I encourage interested parties to go to the link and actually read the article. The thrust of the article is UTTERLY at odds with Doug's out of context extract. For instance:
"Mexican drivers cannot be understood if simply viewed through a prism of safety standards and possible illicit cargos of dope.
They must be comprehended as working people without the right to organize. They are American teamsters in say 1933."
The people being demonized here are the IBT. See for yourself.
max
Max Sawicky wrote:
>Show me a quote where the IBT and/or Junior
>"demonize" Mexican *truck drivers* (emphasis
>added), as opposed to demonizing unregulated
>trucks & trucking and/or low-wage labor.
Well, there was this lovely passage from Teamster magazine, Nov 99. Check out the cover pic - "The NAFTA Trucker" <http://www.teamster.org/comm/newsletters/1199.htm>. The piece and especially the presentation draw on the whole Buchananite discourse about the smelly tide inundating our southern border.
>Unsafe and Unsearched
>
>Today, less then 10 percent of the vehicles crossing the bridge are
>searched. At present, eight crossing points on the border have x-ray
>capacity for trucks-but each scan takes eight to 10 minutes and at
>most each unit can scan 60 to 90 trucks a day. This capacity to
>search is being rapidly increased. Other technologies are coming
>online, but our ability to probe can never match the truck traffic
>or trade would simply grind to halt.
>
>Mexican drug traffickers know this. When NAFTA was being discussed
>in the early nineties, the Drug Enforcement Administration picked up
>conversations between major Mexican drug dealers talking about the
>bonanza the treaty presented them. In fact, drug dealers began
>buying border factories, facilities called maquiladoras, in
>anticipation of the joys of the free trade.
>
>Stemming the Tide
>
>Phil Jordan is an El Paso native raised in a barrio five blocks from
>the Rio Grande. He rose to a high level in the Drug Enforcement
>Administration (DEA) and in the mid nineties ran the El Paso
>Intelligence Center (EPIC), the biggest narc spy center on the
>planet with more than 300 agents under his command and a computer
>that handled 75,000 police inquires a day. He is bilingual,
>Mexican-American and has relatives splashed across both sides of the
>border. On the implications of NAFTA, he is clear.
>
>"With Mexican truckers, we have a double whammy-not only are they
>screwing us by bringing in more dope, but there is the matter of
>truck safety. They fix things with bubble gum and tape."