Friday, August 05, 2005

Dear Congressman, About Your CAFTA Vote ...

Brilliant, hard-hitting article by Phyllis Spivey belongs on blogs everywhere.

It is becoming clear to me that we have to stop pulling punches. Things are coming down to the wire too fast, and we no longer have the luxury of always being "polite." At public meetings, etc., we have to hit our Senators and Representatives with the real and existing threat to the U.S. as an independent nation. Our sovereignty has already been compromised severely by NAFTA tribunals and by our entanglements with the World Trade Organization which I learned just this morning was able to overrule a U.S. court in Massachusetts (details later).

Civil disobedience is not out of the question once the power elites start their push for the FTAA in Congress. Watchdog groups should be prepared to assemble to ensure that the Federal Government plays by its rules during the vote ("15 minutes" means 15 minutes!). We should be prepared to be arrested, if that is what it takes. I fully believe there are going to be political prisoners within what used to be America's borders before this is over.

On to the Phyllis Spivey article. Note the concluding section at the end. I intend to have a copy on hand for our 4th District Representative, Bob Inglis.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN, ABOUT YOUR CAFTA VOTE...

Phyllis Spivey
August 5, 2005
http://www.NewsWithViews.com/Spivey/phyllis7.htm

It was a sad day for America. Some say it was the day America died, for the events of July 28 portend the end of America as a sovereign, independent nation. And you, Congressman, who swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, betrayed your country in the disgraceful post-midnight, vote-buying debacle that delivered the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

It’s not as if you didn’t know what the passage of CAFTA would mean for the United States. The agreement, after all, has been widely touted as an extension of NAFTA and we all know what that has brought: drugs, gangs, disease, and a never-ending invasion of illegal job seekers and dependents, not to mention record trade deficits.

CAFTA-crats even followed the NAFTA script, making the same deceptive promises they made for NAFTA eleven years ago. NAFTA will bring greater prosperity to member countries, they assured. It will knock down trade barriers and create expanded markets for U.S. goods. Sure, we might lose a few low-paying manufacturing jobs, but those would be replaced with higher-paying, better quality service sector jobs.

Sounds ridiculous in the face of reality, doesn’t it, Congressman? We’ve watched NAFTA suck up nearly a million U.S. jobs even as the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico ballooned to a whopping $111 billion last year. And, how about those claims that NAFTA would raise Mexican living standards and keep workers at home?

The ink on the accord was barely dry when Mexico declared bankruptcy and the peso collapsed; Mexico sank into its worst depression in 60 years and U.S. taxpayers underwrote a mega-billion dollar bail-out. Turning a flood of illegal border-crossers into a tsunami that shows no sign of abating, NAFTA has literally moved the Third World, with all of its problems, into the First World, overwhelming U.S. law enforcement, job markets, schools, and hospitals.

Perhaps you remember, Congressman, how NAFTA zealots embraced Mexico’s (then) president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, praising him for reversing socialism and unleashing a market-driven economy. Post NAFTA, they went mum as he went on the lam from murder and drug charges, and slunk into exile in Cuba.

Mexico’s current presidente, whining and petulant one minute, demanding and arrogant the next, is so disliked by his own people that his political party currently rates third with the electorate. Pollsters say the people’s main concerns are the economy, unemployment, insecurity and the influence of narcotraffickers, all things NAFTA was supposed to fix.

Most of Mexico’s banks are owned by foreign interests now, the Mexican economy is still in the tank, and Mexican peasants are poor as ever. Humiliatingly dependent on U.S. dollar remittances from Mexicans residing in the U.S., the NAFTA-emboldened Mexican government not only encourages illegal border-crossers, it helps them get here and, once here, insists that U.S. policies favor them. And many now come carrying drugs.

Today – as you surely know, Mr. Congressman – Mexico is little more than a narco-state, responsible for 92% of the cocaine sold in the U.S. in 2004 and wracked by warring drug cartels. Law enforcement officers on both sides of the border are increasingly attacked by paramilitary units, aka "Zetas," escorting drug shipments into the U.S. and reportedly offering a $50,000 bounty on Border Patrol agents and police officers.

Rampant lawlessness throughout Mexico prompted a U.S. State Department travel advisory, warning Americans about the violence; it has just been renewed. In Nuevo Laredo, the busiest border entry into the U.S. and where neither the military nor the federal police have been able to stop the killing, the U.S. ambassador announced – two days after your vote for the border-opening CAFTA – that he was closing the consulate for security reasons.

Congressman, the drug gangs in Nuevo Laredo are fighting for control of the lucrative route into the U.S. CAFTA promises to enhance it.

In fact, CAFTA will build on all the problems produced by NAFTA and extend its failures to the poverty-laden countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic. But all these things you know, Congressman, just as you know that modern trade agreements are less about trade than about redistributing people, power, and wealth.

Still, you voted for CAFTA, and it was approved by a paltry two votes. Were you, like many of your colleagues, bought off or blackmailed? Or did you simply decide to cast your lot with the corporate elite and the international socialists intent on destroying American sovereignty?

One thing more: don’t ever again tell us you’re against illegal immigration, or that you believe in a truly free market, or that you stand for a strong, independent America. Your CAFTA vote tells us everything we need to know about you.

Sincerely,
A Disgusted American

Dear Reader: If you agree with the above letter, clip and send to your member of Congress, addressed as follows: The Honorable ________________, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515.

(Southern California Congressmen who voted for CAFTA: Congressmen Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce, Christopher Cox, Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Darrell Issa, David Drier, Mary Bono, Ken Calvert)

Related Articles:
The Official CAFTA Vote Story
The "Selling Out" of America
CAFTA: How Elected Officials Betrayed America

© 2005 Phyllis Spivey - All Rights Reserved

Phyllis is a researcher and freelance writer specializing in political analysis. She has been published in Lew Rockwell’s Rothbard-Rockwell Report, The Welch Report (on-line), The Orange County Register and is a regular contributer to NewsWithViews.com, The Sentinel Weekly News, Corona, California. She holds a Christian worldview and writes primarily on trade, economic, education, environmental, and immigration issues.

E-mail: SPIVEY2@infostations.com

Comments:
she does say it well. since my congress critter voter against CAFTA - does that mean i have to like him? i will work for the OR2 opposition to Walden(R) - it remains to be seen if federal klamath water policy changes.
i have found ways to make a meaningful impact in federal local spending - inserting into the pork distribution process. go to www.howdt.com and visit the soapbox archive #2. (which i haven't got there now - reworking the archive sequence)
My PhD is in inorganic chemistry, but i have taken a route to use my specialty as a generalist. I was state treasurer with the Reform Party when it all came crashing down - the political insight from that process deserves publication, but ... i currently join you in educational system purgatory for incorrect opinionation. I'd suggest that that makes us more creative toward reaching our audience with our messages.

I do not have a christian world view, but have had several good christian friends who might argue with me that i do. i have been calling science a religion at my blog - but really - when you get right down to it - where is the mutual exclusion - i don't see the arguments about why they cannot both coexist and prosper. i know very religious scientists and sacriligious preachers. what passes for 'science' these days is as much paplum as what we read in the press on other topics.
the key is truth, for its own sake. knowledge for knowing. i have some ideas - but the comment area of your blog is not the best place to share them. I will list this blog with my crosslinks - visit the zone for some howdtside the baax thinking.
 
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