Reply #68: As I mentioned above...

[AntiFascist]

I don't know if I could defend NAFTA because it seems to involve a lot more than just pure free trade issues. The statement I made before was to support the concept of free trade, not to support NAFTA. I think the main problem in negotiating trade agreements is that there are a lot of additional political issues involved, as mentioned before, one country may feel that the other has an unfair advantage particularly if there are government subsidies involved. When "plutocrats" get together to negotiate the agreements then naturally that agreement will come out favoring large corporations of both countries at the expense of the workers.

As we witnessed in the NYC transit strike, unions can be a very significant threat to the corporate elite. I think it was mentioned that $700 million was lost in just 3 days of the strike and this cut directly into the bottom line of Bloomberg's cronies. Realize that Republicans take this threat very seriously and they will be fighting unions every step of the way. Any type of informal worker organizing, even via the internet, may be a threat to Republicans. Keep this in mind in light of the Patriot Act issues.

At the same time, I don't believe it is realistic for us to try and somehow enforce global unionization. This would ultimately lead to the use of force and we would be sacrificing our security, and quite possibly our liberties, in the process. As I mentioned, the process may be evolving naturally in China as workers begin to demonstrate and protest more. Maybe we should just let it evolve.

I agree that free trade will lead to exporting jobs unless it is counter-balanced by government subsidies. This can lead to political problems which need to be worked out in negotiating agreements. The agreements need to be worked out in a bipartisan manner with real progressive Democratic participation.

The problem of how to strengthen unions can be only be addressed once Democrats take back control of Congress.