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
The old mill is condos now.
I never said that this was a good thing either for the states in which it is happening or for the country, I merely said thirty years ago that the mills would eventually move on because the labor cycle that drove the mills from NE would repeat.
I actually thought back then that the mills would move to Mexico or South America.
And yet, somehow Bush did go for subsidizing the steel industry. Should geography play a role in these decisions?
And don't pass off that kind of protectionism as benefitting the workers- it benefits the US corp's that run those shops.
I think the 90,000 textile workers who have lost their jobs recently would beg to differ with you.
A recent study shows that protecting each textile job costs taxpayers OVER $100K/per job- you could retrain the worker for much less.
That sounds like an interesting study. Can you provide a link to the source of it?
Even though in addition to costing your neighbor a job, the country you're buying from employs prison labor, persecutes christians and steals american technology and sells it to our sworn enemies? I'd rather Buy American...
We lost the clothing business (to Viet Nam, no less)...The steel industry is all but gone...That includes the iron ore mills in Michigan's upper Peninsula...Almost impossible to buy American vegetables anymore...
Sugar? Gone...
Beef? Argentina, Chile...
Auto industry? China beat out Mexico...The list goes on and on...And forget about anything electronic...
Electrical wire? Gone...
The latest is aluminum...Aluminum foundries? All but gone...Where's it going to end???
As far as Perot is concerned, I figure taking a chance to do something right is better than a sure thing that's wrong...
If it's as bad as you say, the next step must be Welfare then, right??? You know, the one where we pay to support them instead of them supporting themselves...
I don't know what came over me...
I beg you to accept my apology, sir.
Psst! Is the duel off?
Can I go change my knickers now, Mr. Sothron?
We provide the H1B and L1 Visa program we provide guarntees for companies that invest in India backed by the US government (a form of insurance) through the export import bank. Companies that invest in foreign software development are eligible for investment tax credits just to name some and I challenge anyone to show Indian software development provides a quality of product remotely similar to an American software product for as good a price. Most especially without these government giveaways to subsidize their programmers.
Now maybe you just liek seeing the destruction of the American high-tech industry because you are ensconced in a field that is not subject to foreign outsourcing. In the 19th century tarriffs were leveled on items that could be produced in the USA to encourage American Industry. All I want is a reasonably even field with India for our high tech industries. Although a certain minimal level of some industries is clearlynecessary in the USA in order to maintain our national security clearly a majority of our softeware maintenence and development needs to be done within the USA if we are to maintain our economy and our military.
High tech is necessary for our military forces most especially state of the art software. we can not afford yo have to import our high tech hardware software and even new areospace designs from China and India ten or fifteen years from now.
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