From: "Marcus Strom" <MSTROM-AT-nswtf.org.au>
Date:          Mon, 4 Mar 1996 10:06:16 GMT+10
Subject:       Re: NAFTA & Re: Mexican telephone workers union


This is the sort of nationalism from the US that is quite 
unacceptable and was exactly what I was talking about.


> 	The problem with your formulation is that Mexico is not like any
> European country - except maybe for Sicily.  Mexico is an entire country run
> by a Mafia of the ruling class.  Their exports are drugs, aliens, and cheap
> labor.

Is this really all?? The US 'mafia' ruling class makes the Mexican 
ruling class look like kindergarten kids. The Mexican ruling class 
isn't renowned for mass invasion of other countries, mass overthrow 
of governments it doesn't like. The US ruling class and large 
sections of the Mexican ruling class have the same interests - with 
the Mexican ruling class being a junior partner.


  You cannot protect workers on the other side of the border with trade
> unions because trade unions are essentially illegal there. 

Trade unions do work there. There are some parts of the US that are 
less unionised than some parts of Mexico.


> 	Anti-NAFTA sentiment simply protests putting American workers under
> the hegemony of criminal elite in Mexico. 

Are you kidding here? American workers under the hegemony of the 
criminal elite in Mexico? What about the criminal elite of the US 
ruling class? Again, the US ruling class is a much more viscious, 
criminal class, with interests in common with the Mexican ruling 
class. However, the Mexican ruling class plays a subservient role to 
the US ruling class. This should be obvious to a marxist.

 Of course, anti-NAFTA sentiment
> also admits defeat since internationalism would, as you rightly point out,
> assuage the Mexican problem.  Also, Mexico is probably not the worst offender
> among the scummy regimes with which we trade. 

Here is the crux of your nationalism. The " scummy regimes with which 
we trade." What do you mean by "we"? You obviously mean the US ruling 
class.

 There is also the argument
> that NAFTA has, at least, put the issue of international; workers' rights onto
> the radar screen of Americans.

Yeaahhhhh.... And???
 
> 
> 	For my own part, I can hate NAFTA unreservedly because I fished 
> Falcon reservoir (on the Rio Grand near Brownsville, TX) and I'd like to fish
> it again - while there are actual fish in it.  While the presence or 
> absence of fish is usually moot to my fishing success, being able to 
> suspend disbelief is important for the experience.  A haven for American 
> polluters on the Rio Grande is an atrocity.

This is stupidity. NAFTA is not causing pollution. This pathetic 
individualist response is typical from someone who identifies more 
closely with 'their own' ruling class than with their comrade workers 
in Mexico.


PEACE???? Well, not from people who descend into this sort of 
nationalism.

>                   peace
> 
> 
> 
> 		boddhisatva
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 


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