Reply #15: Many legislators raised these objections about NAFTA [View All]

[cprise]

before is was enacted. But Clinton, DLC and the Republicans railroaded it. They should have known they were recreating the conditions of the banana republics of the 1890s.

NAFTA sell was this: "Look over there at the EU, stupid American voter! They have a new trade system and will bury us if we don't do the same! So we must enact NAFTA ( which is almost entirely unlike the EU system)!"

It was a bait-and-switch. Europe moved to integrate itself further and a large part of that involved trade (and human and labor rights), and big business in the US told us that NAFTA was the same thing. It isn't close.

In the end, good intentions only go so far. It doesn't matter now what they intended. Perhaps NAFTA architects were deluded, blinded by free-market ideology. Perhaps they hated the American workers and foreign industrialists (competition) making life challanging for them. Perhaps they considered the success of the Asian Tiger economies as bad mistake (they were supposed to remain poor and desperate). Perhaps Clintonites were embarrassed from all the rhetoric about Democrats' economic blunders and just wanted to out-do the Republicans. None of it is an excuse.

You don't give corporations special international courts with the power to trump the laws of democratically-elected governments, and leave everyone else with no legal redress. I believed in NAFTA because I supported Clinton, and his "freedom" rhetoric gave me a tool to bash the "protectionists". Back then it was all Boomer liberals, who became defenseless and stupid the moment you say the words "freedom" and "choice". So it worked, and conservatives are still using the tactic. Should we apply "freedom" to the sex act to the point where rape is legal? Should we allow women to deny "choice" to desperate men? Should we keep letting our brains fall out?