Dean just rang my bell!

[cprise]

On the subject of trade at least. He knows that common standards should exist where common trade rules are applied:


Defining Dean
Mon Aug 25, 9:28 AM ET

By Fred Hiatt

(snip)
One multilateral institution that might not fare so well in a Dean administration, though, is the World Trade Organization (news - web sites). In what would be a radical departure, China and other countries could get trade deals with the United States only if they adopted "the same labor laws and labor standards and environmental standards" as the United States. Whether or not that demand was consistent with WTO rules? "That's right." With no concession to their relative level of development? "Why should there be? They have the right to have a middle class same as everyone else."

Dean says, "We've tried it" -- NAFTA, WTO -- "for 10 years, and has it succeeded? No. . . . What's the purpose of trade? If it's to create jobs, we haven't done that in America."

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/20030825/pl_washpost/a40299_2003aug24

[Cha]

1. Kick!

:kick:

[cprise]

2. Ring

-a-ling-a-linga!

[German-Lefty]

3. Be realistic

Push for a workers bill of rights in the WTO. Most important is the right to unionize.

It may not be possible for China to get up to our standards, but we can do better.

Labor laws change from coutry to coutry. They're partly our own coutry's buisness. It's not like China can have the US's minimum wage or Germany's health care coverage. Just push for a minimum level. Then let the Chinese do the rest.

As far as the enviroment goes, we should just not trade products that could have been produced in an enviromentally damaging way. Don't buy chemicals from Mexico; you know they're going to pollute. Let them, for example, have some of our IT jobs and do agriculture. These things won't damage the enviroment, and generally don't have as many labor problems.