In Mexico, 100,000 protest NAFTA

But in the U.S., who cares?

The following article is over two weeks old, but the fact that it has just come to our attention indicates how poorly the U.S. media is doing at covering substantial issues in our neighboring country to the south. If there were a protest attracting 100,000 people in the U.S., it would be breaking news on all the major networks and splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the country.

While this article states that over 100,000 Mexican citizens participated in this protest, others indicate the number could be as high as 300,000 while the Mexican police says the figure was only 20-25,000.

Thousands in Mexico Urge Government to Renegotiate NAFTA

By Julieta Mendoza, International Business Times
Posted 02 February 2008 @ 10:25 pm EST

Tens of thousands of agricultural workers and their union representatives gathered at Mexico City's downtown plaza, the Zocalo, on Thursday to complain about the agriculture provisions in the North America Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Agricultural workers with tractors, cows and banners — estimated over 100,000 by media reports — came together, urging the Mexican government to renegotiate the rules in the agricultural part of the Agreement that do away with customs tariffs for corn, beans, sugar and milk starting in 2008.

"We have lost our way as a nation. We have given up sovereignty over food and energy," said Cruz Lopez, the speaker of the National Agricultural workers Confederation (CNC for its acronym in Spanish) according to Spain daily ABC.

Different organizations representing land workers said rules in NAFTA will diminish competition in Mexico, mainly affecting farmers. They also asserted that the U.S. has better agricultural financial assistance than Mexico.

The rest is here. Yes, the protest was mentioned on CNN and AP, but it was more widely covered in France, the UK, China, Iran and Cuba. Not that all U.S. media outlets totally ignored the story. One that featured it was the North Platte, Neb., Bulletin.

Thanks to Minnesota Central for the tip.

Immigration is a phony issue

Mexico's former foreign minister terms building a wall “profoundly stupid”

Leigh Pomeroy
The Mankato Free Press

Some candidates in [Minnesota's] 1st District congressional race want to make immigration an issue. This is not a new tactic, having been employed by politicians in nearly every country in nearly every decade since the dawn of governance.

While immigration has always created at least some societal friction, generally humankind has benefited from the exchange of cultures. Where is this truer than in Minnesota, where the population comes from a mix of Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, English, Vietnamese, Somalis, Hispanic and others? We must not forget that all non-indigenous peoples in the Americas come from immigrant stock.

Latin Americans come to the United States because they see better opportunity in this country for their families. How is this different from our European forbears? It is not.

Building walls and fences has always proven to be short-term solutions for preventing the movement of people across borders. Witness the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, the Berlin Wall and the virtual wall put up by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to keep its citizens from escaping. Today all of these exist only as historical artifacts.

Building a wall between the United States and Mexico will suffer the same fate.

Speaking at Minnesota State University Mankato in April of this year, Dr. Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, said bluntly that the United States is on the wrong track in its attempts to deal with immigration.

Castañeda called the Bush administration’s concept of building fences to keep out immigrants “profoundly stupid.” Instead, the United States should invest in Mexico much like the wealthier nations of the European Union have invested in poorer ones. “Why is Germany building highways in Spain?” he said. “Because it’s good for the German economy.”

The United States has only a limited ability to accept new immigrants as its population grows and its resources to absorb growth become more strained. This is why immigration controls are necessary.

Yet instead of throwing millions of dollars into a wall that won’t last — and that some critics say won’t work — we should be investing that money in Mexico, providing jobs and opportunities there so that Mexican families won’t view their only chance of improvement as coming to the United States.

Politicians can rail against immigration as a way to attract votes, but building fences and making enemies of immigrants only makes sense if the goal is getting elected instead of seeking lasting, long-term solutions.

Leigh Pomeroy is a former DFL candidate for the 1st Congressional District.