Dear Senator Clinton:
Submitted by Leslie H on Fri, 11/16/2007 - 8:19pm
Dear Senator Clinton: (0 / 0)
Hi.
My name is Leslie Hubbard.
I live in NC, near the Research Triangle park. I lost my telecom job in 2002 because of NAFTA. So did all my coworkers. It's almost 2008. I still don't make what I made in 2002. With all due respect, Senator, I can't for the life of me figure out what you find so funny about that ... numbers, charts and Ross Perot be damned.
It's pretty clear that you don't really understand the reality of OUR economy in the post-NAFTA world. God bless your husband, but clearly he don't get it neither. Y'all don't get or you've forgotten what it's like to not have enough to eat, to not have even a dollar to your name when the last cup of rice is gone and the small garden in the yard is playing out in the early weeks of fall.
Senator Edwards understood. He was my Senator in 2002. After our jobs were moved north, our application for Trade Affected worker retraining benefits was initially denied. One of my coworkers then contacted Senator Edwards' office. He took up our cause. He got us those extended benefits so we could return to the workforce.
NAFTA may be just a bunch of charts to you, but it was very nearly the ruin of me and my kids. It has been the ruin of many once-middle-class homes. I can't for the life of me figure out what you find so funny about that.
Could you please do yourself and all Americans a favor? Leave your advisers at home, get outside the DC bubble and have a look at what's going on in the real America. We're hurtin' and it ain't one goddamn bit funny.
Thanks,
Leslie H
kossack
blueNC'er
Johnston County Democrat
You can have capitalism without all the selfishness. -- MontanaMaven
I'm shocked
that the anti-NAFTA people haven't been more successful sticking it to her during this cycle. But then again, I guess they must make for a pretty cash-poor PAC...
Thanks for sharing your story and that great illustration of Edwards' tenure, which I wasn't aware of.
The hard thing
about this is that the average American middle-class wage earner or salaried employee will suffer untold amounts of unfairness and trouble before he/she will ever stand up and publicly admit that his/her wallet is thinner, fridge is leaner, or gas tank is emptier than it used to be for whatever reason. I think it's a pride and/or appearances thing.
"They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum Then they charged the people a dollar 'n a half just to see 'em. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
This is a comment
from a dailykos post. Free trade isn't some impersonal economic theory to me. The real effects of free-trade legislation that so many people in NC have had to deal with are devastating. Even those of us who transitioned successfully and are quite happy in our new jobs/careers don't make nearly what we made eight years ago. That's not just a personal loss, it's a collective loss -- to our communities, our towns, our cities, and our state. To keep our selves moving forward we try to see retraining and going into a different field as positively as we can. But it's a facade. A game we play with ourselves to keep us standing upright. Sometimes the cracks show more than others. Last nights laughter over NAFTA pretty much shook my tree. It was ignorant at best, and bitchy/assholish at worst.
I had to write something but not much of my thoughts after last night's debate are appropriate for a public forum ... the above comment was about the most rational string of words I've been able to put together about corporate Dem support for free trade, and about Senator Clinton's off handed dismissal of the harm NAFTA, et al. has caused the middle-class over the last eight years. Hope y'all don't mind that I made it a diary here.
"They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum Then they charged the people a dollar 'n a half just to see 'em. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
You go, Leslie. Go on and tell it.
I know so many people who are in the same situation, and it pisses me off when the ones who are supposed to be leading have no frickin' clue.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
You're so right.
They just don't get it. They see the stock market and that's all they see. The rule makers in their gated communities really do not understand the monster they've given life to in their ever more obsessive efforts to bend over backwards to be "business friendly." Policies like NAFTA, other corporate give aways, tax breaks and legalized bottom-line massaging tricks are so awesome for corporate profits ... but they are so SO sucky for middle-classers like us. The stock market rise over the last five years is related to our every day lives in absolutely no way whatsoever.
"They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum Then they charged the people a dollar 'n a half just to see 'em. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
The sad thing is that people who
are in other industry sectors who haven't yet been so devastated and see only lower prices from cheap foreigh labor, don't get it.
All of this is about to come to a screeching halt because Clinton's screwing of the American Manufacturing workers is finally coming home to roost. Unfortunately the Clinton's are multi-millionaires now and it's unlikely they'll feel it like the rest of us will.
Our currency problems, debt, trade imbalances, and energy deficits are all coming together for the perfect financial storm. How it will manifest itself is not clear, but I'd guess much higher interest rates, much higher prices for everything, and a crisis with oil.
That anyone could support another Clinton engineered debacle is unspeakable.
Stan Bozarth