Oh Really?
Obama Responds to the Clinton Tirade on NAFTA
The Following Commentary From David Sirota at the Huffington Post
In response to Barack Obama's attack on NAFTA, the Hillary Clinton campaign has gone into meltdown mode. Here's Dow Jones' Marketwatch:
"Clinton's campaign fired back at Obama, charging the Illinois senator with misrepresenting Clinton's position on trade...'Recently [Obama] falsely claimed that Hillary said that NAFTA was a 'boon' to the economy. Now, Obama is resting his argument on a single paraphrase from an article written twelve years ago,' Clinton's campaign said in an emailed statement."
The Huffington Post has followed along with a laugh-out-loud piece in which the chief architects of NAFTA (many who are now wealthy corporate lawyers and lobbyists) are now saying, no, no, Hillary Clinton was really opposed to it. These are the same people, of course, who are looking for jobs in the Hillary Clinton White House.
What a total joke, really. This campaign clearly thinks we are all just a bunch of fools.
Hillary Clinton has made statements unequivocally trumpeting NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread. The Buffalo News reports that back in 1998, Clinton attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and thanked praised corporations for mounting "a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA." Yes, you read that right: She traveled to Davos to thank corporate interests for their campaign ramming NAFTA through Congress.
On November 1, 1996, United Press International reported that on a trip to Brownsville, Texas, Clinton "touted the president's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it would reap widespread benefits in the region."
The Associated Press followed up the next day noting that Hillary Clinton touted the fact that "the president would continue to support economic growth in South Texas through initiatives such as the North American Free Trade Agreement."
In her memoir, Clinton wrote, "Senator Dole was genuinely interested in health care reform but wanted to run for president in 1996. He couldn't hand incumbent Bill Clinton any more legislative victories, particularly after Bill's successes on the budget, the Brady bill and NAFTA."
Yes, we are all expected to just forget that, so that Hillary Clinton's campaign can manufacture supposed "outrage" that anyone would say she supported NAFTA - all at a time her chief strategist, Mark Penn, simultaneously heads a firm that is right now pushing to expand NAFTA into South America.
What a total insult to America's intelligence.
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Further Reading:
As of November 2007, Clinton's position has been that she will vote to expand NAFTA.
Obama's response to Clinton's claim that she had nothing to do with NAFTA...that she never supported the deal.
Details of Hillary's Public Support for NAFTA.... What She Said, and when she said it.
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Hillary On Record Supporting NAFTA
Hillary and NAFTA from Meet The Press
Posts
7 comments:
Busted, I hope she gets her card pulled tonight after going on her "Shame on You" tirade
Angry Independent:
Which force has had a greater negative impact on Black employment and salaries in the past 30 years? NAFTA or Immigration?
www.americanworker.org
40% of the decline in Black employment is due to immigration.
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You seem more interested in PINNING a flip flop on Hillary Clinton than in talking about the SUBSTANTIVE bottom line of BOTH ISSUES - the impact on the Americans looking for jobs.
Hello CF
I know you addressed AI specifically here but I feel the need, as an immigrant and a naturalized AMERICAN CITIZEN, to respond.
Ross Perot was right. NAFTA caused a profound restructuring of the American economy where the manufacturing base all went overseas for cheaper labor and laxer environmental and labor standards. You don't seem to want to make the connection that it is CONSERVATIVE and Business-friendly Democrats like Bill Clinton who pushed policies like NAFTA -- and place the blame squarely where it belongs.
Hate-mongering and fear-mongering on immigrants is not going to accomplish a damned thing to bring back all those lost jobs. What exactly do you aim to accomplish by scapegoating immigrants for the results of Washington DC macroeconomic policies and the globalization of the world economy?
I am an American worker as much as you are and I feel the strains of the recession as much as you do. But I don't see fear-mongering and scapegoating as a solution for anything.
I am sorry to say I am not an economist or a politician so I can't give you a grand plan for macroeconomic policy. But I am an American citizen and a voter and I plan on using my civic freedoms to address these issues at the voting booth and beyond. More than anything I would like to see working people regardless of their color or immigrant status to stand together instead of pointing our fingers to each other and scapegoating what seems to be the easiest and most convenient target.
Conservative Feedback,
When I made this post, it was not from the race angle. I never mentioned race OR immigration.
This post was made in the context of jobs in Ohio. I was also looking at Hillary's attempt to make people believe that she didn't have anything to do with supporting NAFTA.
THAT was the context of the post.
And Thank You Liberal Arts Dude.
Most of the time Conservative Feedback likes to disagree with me, just for the sake of disagreeing with me... NOT because he actually has any points to really debate.
[quote]Ross Perot was right. NAFTA caused a profound restructuring of the American economy where the manufacturing base all went overseas for cheaper labor and laxer environmental and labor standards.[/quote]
Liberal Arts Dude - if only what you say was universally true. It is not.
There is MORE domestic production of automobiles in America than ever before. Foreign manufacturers have build their new plants OUTSIDE of the "High Regulation/ Union Stronghold" states. There have been more than a dozen new auto plants built in the past 25 years and the majority of them are in the South or SouthWest - away from Michigan and Ohio, the traditional manufacturing centers.
RACE is an important consideration for the NAFTA verses IMMIGRATION debate because Black Americans are overrepresented in the segment of the labor force that is most vulnerable to unskilled labor alternatives that flow unrestrained across our borders.
THERE IS NO COMPARISON between the vastness of impact that immigration has had versus NAFTA on the Black community. I am sorry but the BLACK COMMUNITY is my primary interest so I chose to qualify my comments as such.
www.americanworker.org
You call it "race mongering" but the simple FACTS remain - Black politicians operating with MORAL SUPERIORITY in seeking to have CLEAN HANDS regarding their desire to not bring RACE into the game (as if they really never do in truth) and allow the "Conservatives' to be painted as the 'racists' has allowed the ECONOMIC INTERESTS OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY to be steadily eroded.
Please take a look at the scientific study at the link above THEN at your next Obama rally ask him to take a CLEAR POSITION in defense of a community that has shown steady support for his candidacy.
[quote]What exactly do you aim to accomplish by scapegoating immigrants for the results of Washington DC macroeconomic policies and the globalization of the world economy?[/quote]
Liberal Arts Dude:
Scapegoating = Unjustifiably "blaming" a person or group for something that has happened.
Please scan the SCIENTIFICALLY RESEARCHED conclusions that the report that can be downloaded at www.americanworker.org and then tell me how your "scapegoating" claim still stands against DOCUMENTED FACT?
Hello CF
I have done a cursory Google search and the Coalition for the Future American Worker seems to be fronted by an anti-immigrant organization called FAIR. The information from my Google search suggests the Coalition for the Future American Worker is an "astroturf" or fake grassroots group. Check this link out:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=1146
And this one:
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2007/09/04/the-washington-times-again-cites-dubious-anti-immigrant-sources/
That aside, about the Harvard paper. I scanned the abstract which is the only thing available in their site. I need to be able to read the full article to properly respond. Have you, yourself read the entire paper? Have you read any critical assessments or responses on it from other economists?
I am always very skeptical when it comes to a group trying to pin large-scale economic problems on a population of people -- in this case, immigrants. Especially if they take the angle of pitting one ethnic group against another and to exploit the uncertainty and concerns people feel about the condition of the economy.
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