Editorials:
CONTENTS COMMONWEAL Volume CXX, Number 17 Correspondence: ...
...In our view, this criticism of NAFTA lacks historical context...
...The first necessiPublisher: Edward S. Skillin ty is to take care of one's own...
...such is not the case in Mexico...
...Those benefiting from such changes must share their gains future hemispheric agreements...
...indi- many Americans as spokeswoman for the cate where future jobs will come from...
...As recent political events in Poland us, more orderly and manageable...
...10038...
...Perhaps the most dispassionate, thorough examination of Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt the agreement is the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment's "U.S.Business Manager: Richard Haas Design: Emil Antonucci Mexico Trade: Pulling Together or Pulling Apart...
...He must again spell out a plan for retraining the American Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi has become known to work force, and this time persuade Congress to pass it...
...Government has a pri- make the transition to the new economic order, already upon mary responsibility here...
...Commonweal 8 October 1993: ment would be phased in over a lengthy but reasonable periComing od...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to market systems, transnational trading, and larger economic communities is seemCommonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...By and large, NAFTA would maintain national over- I spoke with Ashrawi in her hotel room in Washington early sight and yet foster greater multinational cooperation...
...of Virginia...
...He must do this eral years it has taken her to Prague, the Hague, Brussels, London, in short order to meet the present December 31 ratification dead- Stockholm, and elsewhere...
...11 Graffam Rd., So...
...Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell What is NAFTA...
...Stage: Gerald Weales 19 BOOKS President Bill Clinton's bold kickoff of health-care reform last month The Culture of Disbelief: momentarily eclipsed all other business in Washington...
...Russia, Bosnia, Somalia, and even NAFTA Marvelous Possessions: are still with us...
...Her words, formed into cate with little compensation for workers left behind and en- carefully constructed sentences, spoken with deliberation and vironmental laws are flaunted, should not be tolerated...
...The agree- last month, even as the final details of the peace agreement were 4: 8 October 1993 Commonweal...
...There Managed correctly, NAFTA could prove a powerful benwill be losers-that's why labor resists NAFTA-and win- efit to all three of its partners and set a needed precedent for ners...
...Co-signers of Secretary of State James Baker spoke of "the human dimenNAFTA should insist that these concerns be included and an- sion" of the peace process a committee member said, "Ah, that's chor them in preexisting international labor conventions...
...NAFTA could trans- But Ashrawi is also, and perhaps most importantly, a noted form Mexico's third-world economy and accelerate its recent poet...
...ingly unrelenting and irreversible...
...it is already here...
...society...
...needed to enhance U.S...
...A new economTelephone: (212) 732-0800...
...and devise a safety net Palestinian delegation negotiating in to protect those who inevitably will be displaced...
...economy...
...Imperfect though these oversight and other mechanisms are, they encourage cooperation and conflict resolution, while maintaining the possibilOf course, such massive economic rearrangements must be ity of exerting positive leverage on one's trading allies...
...In their scenario, NAFTA would drastically, perhaps Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of permanently, dislocate the U.S...
...Nevertheless, NAFTA does not aspect of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the cost to ordinary adequately promote the rights of Mexican workers to organize people: not just the killing and maiming but the soul-destroyand bargain, nor guarantee them safe work places and fair com- ing effects the occupation has had on both sides...
...an occasional humorous acknowledgment of the incongruous, Governments play a crucial role in protecting the rights of balanced the shouts and keenings that were the only sounds most individual citizens and in fostering the communal aims of a Americans ever heard (on television) from the Palestinians...
...Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor "All too dreamy if well-meaning," argue NAFTA's opponents...
...Ashrawi has had other identities as line...
...Not only would hundreds of thousands Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is of jobs be siphoned off immediately to Mexico, but so would investment dollars published biweekly except Christmas/New Year's...
...It calls NAFTA "an unScreen: Richard Alleva precedented experiment in economic integration" between Mexico, the United Stage: Gerald Weales States, and Canada...
...Ratifying NAFTA will help with those displaced by "progress...
...Over a period of ten-to-fifteen years, most tariffs would fall Poetry: Rosemary Deen between the three North American countries, a giant trading block would be formed, Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, and Mexico's economy would gradually be brought into line with those of its Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr., Sidney Callahan, Liz Leibold McCloskey, wealthier neighbors...
...Is it enviEditor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels ronmental catastrophe or harbinger of hemispheric eco-consciouness...
...Is it, for manufacturers, a STAFF road to the promised land, and, for labor, a path into the wilderness...
...If NAFTA is to pass and work, Clinton must demonstrate not only the advantages of the agreement for America's workers, but reinvigorate their can-do spirit...
...Is NAFTA Religious booknotes: Lawrence S. Cunningham 28 an economic marriage made in heaven or a pact with the devil of neoliberal economics, leading to the death of the American Dream...
...The success of such a merger, NAFTA's proponents argue, Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr...
...04106 (207) 7994387, classified advertising correspondence to 15 Like the movement of huge tectonic plates, this worldwide economic shift to freer Dutch St...
...Display advertising ic order is not on the horizon...
...Protecting human rights must be given top billing tive is so well known to other Palestinian delegates that when in a democracy...
...He must also Washington with the Israeli team...
...Her perspecpensation...
...it would establish tripartite commissions to decide contested labor and environmental matters...
...Portland, Me...
...CONTENTS COMMONWEAL Volume CXX, Number 17 Correspondence: 2 Editorials: 3 The poet as diplomat: Mary Pat Kelly 4 'Missa latina,' yes: Jim Bowman 6 What is a good conscience?: Sidney Callahan 8 The Protestant moment?: John Garvey 9 Dragon in the toy factory: Robert A. Senser 11 No justice by the numbers: Peter E. Ball 14 Poetry: Virginia A. Hlavsa 16 Screen: Richard Alleva 17 Media: Frank McConnell 19 Trading up or down...
...The political, economic, and social rami- process...
...The status quo, under which industries relo- come the face of a faceless people...
...professor and former academic dean (Birzeit Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's situation is University...
...It is this sensibility that causes her to focus on the human experiments in political reform...
...fications for Mexico are more significant...
...the tough environmental laws already on the books in Mexico When the stunning breakthrough between Israel and the PLO must be enforced...
...Ashwari embecause all of North America would be monitoring the effects bodies that kind of "passionate and silent poetry...
...competitiveness with Japan and Europe...
...As now configured, NAFTA-even with its side agreements on the environment and labor-leaves much to be desired...
...Terje Rod Larsen, the Norwegian who sonable to conclude, however, that acceptance of NAFTA is brought Israeli and Palestinians together in Oslo, characterized more likely to advance them than would its rejection, if only the relationship as a passionate and silent poetry...
...Hers has beof the agreement...
...Leonard Deen 25 When it comes to NAFTA (the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement), Gospel: Elizabeth Bartelme 26 the issues to be decided have serious political and economic implications...
...But that high state of Karen Sue Smith 23 excitement could not last...
...writer (on culture, criticism, the intifada, the peace decidedly different...
...Even the euDon Wycliff 22 phoria of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord seemed to fade in the Il Duce's Other Woman: bright lights of the president's medicine show...
...and it is designed to November 5 protect domestic industries that might find themselves sudFALL BOOKS denly imperiled by new competition...
...10038...
...Finally, Hanan...
...New York, N.Y...
...The proposed NAFTA is but ancorrespondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, other signal that a long-term, fundamental economic shakedown is well underway...
...would benefit not only the three countries, but eventually spread its benisons to Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen Alava, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, enhancing those regions' economies Pamela Quatse and nurturing their recent experiments in democracy and political stability...
...The diplosignal how he intends to pay for this, perhaps through a tax on matic role is not new to her: over the past sevU.S...
...and monthly July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...Regional trade agreements such as NAFTA can Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome but must be be a useful and necessary means of adjusting to the new economic order, an efaccompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...RarelyManaging Editor: Patrick Jordan at least in recent times-has a trade issue led to such contradictory judgments, Associate Editor: Paul Baumann volatile rhetoric, and strange bedfellows...
...finally came early in September, it seemed a triumph for this These are legitimate and important concerns-but it is rea- human dimension...
...THE POET AS DIPLOMAT President Clinton has failed to address the legitimate concerns OPTIMISM ISN'T ENOUGH of workers, made skittish by a weak economy and the braying alarms sounded by Ross Perot...
...thoroughly analyzed and the burdens fairly distributed...
...firms that relocate production to Mexico...
...Realistically, he may need to request an extension of the well: scholar (doctorate in comparative literature, University ratifying process...
...indicate, profound economic shifts that do not adequately take people's immediate fears and needs into account will be re- AN INTERVIEW WITH HANAN ASHRAWI sisted...
...fective tool with which to help fashion the economic landscape of tomorrow-for the better...
Vol. 120 • October 1993 • No. 17
