David Sirota: THE SECRET DEAL - DAY 4: Fair Trade Populists Go On the Offensive

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7447

THE SECRET DEAL - DAY 4: Fair Trade Populists Go On the Offensive
by David Sirota | May 14 2007

This is the fourth in a series of posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal this past week between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration. It has now been 4 days since the deal was announced, and the specific legislative language of the deal remains secret.



With the opening of the new week, fair trade Democrats are going on the offensive in response to the secret free trade "deal" worked out between a handful of senior Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush administration. It is now a full four days since the press conference announcing the deal, and the dealmakers still have yet to release the legislative language of the trade policies in question, instead simply sending out their own press releases and triumphant statements from K Street lobbying groups. Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally) this secretive behavior is happening at precisely the same time the Associated Press reports that "Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall" with many wanting "to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them."

The stonewalling, and the declaration by the Bush-connected U.S. Chamber of Commerce that it has been given "assurances that the labor provisions cannot be read to require compliance" has created a full-on backlash on Capitol Hill and in the heartland. Though some say the specific legislative language of the deal hasn't been written yet, that explanation seems suspect considering the unity and enthusiasm with which top K Street icons have endorsed the deal and the claims of "assurances" corporate lobbyists say they have been given about the unenforceability of the labor standards. Here's the latest news.

DETAILS EMERGE ON LEAD UP TO THE DEAL; LEGISLATIVE LANGUAGE STILL SECRET

HILL NEWSPAPER CONFIRMS EMANUEL STYMIED DEMOCRATIC MEETING ON TRADE: The Hill Newspaper reports that "six House Democrats had sought to get House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to put off the announcement of a deal until after the caucus reviewed it, but were rebuffed." As reported on this website last week, a May 10th letter to Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) was ignored in advance of the press conference. Emanuel, not surprisingly, was the Clinton administration official who helped ram NAFTA through Congress. According to John D. MacArthur's groundbreaking book The Selling of Free Trade, Emanuel's specific responsibility at the time was convening weekly meetings with K Street lobbyists to plot about how to put pressure on Democrats to support the deal. Similarly, as an investment banker, he published a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the eve of the China free trade deal demanding Democrats support the agreement, which has resulted in the loss of thousands of good-paying U.S. jobs and further domestic wage deterioriation. In 2004, House Democrats nonetheless rewarded Emanuel by giving him a coveted slot on the Ways and Means Committee - the panel that oversees trade policy.

NAM HEAD ECHOES CLAIM THAT SECRET LEGISLATIVE LANGUAGE WILL MAKE LABOR STANDARDS UNENFORCEABLE: The Hill Newspaper reports that former Michigan Republican Gov. John Engler, now head of the National Association of Manufactuers, "said the secret deal would not bind the U.S. to more detailed ILO convention" standards. This claim about the central tenet of the much-touted deal echoes a similar claim by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Tom Donohue.

AP - DEAL DESIGNED TO "PAVE WAY FOR FAST TRACK": The Associated Press reports that proponents of the deal believe it "could pave the way for an extension or renewal of Bush's "fast-track" authority, which allows him to present completed trade deals to Congress for an expedited vote." Earlier reports have indicated that this is one of the major motivations for the dealmakers. As just one example, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) said after the deal that he now supports fast track reauthorization. Rangel's congressional counterpart, Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), has not said where he stands on fast track. Most recently, Baucus refused to answer a direct question about his position at the recent International Economic Summit in Butte (audio of the interchange can be heard here). The question followed a Montana State Senate resolution demanding Baucus use his chairmanship to stop fast track reauthorization.

more...

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Short of an actual revolution how are we going to get rid

of the corporate stranglehold on washington?

[Sadie5]

2. Wonder what Dean has to say about this?

n/t

[bvar22]

7. I would also like to hear Dean's comments.

Dean, and the 50 state strategy represent the only real threat to the corrruption (DLC) that owns the Democratic Party.

I felt a rebirth of some optimism in 2006 with the Democratic vitories, but the message is now pretty much written on the walls: Nothing much will change.


"Everybody Knows"---Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

[femrap]

3. We need a leader like FDR who said to

the Corporate Fat Cats: "I welcome your hatred." Do we have anyone like that?

[cascadiance]

4. Perhaps we can organize nationwide strikes on companies with egregious lobbies...

It would take a lot of thought to find the right corporate sector where you would have:

a) sufficient information of non-standard an unethical lobbying efforts on behalf of that industry on K-Street.
b) a sizeable part of that workforce that would be sympathetic to us wanting to shut down these lobbyist efforts.
c) a sizeable part of that sectors' customers that would be sympathetic to us, and therefore would follow through on boycotting that sectors' products and services.

Perhaps we could organize a nationwide strike with the goal of demanding some actions like:
a) severing the lobbyist connections of the companies in that sector.
b) demanding that those lobbyists come forth with a full accounting of their activities to the public.
c) demanding that the congress critters that accepted money from these lobbyists identify themselves and return that money and commit to voting for their constituents' needs and not those lobbyists'!

Remain on strike until these goals are met, and therefore hopefully monetarily force a shutdown of K-Street in a piecemeal fashion!

I know it sounds a bit blue sky at this point. But perhaps we can think about what sector makes the most sense to tackle first. If we are successful in one sector, perhaps it would send a messge to congress critters and to these lobbyist groups that we're NOT going to accept this status quo any more, and that unless they do change it, the companies behind them are going to hurt BIG TIME!

[Peace Patriot]

6. Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

The "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002 fast-tracked electronic voting machines and central tabulators all over the country, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations. Most of the Democrats voted for it, and the $3.9 billion boondoggle and lavish lobbying helped to silence or corrupt the others, as well as election officials and state legislators across the land.

The answer is staring us in the face. It was a double coup--HAVA and the IWR--passed in the same month (Oct. '02), the one to reinforce the other: unjust war, and the means to shove it down our throats, along with the entire global corporate predator agenda (kill the American middle class, which is too democratic, loot its coffers, destroy its regulatory ability and invest in China and other markets, where there are no labor and environmental or health protections). (Yeah, this treason.)

I didn't expect the "free trade" (global corporate piracy) part to come down so fast. I thought they'd wait until Hillary was Diebolded into office. This makes it ever more urgent to support and lead grass roots movements at the state/local level, to demand vote counting that everyone can see and understand.

Transparent vote counting is not a magic bullet, but it IS the fundamental condition necessary to all reform. With "trade secret" vote counting--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it--the corporate predators can shape the Congress to their liking, for instance, with 75% of the American people opposed to the Iraq War and wanting it ended, they can produce a 50/50 Congress which spouts rhetoric against the war, but then permits an ESCALATION and funds it with $100 billion more for killing, torture and permanent occupation. A Congress packed with 40 "Blue Dog" Democrats who want to cut everything but the military budget, and, of course, also support global corporate robber barons. ("Blue Dog" = think Gary Condit.)

I see a truly perverse agenda here, that started way back at Seattle '99. If the American people are going to rebel against global predators, hit 'em with baldfaced fascism (Bush) and then maybe they'll be grateful for "free trade." But I think it's gone beyond expecting us to grateful, partly because the American people have proven themselves to be so resistant to Bush/corporate war propaganda. Now they must smash us before we gather strength to assert our sovereign power against them, which is potentially very great. Thus, this secret "trade deal" with Bush. It is worse than contemptible--but it does show us their hand in a more naked way than anyone could have imagined.

There is a direct line between these Democratic leaders' doing secret trade deals with Bush back to the Democratic leadership's overwhelmingly support for "trade secret" vote counting. The latter policy has always struck me as mind-boggling. Democrats wanting Diebold to "count" all our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy? Diebold, headed by a Bush/Cheney campaign chair and major B/C fundraiser, right up there with Ken Lay? (And ES&S is even worse, as to its connection to nutball fascists.) It has truly baffled me. I've thought it was all about the war. But now I see that it's more than that. It's not about nazism. It's about fascism! Nazism is just the Bogey man, and it provides some handy tools for controlling rebellion, if needed. Fascism is more to the point--the cementing of corporate power with the state, making them one and the same. The Iraq War is almost irrelevant. It was an attempt to test out propaganda techniques, and break our spirit, if possible. It did not succeed. Indeed, it has been a spectacular failure as a propaganda campaign. This may be what is panicking the Corporate Democrats into fast-track secret trade deals. They know that those won't fly either, and, if they can quickly get them in place in secret, then the Corporate candidate won't have to debate them (can treat it all as fait acccompli, rather than as a proposal).

Corporate resource war. Corporate vote "counting." Corporate trade policy. Corporate "self-regulation." Corporate energy. Corporate water. Corporate TV/radio. Corporate newspapers. 24/7 Corporate propaganda parading as "news" and opinion. Corporate labor laws (slave labor). Corporate university research. Corporate control of all political discussion, all resources, all laws, all pension funds, all information systems, the military, the prisons (now being privatized as well). All run for the benefit of the super-rich, who have no constraints and no loyalty to anyone.

Like I said....

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW! --if you want your country back. It's the essential first step. Priority no. 1. And it can only be done at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. (The Democrats' corporate-written "election reform" bill--HR 811--is a joke.)

[Oak2004]

8. That's something I've been thinking about a lot

I do think that a grassroots movement can yet change things. I think it's likely to start (if it occurs) at the state and local level and move upward. That's why I think every traitor-Dem needs a primary challenge (by a credible candidate if possible, but by someone who can raise the issue of his or her conduct, at the least).

But failing that, yes, I think this country is teetering on the edge of revolution (far more so than it ever was at the height of the Vietnam war protests). This might seem to be a strange statement, given the apparent quiet on the streets. But once upon a university education ago I did some research into the nature of political revolution and its precursors.

In the 1960's and early '70's political discontent was limited to a few subgroups of society. To the extent that the rest of society was discontent it was discontent as much at the protesters as anything else. Right now, the political discontent of the average American is almost palpable. People, in nearly every corner of this country, among very nearly every demographic and sociographic, hate the Bush Administration. Not merely disapprove -- hate. They look to the Democrats as the only alternative, but they do not, for the most part, like the Democrats. This is something I think the Congressional leadership doesn't get: that these times are not "business as usual", and that American political stability largely depends upon the performance (or lack of it) of the current Congress.

If Congress and the Democrats fail to deliver (or at least to make a good stand), then this seething discontent will have no outlet but revolution. In fact I have already heard some very unlikely people speak the R-word in conversation, so I know the thought has crossed the mind of apparently politically uninvolved Americans.

The one thing I don't think is going to happen is for the discontent to merely evaporate (though I could well be wrong on this) -- right now Americans know politics really do matter, and so they are unlikely to become cynical and apathetic in the face of Democratic disappointments.

The lack of outward signs of political discontent are not important in ascertaining whether or not we are in a pre-revolutionary state. One of the features of political revolution is that it almost invariably surprises its "leaders". There were few signs of revolt outside of a group of Boston troublemakers until suddently the colonies erupted in support of their cause. Lenin was surprised by the Russian revolution, and no one would have predicted the fall of the Berlin wall and subsequent collapse of Soviet communism. Revolutions come when the people at the bottom have reached a breaking point, not when there are lots more political activists and leaders doing lots more protests.

It is however the case that ultimately the political activists (of all stripes, reactionaries included) determine the outcome of revolutions (as do the preexisting elements of civil society, as a whole). Generally only a small percentage of the population actively supports the revolution. This minority is able to conduct a revolution because the majority of the population, although not willing to engage in revolution, has become so disillusioned with the status quo they will not defend it. This is a stage one step beyond apathy or cynicism, more nearly like "disgust".

A revolution is, of course, a political crapshoot. Sometimes you win and you get a George Washington. Sometimes you lose and you get a General Francisco Franco or a Vladimir Lenin. If a second American revolution degenerated into small political factions fighting for political purity as they see it, we could well end up with a hard-right dictatorship (recall, the right in America is very well organized). If however a coalition between the left and elements of the saner right (selected paleocons, etc), similar to the coalition that opposes the war, could be built, it would win. It's terribly important to remember that no revolution has ever brought about a pure utopia (though many have tried), though some have brought about significant improvements.

This is one more good reason (as if we need another) to build up a progressive political infrastructure and make common cause with anyone we can find common ground with. If push comes to shove (and I hope it doesn't-- note reference to crapshoot, above) we will need then as much or more in revolutionary times as we do now.

[loudsue]

5. I'll participate in that full frontal attack! Who do we call??

This needs a lot more exposure than it will get in the Editorials forum. We need to act on this NOW!!

And then we need to get rid of the fucking DLCers .... republican infiltrators to the Dem party.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Sadie5]

9. Called Bayh's office this morning

about this. He is a DLCer and I think that is why he withdrew his name from the 08 elections. He knew this was coming up and he would have some explaining to do. Besides that, he likely makes more money from the Lobbyists.

[loudsue]

11. that sucks.

These crooks are all making so much money on our backs it boggles the mind.

:kick:

[formercia]

10. Business as usual

Fuck the american working families.


Payback at the primaries.

You're going to need that money to pay your lawyers, you fucking TRAITORS.

[Sadie5]

12. Who are the traitors who voted for this

Has anyone posted their names yet?

[formercia]

13. Inquiring minds want to know. n/t

[JTFrog]

14. Hmmm...

and the DLC is headed by a man who couldn't even get elected when Democrats showed an overwhelming turnout and result last election.

DLC stinks to me.