Here's the story about President Obama and the meeting. I think it's worth reading for a couple of points, which 'll get to later: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/14/obamas-pacific-trade-push-gathers-steam/
I have to wonder, after the last 30 years and watching U.S. manufacturing dry up and rust away, if this is such a great idea. When I was a little kid, almost everything we used in the U.S. was "Made In America." I remember it being a novelty and exotic to have something made in a "far-away land."
Most of the adults I knew that worked were employed in small factories scattered all over the country, in small towns, mid-sized cities, and the collar counties of big cities. This was the case when I was a teenager even.
Then, about when I was 30, Ross Perot was running for President. I wasn't really into politics back then, I could've cared less. I was into things like dancing and trying to keep a job and being a new father and going to college. I just remember my Mom being all hip on this little guy from Texas with big, funny ears and colorful speech, so I watched him on our TV a couple of times, and I especially remember some guy interviewing him. Ross was asked about NAFTA, while it was still being debated. This was just before Bill Clinton was elected.
Here's the thing I most remember Ross saying:
I also remember watching factory after factory dry up and blow away over the next decade, and it's only accelerated since then. We were already facing heavy competition from Japanese manufacturing, and a lot of unfair practices were used. Now we were about to open our domestic markets to countries that had no labor laws, environmental laws, or healthcare requirements?
We've seen the results of that. It's now a novelty and exotic to find things "Made In America." I've seen countless gutted, rusting, boarded-up factories. The factory where my Grandfather worked for 44 years is a shadow of what it once was. The factory where my Dad worked for almost 40 years is gone, razed. I drove through Metropolis, Illinois in 2004, and the whole town was boarded up or for-sale. How many examples have you personally seen?
Have we had enough of being trickled down on yet?
The President believes that labor standards, environmental standards, and healthcare standards for foreign laborers can be embedded in this new treaty. That's the thing I said I'd get back to. In that article I first referenced at the beginning of this post, that idea got a couple of sentences. It had better get a lot more than that in any treaty.
After all, for the last thirty years under previous such agreements, U.S. Labor and manufacturing has gotten a death sentence, and a deaf ear to any pleas or appeals. Which is exactly why we have the Occupy movement. Foreign labor has gotten the dangerous sweat shops and child labor we fought against a hundred years ago.
It's early-on for the Occupiers. I don't know if they be able to get sanity and support for the Middle Class out of Washington, or even local politicians. I hope they can. I also hope they can get sanity and relief for workers and the environment across the globe. At-heart, I support what they're trying to achieve. Imagine a world where no one goes hungry or homeless, no wars are needed, and the environment is doing just fine. Isn't that just what people say needs to happen before we grow beyond this one little planet and colonize space? (Where we would actually have the resource basis for endless economic expansion without environmental ruin)
This isn't really about just U.S. workers. It is about regular, working people EVERYWHERE ON EARTH. Wrap your head around it, because if all labor is doing well, we will be. Maybe, just maybe, instead of being AGAINST these treaties, we should be FOR a global labor-and-environmental-standards treaty that ends the problem. Remember this: national borders are just artificial lines on a a map. Who created those lines? Who divided us up like that? Who created a bazillion little places for bureaucrats to grow? People who wanted to have power...
All the best, if you work and vote for it,
Dan
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