Obama on NAFTA--now doing a 180

[anamandujano]

Since he's scrubbed his history on this issue from his website in anticipation of the Ohio campaign--

http://facts.hillaryhub.com/

Sen. Obama touts his consistent opposition to NAFTA. But speaking in Illinois in 2004 Obama said the United States "benefited enormously" from exports under NAFTA and talked about the need to continue to pursue trade agreement like NAFTA that support "a system of free trade in this nation that allows us to move our products overseas."

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K&R

[NightWatcher]

2. if it comes from "hillary hub" it's gotta be true

forgive me if I doubt the source

[jlake]

4. Yes, because it goes against the Holy One.

[BigDDem]

21. If it were on Drudge...

then they would believe it.

:rofl:

[anamandujano]

26. Sad but true. Repuke sources win the day at DU these days.

[jlake]

3. K&R For the Truth.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

10. Yes, because it goes in favor of Hillary

:eyes:

[jlake]

11. The truth usually does. Obama is a smarmy snake oil salesman.... why scrub his site?

[AtomicKitten]

5. Too funny. The Clinton "accuse others of what she is doing" tactic is officially out of gas.

[Debi]

6. Wow, hillaryhub?

Great source :thumbsup:

[anamandujano]

7. Not as objective as Kos, but what can ya do?

:eyes:

[Debi]

9. Show me one post where I've credited Kos...

I'll wait here. :hi:

[anamandujano]

18. The crowd you run with does it on a regular basis.

[Debi]

22. Biden supporters?

I don't think so.

But that's a nice big broad brush you got there!

[anamandujano]

24. If you're going to continue to play dumb, I'm not going to continue to

respond to you. Your Obama friends at DU quote from Kos a thousand times a day. It's useless to deny it.

I'm done with this silly sub-thread.

[Debi]

29. You need to do some research...

You'll find that I mainly posted positive Biden pieces up until the Iowa Caucuses (you'll also find that I posted regularly over in the Joe Biden Supporter Group when I wasn't in the Iowa Forum).

Many times since Iowa I have posted that I walked into my caucus uncommitted and I walked out of my caucus uncommitted.

You won't find where I've used Kos as a source because I haven't. You can't attribute another's actions to me - I am the only person posting under my name.

Cry that you won't respond to me all you want - it's only because you cannot admit that you are wrong.

[anamandujano]

35. I said OBAMA SUPPORTERS quote Kos everyday, I can't keep track

of you. It's not about you. It's about the fact that if your team uses Kos as a reference, we can use Hillary's website.

It would be a lot easier if we could reference Obama's website, but he has scrubbed the info, and probably (I haven't checked lately) replaced it with a kinder, gentler position on NAFTA, at least while he's trying to nab Ohio.

[Debi]

38. You keep saying I'm an Obama supporter, you keep saying I'm friends with the Obama supporters

You call me a teammate to Obama supporters. You are WRONG!

In that sense your post IS about me. Get YOUR facts straight. I haven't signed on with ANY campaign so you can't say I'm on ANY team.

And WHY are you responding to me? You said you were done with this 'silly' sub-thread x(

[HereSince1628]

8. Contextually speaking , there seems to be a problem Houston.

NAFTA is with Mexico and Canada. Is there really "overseas" between the US and these two neighboring nations?
cuz it seems that the comments were about creating trade agreements that favor US sale of its overseas exports.

The US being a nation with a HUGH!1111 balance of trade problem. That seems to me like a good general premise for US trade policy: don't make agreements that are one-way and fuck-over the American economy.

[LisaM]

12. Obama supported expanding NAFTA.

None, and I mean NONE, of the national media pieces I've seen, read, or heard mentions this.


http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/23972

[maximusveritas]

14. Because it's spin

"expanding NAFTA" is just spin that opponents put on those agreements. They weren't actually expansions of NAFTA. They were different deals with different conditions behind them

[LisaM]

16. You're telling me the Peru free trade agreement does not expand NAFTA?

How so?

http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/news/2007-12-03-14-42-08-news.php

[maximusveritas]

19. Is that supposed to be an independent source?

Like I said, that's the spin that opponents of the deal used. But it's just spin.

[LisaM]

20. No, there are plenty of sources.

But please, enlighten me with another source. How is that agreement NOT an expansion of NAFTA?

[anamandujano]

27. Different deals with the same prospective outcome.

[maximusveritas]

13. I love the selective use of quotes

Where is the full quotation?

[anamandujano]

23. Why don't you try to insert some words or sentences,

to make the paragraph appear more benign. It might be a better use of your time to start crafting a rationalization.

[Radical Activist]

39. They always do.

Next they'll be telling us they know where Obama REALLY stands on NAFTA despite public statements to the contrary because of who is advisers are.

[rontun]

15. NAFTA

The difficulty in assessing either candidate's position on NAFTA is that they both have evolving perspectives. The Clinton administration pushed heartily for NAFTA, garnering Republican support while angering many Democrats.

Clearly, people in Ohio resent NAFTA and the impact it has had on shipping jobs overseas. Once an industrial powerhouse, Ohio has lost nearly a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was enacted, a trend that had begun earlier but intensified once the trade agreement was in place.

What's disturbing about Ohio is that Wal-Mart is now the largest employer in the state, with literally thousands of former manufacturing workers having lost their good paying jobs with good benefits now forced to work for crappy wages and no benefits at a retailer that continues to profit from free trade agreements that shift jobs overseas.

NAFTA, however, isn't the only problem, as it applies only to North American trade, and its biggest impact has been shifting jobs to Mexico. The more damaging trade agreements are those encouraging job shifts to China and India.

NAFTA is a symbol of what's wrong when we enter into agreements that are not fair to American workers. We need to ensure that employee rights, environmental protections, and policies regarding government subsidies of industries and currency trades are equitable. In other words, there must be a level playing field.

Hillary Clinton is going to take the brunt of the abuse in this debate because her husband's administration was the force behind NAFTA and subsequent trade agreements, and so much of her claim to preparedness is based upon her active involvement in the administration and its policies.

[anamandujano]

25. And Obama can be fairly called a flip flopper.

[Raffi Ella]

17. He just voted to expand NAFTA as someone just mentioned.

It's hilarious watching him slander Hillary over NAFTA when their records are so incredibly similar on the subject.

How he's gotten away with this for so long is beyond me.I guess it helps when you have the msm annihilating Hillary and not asking anything of Obama.Oh and it doesn't hurt either that the right is voting Hillary out in Obama's name at the polls.




P.S. love the avatar :)

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. Of course, Hillary supporters LIKE NAFTA so why should working people care what you think?

[Armstead]

28. For what it's worth, Obama in 2004

Here's from Obama website an answer to a question in 2004 regarding NAFTA:


Obama Said He Supported "Restructuring NAFTA." "Do you support rolling back NAFTA or GATT?" Obama said, "I would support restructuring NAFTA and GATT to make sure that environmental protections, labor protections and so on are in place. And I also think that we've got to enforce some of these provisions more aggressively, the same way other countries are doing. I use the example of China. If China is devaluing its currency by 40 percent and we are not challenging them on that, then there's not much point of having China in the WTO, if they're not respecting our trademarks and our copyright laws. If we have countries that continue to present barriers to us - non-tariff barriers - to our products getting to market, then those are all issues that I think we've got to challenge these countries on. And that's the responsibility of the Administration. The problem in a lot of our trade agreements is that the Administration tends to negotiate on behalf of multinational companies instead of on behalf of workers and communities. If we had a shift in orientation in terms of who are we negotiating for, then I think you'd see some different outcomes."

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. No, the purpose of our trade agreements is to eliminate all taxes and tariffs on corporations

doing business overseas, thereby enabling them to use essentially
slave labor and export "US-made products" such as (illegally-subsidized)
foodstuffs in order to put subsistence farmers out of business
and clog third-world cities with impoverished "labor market fluidity".

That is the STATED PURPOSE of the GATT Trade agreements and the
Free Trade movement in America, with its roots in the moneyed elite

(Davos, etc.)

Just like US corporations did in the US 100 years ago.

Why do you think they wanted to turn Cuba into the 51st state?

[Armstead]

33. I agree with you -- Personally I wish Obama would go farther

The whole premise of the brand of neoliberal "free trade" is to surpress domestic politics in all countries and make them subservient to "market forces." In other words, let greedy pigs get away with murder, to put it bluntly.

The whole premise ought to be brought out and challenged on its fundamental level.

But, I posted this to counter the dominant tone of this thread that Obama was never critical of NAFTA until this month.

[Leopolds Ghost]

36. I hear you -- I'd like to think who people want to see in his cabinet

Because I guarantee almost anyone informed DUers could name (unless they
were merely popular but conventional center-right in their thinking, like
the Clinton gang) would be not just unacceptable to the Wall St - Beltway
- Metroliner crowd, but would prompt a flurry of internal memos resulting
in an organized campaign to turn Obama into the new Dean for appointing
the economic version of Donna Shalala. They would work to destroy him
personally, politically, and possibly physically. If Obama is serious
about even a center-left (i.e. Roosevelt) agenda being put into practice
by actually appointing non-globalizers in policy executive roles, he will
have to worry for his own survival with the huge amounts of money that
are riding on the Bush-Clinton system.

[Radical Activist]

40. That sounds like a good Fair Trade stance.

It amazes me that Clinton supporters think they can throw Bill's support of NAFTA down the memory hole and expect us to vote for more of the same from his wife. Remember, that Bill promised to reform NAFTA before signing it too. He lied.

[AX10]

30. Flip Flop anyone?

[Radical Activist]

41. No flip-flop. Just spin and distortion of Obama's record.

[Leopolds Ghost]

34. Both Obama and Clinton have endorsed Free-Trade and therefore subject to wealthy interests

Since the purpose of so-called "globalization and free trade" is to
eliminate taxes and tariffs on corporations doing 100% of their business
overseas and continue to call themselves US based corporations selling
their products domestically while headquartered in the Cayman Islands.

We can wait and find out the hard way, or we can accept this now.

Our dream team for Obama's economic cabinet, FCC minister, ICC director,
EPA director, Interior, Treasury, Labor, NLRB (an entity that should not
even exist -- there is no unregulated right to strike in this country
and the regulations render the notion of a strike toothless) -- these
are positions that will be filled by who the wise old men decree them
to be, not people who Obama might in his heart of hearts do the right
thing. If he put a "controversial" (to Wall Street) figure in any one
of these posts he would be ostracized and condemned by the Bipartisan
Establishment, who would spend the next 4 years working to destroy him
personally and politically.

Obama like the rest of them is an unwitting tool of a wealthy and
powerful political elite that control the discussion in this country about
"US Interests". I hope he wakes up and realize he is being decieved.

Some of these people such as Claire McCaskill and Webb who voted for
telecom immunity seem like essentially decent people who are being
decieved by what they were taught is acceptable economic policy in a
democracy (the whole notion/lie, present since the Dutch burghers
first addvanced it in the 17th century, that democracy = capitalism,
and therefore unrestrained state-subsidized capitalism is marginally
better than almost unchecked state-subsidized capitalism, the notion
that usury and greed are not only good but necessary for responsible
citizenship, etc.)

[emilyg]

37. k/r