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Down The Middle - May 15, 2007 - Printable Version
- Middle Class Was Fun
by Down The Middle
Don’t be surprised if you hear an air horn version of La Cucaracha the next time an eighteen-wheeler blows you off the road, because this month marks the beginning of Mexican commercial truck drivers legally entering and traversing U.S. highways…and doing so without restriction of U.S. law. In the post 9/11 fear of imported terrorism and the ongoing unresolved debate over illegal immigration policies, not to mention the forty-year, so called “War on Drugs”, it’s hard to imagine that there is any logic in this recent acceleration of the ill-conceived NAFTA free trade agreement.
U.S. truckers, who for the most have supported the President throughout his rocky tenure are now being rewarded for their blind faith with this stab in the back of wildly increasing fuel prices and then, the twisting of the knife…allowing Mexican Nationals into their market, to undercut their prices and eventually take their jobs.
Although many of America’s long haul protesters staged demonstrations this month at state capitols throughout the nation, media coverage was minimal and what coverage there was apparently fell upon deaf ears. I did, however see one laughable article lauding this great “opportunity” for American big rig drivers to compete in the Mexican market. Are there really people that believe any of this?
This week, an Oklahoma based Imation plant announced it was laying off almost half of it’s two hundred plus employees and sending their jobs to Juarez, Mexico, at the same time it will close its plant in Wahpeton, N.D. A female employee of the Oklahoma plant was quoted in a local newspaper as saying, they were told by management just last year that the situation here was “rosy”, so employees assumed their jobs were secure. A local builder noted that new homes bought only last year are now going up for sale.
Over the past several years, we’ve seen numerous examples of that “sucking sound of our jobs going to Mexico”, which Ross Perot warned us about, if we accepted NAFTA. He tried to tell us back then, how the nation’s workers would be “sold out” to the “free trade” global market, which has been promoted by every single, leading Democrat and Republican candidate of the last thirty years. I remember in the nineties, Bill Clinton explained to the nation how truly wonderful it was going to be for Americans, who were to be “retrained” to manage and control the new third world labor force. Makes you wonder just how many of America’s truck drivers will be getting that job.
I would say Bill Clinton, the Bushs and all other “American” Presidents and Congresspersons of the last thirty years have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do. It seems there has been some major miscalculation, on their part, in the true value of this global economic strategy. Yet, our elected representatives seem to talk about nothing other than the war, as if they were actually going to do anything about it, while our trade imbalance grows like a cancer metastasizing into a dieing American job market…and all our representatives do is add more leeches. I have to wonder, just how long can this patient survive?
I’m sorry, my fellow Americans, to have to tell you this…but you are actually no longer Americans. I know this must come as a real shock to you…but your country was bought and paid for, long ago…and YOU’VE BEEN EVICTED! Now, you’re simply a citizen of “the world”…and as such, free to compete in markets where you have absolutely no chance of sustaining your income. Oh, how will you ever be able show your appreciation for all they’ve done for you? I suppose your vote this Fall would be enough to assure them of your undying servitude.
Of course, it’s not all bad news. You can always join hands with your favorite Democrats and Republicans, while singing “We are the world”, in perfect harmony…as they complete the sell off of your country to the NWO. Then hurry back home to get your furniture out of the house, before foreclosure. You probably won’t be able to afford the gasoline, to get you to the next town…the next search for a job... but what the hell? If you have enough kids to help you down the road with those backpacks, I’m sure you’ll do fine.
Oh well, middleclass was fun, while it lasted.
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