.
It’s absolutely CRUCIAL that we contact our elected officials NOW and demand that they vote NO on all four of these agreements-Colombia, Peru, South Korea, and Panama! Call their offices! Call Chuck Schumer! Call Hillary Clinton! Call your House Representative! If you don’t know who your rep is, you can stop by the Wetlands Activism Collective table and we’ll help you figure it out. You can call them all toll-free at 888-851-1879. That’s 888-851-1879. But don’t just stop there! Write letters! Send faxes and emails! Request a meeting with your elected official or her aide, either in her district office or take a trip to Washington and arrange a meeting on capitol hill. You can get the issue out to the media-write letters to the editor! Submit an an op-ed to your local paper-one of those opinion articles that appears on the page opposite the editorial page. Check your paper’s website for submission guidelines. Working together with others you can do even more-organize a rally or picket or creative street theater at your legislator’s office if they haven’t committed to opposing these agreements. Hold a community forum to get the issues out to people in your area. Run information booths at community events, pass out flyers on campus and around town, get permission from local stores to hang posters raising community awareness of the issue in their windows. Register students on campus to vote and encourage them to consider elected official’s record on trade when they vote-and make sure elected officials know you are doing this.
The politicians and big corporations want us to believe that nothing we do can make a difference, and that we should just let them make all the decisions for us. Well, last year, they assumed we’d all sit down and shut up and let them pass racist anti-immigration laws, but millions took to the streets and proved that the people, united, will NEVER be defeated! And last November, voters proved that they aren’t buying the distortions and lies on free trade. They voted out pro-free trade incumbents and voted in supporters of trade justice like Ohio’s new Senator, Sherrod Brown. According to a report by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, opposition to oursourcing and free trade deals is one of the biggest reason voters kicked out incumbent Republicans in the last election.
Now it’s time to prove that again and to stop the passage of these exploitative free trade agreements. Just like last year, people will be rallying on May Day, and opposing free trade deals is part of the agenda. You can find out more on http://mayday2007.org. And to learn more about free trade deals and what you can do, visit www.tradewatch.org and www.ftaareferendum.org. And please stop by our table and talk to us if you’d like to learn more or get involved.
Considering that DR-CAFTA only passed in Congress by one vote, every elected official counts, and anything we can do to influence them can make a huge difference. Let’s make our voices heard! Thanks a lot!
Adam Weissman
NYC People’s Referendum on Free Trade
My name is Adam Weissman, and I’m a member of Wetlands Activism Collectve. We’e a member of the NYC People’s Referendum on Free Trade, a group fighting against trade agreements that harm workers, the environment, small farmers, medical patients, users of public services, students, animals-really everyone but multinational corporations.
This week is the one year anniversary of one of the greatest days of protest in the history of this country! On May Day, May 1, 2006, millions around the country took to the streets to send a message loud and clear to the Washington elites-no more racist scapegoating of immigrants!
We’ve heard so many racist lies about immigrants-I won’t even dignify them by repeating them here. But what the white men in suits in Washington never tell us is how the economic policies they are responsible for are forcing immigration in the first place.
So-called “free trade” agreements like NAFTA have destroyed the traditional economies of people in developing countries in the interest of expanding profits for big US corporations, forcing people to either become a part of the sweatshop economy in their home countries or emigrate to the United States to provided a better life for their families.
According to an article by Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter on Common Dreams.org:
• NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'
• NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
• Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.
NAFTA promised economic development for Mexico, but in reality all NAFTA did was serve it’s real agenda-make rich corporations even richer, at the expense of workers in Mexico and the United States.
Now, the corporate executives and sleazy politicians may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. They know that if the general public catches wind of how we ALL got screwed to make the rich even richer, then the people of this country will show the politicians responsible for these policies the door.
So, they use their weapons of mass distraction-idiots like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter,-to focus the frustration of US workers facing mass layoffs on immigrants, rather than recognizing that the same free trade policies that are destroying the national economies of nations in the global south are also leading to the outsourcing of jobs-one of the REAL causes of lost jobs for US workers.
For the corporations, it’s a perfect arrangement. First, they destroy people’s traditional livelihoods in global south countries. Then they layoff US workers and “rescue” the people whose lives they’ve destroyed in the global south by hiring them to work in sweatshops and on plantations growing cash crops for export. A percentage of those people head northward, entering the US without the benefit of documentation, looking for employment so that they can send money home to their families. Wal-marts and corporate farms hire them at pathetic wages, and they often work under terrible conditions. Thus, Bush, presenting himself as a “moderate” on immigration with his “guest worker” program-providing the corporations the labor they need while doing little to benefit the workers. Meanwhile, firebreathing Republicans elected officials decry immigration while providing political cover for the corporations and policies drivng immigration in the first place.
Unfortunately, NAFTA was only the beginning. In 2005, Congress passed the Dominican Republic- Central America Free Trade Agreement. And in 2006, in a typical example of Bush administration hypocrisy, the same government who now justifies its war on Iraq in the name of spreading democracy and freedom apparently had no problem pasing a trade agreement with Oman, an absolute monarchy where labor unions are illegal and which has been linked to human trafficking.
But for the Bush administration, hypocrisy and trade deals go hand in hand. How else can we explain why Bush, Mr. War on Terror, is so zealous to pass a trade agreement with Colombia, the country with the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere- a country whose president is directly linked to the AUC, Colombia’s murderous right-wing paramilitary, an organization formally recognized by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization?
And while we keep hearing about how we need more patrolling to stop the importation of illegal drugs, the Bush administration has little to say about the fact that farmers in Colombia have warned that if their livelihoods in growing corn, rice, and beans are destroyed by a flood of US exports subsequent to a trade deal, they will have no choice but to grow opium poppies and coca-the stuff that gets turned into cocaine.
At the same time that it is trying to move ahead on a trade deal with Colombia, the Bush administration is trying push Congress to ratify trade agreements with Peru, South Korea, and Panama. Farmers in South Korea are so convinced that the trade deal will destroy their livelihoods, that several have committed suicide in protest.
Under US law, Congress is required to wait 90 days after a trade deal is introduced by the Adminstration before voting on it. We are in the midst of those 90 days right now on all four of these trade deals with the bills ready to be voted on by June 30. With Democrats now controlling Congress, we have a chance that these terrible trade deals won’t pass, but Democrats have been known to sell out-15 of them voted for DR-CAFTA, allowing the bill to pass-by only ONE VOTE.
It’s absolutely CRUCIAL that we contact our elected officials NOW and demand that they vote NO on all four of these agreements-Colombia, Peru, South Korea, and Panama! Call their offices! Call Chuck Schumer! Call Hillary Clinton! Call your House Representative! If you don’t know who your rep is, you can stop by the Wetlands Activism Collective table and we’ll help you figure it out. You can call them all toll-free at 888-851-1879. That’s 888-851-1879. But don’t just stop there! Write letters! Send faxes and emails! Request a meeting with your elected official or her aide, either in her district office or take a trip to Washington and arrange a meeting on capitol hill. You can get the issue out to the media-write letters to the editor! Submit an an op-ed to your local paper-one of those opinion articles that appears on the page opposite the editorial page. Check your paper’s website for submission guidelines. Working together with others you can do even more-organize a rally or picket or creative street theater at your legislator’s office if they haven’t committed to opposing these agreements. Hold a community forum to get the issues out to people in your area. Run information booths at community events, pass out flyers on campus and around town, get permission from local stores to hang posters raising community awareness of the issue in their windows. Register students on campus to vote and encourage them to consider elected official’s record on trade when they vote-and make sure elected officials know you are doing this.
The politicians and big corporations want us to believe that nothing we do can make a difference, and that we should just let them make all the decisions for us. Well, last year, they assumed we’d all sit down and shut up and let them pass racist anti-immigration laws, but millions took to the streets and proved that the people, united, will NEVER be defeated! And last November, voters proved that they aren’t buying the distortions and lies on free trade. They voted out pro-free trade incumbents and voted in supporters of trade justice like Ohio’s new Senator, Sherrod Brown. According to a report by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, opposition to oursourcing and free trade deals is one of the biggest reason voters kicked out incumbent Republicans in the last election.
Now it’s time to prove that again and to stop the passage of these exploitative free trade agreements. Just like last year, people will be rallying on May Day, and opposing free trade deals is part of the agenda. You can find out more on http://mayday2007.org. And to learn more about free trade deals and what you can do, visit www.tradewatch.org and www.ftaareferendum.org. And please stop by our table and talk to us if you’d like to learn more or get involved.
Considering that DR-CAFTA only passed in Congress by one vote, every elected official counts, and anything we can do to influence them can make a huge difference. Let’s make our voices heard! Thanks a lot!