Posted on 05/25/2003 6:13:13 AM PDT by mac_truck
The Bush Administration has rewarded the South for its loyalty.
Having successfully continued the Executive usurpation of Congressional authority to negotiate trade contracts, thanks to NAFTA and "Fast-Track", as well as Congressional authority to declare war, Bush now enjoys unchallenged power. His latest exercise in imperial Executive authority came last week when he awarded the Socialist Republic of Vietnamincreases in its textile export quotas to the US from $49 million to $1.5 billion. This is good news for the Vietnamese, but more grim news for Southern textile workers. The Southern textile industry has closed more than 150 mills and slashed 90,000 jobs since 2001, according to the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, and has shrunk by a third in the last five years.
Southern textile workers have looked to Bush for help, only to be ignored. In September, 2001, weeks before the Twin Towers attack, Southern governors Jim Hodges of South Carolina, Mike Easley of North Carolina, Roy Barnes of Georgia, and Don Siegelman of Alabama appealed to President Bush to help their textile workers, and asked that he meet with them to finally take action against the dumping of foreign textiles in Mexico, which used the NAFTA agreements against us. Bush replied that he was "too busy to meet with them." That was true -- he was busy in Toledo, Ohio with President Fox of Mexico discussing yet another pardon of illegal Mexican immigrants. "I know there are some in this world and our country who want to build walls between Mexico and the United States," Bush chided, only five days before the World Trade Center tragedy. "I want to remind people, fearful people build walls. Confident people tear them down." Easley responded by writing another letter [ third item on link] criticizing the President for apparently being "unwilling to give the (previous) letter the serious attention it deserves."
On 22 March, 2002, governors Easley, Hodges, and Barnes met again at an emergency summit in Dallas, North Carolina, and were joined by 350 textile industry executives, workers, community leaders and members of the US Congress. Governor Easley called for all parties of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to comply with its provisions. He stressed that what was hurting his State's textile industry was the illegal smuggling of Vietnamese and Chinese textiles through Mexico, which he blamed as a major reason for his State's devastating loss of textile jobs. At the conclusion of the summit Easley, Hodges and Barnes signed a letter to President George W. Bush asking for him to aid Southern textile workers. Mark Warner of Virginia, though he did not attend the forum, also signed. The appeal from the four Southern governors pleaded for the Bush administration to take action against foreign competitors who refused to open their markets to Southern textiles-- in other words, to fulfill their end of the bargain.
Instead, Bush rewarded the Vietnamese textile industry.
This is not Bush-bashing, or even Republican-bashing. Both political parties have scoffed at concerns about the impact of Federal trade and immigration policies on native-born Americans. The Republicans welcome the cheap labor, while the Democrats cheer the arrival of more voters as they sneak across the border. As jobs at home are appropriated by imported foreigners, many of them illegal, even more jobs vanish into Mexico, thanks to NAFTA.
But once again, it's the South that has been singled out for abuse as Bush pursues his political agenda. Northern states, which went overwhelmingly for Gore in 2000, must be treated nicely, while it's okay to treat the South like a cheap date. Commenting on Bush's textile decision, the Greensboro, North Carolina News and Record observed that at the same time Bush sacrificed Southern jobs, "The US steel industry, plagued by inefficiency but based in states politically vulnerable for the GOP, won major trade concessions." As one ex-textile mill owner in North Carolina told me, "who cares about a bunch of rednecks up here in Stanly County?"
Why should uneven treatment of the South surprise us? It happens all the time, despite the South's contributions to the nation, and despite its loyalty to George W. Bush. As Jeff Adams has pointed out, "The South isn’t just the Bible Belt, it’s the ‘Patriot Belt’ of America. So why is it that while Southerners offer such respect to America, the rest of America cannot reciprocate that respect?" And while it's bad enough that we're ridiculed up North and in Hollywood, why does the president know who we Southerners are only when he needs our votes for elections or our young people for wars?
Why, indeed? Southern whites can be rode hard and put up wet not despite loyalty to Bush, but because of it. Bush and his mouthpieces have deceived our people into thinking he's on our side, so Southern whites believe the fake image of Bush as a Southerner. Bush & Co. know we're so irrationally loyal to him, he can treat us any way he wants. When our interests conflict with those of any other group, be they NAACP bigots, or Mexican illegals, or whoever, we Southerners will be sacrificed, yet we'll take it all without a whimper. And our handlers know it. Remember candidate George W. Bush's illegal removal of Confederate plaques from the Texas Supreme Court building? He could have stood up for Southern heritage -- or he could kowtow to the NAACP. Remember when Dick Cheney refused to attend the funeral of South Carolina Congressman Floyd Spence until the family agreed to remove the Confederate flag from the ceremony? Remember the way candidate George W. Bush groveled in front of the South-bashing NAACP at their national convention, doing his best to outdo Al Gore in catering to the race hustlers? And don't forget that Bush is doing everything he can to replace the South's traditional demographics with his campaign for open borders and endless pardons for illegal immigrants.
Before we Southerners can reclaim our pride, our heritage, our independence, and our economic security, we must first rid ourselves of the psychic prison that keeps us loyal to a two-party, one-agenda regime that feeds on our misdirected sacrifices and misplaced loyalties. We must first reassert our sense of outrage at unjust treatment.
We must first escape from Bush Country
Eventually politicians will realize that this one issue will dominate American politics. I would suggest that the Republicans have the majority of people concerned with this issue so they should take the lead now.
You Sothrons were all pretty gleeful thirty years ago when all those textile mills and jobs left New England for your parts to obtain cheaper labor.
I said then that the cycle would start again and the unions would screw the pooch. (see the movie Norma Rae)
What goes around, come around.
Perhaps that's one reason the pubs favor a weaker dollar...to make foreign imports (i.e. Chinese Tools) more expensive, and US exports more price competitive.
Good point. But at least those jobs stayed in America. There is a certain irony to having a textile export quotas tripled for Vietnam, while 90,000 textile jobs in the south are lost. Makes you wonder what those brave sons fought and died for over there, doesn't it?
How interesting, the author fails to mention that these guys are all Democrats.
Free trade and open border immigration is good for America. I'm sure that there are plenty of 7-11s and McDonalds down there to pick up the slack. Remember, we're a "service" economy now.(/sarcasm)
Its also interesting to note that three of them (Barnes, Hodges, & Siegelman) are no longer governors also.
I think the author is making the point that politics is playing a role in some of the decisions this administration is making about free-trade. He links the failure of this administration to protect southern textile jobs as a decision predicated in part on the premise that the south is safely in the Republican camp.
The cynical observer would note that the steel industry (in 04 battleground state) Pennsylvainia enjoys protection that the textile industry (in Republican strong holds SC/NC/AL) does not.
Good idea, let's move into the computer industry. Oops -- Americans in the computer industry just got wiped out by the H-1Bs and L-1s.
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