Jon Tasini, the one-time rival of Hillary Rodham Clinton trounced in the Democratic primary contest for her 2006 re-election, said he passed on watching the debate last night because it was too dull. (One colleague of ours even harshly called it "Life Imitating Death"). Tasini had been a John Edwards supporter.
But when Tasini heard that NAFTA -- an issue he'd tried to raise in the Senate primary -- took up so much debate time on NBC he went to the transcript and decided that neither of them seem to understand or embrace the most essential objections to the Bill Clinton-championed investment deal. His commentary is posted here. In part, he says:
"Neither Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama understand the issue of trade, or they will be unwilling to make the break from so-called 'free trade' that we need.
"...On a positive note, it is extraordinary, in one sense, that the debate over NAFTA took up so much time. After all these years, NAFTA just can't get any respect. All of a sudden, it's the whipping post in politics--at least, on the Democratic side. If anything is true it is that politicians respond to what they think voters want to hear--and the real people out there understand, at a pocketbook and life experience level, that so-called 'free trade' is a disaster."
Dan Janison
Comments (1)
You know what I love about Jonathan Tasini? Back when I was a member of the National Writer's Union, Tasini led a big protest effort by the union over the cancellation of an NEA grant to a guy named SubComandante Marcos for the publication of something called "The Story of Colors." In case you don't remember, Marcos was the leader of a Mexican political/revolutionary movement called the Zapatistas.
This was back in 1999 by the way, during the same Clinton administration whose NAFTA treaty Tasini so loves to criticize.
I guess as far as Tasini is concerned, it's OK to send money to Mexico, not to mention denying money to US writers that might otherwise be available for them, as long as it's for politically correct reasons. Must be those US writers are all overpaid, and have more work than they can handle.
Tasini's press release is still up on the Union's web site. It's here: http://www.nwu.org/nwu/index.php?cmd=showPage&page_id=1.2.14.1.15