There are currently several “free” trade agreements labeled World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that were in existence since the early nineties. Both NAFTA and the WTO impose restrictions on domestic protections of workers and the ecosystem. While the WTO is a global free trade agreement NAFTA includes Canada, U.S. and Mexico. Several other notable politicians including Dennis Kucinich (D) and Ross Perot (I) have joined Sen. Ron Paul in efforts to first warn and then attempt to repeal NAFTA. This is truly a tripartisan effort to create change for the better by admitting to our nation’s collective mistake of implementing NAFTA and the WTO. Better to admit that we were wrong to join NAFTA and now can change our path than to continue making the same mistakes and ensuring our self-destruction and also dragging everyone else along with us. After all, neither NAFTA nor the WTO agreements were written in stone tablets and we are not under orders from anyone to continue on this negative path to failure.

In order to understand what repealing NAFTA would accomplish we need to understand what problems have been caused by implementation of NAFTA and also the WTO. We can focus on the example of Mexico with the understanding that parallel processes occur with the WTO in other nations in Asia and Africa. Prior to the passage of NAFTA there were many small farms remaining in both Mexico and in the U.S. Midwest, though the trend since WW2 was towards consolidation into larger agribusinesses that no longer resembled the original small farm model that could be tended by less than ten people and did not require input of intensive petrochemical derived fertilizers and pesticides. This process was occurring simultaneously both here and in Mexico, though it is safe to generalize that the greater availability of petrochemicals in the U.S. would have made the process of consolidation towards agribusiness swifter on U.S. farms. However, the passage of NAFTA began to swing the balance of consolidation into agribusiness faster on the Mexican side. This was accomplished by using NAFTA free trade bylaws to prevent protective tariffs from helping Mexican maize (corn) farmers from being undersold by imported corn. When the taxpayer subsidized corn grown by consolidated U.S. agribusiness corporations began flooding the Mexican markets, the local small farmers were unable to sell their corn for such a low price and still remain in business. Slowly but surely only a few years after NAFTA was passed into law the signs of Mexican farms going out of business and land being sold for cheap were everywhere. Their land was bought up by agribusiness corporations and the once independent small farmers of Mexico were now landless peasants forced to either try to survive in dangerous Mexican cities or attempt the northern passage to the U.S. through miles of harsh deserts. This is clearly not a good choice, as both options could result in death. This is the outcome of physical desperation caused by economic instability, and the evidence points to NAFTA as the primary culprit in creating the landlessness and poverty that afflicts the people of Mexico.

Once people comprehend that the source of illegal immigration is mostly from NAFTA induced poverty and landlessness, there are few realistic options to solve the myriad of problems caused by illegal immigration besides repealing the initial source the problem. All the other options proposed by the status quo politicians such as border walls, more agents, or amnesty lack the ability to solve the problems because they deftly dance around the source and only provide temporary quick-fix solutions that will only become expensive problems once they fail to work as proponents claim they would.

Generally we get a two-pronged approach from the establishment candidates; Republicans call for walls, camps and more police while Democrats call for amnesty, free schooling and other expenses. The claims made by status quo Republicans is that the walls, fences, detention camps and police will “teach those Mexicans a lesson” by discouraging them to remain here illegally. However, when given the harsh economic reality of life in Mexico, the threats of detention, barbed wire fences and other police state deterrents becomes surmountable in the face of starvation and death. The claims made by status quo Democrats is that we can “give Mexicans a better life here” by granting everyone amnesty and providing schooling to the several hundred thousand or more undocumented Mexican workers without displacing any domestic workers or lower income students in the process. It is certainly admirable to listen to the Democrats speak of the virtues of the hardworking undocumented Mexican farmworkers, though it is unfortunate that these noble Democrats besides Dennis Kucinich cannot bother to take the time to explain to the people of the U.S. that NAFTA induced poverty is the reason that the Mexicans come to the U.S. and submit to virtual slavery on the agribusiness plantations.

Given that the status quo Republicans and Democrats both cling to their false theories with grips tighter than a vice, we can dispel some of the standard myths perpetuated by the status quo Democrats and Republicans in advance of the debates.

Favorite Status Quo Republican Myth #1; Border walls, fences, police and detention camps are effective tools at preventing and deterring illegal immigration across the border.

Facts; The U.S. Mexico border extends for hundreds of miles across desert terrain that is mostly unpopulated by humans. This presents infinite possible crossing points where anyone with a shovel, ladder, wire cutters, blanket or other types of tools can either go over or under the fence and/or wall. Crossing options include bribery of border guards, smuggling in vehicles, swimming or paddling over the oceanic border, digging tunnels and other ways not yet discovered. The human mind is far more capable of getting around barriers than governments are at preventing these inventive methods of crossing without infringing on our shared civil liberties.

Status quo Republicans who promote detention centers, border walls and other police state tactics neglect to mention that hundreds of miles of concrete wall and barbed wire fence do not just appear magically overnight as if constructed by the border elves who accept payment in the form of small bags of cookies. One would surmise that the Republican mantra of “no more taxes” would include the price tag of the police state border wall, yet the status quo Republicans seem to omit the billions of dollars needed to construct and patrol such a megalithic infrastructure. This border wall construction project bears a steep price tag considering the long term effects at stopping undocumented immigration will be minimal. However, the Sonoran pronghorn that migrates between the U.S. and Mexico will indeed be effected by the border fence, though these nearly endangered species similar to antelope are not able to dig tunnels, climb fences or hide in cars when they wish to access the other half of their territory. The fastest land animal of North America stopped short by a fence designed to stop humans yet fails at the intended task. Detention camps require constant taxpayer input for staff salary, electricity, food and service staff. So does paying border agents to drive their SUVs back and forth across miles of desert dirt roads shining lights at creosote bushes in hopes of netting some undocumented immigrants. Finally and most importantly all of the above police state tactics are violations of human rights and U.S. Constitution’s protected civil liberties.

Favorite Status Quo Democrat Myth #1; If we grant amnesty, school and jobs to undocumented immigrants then they will have a better life here.

Facts; Amnesty is intended for people escaping political persecution in their home countries applied on a case by case individual level and cannot apply to conditions of economic poverty on such a large scale as it relates to undocumented Mexican immigrants who make land crossings onto U.S. soil. The original reason for limits on the number of immigrants coming into the U.S. was labor protection laws against reduced wages by allowing an influx of low skilled workers to depress wages. Many decades ago around the turn of the century new waves of immigrant workers were lured to U.S. factories by wealthy industrialists because the factory owners knew that the poorer the immigrant, the lower the wage they would accept as payment and the worse working conditions they would tolerate. The forming of labor unions after the depression included protections for domestic workers who would be easily replaced by newer and poorer waves of immigrants that would work for lower wages. That condition led to laws being passed that limited the yearly number of immigrants to protect wage stability. The levels of immigration remained steady following these wage protections and undocumented immigrants coming here in large numbers did not occur until after the passage of NAFTA. At some point in the early nineties the neoliberal economic model that supported NAFTA began to encourage labor unions to look the other way when growing ranks of undocumented workers were paid below minimum wage. By ignoring the depression of wages by undocumented workers, the labor unions have lost their effectiveness by endorsing corporate profiteering from paying undocumented workers low wages.

Undocumented workers who migrate here because of economic coercion often have family at home in Mexico that receives some portion of their paycheck. This results in a net loss of income returning to the local community where they live as their already reduced wages are leaving the U.S. economy entirely. Since the problems of political corruption within the Mexican economic system are not solved by people running away from it, a reasonable prediction is that the money that their relatives receive from the U.S. will eventually wind up in the hands of the Mexican economic elite through some form of coerced payments for energy, food, fuel, etc…

Low skilled documented workers are bearing the brunt of the waves of undocumented workers arriving from Mexico. The sign on the Statue of Liberty speaks of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” Under current conditions we should add another sentence (“Just don’t send them over all at once.”) For low skilled workers that are either naturalized, native born or legal documented immigrants, the influx of undocumented immigrant workers are direct competition for them. There is no way to avoid this reality, and status quo Democrats who claim that there is no job displacement from undocumented immigration are ignoring the low skilled domestic workers who remain invisible to them inside their elite circles of limousine riding neoliberal politicians. Many of the neoliberal proponents of the claim that there are enough jobs for undocumented workers live far from the states near the border where most of the job displacement occurs. There is no such thing as “unlimited jobs” as status quo Democrats often claim when defending perpetual amnesty for undocumented immigration.

Another reality ignored by status quo Democrats is that amnesty will not solve the problems of poverty and landlessness in Mexico caused by NAFTA and will need to happen in perpetuity. Here in the U.S. the standard of living can be lowered by wage depression as undocumented workers replace domestic documented workers and agribusiness plantations resemble the garment factories of the early century where newer poorer waves of immigrants displaced the previous waves of better paid workers from earlier waves of immigrants who were becoming naturalized and better able to defend their workplace conditions.

People can try to defend either side of the political status quo by making claims that either of the above concepts is working, though reality of the entire situation caused by NAFTA keeps coming to the surface. The sheer ineffectiveness of either of the two political parties’ claims is proof enough of their false logic. To listen to the debates between a status quo neoliberal Democrat and a status quo neoconservative Republican may be similar to how Alice in Wonderland would have felt when listening to Tweedledee and Tweedledum in the fictitious book by Lewis Carroll called “Through the Looking Glass”. These two comical characters were a laugh riot that appeared to the lost Alice wearing propeller hats and clown suits. As they spoke before Alice each one would argue a nonsensical point against the other twin. After a few minutes of their foolish debates Alice left their beach in obvious frustration of their nonsense arguments. As a Ron Paul supporter who believes repealing NAFTA is the only realistic solution to undocumented immigration, identification with Alice’s frustration with the silly talking twins is not difficult to feel. However, this frustration is based in the reality of the political foolishness having very serious consequences and getting away from the nonsense debates between the silly twins is not as simple as walking off the beach. Upon further examination the silly twins are not as dumb as they sound if only taking their arguments at face value. Unlike Alice’s harmless Tweedledee and Tweedledum, their status quo Democrat and Republican real life counterparts are not just engaging in nonsensical arguments to pass the time away on a beach in Wonderland. The real purpose of staged arguments between two status quo politicians is to distract from the actual source of the problem and the true benefactors of undocumented immigration.

There are a few beneficiaries of undocumented immigration, and they are often the same corporations that consolidated the small farms of the U.S. Midwest into agribusiness plantations and many were and still remain proponents of NAFTA. In the ranks of corporations that profited from NAFTA induced undocumented immigration are ADM, Conagra, Monsanto, Cargill and several other multinational agribusiness giants. Many of these agribusiness corporations lobby both Democrats and Republicans with generous campaign contributions, expecting payback in the favorable political decisions following their winning the election. If both Tweedledee and Tweedledum are lining the pockets of their clown suits with money coming from agribusiness lobbyists, then no matter which silly twin wins the election, the agribusiness corporation that contributed to both candidates will win regardless of the nonsensical argument made by either twin.

The reality of undocumented workers in agribusiness of animal processing operations such as feedlots and slaughterhouses are all dangerous and difficult work. If these are jobs that “most Americans would not be willing to do”, maybe there is a good reason for that. As a nation that fought a civil war to end slavery people in the U.S. are leery of slipping any chains on and entering into slavery. The chains that bind the undocumented immigrants into virtual slavery are invisible economic chains yet are almost as effectively real as steel chains. The invisible economic chains come from NAFTA created landlessness and poverty forcing people to either work in dangerous and difficult conditions as undocumented immigrants or remain in Mexico and become malnourished from living too many years in extreme poverty. The other choice of working in the U.S. as an undocumented worker on an agribusiness plantation, in an animal food processing plant, feedlot or slaughterhouse comes with severe risks to life and limb that could be far worse than deportation.

Take a hypothetical scenario where “Jesus” is an undocumented Mexican immigrant who crossed the desert and ended up in Nebraska working for a cattle feedlot owned by Cargill. Jesus was able to get a fake ID and Social Security number to appear unnoticed as a legal employee. After a few months of working there, Jesus sustained a severe injury from being trampled by the closely spaced feedlot cattle. After the injury Cargill learned that Jesus was an undocumented worker, they told him that he cannot obtain treatment for his injury, nor is there any job protection or future opportunities at Cargill for physically disabled workers that are not documented. Nor does Jesus qualify for unemployment as all his documents are false. In the end Jesus learns that as far as Cargill is concerned, he and most of his coworkers are disposable and they are easily replaced by another undocumented immigrant coming across the desert from Mexico. Maybe Jesus understands that the dangerous nature of the jobs at Cargill would probably have resulted in other injuries and even deaths of undocumented workers who came before him. How easy for Cargill to simply tell the injured undocumented workers to take off and then replace them with another undocumented worker. He wondered how much money Cargill saved on medical expenses by using disposable undocumented workers instead of documented workers that would have more rights and options for legal recourse.

The above hypothetical story about injuries sustained at Cargill by an undocumented worker is repeated with different names, injuries and locations throughout the U.S. on a regular basis. The industrial food industry depends on disposable undocumented workers to replace those who become injured on the job. The process of food industrialization into agribusiness plantations and confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) represents a near total loss of food sovereignty for the U.S. populations as very few people are involved in food production outside of undocumented workers and the corporate hierarchy that exploits their disposable labor for profit. The process of food industrialization also decreases the nutritional value of the food and subjects the animals to tremendous cruelty in the feedlot system. One possible outcome of repealing NAFTA could be an incentive for people to restore the small independent farms to the U.S. Midwest that were consolidated into giant agribusiness corporations.

Under NAFTA the people of Mexico and the U.S. are losing their economic sovereignty and stability to ever growing agribusiness giants that thrive off of taxpayer subsidies and virtual slave labor of undocumented immigrants. The trends begun after WW2 of small farms being bought and consolidated into agribusiness corporations in the U.S. began to occur at increasing rates in Mexico following the passage of NAFTA. When small farmers in Mexico were forced to compete with taxpayer subsidized agribusiness imports made legal under NAFTA, they could not sell their maize (corn) at the same low price as the subsidized agribusiness corporations from the U.S. could. Now the agribusiness corporations that promoted NAFTA were able to profit from the Mexican undocumented workers who had lost their farms from subsidized corn flooding their market. In this process both the U.S. and Mexican people have lost control of their food sovereignty when NAFTA encouraged consolidation and losses of small independent farms.

The same pattern of subsidized crops from U.S. agribusiness flooding markets in third world countries is by no means limited to Mexico. Several years ago during a free trade summit in Cancun, Mexico a rice farmer from Korea committed suicide in public. He committed this tragic act not because he didn’t want to live, but because the WTO laws enabled the flooding the Korean market by subsidized U.S. agribusiness rice. This drove the Korean farmer out of business and he lost his small farm to bankruptcy. When he took his own life during that free trade summit, he also spoke for all his fellow rice farmers throughout his nation that were enduring the same losses as a result of WTO removing protective tariffs against subsidized rice. Other nations including Haiti were undergoing the same losses of small farmer autonomy in the face of subsidized rice.

By repealing NAFTA Ron Paul would help U.S. and Mexican people by restoring Mexican sovereignty and autonomy in their home nation. There is also a right for people to be able to have a better life in their home country. If every person in Mexico and other third world countries needs to come to the U.S. in order to have a better life than we will run out of room very quickly and most likely become a third world country ourselves. We need to be able to give people the chance for a better life in their home nations by removing obstacles like NAFTA and the WTO that uses unfair bylaws to prevent economies from protecting their economies from subsidized imports.

Repealing NAFTA will not repair the Mexican economy overnight, and trying to correct the negative change of hands of farmland taken from small independent maize farmers and sold to agribusiness corporations will be a difficult task. However, the first few steps on a new path are often the most difficult to take. In order for the Mexican people to breathe again, the boot of NAFTA must first be removed from their neck. It is difficult to try to help people relearn breathing when there is a boot pressing down on their throat! Relearning breathing is comparable to relearning small independent farming and the boot represents NAFTA laws disabling protective tariffs against taxpayer subsidized imported foods flooding their markets and driving independent farmers off their land.

We here in the U.S. also need to remind ourselves that agribusiness consolidation into large plantations dependent upon petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides is a rather recent trend and that prior to WW2 and NAFTA the small independent farmers of the U.S. Midwest could be very productive by using permaculture methods of crop diversity rotations that combined with animal fertilizers formed a closed energy cycle that did not require additional chemical inputs to remain functional. If the small independent U.S. farmers need some help to feed the additional population increase following WW2, maybe suburban residents would be willing to convert their lawns to farms and grow some extra vegetables to cover the losses. Restoration of food sovereignty can be accomplished by repealing NAFTA and restoring the sanity of growing food on small independent farms and supplementing with home grown vegetables.

We ask that Sen. Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and others who have this awareness can work together across party lines to repeal NAFTA in 2012, and electing Sen. Paul to office of U.S. President would make this goal a more probable outcome. Either we choose that option or endure another four years of poor frustrated Alice watching the silly twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum spinning one another’s propeller hats during their nonsensical debates.

Undocumented Immigration and Labor Unions

Illegal immigration from Mexico wasn't caused by NAFTA. There's been people coming over illegally since the 1940s. Lots. It just wasn't considered a big deal. Yes, there were deportations, but for the most part it was considered acceptable.

NAFTA changed the numbers and character, though, and the flow changed from people mostly from the north to people from the center and south, and class-wise, people were more rural than before.

Unions definitely were eroded by this non-enforcement policy, but what really eroded unions and union power were postwar competition from Germany and Japan in manufacturing. The people who might have had those jobs had to take worse jobs, and that caused wage declines.

Another factor eroding unions was automation, particularly robots, but any kind of computer controlled machine could do so much more than traditional factory machinery.

All this time, until the 1990s in Los Angeles, and right up to today in most other cities and states, labor unions have opposed immigration. They've successfully fought to open up more immigration to laborers.

In the 1980s, there was a big flow of people from Mexico fleeing the economic crisis. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis ). But even before then, there was a flow of immigrants.

Eventually, they filled a lot of lower end jobs. They mainly competed against African Americans, who were experiencing their own problems with the huge deindustrialization and job exportation that was happening from LA. The steady factory jobs vanished, and the less steady ones also vanished as NAFTA kicked in. So they were in competition for the least steady work, like custodial work, maintenance landscaping, and residential construction.

To remain viable in the LA economy, in the mid 1990s, the LA unions decided to overlook immigration status, and some were pro-immigrant. This worked. It helped build up unions. Since then, some cities have followed LA's lead, and others have continued to be anti-immigrant.

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Also relevant to the above is that immigrants have not affected wages that much. The anti-immigrant organization FAIR did a study of low wage jobs, and determined that direct competition from undocumented immigrants reduces wages by up to 4%. Pro-immigrant groups generally claim there's no effect. UCLA's Chicano center did one intersting study that indicated no wage changes except among Latinos, who suffered a 25% decline in wages.

A decline is a decline - but there are other factors that have also contributed to the very suppressed rise in wages. The most obvious is the offshoring of manufacturing, and the decline of labor unions. There are probably a lot of legislative losses as well.

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As for legalization raising living standards - it does. It happened after 1986, when there was a big amnesty program for undocumented workers.

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Also, regarding immigration laws, the article is incorrect. The original labor laws were against Chinese miners and laborers, and it wasn't against depressed wages as much against Chinese people who were scapegoated during the 1870s depression. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act ).

Just read the article - follow-up laws were not anti-immigrant - they were anti-Chinese, with the goal of deporting American citizens of Chinese descent.

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I can't really comment on farm subsidies, but as I recall, they were a reliable Republican vote. That's why the red states are red - Republicans are big on farm subsidies. Dems won't protest, either. Here's a website with subsidy information:

http://farm.ewg.org/

It's pretty shocking.

That part about American farmers using permaculture before WW2 is inaccurate. Don't you remember the dustbowl? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl ) The soil had been depleted, and people were using fertilizers back then too. Just look at any farmer's handbook. It's like reading through a chemistry textbook.

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(Just an aside, the nation didn't just fight a war to end slavery -- it also fought a war to preserve slavery. The side that wanted to preserve it lost.)

Saying that undocumented workers mostly work in big agribusiness is absurd. The biggest employers of undocumented workers are small businesses. Generally, these are businesses like labor contrators, custodial services companies, small shops that need a custodian, restaurants, and companies that use day labor. They also work in a lot of service sector and retail jobs, in the back.

Big companies tend to pay more, and outsource "shitwork" to small businesses, that then hire the undocumented. The small business takes a profit, basically, for being the "bad guy" and breaking the law. In agriculture, it's just easier to use a contractor.

They recently did some raids at a ham factory, and it wasn't all undocumented people working there. There were some, but the majority were citizens. There were white and black people working there who were accused of being illegal immigrants.

This isn't the situation in a city like LA, where there are a lot of immigrants, but it's more common elsewhere.

Incidentally, this is partly why the Dems are pro-immigrant. Their donor base are often these small businesses who also tend to hire the undocumented. They know that the Dems are leaning pro-immigrant and civil rights, so they support Dems to retain their workforce.

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Now that I've gone and debunked the argument, let's consider the real reasons why NAFTA was passed.

The neoliberal project emerged in the postwar era as a policy direction that suggested that it's better to trade than have wars. It was a counterpoint to imperialism. Arguments for neoliberalism were coupled with arguments that it would increase peace. The US has been the world leader in promoting neoliberalism. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism )

Some of they key tenets of neoliberalism are that tariffs should be reduced on all sides, that government owned services should be privatized, foreign investment (ownership of companies) should be allowed, strong property rights enforced, and regulations on business should be decreased. NAFTA is neoliberalism in action.

Neoliberalism is most closely identified with organizations like the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, IMF and World Bank. It's also identified with Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and David Ricardo.

Strange bedfellows, I think, because some of these names are also identified with Ron Paul.

It would be useful to dissect why Paul dislikes NAFTA - but I don't have time for that now. Perhaps in the future.

To understand NAFTA, you must at least understand what it's about. Wikipedia has some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement

NAFTA was started under the Reagan administration, but it wasn't only a Reagan thing. Trade had been increasing between the countries for a long time, so some kind of large law to deal with these trade issues wholesale was likely.

The goal of NAFTA was to reduce and eliminate tariffs and to allow foreign investment between countries.

The effect of this was maquiladoras along the border. That was the giant sucking sound of jobs going to Mexico. It really happened.

Basically, high paid US and Canadian workers were put in direct competition with Mexican workers making 1/4 to 1/3 what US workers made. With no tariffs to protect the industries, companies shut down. The owners sometimes took their operations to Mexico. Or, more accurately, the owners saw that moving to Mexico first was advantageous against the competition, so they shut down the plant, boxed it up, and went to Juarez.

NAFTA has redefined local laws as "trade barriers" and established a court in which companies can sue countries for their labor and environmental laws. That's a real breach of sovereignty.

For example, a US company wanted to export MMT to Canada. MMT is a gas additive, and it's illegal in Canada. The US company sued, and eventually won. The ban was repealed - a US company had compelled the Canadian people to accept a product they thought was so dangerous it had to be made illegal.

Canada has sued the US for having a tariff on timber. The US was basically found guilty of having too few trees, while Canada had plenty. The tariff is gone.

Mexico had special laws that protected communal indigenous land from being purchased or turned into private property. Under NAFTA, this law was defined as a barrier to investment - thus indigenous lands were at risk of being bought by private investors. The EZLN declared war on the Mexican government over this issue. (The increasing spread of private property rights is partly why the farmers in Mexico are losing their farms. Communal lands were 75% of Mexico's famrland at the time.) See http://www.cjd.org/paper/NAFTA.html

NAFTA must be repealed, because it's been bad law that has hurt the working people and the environment. It's a kind of cultural genocide for the indigenous.

Ron Paul might be the guy to do it - but please realize that the libertarian economics and philosophy, that Paul espouses, are the original source of ideological and political support for NAFTA.

I used an awkward sentence.

Until the 1990s, most labor unions opposed increasing immigration. They successfully prevented the reform law from allowing more laborers to come in. Higher-skilled workers, however, were allowed in.

some references;

NAFTA increased rate of undocumented immigration from Mexico to U.S.;

"While there has been some media coverage of NAFTA's ruinous impact on US industrial communities, there has been even less media attention paid to its catastrophic effects in Mexico:

NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'

NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.

Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm


"This report reveals the basis for farmers' concern about NAFTA and its model of export-oriented agriculture. For the past seven years, Midwestern and Plains states wheat farmers; ranchers in Montana, Texas and other states; vegetable, flower and fruit growers in California; lumber mill owners in Louisiana, Arkansas and Washington; vegetable growers in Florida; chicken farmers nationwide and others have suffered declining commodity prices and farm income while a flood of NAFTA imports outpaced U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico.

Yet it was not farmers in Mexico or Canada who benefitted from U.S. farmers' woes. Millions of campesinos throughout Mexico have lost a significant source of income and left their small corn farms. Some became farm laborers working in squalid conditions for poverty wages on large plantations growing produce for export to the U.S. Others moved to Mexico's cities where unemployment is high. Canadian grain and dairy farmers also face steeply rising debt during the NAFTA era. This report also documents the rise in Mexican staple food prices, such as in tortilla prices, even as the price paid to Mexican corn farmers dropped 48%.

However, NAFTA has brought seven years of good fortune to many of the agribusinesses that pressured Washington, Ottawa and Mexico City to negotiate and ratify NAFTA's corporate- managed trade terms. Since NAFTA stripped away many safeguards for the folks who produce raw agricultural products, relative power and leverage has grown for large agribusiness conglomerates to exert pressure on both farmers and consumers."

http://www.citizen.org/publications/publicationredirect.cfm?ID=6788



NAFTA, Mexican Corn and the Commons

How American industrial agriculture threatens Mexican biodiversity and social stability.

By David Bollier



The modern part of this story starts in 1988, when a cadre of free marketeers within the Mexican government, led by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, decided to throw their lot in with the “free market.” In a sense, it was understandable. The Mexican economy has long been beset by notorious corruption and inefficiency. It was thought that the NAFTA treaty with the U.S., which went into effect in 1994, would create millions of jobs, new industrial centers, and encourage rural villagers to move to cities, where they could get social services. The U.S. and multinational corporations were only too happy to encourage the Mexican government to adopt this vision since it would open the doors to cheap and plentiful labor right across the border.

The sixteen years since NAFTA shows how misguided this whole fantasy really was. It was based on the dangerous fictions that “labor” and “nature” are simple economic units of production: inert, fungible and responsive to “market signals” such as prices and wages. In fact, NAFTA was no blueprint for Mexican economic development. It not only did not provide protected spaces for domestic production, it ran roughshod over people’s identities and local loyalties. As Canby writes, millions of Mexican farmers

“consider growing corn more than an economic activity. It is something closer to a defining way of life. Since NAFTA, to the surprise of government planners in Mexico City, many indigenous farmers…have in effect chosen to withdrawn from the national economy, some weaning themselves off expensive chemical fertilizers and subsisting on the corn they can grow, harvest and barter. Economists refer to this phenomenon as a ‘retreat to subsistence’….

This, at least, has been the response of many indigenous communities and family farmers. Others have not had the courage of luck to retreat to subsistence. In Juarez, multinational corporations relocated about 100,000 jobs to China, where wages were one-quarter the already-low wages in Juarez. This disinvestment cleared the way for drug cartels to become the largest employer in the city and for violent crime to skyrocket.

Meanwhile, because NAFTA eliminated tariffs on corn imported from the United States, American corn quickly undercut local markets, driving an estimated 500,000 farmers from the land each year. About half of them, searching for a way to support their families, try to enter the U.S. illegally.

A Mexican economics professor, Alejandro Nadal, cannot fathom why the Mexican government essentially consented to dismantling the community-based corn economy in the country: “There were 3 million corn producers and five people per producer family. That’s 15 million people. Then there were transporters and other attached industries – 22 million people – a quarter of the country’s population. Before putting your corn sector into NAFTA, wouldn’t you think about it twice? They government had no single study for why they put corn into NAFTA.”

http://onthecommons.org/nafta-mexican-corn-and-commons

The passing of NAFTA didn't have immediate impacts on immigration, but the end of the recession in 1993 probably did. By 1995, the economy was in rapid growth, and that always creates a "pull" factor for immigration.

And, as said above the long-term effects have been greater immigration, but the real story is the urbanization of peasant farmers and the increase of the range of capitalism.

Trying to sell the repeal of NAFTA on the idea that immigration will decrease is slightly racist, and largely unrealistic. Urbanization is difficult to undo. The global trend is toward greater urbanization. With urbanization comes migration, and emigration.

The humane alternative is to create a new category of immigrant to handle this new flow of people.

One other thing i forgot - restoring Mexican soveriegnty won't bring back the ejidos and collective farming, or the peasant agricuture that existed before.

The reason why is because the Mexican government was using NAFTA against the peasants. That's why the Zapatistas declared war against the Mexican government rather than the US government.

Increasing sovereignty for Mexico's government helps the peasants inasmuch as they can now have a political fight with their own government to restore past rights. But, the government won't immediately cut off the US ag imports, because Mexico also has ag exports into the US (look at the labels on your avocados).

"Trying to sell the repeal of NAFTA on the idea that immigration will decrease is slightly racist, and largely unrealistic."
So... the idea of leaving your friends and family, your accustomed culture and enter the great satan to bring home enough money to fix/build or buy a home is an easy move?
Are you being "unrealistic"? Or just 'pragmatic' without common human understanding??
Mexico has a warm and wonderful culture once one removes himself from the evil that glows from the neighbor to its north and interacts with the common hard working and honorable people in the small cities and pueblos.
Learned to love the food and the hospitality of these folks.

So now wanting people to have autonomy in Mexico by repealing NAFTA are "racist"?

If we're going to play that game let' s also discuss the racism of forced assimilation via forced migrations as a result of NAFTA, which some people feel is written in stone and beyond repeal.

Forced migrations can result from economic or military pressure. The Cherokee Trail of Tears was a military induced forced relocation and assimilation (or "urbanization") as you put it. The Cherokee were forced to leave their villages in the Carolinas at gunpoint and march to Oklahoma because the U.S. government wanted thier land for more immigrants coming from Europe.

Now the economically induced forced assimilation of indigenous (not just Aztec/Mayan) people from many diverse tribes in Mexico are funneled north to work on U.S. agribusiness plantations and forced to assimilate into U.S. culture. In the process of leaving their home villages in Mexico and adopting U.S,. cultural values makes them eventually lose their original indigenous culture. Urbanization in Mexico from loss of ejidos results in similar outcomes. The correct term for this would be cultural genocide, and to be an advocate or en enabler of cultural genocide by supporting NAFTA would make you, not me, the real racist.


NAFTA is NOT written in stone and did not get handed to Clinton by God. We the people of the U.S. made a mistake by implementing NAFTA and we must FIX that mistake by repealing NAFTA.

If you are lost in the woods and find yourself on the wrong path, do you keep going down the wrong path or turn around and rediscover the correct path?





"FORCED REMOVAL FROM HOMELANDS

For a brief periods after the American Revolution, the United States adopted a policy toward American Indians known as the "conquest" theory. In the Treaty of Fort Stansix of 1784, the Iroquois had to cede lands in western New York and Pennsylvania. Those Iroquois living in the United States (many had gone to Canada where the English gave them refuge) rapidly degenerated as a nation during the last decades of the eighteenth century, losing most of their remaining lands and much of their ability to cope. The Shawnees, Miamis, Delawaresm, Ottawans, Wyandots, and Potawatomis watching the decline of the Iroquois formed their own confederacy and informed the United states that the Ohio river was the boundary between their lands and those of the settlers. It was just a matter of time before further hostilities ensued.

FORCED ASSIMILATION

The Europeans saw themselves as the superior culture bringing civilization to an inferior culture. The colonial world view split reality into popular parts: good and evil, body and spirit, man and nature, head and hear, European and primitive. American Indians spirituality lacks these dualism's; language expresses the oneness of all things. God is not the transcendent Father but the Mother Earth, the Corn Mother, the Great Spirit who nourishes all It is polytheistic, believing in many gods and many levels of deity. "At the basis of most American Native beliefs is the supernatural was a profound conviction that an invisible force, a powerful spirit, permeated the entire universe and ordered the cycles of birth and death for all living things." Beyond this belief in a universal spirit, most American Indians attached supernatural qualities to animals, heavenly bodies, the seasons, dead ancestors, the elements, and geologic formations. Their world was infused with the divine - The Sacred Hoop. This was not at all a personal being presiding ominpotently over the salvation or damnation of individual people as the Europeans believed.

For the Europeans such beliefs were pagan. Thus, the conquest was rationalized as a necessary evil that would bestow upon the heathen "Indians" a moral consciousness that would redeem their amorality. The world view which converted bare economic self interest into noble, even moral, motives was a notion of Christianity as the one redemptive religion which demands fealty from all cultures. In this remaking of the American Indians the impetus which drove the conquistador's invading wars not exploration, but the drive to expand an empire, not discovery of new land, but the drive to accumulate treasure, land and cheap labor.

CULTURE

Culture is the expression of a people's creativity -- everything they make which is distinctively theirs: language, music, art, religion, healing, agriculture, cooking style, the institutions governing social life. To suppress culture is to aim a cannonball at the people's heart and spirit. Such a conquest is more accomplished than a massacre. "We have seen the colonization materially kills the colonized. It must be added that it kills him spiritually. Colonization distorts relationships, destroys and petrifies institutions, and corrupts....both colonizers and the colonized."

Strategies of targeting American Indian children for assimilation began with violence. Forts were erected by Jesuits, in which indigenous youths were incarcerated, indoctrinated with non-indigenous Christian values, and forced into manual labor. Schooling provided a crucial tool in changing not only the language but the culture of impressionable young people. In boarding schools students could be immersed in a 24 hours bath of assimilation. "The founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania , Capt. Richard H. Pratt, observed in 1892 that Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to the nation at large. More crudely put, the Carlisle philosophy was, "Kill the Indian to save the man." At the boarding schools children were forbidden to speak their native languages, forced to shed familiar clothing for uniforms, cut their hair and subjected to harsh discipline. Children who had seldom heard an unkind word spoken to them were all too often verbally and physically abused by their white teachers. In short, "there was a full-scale attempt at deracination -- the uprooting or destruction of a race and its culture." A few American Indian children were able to run away, others died of illness and some died of homesickness.

The children, forcibly separated from their parents by soldiers often never saw their families until later in their adulthood, after their value-system and knowledge had been supplanted with colonial thinking. When these children returned from boarding schools they no longer knew their native language, they were strangers in their own world, there was a loss, a void of not belonging in the native world, nor the white man's world. In the movie "Lakota Women," these children are referred to as "Apple Children [red on the outside, white on the inside]" they do not know where they fit in, they were unable to assimilate into either culture. This confusion and loss of cultural identity, leads to suicide, drinking and violence. The most destructive aspect of alienation is the loss of power, of control over one's destiny, over one's memories, through relationships -- past and future.

Jose Noriega's well-documented historical account of the forced indoctrination of colonial thought into the minds of American Indian children as a means of disrupting the generational transmission of cultural values, clearly demonstrates the cultural genocide employed by the U.S. government as a means of separating the American Indians from their land.

http://www.operationmorningstar.org/genocide_of_native_americans.htm


US, Mexico and Corporations Collude to Squelch Indigenous Movements

Monday 5 December 2011

by: Christopher Oshinski, Council on Hemispheric Affairs | News Analysis



The Zapatistas have a motto: “everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves,” which seems to have been twisted by Mexican officials, as the government almost gleefully denies the indigenous group its autonomy. This includes being repeatedly denied the ability to assemble peacefully and work their own land freely. Their homes have been seized in the name of private investments, they are being forced to sell themselves as cheap labor to the corporate machine, and the land’s natural resources, which had remained unspoiled and shared by all, are now being exploited for profit. The “death blow” delivered by NAFTA to the indigenous people of Mexico, particularly those in the southeastern state of Chiapas, has archly manifested with the coming of the PPP (the Plan Puebla-Panama). This policy is determined to yoke the inhabitants of the region under the auspices of neoliberalism; a method utilized to defeat the autonomous communes, one that can easily be mistaken as an economic and employment package.

NAFTA, ratified in 1994, directly opposed, and in effect overturned, Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which had guaranteed collective property rights to those who worked the communal land. This mandate, in fact, was explicitly acknowledged by the U.S. government as a necessity prior to the signing of the NAFTA pact. Essentially, the Maya and other indigenous groups were forbidden to participate in a legal statute that enabled their cultural practices. Eventually in 1996, the Zapatistas forced President Ernesto Zedillo to the bargaining table, where they signed the San Andrés Accords. The Accords were created to further guarantee the protection of indigenous rights as well as credentialing them autonomy, among other national social criteria (Accords Article I).#1 The treaty, which was never implemented, was not only meant to address the critical issues facing the state of Chiapas, but also was aimed at all countrywide indigenous concerns. It was the negligence of these legal affairs that had incited the rebellion in the first place. In response to the government’s blatant disregard for the Accords, which was the second legally based document protecting their rights, the Zapatista’s formed the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, (Councils of Good Government) in 2003.

Under the leadership and guidance of these councils, health care was made available to “63% of all expectant mothers, double the average for non-Zapatista communities in the area.” Furthermore, “74% of Zapatista homes have access to toilets, as opposed to 54% in non-Zapatista homes” (Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, former rector of Mexico’s National Autonomous University).#2 Though the Mexican government repeatedly failed to recognize the needs of its struggling indigenous population, Zapatismo emphatically flourished. Although accessible health care was a major concern, and great strides were made in education, as well as women’s and indigenous people’s rights, these “guerrillas” were merely addressing, and rectifying what by all standards was a humanitarian crisis.


http://www.truth-out.org/us-mexico-corporations-collude-squelch-indigenous-movements/1323195390

I take serious objection to this
"We the people of the U.S. made a mistake by implementing NAFTA"
uh, actually the paid-off, buy-partisan congress passed this monstrosity against 70%+ of the popular will.
Just like the banker bail-outs.
Although you may have a point in as much as we DID NOT take to the streets then.
I was telling people this was economic suicide at the time and it was like shouting down a dark deep well of cud chewing indoctrination. Sometimes I want to smack people.

"We the people of the U.S. made a mistake by implementing NAFTA"

What i meant by this is that we the people of the U.S. are claiming to operate in a democracy, so therefore each and every decision such as implementing NAFTA should be ours and not anyone else's.

IF these decisions are made over our heads and against our wishes, than that is an indication that we the people have lost control of our democracy, and our government has become an oppressive regime that exists to enslave us.

If the above statement is true, then logic dictates that we the people must reclaim our government from the corporatists that hijacked it. Here is where it gets dicey, as the question remains?

How can we the people reclaim our government from bipartisan corporatists if we already lost control?

The answer points to organized revolution and communities existing independent of the greater federal system. No taxes paid to any federal agency, and no recognition of the authority of any federal agency. That means DEA, CIA, FBI and others need to pack their bags and take a hike. We will no longer recognize their authority.

That leaves seccesion once again as the most reasonable option when BOTH Republicans AND Democrats are representing the interests of the corporatists and not the people. Neither of the two status quo parties has allowed the third parties (Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, etc...) any realistic entry into the public debates, nor do the third parties have the finances to compete with the well funded Dems/Repubs who have the corporate lobbyists to thank for all their TV ads spouting nonsense and attacking each other.

The Cascadia movement would be good role models about beginning a seccesionist movement throughout the nation. We can keep the good parts of the U.S., such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights while telling authoritarian feds to scram.


Message from Free Cascadia;

"Now is the time for the citizens of Cascadia to demand their freedom from the oppressive governments of Canada and the United States. For too long have our people put up with indifference and condescendence from distant seats of power. We have been subject to francophonic imperialism and wasteful spending of our tax money. Our entrepreneurs have been attacked by the so-called justice system for merely doing their jobs and growing our economy. When will we say enough is enough?

The former American states of Oregon and Washington and the former Canadian province of British Columbia must join together as a sovereign nation. Only then can we have self-determination and take our rightful place in the Global Community."

http://zapatopi.net/cascadia/


Message from Free Vermont;

"Do Citizens Have a Right to Control Their Own Lives? -- The Vermont Manifesto

Vermont has little in common with Boston, New York, Houston, Los Angeles, or Chicago. It has much more in common with Maine, New Hampshire, and the four Atlantic provinces of Canada. Why should Vermonters be taxed to pay for the military protection of New York City, the epicenter of global capitalism and corporate greed, or Washington, D.C., the vapid capital of the Empire? ....

As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." An empire by secession can surely die that way.

We believe the time has come for all citizens of Vermont peacefully to rebel against the Empire by (1) regaining control of their lives from big government, big business, big cities, big schools, and big computer networks; (2) relearning how to take care of themselves by decentralizing, downsizing, localizing, demilitarizing, and humanizing their lives; and (3) learning how to help others take care of themselves so that we all become less dependent on big business, big government, and big technology.

We the citizens of Vermont peacefully and respectfully call for a statewide convention of democratically elected representatives to consider one and only one issue -- the withdrawal of Vermont from the United States of America and a return to its status as an independent republic as was the case in 1791. Once the declaration of secession has been approved by a two-thirds majority, Vermont's governor will be empowered to negotiate a separation agreement with the U.S. Secretary of State."

http://www.oilempire.us/secession.html

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/new-batch-of-ron-paul-newsletters-just-as-racist-as-the-first.php?ref=fpb

Benjy Sarlin- January 17, 2012, 11:03 AM A brand new batch of Ron Paul newsletters raises questions for the libertarian Republican — as well as a host of embarrassing fresh passages to go along with such classics as “the coming race war” and “the federal-homosexual cover up on AIDS” from earlier reports.

Ron Paul claims “probably ten sentences out of 10,000 pages” were objectionable in his long-published newsletter series, even as he denies having ever written the content in question (or even having seen most of it). But, as TPM has reported and a new collection of Ron Paul newsletters posted by The New Republic confirms, racism, homophobia, and fringe conspiracy theories seem more like the newsletters’ raison d’etre than a rare aberration. In fact, even short promotional letters for the publication name-checked many of the most toxic passages.

Once again, contempt for African Americans and warnings of a “race war” are central themes in the most recently released materials. One issue warned “every honest American should be armed” to prepare for the coming violence.

“Today, gangs of young blacks bust into a bank lobby firing rounds at the ceiling,” one issue read, continuing: “We don’t think a child of 13 should be held as responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult, and should be treated as such.”


Another issue from 1993 defended Marge Schott, who used to own the Cincinnati Reds, after she notoriously referred to her players as “million-dollar niggers.”

“Remember the thought crimes from the novels of Orwell and Huxley?” the article reads. “It’s not fiction in America if the case of Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott is any evidence.”

In one 1988 issue, the newsletters suggest Israeli involvement in a terrorist attack in Berlin, foreshadowing a similar suggestion in a previously released issue that Israel may have been behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Gays and especially AIDS victims were frequent targets, with a boatload of junk science cited to back up its hateful claims. Newsletters claimed the federal government was lying about how AIDS was transmitted and suggested it could be passed on through sneezes, breathing, or even contact with mail or delivery packages. An advertised book purported to tell the “the true and horrifying story of the witch-lesbo-feminists who are running America.”

Then there are the usual conspiracy theories: FEMA camps set up to intern Americans, suspicion that Bill and Hillary Clinton murdered their friend Vince Foster, secret societies running the world, etc.

TPM reached out to a Paul spokesman as to whether the candidate stands by his assertion that only eight to ten statements in the newsletters were offensive within a large body of work but did not receive an immediate reply.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/new-batch-of-ron-paul-newsletters-just-as-racist-as-the-first.php?ref=fpb

can't you idiots bring anything of substance to the anti-
Paul wanks?
Like his view on 'free' trade?

Ron Paul is somehow anti-NAFTA and yet an advocate of un-regulated free trade?
Tariffs are regulated trade. It's how we funded the operations of this nation...
Trade can be a weapon if we allow it to be.
So can mass migrations of other cultures because of these criminal trade policies which allow subsidized exports ( like maze [ corn ] to kill indigenous agriculture ) in order to create chaos and social conflict.
Read:
JFK by Flecture Prouty
mass migrations as a weapon.
No one seems to have a clue as to the big picture.
Evil bastards and gullible idiots in tandem, are a menace.

This is a good description of how repealing NAFTA will help to restore autonomy and economic independence in Mexico;

"Yes, Ron Paul is opposed to illegal immigration, but at the same time he is also for withdrawing from NAFTA. This would allow the people of Mexico the ability to exert more control over their own economy. This is an extremely important point within the immigration debate, and it is something not even the Democrats are willing to admit because they are just as guilty of selling out the Mexican and American working class in favor of cheap labor as much as the neo-cons and Mexican elites are. Don't kid yourself when they speak of being sympathetic to the plight of immigrants when they are not working to end the subversive trade deals that are causing these people to get up and move in the first place!"

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/128522





I see Ron Paul has already signed on to this bill.

Call your congresscritters today and ask them to please co-sponsor this bill.

As a factory worker in Ohio I will tell you first hand that NAFTA has been a total disaster for American small and mid sizes industry.

HR4759 - Full Text at Open Congress.org

111th CONGRESS, 2d Session

H. R. 4759


http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?235411-Ron-Paul-co-sponsors-HR-4759-to-REPEAL-NAFTA!


There are other options besides continuing with NAFTA! Why not repeal NAFTA first and then go from there?

Have not heard any other candidates besides Ron Paul (R), Dennis Kucinich (D) and Bernie Sanders (I) seriously discuss the need to repeal NAFTA. That makes the remainder of the politicians complicit with the corporatist status quo that supports NAFTA policies that create economic instability in Mexico and other nations. This economic instability is the source of undocumented immigration that agribusinesses, CAFOs and industrial food corporations in the U.S. exploit for profit.

Though i don't agree with Ron Paul on the privatization of Social Security, he is currently the only candidate who has spoken out against the destruction caused by NAFTA policies.

For someone who is called a "hater of Mexican immigrants" by the corporate media and neoliberals, it's funny how Ron Paul's position against NAFTA is shared by the majority of farmers in Mexico!

Mexico: campesinos protest NAFTA

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 02/06/2008 - 02:25.


Led by a caravan of 21 tractors, tens of thousands of campesinos, unionists and activists marched through downtown Mexico City on Jan. 31 from the Angel of Independence to the Zocalo plaza, where speakers demanded a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "NAFTA's very good—for the goddamn gringos," was a popular slogan. Artemio Ortiz, representing the National Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), said the neoliberal economic model exemplified by NAFTA had failed; he called for more mobilizations on March 18, when Mexicans celebrate the nationalization of the oil industry; April 10, the anniversary of revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata's assassination; and May 1, International Workers' Day.

The organizers claimed that 200,000 people participated in the march, which was sponsored by the National Campesino Confederation (CNC), six of the 12 organizations in the Permanent Agrarian Congress (CAP), and a number of unions and other groups. (La Jornada, Mexico, Feb. 1)

There were also protests in various states, including sit-ins in local offices of the Agriculture Secretariat (Sagarpa) and blockades of highways and international bridges. (LJ, Feb. 1) From Jan. 28 to 29 about 100 dairy farmers from Hidalgo and other states set up a stable at the Monument to the Revolution in downtown Mexico City to protest the low prices at which they have to sell milk to companies like Queen and Lala. The farmers gave out 25,000 liters of milk to people in the area before ending their protest in response to a promise for talks with Sagarpa and the Economy, Finance and Social Development secretariats. (LJ, Jan. 30)

The government of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has been citing statistics to show that Mexican producers have benefited from NAFTA. But protests by farmers have grown as NAFTA has phased out tariffs on agricultural products from the US and Canada. Anti-NAFTA sentiment broke out in an unexpectedly large demonstration in Mexico City on Jan. 31, 2003. This year's demonstration was even larger, bringing together rural organizations with very different political orientations and including unions and leftist groups. The CNC, with the largest contingent, is close to the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI); ironically, the CNC supported NAFTA when it went into effect in 1994 under a PRI government. (LJ, Feb. 1)

http://ww4report.com/node/5019


Again, if Ron Paul is such a goddamned "racist" or "immigrant hater", why is he in agreement with the majority of Mexico's farmers when it comes to repealing NAFTA? Maybe he is just a big bad isolationist now?