Posted on 01/27/2005 6:11:18 PM PST by w6ai5q37b
Besides driving whole industries and millions of jobs offshore, U.S. trade agreements are threatening our national independence and freedom.
The Jolly Green Giant has been a landmark around Dayton, Washington, for generations. But he does not seem so jolly these days. In fact, the fading outline of the 300-foot tall brand name icon is barely visible now on the hillside above town. This June, Daytons asparagus cannery, the worlds largest, will see its last season. Seneca Foods, which cans about half of the states $30 million asparagus crop for General Mills Green Giant label, is closing the Dayton plant and moving operations to Peru.
For this proud farming town, with a population of about 2,700, and for the whole surrounding county, the closure is a huge blow. For 70 years, the cannery has been the areas biggest employer and biggest taxpayer. It provided 50 year-round jobs and 1,000 seasonal jobs during the summer harvest months. The closure will also mean the end of about 2,000 seasonal jobs in the asparagus fields across southeastern Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
I'm not going anywhere.
"Del Monte has moved its asparagus processing from its Toppenish, Wash., plant to Peru. Seneca Foods has discontinued the processing of asparagus only at its Walla Walla facility."
"The Andean Trade Preference Act of 2002 and Washington states high minimum wage have both been blamed for Del Montes move." (And I'm sure Seneca's move as well -ETM)
Yet, according to the U.S. Constitution (Article VI), which all of our elected and appointed officials have been sworn to uphold and defend, it is the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land not trade agreements or treaties that conflict with the Constitution.
>>>it is the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land not trade agreements or treaties that conflict with the Constitution.
Then why do we trade with China?
Then why do we trade with China? >>>
Because the USA has been subverting the US Constitution since the UN was formed and by signing these treaties, trade agreements and joining on with these International NGO organizations we're slowly losing our rights and sliding towards socialism.
I would say they were actually very lucky, there are few who can say they were able to work and raise their family in one industry, let along two generations. Things change. They can still grow in the area, because the growing season still supports crops when they are not available elsewhere, but the cannery can move. (I don't understand the business about the asparagus fields closing down, land is land, don't they need hops for beer or something?) The management may be surprosed that the move does not make as much sense downstream, since the factory will be largely mechnized anyway.
After having taught American Government for many years and reading a lot of material on the Constitution by a lot of folks, both liberal and extremely conservative (John Birch Society among others) I have to conclude that the Founding Fathers built into the document a mechanism to allow the President to effectively fulfill his role as provided in the Constitution to negotiate with foreign nations. That mechanism is the treaty making powers. The proper oversight (the check and balance if you will) is of course the US Senate which can ratify a treaty or not. I think that the Framers found the possibility of a corrupt President to be credible, thus the need for Senate oversight. But I think they didn't and couldn't foresee the state of the nation as it appears to have become with globalization threatening as well as the degradation of the Bill of Rights, especially the 2nd Amendment. If they had seen that, they surely would have made the Bill of Rights much more specific and stronger.
U.S. asparagus is victim of the war on drugs
After 55 years of packing Eastern Washington asparagus, the Del Monte Foods factory here moved operations to Peru last year, eliminating 365 jobs. The company said it could get asparagus cheaper and year-round there.
As the global economy churns, nearly every sector has a story about U.S. jobs landing on cheaper shores. But what happened to the U.S. asparagus industry is rare, the farmers here say, because it became a casualty of the government's war on drugs.
To reduce the flow of cocaine into the United States by encouraging farmers in Peru to grow food instead of coca, the United States in the early 1990s started to subsidize a year-round Peruvian asparagus industry, and since then U.S. processing plants have closed and hundreds of farmers have gone out of business.
"Apologies to the people affected," said David Murray, special assistant for the White House's drug policy office, "but the idea of creating alternative development, countrywide, does serve our purposes."
One result is that Americans are eating more asparagus, because it is available fresh at all times. But the growth has been in Peruvian asparagus supported by U.S. taxpayers.
"The irony is that they-didn't plow under the coke to plant asparagus in Peru," said John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board. "If you look at that industry in Peru and where it's growing, it has nothing to do with coca leaf growers becoming normal farmers. Coca leaf is grown in the highlands. The asparagus is near sea level."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1126058/posts
PING
You know, I work with several Europeans and they just pooh-pooh me when I say that the EU is establishing a constitution and the days of nationhood for many European countries are numbered.
Yours is the only comment in I don't know how many of these offshoring threads that makes the connection between the obliteration of the middle class via the globalization of commerce and the erosion of the Second Amendment.
The two are inexorably connected as you have obviously figured out.
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