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Free trade's victims turning against Bush, GOP
The Herald Sun ^ | August 25, 2003 | associated press

Posted on 08/25/2003 2:05:47 PM PDT by snopercod

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- This year's highly publicized job losses in North Carolina manufacturing, including the Pillowtex bankruptcy, could mean trouble next year for President Bush in a region that was a stronghold in 2000.

Bush won more than 56 percent of the vote in both North Carolina and South Carolina in 2000. But his strong support of free trade has turned some against him in the South, where U.S. trade policies are blamed for the loss of jobs in textiles and other manufacturing sectors.

Andy Warlick, chief executive officer of Parkdale Mills in Gaston County, said he doubts he will repeat his 2000 vote for Bush next year.

"He made a lot of promises and he hasn't delivered on any of them," Warlick said. "I've had some firsthand experience of him sending down trade and commerce officials, but they're just photo ops. It's empty rhetoric."

Fred Reese, the president of Western N.C. Industries, an employers' association, said executives are beginning to raise their voices against Bush and are planning education and voter drives.

"We're seeing a new dynamic where the executives and employees are both beginning to see a real threat to their interests. You're going to see people who traditionally voted Republican switch over," Reese predicted.

The hard feelings were on display days after Pillowtex's July 30 bankruptcy filing, when Republican U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes walked into a Kannapolis auditorium to meet with former workers.

"Thanks for sending the jobs overseas, Robin!" shouted Brenda Miller, a longtime worker at the textile giant's Salisbury plant.

In December 2001 Hayes -- who is an heir to the Cannon family textile fortune -- cast the tie-breaking vote to give Bush the authority to negotiate "fast-track" trade agreements, trade treaties that Congress must vote up or down with no amendments.

At the time, Hayes said he won promises from the Bush administration that it would more strictly enforce existing trade agreements and pressure foreign countries to open their markets to U.S. textiles.

"Are we pleased with the way they responded? Absolutely," Hayes said. "Are we satisfied with where we are? Absolutely not."

Jobs in many industries have fled overseas since 1993, when Congress passed the Clinton-backed North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. About half the textile and apparel jobs that existed in 1994 are gone.

Since Bush took office in January 2001, it is estimated North Carolina and South Carolina have lost more than 180,000 manufacturing jobs.

And even more textile jobs could be out the door once quotas on Chinese imports expire at the end of next year.

Republican U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger voted for NAFTA and fast-track, and has seen his 10th District lose nearly 40,000 jobs, primarily in the textile and furniture industries.

"Certainly, there's a political cost to any controversial vote no matter which side you take," he said. "People are casting stones, but we're trying to pick them up and build something."

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards voted against fast-track in 2002 after voting for an earlier version. In 2000 he voted for permanent normal trade relations with China.

Recently, though, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Edwards has attacked Bush's trade policies and called for fairer trade measures.

Robert Neal, vice president of the local chapter of the Pillowtex workers' union, said Hayes has worked to try to ease the impact of job losses in his district.

"Though he (Hayes) voted for fast-track, he is really concerned about the workers and their conditions in the state of North Carolina," Neal said.

Not everyone feels that way.

Reese is organizing 1,500 manufacturing companies across North Carolina in an effort to leverage what he calls a new voting bloc.

In South Carolina, voter drives are planned for the first time at Milliken & Co., which has about 30 plants in the state. Mount Vernon Mills of Greenville, S.C., is forming a political action committee.

The company's president Roger Chastain, a one-time Bush voter, doesn't expect to support the president or Jim DeMint, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Ernest Hollings.

"We're basically liquidating our whole middle class, polarizing people on the two extremes, have and have-nots," Chastain said of the manufacturing job losses. "We'll be a Third World country."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: North Carolina; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: economy; fasttrack; jobs; manufacturing; nafta; northcarolina; oldnorthstate; pillotex; treetrade
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To: Texas_Dawg
Oh, come on all of you big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again

He's got himself in a terrible jam, all out there in free trade land

So drop your jobs and vote Republican, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun....

61 posted on 08/25/2003 3:56:24 PM PDT by Chancellor Palpatine (This is the fault of outsourcing, offshoring, immigration and PC. We're all doomed.)
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To: Mad Dawgg
You didn't get the memo. It is permissible to call a free-trader a traitor, or Marxist. Just don't call Buchanan a Nazi, or government intervention in the markets socialism.
62 posted on 08/25/2003 3:59:12 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: dogbyte12
Are we better off than we were in 1970? Sure we might have computers, and dvd players... but are we a better people?

My family is better off. What have you been doing for the last 30 years? Wasting all your money on toys and expecting the government to save you?

63 posted on 08/25/2003 4:04:07 PM PDT by Gunslingr3
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To: snopercod; Mad Dawgg; Chancellor Palpatine; harpseal; lelio; Warren_Piece; rdb3; austinTparty; ...
Back in my day... all American high-school graduates got free scholarships to Ivy League schools (and there weren't no fairy-loving hippies there either). After they all made straight A's for four years (because they were all good, smart, hard-working European-Americans, dammit), they moved back to their towns and cities where they ran the farms and factories. These farms and factories were ran with precision and efficiency worth of God Himself and they fed and clothed the entire nation for free. People were so happy that in the entire 1950s (the height of this era) there were only 5 murders in the whole country, and most of those were committed by queers. Yeah, life was perfect back in my day before this place went to Hell in a handbasket. All men got along in perfect harmony with their fellow workers and we all lived rich and happily in the good old U.S.A. Then those damn RINOs came along with their uppity communist "economics" and "same water fountains for everyone" crap. Now this place is a living hell overrun by people the Constitution never specifically said were supposed to be allowed in here.
64 posted on 08/25/2003 4:07:14 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg (Proudly posting without the </sarcasm> tag for at least a few months.)
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To: snopercod
Problem for these people is that the dimbulbs aren't going to do anything to help them. Bush will sweep the South during the next election.
65 posted on 08/25/2003 4:10:23 PM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace ((the original))
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To: harpseal
In the eighties via tariffs and quotas Ronald Reagan did address the problem.

Sorry, you have Reagan backwards. He is the one who started the negotiations for NAFTA. In response to calls for retaliatory tariffs he said the following during a radio address, November 20, 1982, "If one partner shoots a hole in the bottom of the boat, does it make sense for the other partner to shoot another hole in the boat." He graduated with a degree in economics, and had a fundamental understanding of liberty and same that you haven't yet achieved. "America's open market is its strength, not its weakness." America's economic resurgence was consequence of his slashing taxes. GWB's tax cuts are appreciated, but piddling in comparison. Furthermore, relief isn't happening at the state level, while expenditures are much greater than they were in the 80's.

66 posted on 08/25/2003 4:19:12 PM PDT by Gunslingr3
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To: Gunslingr3
My family is better off. What have you been doing for the last 30 years? Wasting all your money on toys and expecting the government to save you?

Well, everybody in Barry Bonds family can play baseball well, so that means we all can.

I am doing fine. Great. But it isn't just about me. It may all be just about you, but my family extends beyond my walls. The people at church, my next door neighbor, my fellow americans all matter to me. I have not taken one red dime from the government other than the GI Bill/Army College fund thank you very much.

You still have not addressed the point. Has family life improved since manufacturing started moving off shore?

67 posted on 08/25/2003 4:20:59 PM PDT by dogbyte12
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To: Gunslingr3
He is the one who started the negotiations for NAFTA. In response to calls for retaliatory tariffs he said the following during a radio address, November 20, 1982, "If one partner shoots a hole in the bottom of the boat, does it make sense for the other partner to shoot another hole in the boat." He graduated with a degree in economics, and had a fundamental understanding of liberty and same that you haven't yet achieved. "America's open market is its strength, not its weakness."

Lies! Lies! It's all lies, I tells ya!! Must... subsidize... industry... and... ban... foreign... products...

68 posted on 08/25/2003 4:21:33 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg (Proudly posting without the </sarcasm> tag for at least a few months.)
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To: dogbyte12; All
I am doing fine. Great. But it isn't just about me. It may all be just about you, but my family extends beyond my walls. The people at church, my next door neighbor, my fellow americans all matter to me.

And here we have what this always about. You ask all these people and they are always doing just great... but it's not about them... it's about how much they can demonstrate to you how great a person they are because even though they are doing great they still care about "the little man" out there who is hurting.

69 posted on 08/25/2003 4:23:29 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg (Proudly posting without the </sarcasm> tag for at least a few months.)
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To: Texas_Dawg
It was when we started treating Eyetalians like they was white when this problem started.
70 posted on 08/25/2003 4:26:45 PM PDT by Chancellor Palpatine (This is the fault of outsourcing, offshoring, immigration and PC. We're all doomed.)
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To: Tokhtamish
Is Ken Lay some kind of iron jawed John Galt ?

What did Ken Lay produce? He is simply another parasite enabled (and still protected?) by Republocrat political connections. The Free Market is what exposed Enron, even while former politicians on his payroll were trying to keep pulling the strings.

American is driven by the entrepenuer. Unless and until the government gets out of his way, the economy is imperilled. You can't build a fence around him, unless you think Kruschev had it figured out with the Berlin Wall.

71 posted on 08/25/2003 4:29:36 PM PDT by Gunslingr3
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To: Texas_Dawg
Dawg: I will ask you then. Are families doing better under the two income, both working parent reality we are in?

The question is not, are both parents combined income enough to pay the bills. My question is, are we living in a better world where high paying jobs for blue collar guys are gone, and their wives are obligated to find jobs as well, even if they want to stay home?

My father never even went to high school. He joined the merchant marines, then the real marines and went to vietnam. He came back at 21, took a job as an apprentice machinist, and within 8 years was able to make half the price of our house with one year's salary. That was reality then. College graduates now in certain areas, can't afford the housing their parents had, even with more education. So, they both work. Have kids, ship them off to day care and refinance their mortgages, spending 15 minutes at best of quality time per day with their kids.

I thought you neo-cons actually believed in morality. Does that stop when the almighty Chinese yuan is waved in front of your faces? What are you first? An american or a merchant?

72 posted on 08/25/2003 4:30:04 PM PDT by dogbyte12
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To: Mad Dawgg
We're all gonna die.

*yawn*

Carry on.
73 posted on 08/25/2003 4:32:10 PM PDT by MonroeDNA (No longshoremen were injured to produce this tagline.)
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To: dogbyte12
Are families doing better under the two income, both working parent reality we are in?

Both parents are doing this because they have 3 SUVs, a lakehouse, season tickets, DVDs, and major 4-year universities to pay for now. No family is required to have both parents working the last time I checked. Mine didn't.

74 posted on 08/25/2003 4:33:10 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg (Proudly posting without the </sarcasm> tag for at least a few months.)
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To: Chancellor Palpatine
Hey lawyer retread. It was cute the first time you accused people upset with free trade of being racists, maybe the second time, but your act is getting mighty stale.

Just because you want to exploit third world people, some could consider you a racist with more justification. I don't hear anybody here talking about deporting ethnic Chinese or Indian americans who are born and raised american citizens. If you want to make an argument on Xenophobia, fine.

People who live in paper houses by a particular harbor, shouldn't be tossing so many writs.

75 posted on 08/25/2003 4:33:36 PM PDT by dogbyte12
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To: NoControllingLegalAuthority
My cure for outsourcing is simple, too. If most of the people you hire are not Americans, you're company is NOT AMERICAN.

How many bureaucrats do you intend to add to the dole to go around counting noese? How many more people not producing anything of value do you think we can afford to carry? Lemme see, government taxes and regulation are chasing capital offshore in seek of better returns. Your simple answer is more taxes and regulations. Genius! I appoint you emperor for life!

76 posted on 08/25/2003 4:33:53 PM PDT by Gunslingr3
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To: snopercod
I searched for "symbol manipulator." It turned up this communist pap:

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/mm0196.08.html

I am a communist pap smearer.
77 posted on 08/25/2003 4:35:40 PM PDT by MonroeDNA (No longshoremen were injured to produce this tagline.)
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To: dogbyte12
My father never even went to high school. He joined the merchant marines, then the real marines and went to vietnam. He came back at 21, took a job as an apprentice machinist, and within 8 years was able to make half the price of our house with one year's salary.

And then We Da Pee-PULL! decided that the factory he worked at was polluting the environment when they disposed of waste products in a perfectly legal manner, and had to be fined and forced to pay for cleanup of the local waste dump (despite never having used it), and that the factory was engaged in "racial discrimination" because they only hired 3 black men in one year when, on a statistical basis, they should have hired 3.1671209 black men, and had to be fined, and that the factory owner was "too rich," and had to pay more taxes, and that the union had the right to firebomb the factory when the owner (that guy who was "too rich") fired another machinist for drunkenness that damn near killed your dad and a couple other guys on the production line one day.

78 posted on 08/25/2003 4:35:52 PM PDT by Poohbah (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.)
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To: Tokhtamish
"Dilbert" is closer to the real world of corporate America

That is absolutely true. I've been exposed to and part of several levels of corporate America, and while Scott Adams may be funny as hell, his portrayal of middle management is spot on. I have met every one of his characters, including Alice and the pointy-haired boss, in person.

And I'm not just talking about medium-sized coporations, either. When I was with Xerox, it was more like Dilbert's environment than the smaller companies.

79 posted on 08/25/2003 4:38:15 PM PDT by Marauder (If you drink, don't drive; don't even putt.)
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To: dogbyte12
I don't hear anybody here talking about deporting ethnic Chinese or Indian americans who are born and raised american citizens.

What about ones that moved here after they were born?

80 posted on 08/25/2003 4:38:38 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg (Proudly posting without the </sarcasm> tag for at least a few months.)
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