Date: Fri, 1 Mar 96 2:03:00 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: NAFTA & Re: Mexican telephone workers union








	
		Mr. Strom,



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


	Anti-NAFTA sentiment simply protests putting American workers under
the hegemony of criminal elite in Mexico.  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.  There is also the argument
that NAFTA has, at least, put the issue of international; workers' rights onto
the radar screen of Americans.



	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.






	peace,



		boddhisatva





     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------