David Sirota: Hope In the Time of NAFTA

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Hope In the Time of NAFTA
By David Sirota

March 7th, 2008 - 9:49am ET


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Note: Neither CAF or David Sirota have endorsed any of the candidates running for office. This is part of our ongoing coverage of the issue of trade and globalization.

It is impossible to argue with any semblance of honesty that Hillary Clinton is telling the truth when she claims to "have been a critic of Nafta from the very beginning." Her statements over the last 10 years - including one just 3 years ago - declared her strong support for the job-killing trade pact. And no matter how many Washington insiders like David Gergen or Carl Bernstein appear on television insisting Clinton opposed NAFTA "from the beginning," we have the very clear statements from the candidate herself.

Yet, as I discuss in my new newspaper column, Clinton managed to avoid explaining the gap between her different statements in the lead up to the Ohio primary. Instead, she made the entire NAFTA debate about an uncorroborated report from the right-wing Canadian government designed to embarrass Barack Obama. It was a deliberate strategy to create what many are calling an "Archie Bunker" divide in the Democratic primary. Even more incredibly, the American media followed right along.

Of course, Clinton's campaign was implicated in the same "NAFTA-gate" story as Obama's campaign, but the American media (except for Keith Olbermann last night) has not reported that either. Instead, we have been treated to a fact-free theater of the absurd by journalists who are largely insulated from the factory closings and wage cuts that NAFTA symbolizes. And the tragedy is that the pressing questions about trade and globalization have been ignored at the very moment when polls show the public wants those questions answered.

I explore some of these questions in the column. Why, for example, are the very terms "protectionist" and "tariff" taboo, considering our country's economic history? How are "free" trade deals riddled with corporate protections still called "free?" Why do Establishment pundits get away with wrapping job killing, poverty-sowing trade deals in the rhetoric of altruism? And how is that almost no reporters are asking the candidates whether they are going to change the trade restrictions that, according to a troubling new report, could crush their much-vaunted proposals before they ever get off the ground? ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/hope-time-nafta