Reply #6: It hasn't, for several reasons... [View All]

In the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton campaigned on criticizing NAFTA in the form that it was in, saying that he would not sign such an agreement unless it forced Mexico to raise its labor and environmental standards, so that it would bring everybody up instead of pulling everybody down. Then, after winning office, he pushed for it and signed it in the form negotiated by the Bush administration.

A long-time activist friend of mine said she remembered that the Christian Science Monitor had a reporter follow around Clinton administration officials and record the deals that were being made with Democratic Congressional members to get them to vote in favor of NAFTA. She described the whole thing as pretty despicable -- much the same as the kinds of maneuvers the Republicans engage in now.

I think that this hurt us on two levels. First, it served to confirm, rather than rebut the corporatist agenda pushed from the Reagan years on. It wasn't about supporting big business so long as it supported workers -- it was about supporting big business at the expense of workers and the environment. Second, it was a direct and outright betrayal of one of the core Democratic constituencies -- organized labor. I would say that this all fits in quite nicely with recent DLC calls for the Democrats to abandon pursuit of the working class and instead concentrate almost solely on upwardly mobile, young professionals.

Democratic support of NAFTA and further "free" trade pacts only served to narrow the gap between Democrats and Republicans. Trade policy is one area in which I think Nader's accusation of the parties being the same rings pretty true. While it's true that Kerry talked about "reviewing" all trade agreements and such, he was very roundabout when talking about what he would really do. At least someone like Kucinich, who comes from an area that has been hit exceptionally hard by NAFTA, was very direct about the measures he would take, and whether or not you agree with him, he DID present a vision that was quite different from Republican proposals, because it challenged the basic assertion that "free" trade is good for everyone.

The real tragedy in all of this is how it has negatively affected the majority in all three nations to enter into the agreement. At least in the EU, the design has truly been to raise standards for all who enter. In NAFTA, not only were US and Canadian workers left out to dry as facilities moved South -- but Mexican workers actually saw a drop in their wages, as 1.5 million farmers were kicked off their land and there were only about 500,000 new jobs to accomodate them as they moved to the cities en masse. Also, environmentally, it's been an unmitigated disaster -- the maquiladora regions along the border are cesspools where industrial waste is dumped into open gullies and workers crowd into shantytowns without running water or waste disposal.

In closing, I think that you're right in not only asserting the DLC's cluelessness on this, still pushing for "free" trade, but also how this all sold away a part of the party's soul that it has thus far been unable to get back. When the government went from being an advocate of the worker to an advocate of big business (and therefore against the worker) under a Democratic administration, it gave away what was once a galvanizing force in American politics for a short-term gain.