Moyers & Harper's Publisher on Current Secret "Unholy Pro-Free Trade Alliance"

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An excellent discussion of what Congress is doing in secret to send more jobs out of the U.S. and exploit workers, while the American public is propagandized to be outraged about "illegal aliens."

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05182007/transcript3.html

BILL MOYERS: Just a week ago the Bush administration and the new Democratic leaders in Congress announced they had made a big breakthrough: a new bi-partisan trade agreement. Billed as an "important first step" - The President gets the 'free trade' he wants for Wall Street, Democrats get the 'Fair Trade' they want for Main Street...namely, some protection for workers whose jobs are being shipped overseas... and protection for the environment that is often trampled by the trade winds of capitalism. The negotiation of this deal was secret. Its official language has still not been made public. Skeptical Democrats - like Steve Kagen - who had not been in the negotiations want to know why, if there were strong protections for workers and the environment why were groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually speaking well of the deal.

Here with the backstory is John R. MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper's magazine, one of the country's oldest and most honored publications. He wrote this book... "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War," back in 1992. His second book is called "The Selling of 'Free Trade': NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy."

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BILL MOYERS: But there has been a deadlock on trade for some years now. There has been great disaffection with NAFTA, what's happened in Mexico, the number of jobs lost in this country. And the Republicans haven't wanted to give on these issues of labor standards and environmental standards. Could this possibly be a breakthrough?

JOHN R. MACARTHUR: No, because it's just like the NAFTA side agreements in the '90s. They guaranteed all sorts of things in the side agreements: labor rights, environmental protection in Mexico. And none of it got done. Virtually none of it got done. Now, in these agreements, they're saying that these countries are suddenly going to start respecting labor rights. That countries like Peru, which can only survive by selling us their cheap labor. In other words, that's all they've got-- are going to raise their labor standards that would kill the very justification for set-- for setting up a factory in Peru. It's the same thing in Mexico. It's the same thing in China.

BILL MOYERS: How do you explain that so many people embrace this so heartily so quickly?

JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Well, the people who embraced it: the media, the pundits, the elites-- the heads of-- banks and of investment banks, and the leadership of the two parties. That's not the people. The people are sold this-- idea of free trade over and over again, as though it were good for them. I mean, what do we have to cite? The statistics speak for themselves. More than half a million jobs officially lost because of NAFTA. The other thing to remember, of course, is that it's not just the brokerages and the financial business. It's the retail and restaurant industry likes it. Wal-Mart and Wall Street are now allied in this unholy pro-free trade alliance.

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BILL MOYERS: Are you also an economic nationalist?

JOHN R. MACARTHUR: I've become more of one because - not in the Buchanan sense - because more and more I realize that every time somebody says, "We're helping the poor" or "We're helping the foreigners" or "the poor foreigners," what they really mean is, "We're going to exploit the hell out of them. This is a way we're going to lock in cheap labor in any country you can think of and exploit them." And it's a union killing movement in the United States. You cannot form an union in the United States anymore without risking your plant being closed, sent overseas, or other kinds of intimidation. That's why union membership and private union membership has now fallen to eight percent of the workforce. As an American, as a citizen, I don't want to see the big money keep winning the way it's been winning over and over and over again. I also want to see a democratic debate restored on this absolutely crucial issue. Fast track, if it passes, kills the possibility of a democratic debate because then it's in the hands of the executive.

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BILL MOYERS: What is the strategy of doing this? You think it is about contributions between now and 2000-- the campaign--

JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Yes. They're trying to string it out so they can raise as much money from Wall Street as possible and then hope that the issue goes away or that it gets voted on after the 2008 election. We, as citizens, have got to stop it before it gets to that point. We have to say to the Congress, "We're not gonna let you do another NAFTA. We're not going to let you do another PNTR. We're going to be involved in this debate as citizens, and we're gonna restore democracy to this debate." And if it requires action in the street like there was in Seattle in 1999, maybe that's what's going to happen. If it requires a split in the Democratic Party-- maybe that's what's gonna have to happen. But the way it's been going, the jobs just keep going out. Median income in this country has fallen $10 in constant dollars from 2002 until last year. $10. Not huge but people are feeling it and they're panicked.

[ulysses]

1. great piece, thanks. n/t

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2. TY ulysses. The Selling of Free Trade "NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy"

BILL MOYERS: Why do you subtitle The Selling of Free Trade "NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy"? That's very strong.
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Under the current rules, there is something called fast track. Unlike every other kind of bill that goes through Congress or treaty that goes through Congress, fast track authority means that Congress tells the president they can negotiate a trade treaty-- and then return it to Congress for an up or down vote with no amendments, no amendments allowed. So the minute Congress authorizes up or down on not a very good treaty or one that they're not entirely happy with. They get a lot of pressure from the leadership of the party-- from manufacturing, from the big money people.
BILL MOYERS: But trade is good. Trade fuels the economy. It also brings-- creates job in this-- trade is good. If you've got the-- labor standards, if you've got the portable pensions, if you've got the health insurance, if you've got the things that the social Democrats want, wouldn't this problem be fixed?
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Well, trade between countries that are roughly equal in income and prosperity like Canada and the United States, that's very healthy because then you trade this stuff that other guy doesn't have. But that's not the point of these agreements. The point of these agreements is to allow American corporations to operate as cheaply as possible in foreign countries and to protect them against expropriation, against seizure of assets.
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BILL MOYERS: But maybe this is one of those great realignments in American politics in which the Democratic Party, because money does drive the system now-- is going far from its roots, right? Already in Washington this week, the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrists or corporate Democrats are blaming people like you of being Lou Dobbs Democrats, right?
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Right. Right.
BILL MOYERS: Populist, neo-populist-- social Democrats.
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Meanwhile, the Clinton wing of the party is in the ascendancy. Let's not forget Hillary Clinton was on the board of Wal-Mart for six years when her husband was governor of Arkansas. She is now making some symbolic anti-Wal-Mart gestures. But at heart, she's very much allied with the retail lobby. Just to give you a sense of how powerful Wal-Mart has become, Fritz Hollings told me-
BILL MOYERS: Former senator from--
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Senator from South Carolina.
BILL MOYERS: Democrat.
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: --anti-free trader-- told me not long ago that when he introduced a port security bill after 9/11-- which would have put a $15 surcharge on every container that comes into an American port to pay for extra security, Wal-Mart and the retail lobby killed it. That's why we don't have a port security system because they don't wanna pay the extra $15 a container. That's how powerful they've become. Even--
BILL MOYERS: Because they want cheap prices for the consumer-
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Because they want cheap prices for the consumer.
BILL MOYERS: They want to right.
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Right.
BILL MOYERS: And the American citizen wants cheap products--
JOHN R. MACARTHUR: Well, that's the way they put it. But what they really want to do is make more money for Wal-Mart and make Wall Street happy. So one of the things that's great about manufacturing in China is that you cannot form a union that's independent of the government union, the Communist Party controlled union. Wal-Mart loves that. They have dedicated factories in China that manufacture exclusively for Wal-Mart.

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3. more info on secret deal that no one's seen the text of

MOYERS TO EXPLORE MEDIA COMPLICITY IN PUSHING SECRET TRADE DEAL: Following his groundbreaking documentary on the Washington press corps' complicity in pushing the country to war, PBS's Bill Moyers will be airing a piece tonight that explores the media's similar behavior with respect to the secret trade deal announced last week. Moyers will interview John R. MacArthur, the author of the book The Selling of Free Trade, which explored how NAFTA was passed by a handful of Washington elite operatives, politicians and reporters over the opposition of most Americans. Says MacArthur in a preview of the special on PBS's website: "Take a look at who embraced : the media, the pundits, the elites - the heads of banks and of investment banks, and the leadership of the two parties. That's not the people." Check your local listings to find out when this piece is airing in your area.

POST GAZETTE - SENATORS TAKE STAND AGAINST THE SECRET DEAL: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that "Sen. Bob Casey yesterday joined a group of fellow senators in calling for Congress to obtain the power to terminate all future free-trade agreements that don't meet benchmarks for creating American jobs, improving U.S. wages and opening foreign markets to American products." Casey "said promises of better standards aren't enough." He said: "I'd like to believe the president and this administration when they say at long last, 'We're really going to do the job this time. We're really going to enforce the law. But they have a terrible track record of enforcement. So any agreement that's hammered out in this building with the administration has to be one with very tough enforcement."

BRODER'S TRADE LIES EXPOSED BY WATCHDOG GROUP: Media Matters for America, a nonpartisan media watchdog group, issued a report debunking Washington Post columnist David Broder's article this week praising the secret trade deal, whose legislative language he hasn't even seen. Broder subtly attempts to regurgitate the oft-used lie that says if Congress doesn't approve presidential fast-track authority, the American economy will tank. Specifically, he claims that passing fast track would give President Bush "the same free hand that his predecessors have enjoyed in negotiating global and regional trade agreements," thus helping the economy. Yet, as Media Matters notes, Bush's "predecessors" have not always enjoyed trade promotion or "fast track" authority. From 1994 to 2002 President Clinton was denied fast track authority, and yet that was precisely the time that America experienced a much-vaunted economic boom.

THE NATION - "DEMS SELL OUT ON TRADE": In a scathing editorial, The Nation magazine tears apart the handful of senior Democrats who negotiated the trade deal with the Bush administration in secret. "When Democratic and Republican leaders announce they have fashioned a 'historic' bipartisan compromise on trade, put your hand over your wallet," the editors write. "It probably means somebody has been sold out. In this case, we think it's the broad coalition of citizens--labor and environmental advocates and others--who want to reform corporate-led globalization. That includes all those voters who, last fall, elected new Democrats who promised to confront the multinational establishment." The editorial goes on to look at different pieces of the deal and urges populist Democrats in Congress "to push back--hard--and defeat the agreement if they can."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/18/102129/126

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6. .

[Kurovski]

4. K&R

It's great to have bill Moyers back.

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5. Moyers is amazing and makes it look easy

Hi K :hi: kick for Sunday readers :kick:

[Nikki Stone1]

7. Thanks for the kick: but what can we do about this?

It's Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" and America is dying. We're being sold, gutted, and left for dead.

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8. "Giant sucking sound" -- yer right

About the same time legislators at all levels started voting themselves bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger payraises...... as did CEO's .... as CEO's moved into all levels of government, including the WH.


A few ideas:
Contact Congress
Focus on this instead of the decoy Illegal Immigrant scare (they did the same bait and switch in CA with NAFTA and Prop. 187)
Find out why this is secret and no ones read the text
Don't give corporate bloodsuckers any more of your money than you have to


What do you think we can do?