The CAFTA 15: Two-Faced Towns

    Edolphus Towns probably hates the official Congressional Record. Cuz, there is the Congressman from New York's 10th District, nine months before the vote on CAFTA, telling people why the so-called "free trade" agreement was a bad deal.

    As they say, let's go to the source. He said that the "underlying principle is the aggressive protection and expansion of individual and corporate investor rights. These privileges come at the expense of environmental protection, legislative independence, and a nations right to autonomously determine social and economic policy. Despite the assurances of its proponents, the Central America Free Trade Accord ( CAFTA ) [sic] is not likely to translate into a significant improvement for the regions atrocious labor rights record because it does not institute the fixed penalties and incentives required for such a profound change. The absence of such provisions is especially distressing in Central American societies that, in a twisted and deadly caricature of respectable collective bargaining, have historically witnessed hundreds of labor leaders gunned down and intimidated by hired hands on the payrolls of land owners and factory managers."

    As the dogged folks from Public Citizen show, Towns goes on to say, that CAFTA was negotiated secretly and would offer "no new labor protections." And Public Citizen says, "Although the CAFTA text was unchanged between Towns 2004 speech and the congressional vote on the six-nation expansion of NAFTA, Towns provided one of the deciding votes in favor of the trade agreement. Had he stuck with his opposition to CAFTA, the agreement would have been defeated on a 216-216 tie vote."

    Towns caved to corporate interests. That's why Towns, as one of the CAFTA 15, deserves to go down to defeat in a Democratic primary.

Comments

[Matt H]

How quickly we forget about the CAFTA 15.

Just yesterday I got an e-mail informing me to sent Jim Moran a thank you letter for supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. After his CAFTA error, I wrote that by Moran's next election the CAFTA issue would be forgotten. I never thought it would be forgotten so quickly

We need to constantly hound these whores and remind our labor leaders who our real friends are.

[Mike the Laborer]

Maybe the CAFTA 15 figured they had 16 months to the next election and that it'd be old news by then.

Some will forget, some won't.

New York won't forget.

Brooklyn and Queens won't forget...

[Roy Jones]

As regards Mr. Town's flip-flop, I understand there is an American saying: "chase the money". Is there not an eager young political blood hound out there who would enjoy chasing down the reason for such a flip-flop?