Following up on last week's post, what's odd is that folks like myself who promote tighter fair trade rules can be accused of trying to help American workers by focusing "on finding ways to keep the Chinese population trapped in crushing poverty," while when we talk about immigration, a person like Michael Lind refers to progressives as "dupes and allies on the fringe left" that help foreign immigrants at the expense of American workers. 

When you see these kinds of completely opposite accusations, you can usually bet that the DC/mainstream media paradigm is not really making room for understanding a pretty basic dissent from its politics. Right now, we have a recognized rightwing policy position that supports free trade combined with xenophobic anti-immigrant politics versus a liberal free trade position that promotes a bit more immigration, but in highly controlled guest worker conditions serving corporate interests combined with trade deals with token labor provisions that still are designed based on corporate interests.

What's missing is a basic debate on why we have international policies that give corporate capital the right to cross borders at will, make contracts freely without government interference, then pull investments out when governments demand corporate accountability, yet labor is denied similar freedom on a global basis. The fair trade-immigrant rights position actually boils down to a simple demand: give labor at least the same rights as corporate capital in the global economy.

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