CAFTA Passes (Narrowly)

Cheers to the House Republicans and 15 Democrats. And from that ethnocentric, protectionist-reactionary, Nancy Pelosi, we get this:

[CAFTA] will be a Pyrrhic victory..., because we will take our message to the American people that we are the ones looking out for them.

Who knew that Mrs. Pelosi is of the "America-First" stripe? And this:

I wish that the CAFTA bill ... included basic labor standards and protected our
environment. This type of an agreement would have lifted the economies of both
the United States and Central America. It would have attracted support from a
large number of Democratic members.

To borrow from Mick Jagger, "you ignorant slut." Poor, undeveloped countries do not have the luxury to insist upon wage and hour standards and environmental regulations on par with developed nations. To state the obvious, such quality-of-life improvements do not tend to rank very high on the scale of priorities when one is concerned on just how he is going to feed his kids on a buck a day. Pelosi and her Bay-area ilk are the very people who take $5,000 eco-tours in the pristine Guatamalan rainforests - all the while doing little more than pitying the impoverished shantytown dwellers who would kill for a $10/day gig at the Nike factory. It just wouldn't be a cultural experience if the Mayan-natives weren't jumping around in loin-cloths...

Related Posts:

GW's CAFTA Tour

Mercantilist Republicans