🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <86e7f20bea6cba1fba7e853b7f743268@tioat.net>,
 "* US *" <obamafelonies@Use-Author-Supplied-Address.invalid> wrote:

> On 07 Jul 2010, "Prehistoric GOP" <Gro�f�hrer@shrub.net> posted some
> news:i12067$c5k$1@news.albasani.net: 
> 
> > 
> > "brad herschel" <bradherschel@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> > news:d7ea7127-d1dc-482b-890a-583cf7659a12@e5g2000yqn.googlegroups.com..
> > . 
> >> http://www.borderinvasionpics.com/
> >>
> >> Lying government says border cannot be secured. A hail of gunfire
> >> would end the
> >> invasion.
> > 
> > "A hail of gunfire"...
> > Aimed at who, Brewer of McCain?  Don't forget who opened the door for 
> > illegal, cheap labor 
> 
> Yeah, democraps who refuse to enforce immigration laws and a democrap
> president who signed NAFTA. 

Hold on Bubba, you gettin' ahead of yourself.
----
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement>
Background
In 1988 Canada and the United States signed the Canada-United States 
Free Trade Agreement after which the US Congress approved implementing 
legislation. The American government then entered into negotiations with 
the Mexican government for a similar treaty, and Canada asked to join 
the negotiations in order to preserve its perceived gains under the 1988 
deal.[1] The climate at the time favored expanding trade blocs, and the 
Maastricht Treaty which created the European Union was signed in 1992.
[edit]
Negotiation and ratification


Seen here are Carlos Salinas, President of Mexico (back left), George 
H.W. Bush, President of the United States (back center), and Brian 
Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada (back right).
Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1991 between the three 
nations, the leaders met in San Antonio, Texas, on December 17, 1992, to 
sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister 
Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible 
for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed it. 
The agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or 
parliamentary branch.
----

OK Bubba, you can take it from here ;O)
> 
> http://www.historycentral.com/Documents/Clinton/SigningNaFTA.html
> 
> Office of the Press Secretary 
> ______________________________________________________________ 
> For Immediate Release September 14, 1993 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> REMARKS BY PRESIDENT CLINTON, 
> PRESIDENT BUSH, PRESIDENT CARTER, PRESIDENT FORD, 
> AND VICE PRESIDENT GORE 
> IN SIGNING OF NAFTA SIDE AGREEMENTS 
> 
> 
> The East Room 
> 
> 
> 
> 10:39 A.M. EDT 
> 
> 
> 
> VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Ladies and gentlemen, please be 
> seated. We'd like to welcome all of you. President and Mrs. Ford, 
> President and Mrs. Carter, President Bush, Mr. President, to the First 
> Lady, to the Ambassador of Mexico, Mr. Montano, Ambassador Keegan of 
> Canada, Ambassador Kantor. To the distinguished leaders of Congress 
> here -- the Speaker of the House Tom Foley -- I got you all a little 
> out of order, I apologize -- and to the Majority Leader, Senator 
> Mitchell; to the Republican Leader, Senator Dole; the Minority Leader 
> of the House Bob Michel; to all of the distinguished members of the 
> House and Senate who are here. To the other members of our Cabinet -- 
> of President Clinton's Cabinet who are here --Secretary Christopher, 
> Secretary Bentsen, Secretary Espy, Secretary Reich, Secretary Riley, 
> Secretary Browner, Secretary Babbitt, Attorney General Reno, OMB 
> Director Panetta. And to all of the distinguished guests who are 
> present. We deeply appreciate the demonstration of support for a 
> treaty of such importance to the United States of America. 
> 
> 
> If you're anything like me and my family, you're still 
> kind of rubbing your eyes a little bit after yesterday's event, where 
> the Prime Minister of Israel and the Chairman of the PLO were on the 
> White House lawn. But that event has something in common with the 
> event here this morning; something that was thought to be impossible, 
> but good for our country and good for the world was made possible by a 
> long series of commitments by presidents in both parties. 
> 
> 
> There are some issues that transcend ideology. That is, 
> the view is so uniform that it unites people in both parties. This 
> means our country can pursue a bipartisan policy with continuity over 
> the decades. That's how we won the Cold War. That's how we have 
> promoted peace and reconciliation in the Middle East. And that's how 
> the United States of America has promoted freer trade and bigger 
> markets for our products and those of other nations throughout the 
> world. NAFTA is such an issue. 
> 
> 
> The presence of three former presidents, two Republicans 
> and one Democrat, to join President Clinton here today on this stage, 
> is evidence of our country's ability to support what is in our 
> nation's best interest over the long term without respect to 
> partisanship. 
> 
> 
> Arthur Vandenberg, the Senator most identified with 
> bipartisanship during and after World War II once wrote: 
> "Bipartisanship does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate 
> in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and 
> free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity." 
> 
> 
> We will, indeed, have much room for free debate during 
> this controversy. That it is in our nation's best interest to ratify 
> and pass this treaty cannot be left to doubt. The person who is 
> leading the fight and who has marshaled support in both parties is the 
> person it is my pleasure to introduce now. The President of the 
> United States, Bill Clinton. (Applause.) 
> 
> 
> THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, 
> President Bush, President Carter, President Ford, ladies and 
> gentlemen. I would like to acknowledge just a couple of other people 
> who are in the audience because I think they deserve to be seen by 
> America since you'll be seeing a lot more of them: my good friend, 
> Bill Daley, from Chicago; and former Congressman Bill Frenzel from 
> Minnesota, who have agreed to lead this fight for our administration 
> on a bipartisan basis. Would you please stand and be recognized. 
> (Applause.) 
> 
> 
> It's an honor for me today to be joined by my 
> predecessor, President Bush, who took the major steps in negotiating 
> this North American Free Trade Agreement; President Jimmy Carter, 
> whose vision of hemispherical development gives great energy to our 
> efforts and has been a consistent theme of his for many, many years 
> now; and President Ford who has argued as fiercely for expanded trade 
> and for this agreement as any American citizen and whose counsel I 
> continue to value. 
> 
> 
> These men, differing in party and outlook, join us today 
> because we all recognize the important stakes for our nation in this 
> issue. Yesterday we saw the sight of an old world dying, a new one 
> being born in hope and a spirit of peace. Peoples who for a decade 
> were caught in the cycle of war and frustration chose hope over fear 
> and took a great risk to make the future better. 
> 
> 
> Today we turn to face the challenge of our own 
> hemisphere, our own country, our own economic fortunes. In a few 
> moments, I will sign three agreements that will complete our 
> negotiations with Mexico and Canada to create a North American Free 
> Trade Agreement. In the coming months I will submit this pack to 
> Congress for approval. It will be a hard fight, and I expect to be 
> there with all of you every step of the way. (Applause.) 
> 
> 
> We will make our case as hard and as well as we can. 
> And, though the fight will be difficult, I deeply believe we will win. 
> And I'd like to tell you why. First of all, because NAFTA means jobs. 
> American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe 
> that, I wouldn't support this agreement. 
> 
> 
> As President, it is my duty to speak frankly to the 
> American people about the world in which we now live. Fifty years at 
> the end of World War II, an unchallenged America was protected by the 
> oceans and by our technological superiority; and, very frankly, by the 
> economic devastation of the people who could otherwise have been our 
> competitors. We chose, then, to try to help rebuild our former 
> enemies and to create a world of free trade supported by institutions 
> which would facilitate it. 
> 
> 
> As a result of that effort, global trade grew from $200 
> billion in 1950 to $800 billion in 1980. As a result, jobs were 
> created and opportunity thrived all across the world. But make no 
> mistake about it: Our decision at the end of World War II to create a 
> system of global, expanded, freer trade and the supporting 
> institutions played a major role in creating the prosperity of the 
> American middle class. 
> 
> 
> Ours is now an era in which commerce is global and in 
> which money, management, technology are highly mobile. For the last 
> 20 years in all the wealthy countries of the world, because of changes 
> in the global environment, because of the growth of technology, 
> because of increasing competition, the middle class that was created 
> and enlarged by the wise policies of expanding trade at the end of 
> World War II has been under severe stress. Most Americans 
> are working harder for less. They are vulnerable to the fear tactics 
> and the adverseness to change that is behind much of the opposition to 
> NAFTA. 
> 
> 
> But I want to say to my fellow Americans, when you live 
> in a time of change the only way to recover your security and to 
> broaden your horizons is to adapt to the change, to embrace, to move 
> forward. Nothing we do -- nothing we do in this great capital can 
> change the fact that factories or information can flash across the 
> world; that people can move money around in the blink of an eye. 
> Nothing can change the fact that technology can be adopted once 
> created by people all across the world, and then rapidly adapted in 
> new and different ways by people who have a little different take on 
> the way the technology works. 
> 
> 
> For two decades, the winds of global competition have 
> made these things clear to any American with eyes to see. The only 
> way we can recover the fortunes of the middle class in this country so 
> that people who work harder and smarter can at least prosper more, the 
> only way we can pass on the American Dream of the last 40 years to our 
> children and their children for the next 40 is to adapt to the changes 
> which are occurring. 
> 
> 
> In a fundamental sense, this debate about NAFTA is a 
> debate about whether we will embrace these changes and create the jobs 
> of tomorrow, or try to resist these changes, hoping we can preserve 
> the economic structures of yesterday. 
> 
> 
> I tell you, my fellow Americans, that if we learn 
> anything from the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the 
> governments in Eastern Europe, even a totally controlled society 
> cannot resist the winds of change that economics and technology and 
> information flow have imposed in this world of ours. That is not an 
> option. Our only realistic option is to embrace these changes and 
> create the jobs of tomorrow. (Applause.) 
> 
> 
> I believe that NAFTA will create 200,000 American jobs in 
> the first two years of its effect. I believe if you look at the 
> trends -- and President Bush and I were talking about it this morning 
> -- starting about the time he was elected president, over one-third of 
> our economic growth, and in some years over one-half of our net new 
> jobs came directly from exports. And on average, those export-related 
> jobs paid much higher than jobs that had no connection to exports. 
> 
> 
> I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the 
> first five years of its impact. And I believe that that is many more 
> jobs than will be lost, as inevitably some will be as always happens 
> when you open up the mix to a new range of competition. 
> 
> 
> NAFTA will generate these jobs by fostering an export 
> boom to Mexico; by tearing down tariff walls which have been lowered 
> quite a bit by the present administration of President Salinas, but 
> are still higher than Americans. 
> 
> 
> Already Mexican consumers buy more per capita from the 
> United States than other consumers in other nations. Most Americans 
> don't know this, but the average Mexican citizen -- even though wages 
> are much lower in Mexico, the average Mexican citizen is now spending 
> $450 per year per person to buy American goods. That is more than the 
> average Japanese, the average German, or the average Canadian buys; 
> more than the average German, Swiss and Italian citizens put together. 
> 
> 
> So when people say that this trade agreement is just 
> about how to move jobs to Mexico so nobody can make a living, how do 
> they explain the fact that Mexicans keep buying more products made in 
> America every year? Go out and tell the American people that. 
> Mexican citizens with lower incomes spend more money -- real dollars, 
> not percentage of their income -- more money on American products than 
> Germans, Japanese, Canadians. That is a fact. And there will be 
> more if they have more money to spend. That is what expanding trade 
> is all about. 
> 
> 
> In 1987, Mexico exported $5.7 billion more of products to 
> the United States than they purchased from us. We had a trade 
> deficit. Because of the free market, tariff-lowering policies of the 
> Salinas government in Mexico, and because our people are becoming more 
> export-oriented, that $5.7-billion trade deficit has been turned into 
> a $5.4-billion trade surplus for the United States. It has created 
> hundreds of thousands of jobs. 
> 
> 
> Even when you subtract the jobs that have moved into the 
> Maquilladora areas, America is a net job winner in what has happened 
> in trade in the last six years. When Mexico boosts its consumption of 
> petroleum products in Louisiana, where we're going tomorrow to talk 
> about NAFTA, as it did by about 200 percent in that period, Louisiana 
> refinery workers gained job security. When Mexico purchased 
> industrial machinery and computer equipment made in Illinois, that 
> means more jobs. And guess what? In this same period, Mexico 
> increased those purchases out of Illinois by 300 percent. 
> 
> 
> Forty-eight out of the 50 states have boosted exports to 
> Mexico since 1987. That's one reason why 41 of our nation's 50 
> governors, some of them who are here today -- and I thank them for 
> their presence -- support this trade pack. I can tell you, if you're 
> a governor, people won't leave you in office unless they think you get 
> up every day trying to create more jobs. They think that's what your 
> jobs is if you're a governor. And the people who have the job of 
> creating jobs for their state and working with their business 
> community, working with their labor community, 41 out of the 50 have 
> already embraced the NAFTA pact. 
> 
> 
> Many Americans are still worried that this agreement will 
> move jobs south of the border because they've seen jobs move south of 
> the border and because they know that there are still great 
> differences in the wage rates. There have been 19 serious economic 
> studies of NAFTA by liberals and conservatives alike; 18 of them have 
> concluded that there will be no job loss. 
> 
> 
> Businesses do not choose to locate based solely on wages. 
> If they did, Haiti and Bangladesh would have the largest number of 
> manufacturing jobs in the world. Businesses do choose to locate based 
> on the skills and productivity of the work force, the attitude of the 
> government, the roads and railroads to deliver products, the 
> availability of a market close enough to make the transportation costs 
> meaningful, the communications networks necessary to support the 
> enterprise. That is our strength, and it will continue to be our 
> strength. As it becomes Mexico's strength and they generate more 
> jobs, they will have higher incomes and they will buy more American 
> products. 
> 
> 
> We can win this. This is not a time for defeatism. It 
> is a time to look at an opportunity that is enormous. 
> 
> 
> Moreover, there are specific provisions in this agreement 
> that remove some of the current incentives for people to move their 
> jobs just across our border. For example, today Mexican law requires 
> United States automakers who want to sell cars to Mexicans to build 
> them in Mexico. This year we will export only 1,000 cars to Mexico. 
> 
> 
> Under NAFTA, the Big Three automakers expect to ship 
> 60,000 cars to Mexico in the first year alone, and that is one reason 
> why one of the automakers recently announced moving 1,000 jobs from 
> Mexico back to Michigan. 
> 
> 
> In a few moments, I will sign side agreements to NAFTA 
> that will make it harder than it is today for businesses to relocate 
> solely because of very low wages or lax environmental rules. These 
> side agreements will make a difference. The environmental agreement 
> will, for the first time ever, apply trade sanctions against any of 
> the countries that fails to enforce its own environmental laws. I 
> might say to those who say that's giving up of our sovereignty, for 
> people who have been asking us to ask that of Mexico, how do we have 
> the right to ask that of Mexico if we don't demand it of ourselves? 
> It's nothing but fair. 
> 
> 
> This is the first time that there have ever been trade 
> sanctions in the environmental law area. This ground-breaking 
> agreement is one of the reasons why major environmental groups, 
> ranging from the Audubon Society to the Natural Resources Defense 
> Council, are supporting NAFTA. 
> 
> 
> The second agreement ensures the Mexico enforces its laws 
> in areas that include worker health and safety, child labor and the 
> minimum wage. And I might say, this is the first time in the history 
> of world trade agreements when any nation has ever been willing to tie 
> its minimum wage to the growth in its own economy. 
> 
> 
> What does that mean? It means that there will be an even 
> more rapid closing of the gap between our two wage rates. And as the 
> benefits of economic growth are spread in Mexico to working people, 
> what will happen? They'll have more disposable income to buy more 
> American products and there will be less illegal immigration because 
> more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home. 
> This is a very important thing. (Applause.) 
> 
> 
> The third agreement answers one of the primary attacks on 
> NAFTA that I heard for a year, which is, well, you can say all this, 
> but something might happen that you can't foresee. Well, that's a 
> good thing; otherwise we never would have had yesterday. (Laughter 
> and applause.) I mean, I plead guilty to that. Something might 
> happen that Carla Hills didn't foresee, or George Bush didn't foresee, 
> or Mickey Kantor, or Bill Clinton didn't foresee. That's true. 
> 
> 
> Now, the third agreement protects our industries against 
> unforseen surges in exports from either one of our trading partners. 
> And the flip side is also true. Economic change, as I said before, 
> has often been cruel to the middle class, but we have to make change 
> their friend. NAFTA will help to do that. 
> 
> 
> This imposes also a new obligation on our government -- 
> and I'm glad to see so many members of Congress from both parties here 
> today. We do have some obligations here. We have to make sure that 
> our workers are the best prepared, the best trained in the world. 
> 
> 
> Without regard to NAFTA, we know now that the average 18- 
> year-old American will change jobs eight times in a lifetime. The 
> Secretary of Labor has told us, without regard to NAFTA, that over the 
> last 10 years, for the first time, when people lose their jobs most of 
> them do not go back to their old job, they go back to a different job; 
> so that we no longer need an unemployment system, we need a 
> reemployment system. And we have to create that. 
> 
> 
> And that's our job. We have to tell American workers who 
> will be dislocated because of this agreement or because of things that 
> will happen regardless of this agreement, that we are going to have a 
> reemployment program for training in America, and we intend to do 
> that. 
> 
> Together, the efforts of two administrations now have 
> created a trade agreement that moves beyond the traditional notions of 
> free trade, seeking to ensure trade that pulls everybody up instead of 
> dragging some down while others go up. We have put the environment at 
> the center of this in future agreements. We have sought to avoid a 
> debilitating contest for business where countries seek to lure them 
> only by slashing wages or despoiling the environment. 
> 
> 
> This agreement will create jobs, thanks to trade with our 
> neighbors. That's reason enough to support it. But I must close with 
> a couple of other points. NAFTA is essential to our long-term ability 
> to compete with Asia and Europe. Across the globe our competitors are 
> consolidating, creating huge trading blocks. This pact will create a 
> free trade zone stretching from the Arctic to the tropics, the largest 
> in the world -- a $6.5 billion market, with 370 million people. It 
> will help our businesses to be both more efficient and to better 
> compete with our rivals in other parts of the world.

It may have done that, but it has also allowed the US to dump US 
taxpayer subsidized grains in Mexico for below the cost of production. 
The results have been to drive a lot of Mexican farmers and workers off 
the land, and put them out of work. What's a feller supposed to do, when 
he has a family to feed? What would you do to feed your family?

More over where do you suppose people like    
   �  Armour and Company
   �  Cargill Meat Solutions
   �  Cudahy Packing Company
   �  Greater Omaha Packing Company
   �  Lomen Company
   �  Hormel Foods
   �  Smithfield Foods
   �  Tyson Foods
   �  Perdue Farms
get people to do some less than delicate work?

If your brain isn't too fried with neo-liberal crap take a look at 
"Democracy: A love Story" to see how meat processors, and others use 
undocumented workers to hold down costs, costs, like safe working 
environments. If immigrant labor wants safe working conditions (like 
maybe you'd want, if you were doing the job), they can be fed to ICE. 
End of the exploiter's problem.
------

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html?ex=1270353
600&en=78c87ac4641dc383&ei=5090&partner=kmarx>

Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billion$
-----

<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/year-without-mexican>

A Year Without a Mexican

It all began with the whir and flicker of helicopters on May 12, 2008, 
an incongruous sound in a tiny Iowa town tucked amid cornfields. All 
over Postville, people craned their necks from orderly lawns, phones 
rang, and gossip flew. Reverend Stephen Brackett, the town's Lutheran 
pastor, was on his day off and didn't hear the helicopters at first, but 
when his church secretary called to tell him something unusual was 
happening, he at once suspected what it was. 

Indeed, the 389 arrests eliminated more than one-third of the 
meatpacker's workforce and nearly one-fifth of the town's population. It 
also prompted an exodus of hundreds more Hispanic residents who were 
either afraid of being targeted or simply opted to escape the town's 
inevitable tailspin. Postville's businesses began to suffer almost 
immediately. Even the Wal-Mart in Decorah, a half-hour away, called 
Postville mayor Robert Penrod with concerns about the economic impact. 
Penrod, who stepped down as mayor this month, can recall an eerie calm 
settling over the town, as though it were part of some Twilight Zone 
episode. "Before, it was all hustle bustle, and you'd see people walking 
up and down the streets and driving and listening to music," he told me. 
"Then all of a sudden, boom! I mean nobody was walking the streets."

El Vaquero, six years in operation, was on the edge; three months later, 
it was boarded up. . .

Landlords, meanwhile, had to reckon with suddenly empty units. . .

Prospective hires (for the meat processor) were bussed in from as far 
away as Texas, where many had been recruited at homeless shelters. Among 
them was Diana Morris, who accepted a three-day Greyhound bus trip to 
Postville, but balked after being told she'd have to live in a house 
with 10 male workers, lacking running water or electricity. She went on 
KPVL to plead publicly for help in covering the cost of a ticket back to 
Texas.
-----
The morale of the story is "be careful of what you wish for".
-- 
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the 
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/28/naomi_klein_the_real_crime_scene