Saving the planet, one or two countries at a time
Paul Mirengoff wrote that one of the leading presidential candidates was saying contradictory things in a recent debate. Mirengoff asserted that the candidate said he was going to improve the economy of not only the US, but of Mexico as well, and do so while getting rid of “bad trade deals like NAFTA.” We consulted the transcript to see if that characterization is true, and it appears to be so:
In Youngstown, Ohio, talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of bad trade deals like NAFTA, literally seeing equipment unbolted from the floors of factories…
we have to improve our relationship with Mexico and work with the Mexican government so that their economy is producing jobs on that side of the border…President Bush dropped the ball. He has been so obsessed with Iraq that we have not seen the kinds of outreach and cooperative work that would ensure that the Mexican economy is working not just for the very wealthy in Mexico, but for all people. And that’s a policy that I’m going to change
Contradiction? That’s no big deal in a world of omnipotent power. After all, as the candidate’s ad on TV said: “We can end a war…We can save the planet…We can change the world.” If we can change the world and save the planet, why not begin with Mexico’s economy? Furthermore, why should contradictions in logic matter in a world in which (see video at 19:02): “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
(As we have speculated previously, if this fine rhetorician — with the manner, cadences and speech construction techniques of an evangelical preacher — were to win the election, much mischief lies ahead.)
February 24th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
While sharing Jack’s trepidation about Obama, I wonder if NAFTA is working properly.
During the 1993 Gore-Perot debate, Al Gore talked Mexico:
Did illegal immigration continue to grow because, among other reasons, NAFTA in effect subsidizes monopolistic inefficiencies in the Mexican economy?