Doug: >Ok, so let's for now assume that's what The Debate is about. On your list, >Mark Jones quoted me saying that women who go to work in Mexican >maquiladoras find some degree of liberation from rural patriarchy in their >new lives, along with the exploitation and toxic waste that goes with the >job. I based that on an article by the excellent journalist Debbie Nathan >in The Nation and on research by the sociologist Leslie Salzinger. >Salzinger spent a year working in factories and talking to her fellow >workers. I guess because they are excellent and publish in the Nation, this cinches it. Against this article, I would recommend the vast amount of literature that documents the oppression of women inside these factories, where they are denied maternity leave and sexually exploited by foremen. You can find this information by doing a search on "maquilas" on the worldwide web. The Nation publishes any article for political reasons. Katrina Van den Heuvel is a diehard Clinton supporter. Clinton's main "achievement" as president is the passage of NAFTA. There are no silver linings to NAFTA. It neither "lifts up" peasant women from "rural idiocy", nor does it advance us toward socialism. The maquilas are hell on earth. What would probably benefit you, Doug, is if you spent a week in Juarez talking to the English-speaking social worker who has taken up the cause of young women workers who are being murdered by one or more serial murderers. She would be much more authoritative than Nation magazine Clinton apologetics. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
