Cuba, China, Vietnam…what’s the difference? February 27th, 2008 •
Is McCain’s position on Cuba just another example of pandering to the conservative base, a political move for cementing his vote in Florida, or does he really think that continuing decades worth of failed policy is going to change them?
When his “new found base” supported Chinese WTO membership, MFN status, and normalized trading relations with Vietnam it was oh so good for the country and put America into its proper position at forefront of the Global economy. However when the vote comes to older Cubans in Florida, McCain hides behind the American Flag spouting idiocy like…”we will never sit down with a regime that tortured my fellow solders in Vietnam”. Let me see, wasn’t it Vietnam who was doing most of this torturing? Wasn’t China who supported the communists in Vietnam with weapons, money, and advisors & troops? Wasn’t it China that held American prisoners during the Korean War and have yet to offer up any information about the vast number of missing troops. No, we know why the conservatives supported these opened ended agreements…to further line their corporate pockets with the benefits of cheap labor, exploit 3rd world countries resources without putting in environmental teeth into the agreements, and further bust the Unions without having to negotiate anything. It was the quick and easy path for the all mighty dollar. They will argue all day long about how this is good for our country in the long run and how it will change these countries, perhaps taking decades, into responsible, democratic entities.I was in Juarez in the late 80’s, before NAFTA, working on some equipment in a Malquiladoras plant. Juarez at that point in time was a stinking hole of a place with people living in cardboard shacks outside the plants. Pollution rolled freely out of the plants and made its way down toward the shacks where the children played. Guess what, since NAFTA things haven’t changed much. Yes, we a trading more with Mexico… by exploiting their people and resources even more. If they are doing so well, why do they still choose to pour over our borders only to be further exploited? NAFTA is an end product of the first Bush administration that some genius named Bill Clinton signed off on and claimed a great Bipartisan achievement and which Hillary has conveniently found recent amnesia on. I applaud Obama for at least speaking against NAFTA’s many holes and short comings, but its unfortunate he doesn’t currently have the political will to come out with specific fixes for this bastardization of fair and equitable trade.
So tell me, What’s the difference between Cuba, China, Vietnam, and even Mexico?
The conservative hypocrisy machine is running strong on these issues. John McCain is becoming more like the politics as usual candidate(which he previously loathed) with every passing day. What happened to the engineer of the Straight Talk Express?"
Hypocrisy.com
