Outing the "Progressive Coalition for American Jobs"--A Trade Campaign Built On Four Pinocchios
March 11, 2015
Dave Johnson
A newly launched public relations campaign in support of trade promotion authority, a.k.a. “fast track,” and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) calls itself “the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs.” At its foundation is a set of misleading (at best) claims that begin with a four-Pinocchio whopper.
It is unclear who is in the coalition, why they call themselves “progressive” when progressives are opposed to TPP and fast track, and flat-out wrong that the trade agreement is going to produce “American jobs.”
but...........
The pro-fast track/TPP campaign is being run by 270 Strategies, which last year worked for Democratic congressional candidate Ro Khanna, who was trying to unseat progressive incumbent Mike Honda in California. At that time Khanna sent out mailers calling Honda an “Old School Liberal” and criticizing Honda for supporting repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
Is this what we’re in for as the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs ramps up?
American Jobs? “Four Pinocchios”
The “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs” sent out a press release earlier this week promising that the TPP will “support hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the United States.”
This is the same promise that Clinton used to sell NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and we know how that turned out. (Hint: lost jobs, lost wages, lost factories, lost industries, devastated regions of the country, increased trade deficits and a few CEOs and Wall Street types made vastly richer.) (See also, Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership Promises Echo Clinton’s On NAFTA.)
The Washington Post’s Fact Checker looked at this “hundreds of thousands of new jobs” claim on January 30, in “The Obama administration’s illusionary job gains from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” The conclusion:
Progressive?
The “Progressive Coalition” is not “progressive.” Progressives (and most Democrats) oppose the rigged fast-track process that in essence preapproves a secret, unseen trade deal, and progressives oppose the secrecy and corporate domination of TPP’s negotiating process. (Progressives are also likely to oppose TPP itself, based on the disastrous results of prior “NAFTA-style” agreements, but who knows? … It’s secret.)
Progressive champions Reps. Raúl M Grijalva and Keith Ellison of the Congressional Progressive Caucus penned a Monday op-ed in The Guardian titled, “We won’t just rubber-stamp the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Workers deserve better.” The anti-fast-track op-ed begins with a complaint about the way the deal is being kept secret:
We in Congress don’t precisely know, because the rules governing negotiations mean we don’t have access to full draft texts and staff cannot be present when we see individual sections. We also cannot provide negotiating objectives for the US Trade Representative. The administration’s request for “fast track” authority is a request for Congress to rubber-stamp a text that more than 500 corporate representatives were able to see and influence.
Progressive champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently penned a Washington Post op-ed on TPP, “The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose.”
Warren asked, “Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?” In an earlier Warren op-ed, “It’s time to work on America’s agenda” Warren wrote, “Americans are deeply suspicious of trade deals negotiated in secret, with chief executives invited into the room while the workers whose jobs are on the line are locked outside.” At Netroots Nation Warren said:
Continued with useful info on why TPP and "Fast Track" is so dangerous to the American Worker & National Sovereignty at:
http://ourfuture.org/20150311/a-trade-campaign-built-on-four-pinocchios
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