Bush Axes Southern Jobs and Southern Heritage

DixieNet Gazette ^ | Spring 2003 | Mike Tuggle

[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

[sinkspur]

If Ross ran again, I'd vote for him again...

Ross Perot's PEROT SYSTEMS outsources pieces of programming contracts to India. He has to, to remain competitive.

Perot gave us Clinton. How stupid are you to risk something like that again?

[cksharks]

Seems like even you can figure that math out. Net, plus, gain 25k jobs. I would imagine they pay more than some woman sitting at a sewing machine.

[No Dems 2004]

And even more interesting, he fails to mention that all but one of them has been voted out of office since then. He's right. We need a 2 party system.

He makes no illusions as to whose side he's on.

[Dog Gone]

We have to protect our textile jobs. I want my children, and my childrens' children to work in those sweatshops. This menial work at low pay is something we must protect at all costs.

How else are we going to keep old trailer parks full?

[mac_truck]

Don't worry, we'll get get the industries running from New England and West Coast socialism.

Lol! I have no idea what you're talking about, but I wouldn't bet my economic future on it. Free trade means you're competing with Mexico, Vietnam, and China for the jobs these industries bring with them.

[Jorge]

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.

Exactly. I used to be in the clothing industry, until the jobs moved south for cheaper labor. In a short time the same jobs moved right out of the country.

[harpseal]

I presume from your Ford Pinto Comment you are for taking from american taxpayers to subsidize foreign workers. I am merely asking for a full free market and that is considered heresey by some of the rabid "globalists." I propose controlling our borders and ending our guest worker programs and one would think I had talked of the Smoot-Hawley tarriffs. I propose no longer guaranteeing American companies investment on third world economies by the government and one would think I was talking of preemptively nuking these countries. I propose not spending American taxpayers money to subsidize foreign companies and bail out American companies from bad investment decisionas and one might think I should be burned at the stake from usually people who are actively empoyed in an industry that has very heavy government involvement.

[Lancey Howard]

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

"An interesting read from a group of disaffected southerners"

What "group"?

The author of this piece, this "disaffected southerner", is simply a scumbag Democrat lapdog and/or operative, a la Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Ann Richards,.... (New Yorker) Martin Frost, LOFL...

Frankly, I'm disappointed that you wasted your time posting this stupid disinformation piece.

[harpseal]

Ross Perot's PEROT SYSTEMS outsources pieces of programming contracts to India. He has to, to remain competitive.

Actually he does not have to do this to remain competitive if we removed American government subsidies to Indian programming companies there would be no economic incentive in this.

[mac_truck]

The author of this piece, this "disaffected southerner", is simply a scumbag Democrat lapdog and/or operative, a la Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Ann Richards,.... (New Yorker) Martin Frost, LOFL...

No, Mike Tuggle is the North Carolina State Chairman of the League of the South.

You make an interesting analogy however.

[harpseal]

There is no deficit in foreign Trade! There exists a Deficit in the exchange of Goods, but a Surplus in the exchange of Services!

However that surplus in the exchange of services does not come near balancing the what is purchased abroad. Further the current account in the exchange of surpluses is being eroded. check the Federal reserve about this. Further, check on the actual US exports of goods and services.

[sinkspur]

Actually he does not have to do this to remain competitive if we removed American government subsidies to Indian programming companies there would be no economic incentive in this.

What subsidies do we give to the Wipros and Covasynts and Convergys of the world? I'm not aware of any of this.

I do know that Indian resources are much less expensive than the hourly rates for the same resources here.

[Rebelbase]

There are many textile mill workers that have repeatedly told the unions to take a hike and many mills that are non-union, Norma Ray be dammed. There is something in a Southerner's spirit about defiance that you'll never understand.

Even at $10-12/hr. The southern worker still cannot compete with foreigners who do the same job for peanuts.

[jagrmeister]

Subsidizing the textile industry with taxpayer dollars is a crime- Bush was right not to go for it. And don't pass off that kind of protectionism as benefitting the workers- it benefits the US corp's that run those shops. A recent study shows that protecting each textile job costs taxpayers OVER $100K/per job- you could retrain the worker for much less.

[1rudeboy]

Makes you wonder what those brave sons fought and died for over there, doesn't it?

Well, I'll tell you two things. First, they didn't fight and die in order to guarantee a living-wage for obsolete workers in an obsolete industry. Second, they fought and died so that someone like you could use their deaths in order to further a political agenda on Memorial Day weekend.