The Going Rate for Betrayal

[RiverLover]

The Going Rate for Betrayal
by John R MacArthur
6/13/15

The vote buying to pass fast-track authority in the House of Representatives -- legislation that will speed up secret negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement so dear to President Obama and his Wall Street and corporate allies -- has evidently begun in earnest.

The latest recipient of White House largesse, Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., last week reversed her opposition to fast-track, already approved by the Senate, and if history repeats itself she won't be the only member of Congress to betray her working class and labor-union supporters.

We can't yet know what was promised Rice, since the political deals that grease the way for unpopular legislation aren't ordinarily announced in press releases or high-minded op-eds. The nasty facts tend to come out later, after the damage has been done. Nevertheless, we can assume that something is rotten in Rice’s district.



For public consumption, Rice chose the high-minded sophistry of an op-ed, published on June 6 in The Hill, to explain her shift. She acknowledged that she earlier signed a letter to the president "expressing deep concern" about granting fast-track authority because she "wasn't confident" that it "would protect my district's working families."

And now? Well, she writes, "my confidence has changed." Problems of sense aside, there's something suspicious about this phrase. Could she mean that her self-confidence has been undermined by pressure from the administration? Or has somebody played a confidence trick on her? Whatever it is, she's been influenced "by more than five months of trade briefings, reviews of classified trade documents, and extensive conversations with those brokering" TPP.

I can just imagine what these "brokers" have been telling her, since the same sort of "conversations" went on during Bill Clinton's wild and woolly campaign to round up votes for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. Back then, the House's Democratic leadership, under the tutelage of Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, was conning itself that NAFTA could be used to improve the environment along the Rio Grande and raise living standards and wages south of the border to a level closer to America's.

Gephardt had set the tone of naïveté -- or cynicism, if you prefer -- when, at the first President Bush's behest, he supported fast-track for NAFTA and smoothed its passage in 1991....

Read more~

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/13/going-rate-betrayal

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[FlatBaroque]

1. The government has no fear of the people.

That will prove t be a mistake.

[donnasgirl]

2. At one time i woud have believed that,

But as of late the people seem to have given up.

[L0oniX]

3. Don't worry. If Obama doesn't get this going Hillary will.

The Clinton's don't attend the Bilderberg meetings for nothing.

[zeemike]

7. Hilary of Jeb.

It won't really matter much...and I suspect people will stay home on election day because it will be obvious.

[99Forever]

4. Primary the turncoats.

Each and every one of them. Whether the Great Corporate Rape of American Workers passes or not.

Kick ALL of these scum to the curb with their Republican cohorts.

[Betty Karlson]

5. Well said.

That should be just ONE of the many efforts we make.

If someone chooses to be out of touch with 99 % of the USA, then goodbey to her / him!

"confidence" - what does that even mean, politically?

[DhhD]

6. So with TPP, it could be used to improve the working environment in America (the Rio Grande) and

raise the living standards and wages of the Vietnamese, 83 cents an hour, for instance, to a level closer to the American wage of $0 of the numerous working class unemployed: See the see the Majority Leader's persuasion sentence in the OP, were I have used facsimile word meanings to replace the word Mexico with Vietnamese as well as other word replacements to associate NAFT with TPP.

That would be the conversion between NAFTA and TPP. The Oligarch would use a Democrat from NY to assist in the destruction of the constituent's well being and the selling out of our countrymen job security and living wage. Seems like their will be retribution visited on those like our president. President Obama and candidate Clinton, are remaining silent.