I think it all goes back to NAFTA. The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, was supposed to increase prosperity throughout the continent, instead brought economic insecurity to U.S. workers and a meltdown in Mexico. The low-wage, assembly line jobs never got to Mexico; they left the U.S. and went skipping over the ocean to Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the dumping of U.S. agricultural products on the Mexican market, coupled with “agrarian reform” pushed millions of Mexicans off the land and over the border.
The stated goal of NAFTA was to raise everyone’s standards, to make Mexico more like the U.S. or Canada. Instead, the reverse has happened and the U.S. is becoming more like the cartoon of a Latin American “banana republic.”
How? Let’s count the ways:
1 – Economic inequality. As union-wage, manufacturing jobs leave the U.S. for overseas, they are replaced by low-wage “service sector” jobs, which means flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. Workers’ wages stagnate or sink, while executives who still control those factories in Bangalore or Jakarta, take home ever-higher salaries and bonuses. The result is the end of the middle class and the emergence of an oligarchic system of the few rich and powerful and the many poor and powerless.
2 – Loss of civil liberties. Sure, the trumped-up claims of the “war on terror” have much to do with the phone tapping and DNA-testing and open-ended jailings, but the border war makes its contribution, too. Since last May, the Bush administration positioned 6,000 National Guard troops on the Mexican border, to spot illegal crossings and report them to the Border Patrol. U.S. military forces are not supposed to be used in a military context within the confines of the nation’s borders, so Guard units are restricted to spotting, not shooting. In January, armed men along the border confronted Tennessee Guard troops. The situation was resolved without shots fired, but now politicians are calling for a change in the rules of engagement that would allow the troops to start shooting, a recipe for disaster.
3 – Underground Economy. Since the U.S. is host to millions of undocumented workers, these people have to find ways to work off the books or find fake credentials to allow them to work on the books. Here in Vermont, everyone admits the only thing keeping the state’s dairy industry afloat is the Mexicans who work in the barns. Republican Governor Jim Douglas admits that his brother-in-law employs undocumented workers on his farm. Because short, dark-skinned people stand out in Vermont, these workers have to hide on the farms on which they work. A news story this week tells how Western Union has been refusing to serve farmers who have been sending money to Mexico on their workers’ behalf. These farmers send tens of thousands of dollars each year – and Western Union gets a cut of each transaction – but the remittances are no longer allowed, because the farmers have “exceeded their limits,” Western Union says. Seems like cutting off one’s best customers is an odd way to do business, but it’s part of the fear that exists in totalitarian regimes. (See #2) Latin Americans comprise a significant portion of the workers in the meatpacking industry. Some are legal, some have faked documents, some have neither, but meatpacking plants have been among the most fertile ground for union organizers in the last decade. Should it be surprising, then that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents focus their raids on meatpacking plants? (See #1) Undocumented workers are also rife in construction, but they’re not joining unions, so the enforcement is more lax in that sector.
4 – Resurgent racism. In Latin America, it’s called “La Impunidad” – The Impunity. Plainclothes police, death squads and paramilitaries know they can beat and rape and kill priest and nuns, union organizers and advocates for the poor, because the oligarchy will look the other way. Here in the U.S., civil rights monitors report a surge in activity by the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups and “the Minutemen,” all directed at undocumented workers, because racists know these folks dare not call the police or defend themselves. Redneck cops, from Arizona to New Hampshire, are joining in. Jim Crow of 50 years ago is today’s Jaime Corvo and he’s no prettier now than he was then.
North America Goes South
I think it all goes back to NAFTA. The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, was supposed to increase prosperity throughout the continent, instead brought economic insecurity to U.S. workers and a meltdown in Mexico. The low-wage, assembly line jobs never got to Mexico; they left the U.S. and went skipping over the ocean to Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the dumping of U.S. agricultural products on the Mexican market, coupled with “agrarian reform” pushed millions of Mexicans off the land and over the border.
The stated goal of NAFTA was to raise everyone’s standards, to make Mexico more like the U.S. or Canada. Instead, the reverse has happened and the U.S. is becoming more like the cartoon of a Latin American “banana republic.”
How? Let’s count the ways:
1 – Economic inequality. As union-wage, manufacturing jobs leave the U.S. for overseas, they are replaced by low-wage “service sector” jobs, which means flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. Workers’ wages stagnate or sink, while executives who still control those factories in Bangalore or Jakarta, take home ever-higher salaries and bonuses. The result is the end of the middle class and the emergence of an oligarchic system of the few rich and powerful and the many poor and powerless.
2 – Loss of civil liberties. Sure, the trumped-up claims of the “war on terror” have much to do with the phone tapping and DNA-testing and open-ended jailings, but the border war makes its contribution, too. Since last May, the Bush administration positioned 6,000 National Guard troops on the Mexican border, to spot illegal crossings and report them to the Border Patrol. U.S. military forces are not supposed to be used in a military context within the confines of the nation’s borders, so Guard units are restricted to spotting, not shooting. In January, armed men along the border confronted Tennessee Guard troops. The situation was resolved without shots fired, but now politicians are calling for a change in the rules of engagement that would allow the troops to start shooting, a recipe for disaster.
3 – Underground Economy. Since the U.S. is host to millions of undocumented workers, these people have to find ways to work off the books or find fake credentials to allow them to work on the books. Here in Vermont, everyone admits the only thing keeping the state’s dairy industry afloat is the Mexicans who work in the barns. Republican Governor Jim Douglas admits that his brother-in-law employs undocumented workers on his farm. Because short, dark-skinned people stand out in Vermont, these workers have to hide on the farms on which they work. A news story this week tells how Western Union has been refusing to serve farmers who have been sending money to Mexico on their workers’ behalf. These farmers send tens of thousands of dollars each year – and Western Union gets a cut of each transaction – but the remittances are no longer allowed, because the farmers have “exceeded their limits,” Western Union says. Seems like cutting off one’s best customers is an odd way to do business, but it’s part of the fear that exists in totalitarian regimes. (See #2) Latin Americans comprise a significant portion of the workers in the meatpacking industry. Some are legal, some have faked documents, some have neither, but meatpacking plants have been among the most fertile ground for union organizers in the last decade. Should it be surprising, then that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents focus their raids on meatpacking plants? (See #1) Undocumented workers are also rife in construction, but they’re not joining unions, so the enforcement is more lax in that sector.
4 – Resurgent racism. In Latin America, it’s called “La Impunidad” – The Impunity. Plainclothes police, death squads and paramilitaries know they can beat and rape and kill priest and nuns, union organizers and advocates for the poor, because the oligarchy will look the other way. Here in the U.S., civil rights monitors report a surge in activity by the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups and “the Minutemen,” all directed at undocumented workers, because racists know these folks dare not call the police or defend themselves. Redneck cops, from Arizona to New Hampshire, are joining in. Jim Crow of 50 years ago is today’s Jaime Corvo and he’s no prettier now than he was then.
© Mark Floegel, 2007