Page 2 February 27, 2014 One Man’s Opinion Another Man’s Opinion By Gerry Chong Bob and Mary, two Trivia enthusiasts, paused from their favorite game and reflected on that 1494 allegory named the Ship of Fools in which a ship is full of deranged, frivolous and oblivious passengers, all disclaiming Calendar All Cities Ongoing • Recovery International Meetings, Fridays 10 a.m., South Bay Mental Health Center, 2311 El Segundo Blvd. For more information call (310) 512-8112. Hawtho rne Saturday, March 1 • Mardi Gras Activity Day, 2-4 p.m., Hawthorne Library, 12700 Grevillea Ave. For more information call (310) 679-8193. Tuesday, March 11 • City Council Meeting, 6-10 p.m., City Council Chambers, 4455 W 126th St. For more information call (310) 349-2915. Thursday, March 13 • Community Workshop #2 (Downtown Torrance), 1-7 p.m., Memorial Center, Polaris Room, 3901 W. El Segundo Blvd. For more information visit www.cityofhawthorne.com/ downtown. Tuesday, March 18 • S p r i n g Pa r e n t - C h i l d Wo r k s h o p (Ages 0-3), 11 a.m.-12 p.m., Hawthorne Library,12700 Grevillea Ave. Sign up at the reference desk. For more information call (310) 679-8193 Ongoing • Hawthorne Museum open Tuesdays 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Hawthorne Museum, 12622 Grevillea Ave. • Free10k Walk Club-Hawthorne. All age groups. Weekly walks, clinics, motivation. For more information call (323) 201-7253.Inglewoo d Saturday, March 1 • “Stomp Rockets” and “Living in Space” progarms , Main Library, 101 West Manchester Boulevard. For more information call (310) 412-5380. Ongoing • “Discover Earth” Exhibition, Inglewood Library, 101 Manchester Blvd. Through March 20. For more information call (310) 412-5380. • Third Tuesday Family Movie. 10 a.m. Inglewood Library, 101 W. Manchester Blvd. For more information call 310-412- 5645. Lawndale Saturday, March 1 • Family Storytime, 2-3 p.m., Lawndale Library, 14615 Burin Ave. For more information call (310) 676-0177. Monday, March 3 • City Council Meeting, 6:30 p.m. City Hall, 14717 Burin Ave. Friday, March 7 • Garden Work Days for Adults, 1-2 p.m., Lawndale Ocean Friendly Garden, 14616 Grevillea Ave. For more information call (310) 676-0177. Ongoing • Lawndale Farmers Market, every Wednesday, 2-7 p.m., 147th St. in front of Lawndale Library. For information call (310) 679-3306. • Commodities Free Food Program every Wednesday at 10 a.m., Community Center, 14700 Burin Ave. For information call (310) 973-3270. • knowledge of the ship’s direction. With eyes closed and head tilted back, Bob dreamed, ”Isn’t it time for another remake of that wonderful story? Why, the passenger list has already been cast.” The First Fool must be Hillary Clinton, who failed to protect the consulate at Benghazi before the attack, failed to save our heroes during the attack, created a fictional account after the attack, and failed to bring the killers to justice. Like her captain, when the nation’s emergency Red Phone rang, her call went to voicemail. Staggering and gripping the handrails on the rolling deck would be Kathleen Sebelius, who engineered Obamacare. Seasick or drunk, she keeps telling us everything is going just fine….just fine. ‘Nuff said. Lounging on a deck chair with shades pulled down is James Clapper of the NSA who perjured himself before Congress, declaring that this righteous government does not collect any phone or email surveillance on U.S. citizens; nor by implication would it eavesdrop on our allies or their leaders. Playing shuffleboard is Attorney General Eric Holder, who fronted for the government in the Fast and Furious caper in which the government provided Mexican drug lords with AK-47s while arming our border patrol with non-lethal bean bag ammunition. The result was predictable, so RIP, Border Patrol Washington Needs to do More Agent Brian Terry. Than Upgrade NAFTA Surrounding the pool 10 rows deep is the IRS, which slow-walked Conservative applications for confirmation of non-profit status while fast-tracking Liberal applications. Then after approval, the IRS audited only 10 percent of Liberal organizations but 100 percent of Conservatives. Grinning, President Obama said there is not a “smidgeon” of corruption because the IRS is rightly performing its expanded function as the enforcer of the realm. The witch-hunting EPA is aboard, demanding the ship’s engines be shut down to eliminate emissions. The ship will just have to drift to its destination since measurable progress is an enemy of the environmental movement. In fact, its goal of gas at $10 per gallon would punish the economy. So the passenger list on the new Ship of Fools has been set, but the story needs to be updated. In the old allegory, the ship had no captain and is without direction. That is clearly not the case today. This ship’s captain manipulates the economy to create “equality”... which, by definition, is the creation of a nation of “average.” In keeping with the definitions of arithmetic, it also means reducing that average to meet the lowest common denominator. Now with the captain having fixed his port with GPS and those frivolous and oblivious passengers bobbing and floating in a sea of incompetence, the cruise has begun. Shocked, Bob and Mary flip over the table of their new Trivia and walk away. Simultaneously they realized this Ship is an acronym for an asylum. • By Cristian Vasquez President Obama and everyone in Washington, D.C. need to stop with the media stunts and do something to create jobs in America. On Wednesday, February 19, Obama paid a visit to our neighbors to the south, alongside Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The one-day North American Leaders’ summit in Toluca, Mexico was intended to reinforce, hype up and revamp, if you will, trade between the two nations. President Obama was even quoted by the Associated Press as touting the shared “commitment to trade” between the three nations. Ironically this year is the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which for corporations is great but is a nightmare for the American worker. It is foolish that the President is committing our country to trade with other nations when our economy manufactures very few products. My space is limited to list all of the manufacturing jobs that were lost in America when companies figured that it would be much cheaper to produce abroad because of the new agreement. Whether you believe that NAFTA was good for the American people or not, there are some facts that can’t be ignored. For instance, the trade agreement was supposed to stimulate the economy in all three countries. I can’t speak for Canada or Mexico but in America, since 1994, there has been a drastic drop in the amount of manufacturing jobs available. This, in my humble opinion, is where our nation’s once thriving middle class began to dwindle. There has been much attention as of late to the phenomenon of a shrinking middle class, but that started when NAFTA was signed. Granted that this is a trade agreement and it will not dictate the future of the manufacturing industry, but when companies are allowed to move around from country to country with few challenges there is a detrimental impact on the locals. Manufacturing, like all industries, goes through changes and must adapt. However, NAFTA made it very easy for these changes to occur, hurting the workers to the benefit of the company. In addition, leaders back in 1994 argued that NAFTA would curb illegal immigration into the United States--at least that is what Mexico’s leaders claimed. The truth is that illegal immigration into the United States not only failed to shrink, but it skyrocketed since NAFTA. Why? Simple: with the relaxed tariffs and trade guidelines, the Mexican market was flooded with subsidized corn from America. That was good for our farmers, but not so much for hundreds of thousands of rural farmers in Mexico. Being able to buy the cheaper corn from America meant that the local farmers needed a new way to earn money and working in America was the best solution for these displaced workers. I will admit that Mexico’s leaders should have assisted those displaced workers, but it would be delusional to deny that because of NAFTA said farmers were displaced. NAFTA had a big influence in the rise of illegal immigration to America experienced during the mid and late ‘90s. For President Obama to attend the North American Leaders’ summit and declare that “we have every incentive to make this work,” I want to know, exactly what does he want to make work? After 20 years of NAFTA, we have a middle class that continues to struggle and disappear and we can’t figure out how to deal with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. It’s time our leaders stop imitating failed policies of the past so we can move forward. • “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” ~ John Wooden
Lawndale 02_27_14
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