David Sirota: Secret Trade Deal Battle: K Street vs. Middle America

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7422

Secret Trade Deal Battle: K Street vs. Middle America
by David Sirota | May 12 2007

This is the second in a series of posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.


Another long day as the reverberations continue to intensify after yesterday's press conference announcing a secret "free" trade deal between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration. In the interest of brevity, I have compiled the major news of the day, including new revelations about who is supporting the deal and who is opposing it, though remember - it is difficult to make any hard and fast conclusions because Democratic leaders and the White House continue to keep the details of the deal completely secret. That said, a look at who is supporting the deal and who is opposing it provides some key insights into what this deal is really all about. Already, the New York Times has reported that at least half of all House Democrats may immediately oppose the deal because it seems to fly in the face of the Election 2006 mandate against lobbyist-written trade policy. And now, a day after the announcement, the battle lines are being drawn.

For reference, Public Citizen is calling for the public immediately contact Congress asking lawmakers to reject the deal, on the basis of what we already know about it. The organization has created a website for this purpose here.

NEWS OF THE DAY

DEAL MAKES SURE TO PREVENT UNIONS FROM HAVING LESS RIGHTS THAN CORPORATIONS: Reuters reports that the deal includes "a provision that would only allow national governments" - not unions - "to file a labor complaint under the pact," meaning Democrats complicit in the deal are effectively proposing that America rely on the Bush administration to make sure workers and the environment are protected. This provision in the deal creates a clear double standard that prioritizes corporate rights over worker rights. Specifically, the provision stands in contrast to provisions already in America's current trade pacts that allow domestic and foreign corporations to file complaints against sovereign governments (including U.S. local, state and federal governments) when those governments pass environmental/consumer protection laws. These complaints have resulted in U.S. taxpayers alone being forced to pay roughly $1.8 billion in "damages" in international courts because of its own laws.

DEAL PREVENTS DEMANDS FOR U.S. TO RESPECT INTERNATIONAL LABOR STANDARDS AT HOME: Bloomberg News reports that the deal appears to ensure that unions and other countries cannot demand enforcement of International Labor Organization standards in the United States. Specifically, "federal trade officials said they are confident that the wording protects against any possible litigation." This report is consistent with a statement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which yesterday said key players in the deal have given K Street "assurances that the labor provisions cannot be read to require compliance with ILO Conventions."

NAM - ANTI-UNION BEHAVIOR IN U.S. WILL BE PROTECTED UNDER THE DEAL: Reuters additionally reports that the National Association of Manufacturers is assuring its members that anti-worker behavior cannot be challenged under the deal. "Our state right-to-work laws and other state laws and constitutional provisions relating to labor are completely exempted from any challenges," said NAM president John Engler.

EXPERTS SAY DEAL DELIBERATELY IGNORES MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES: In a memo sent to Capitol Hill, internationally reknowned trade experts at Public Citizen report that the deal does nothing to eliminate/reform "the outrageous ban on domestic anti-off-shoring policy and Buy America policies contained in the agreements' procurement chapters"; Does nothing about "the NAFTA Chapter 11-style foreign investor rights that expose our most basic environmental, health, zoning and other laws to attack in foreign trade tribunals": Does nothing about "the serious threat the pacts' rules pose to our prevailing wage laws for government contracts and recycled content and renewable energy policies"; Does nothing about "the food safety limits that require us to import meat not meeting our safety standards -- even as we face a new crisis of unsafe imported food"; and does not include provisions "to fix the Peru FTA provisions that would allow Citibank, or other U.S. investors, to sue Peruvian taxpayers if Peru tries to reverse its failed Social Security privatization."

more...

[EV_Ares]

1. Babylon, thanks for this. Guess I missed this going on, unbelievable. N/T

[babylonsister]

2. Anytime. Here's another thread for you:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x867693

[MannyGoldstein]

3. All Hail The DLC!!!

People ask why I hrbor such hatred against Republicans who call themselves Democrats. "Look", people tell me, "they only vote Republican on the few really important issues - they vote Democratic on all of the minor bills".

There's a reason why we execute spies but simply imprison uniformed soldiers. A wolf in sheep's clothing is far more dangerous than a wolf in wolf's clothing.

And the thing that drives me even nuttier? Most Democrats don't actually look at voting records when the pick a candidate to back. So, there's really no downside in voting Republican and calling yourself a Democrat. You get to claim your a Democrat, while telling the Right that you helped them out, too.

Until Democrats start honestly considering the voting records of their candidates, we're doomed.

[EV_Ares]

5. Agree Manny, this really infuriates me. I get more pissed as you say

for the dishonesty of a dem claiming to be one but you have to watch him/her close on the voting issues. We get what we expect out of the republicans but issues such as this is not what I expect from the Democratic party.

I am pretty much Independent/Liberal, not much love for the DLC.

[Totally Committed]

6. I agree. The DLC is a pernicious parasite on our Party.

But, this was DLC influence on even those Democrats who are not of their ilk. Our Party is being infested and taken over by the DLC and all the corporate $$$ and support they offer to their fellow Democratic candidates and electeds.

But there is an "up" side: I can see how seriously our last mandate is being taken by those we worked so hard to elect -- anti-labor trade deals? You bet!... habeous corpus? Not so much... impeachment? Off the table (still!)... Gonzales? Still in our government!

Frankly, it makes me sick.

TC

[MannyGoldstein]

8. The DLC (And Their Sympathizers) Want To Keep Bush In Power

They figure that is way easier to get elected running against Bush and company than whatever might come after Bush. They're correct - however, keeping Bush in office also means that they've sacrificed The Constitution to their own aspirations.

And we are letting them do this.

Shame on them; shame on us.

[CrispyQ]

9. Wish I could nominate your response.

I am sick too.

Thom Hartmann says that the DLC is the neocon infiltration of the democratic party. I tend to agree. I would not be surprised to see some republicans start jumping the isle. The fit between them & the DLC dems probably isn't too uncomfortable.

[Totally Committed]

11. Thanks!

The DLC is the neocon infiltration of the Democratic Party. The more I find out about them, those that support them, the things they support, and their tactics (triangulation, in particular), the more I am convinced we are correct to think of them that way.

After what happened in the Conn. Senate election, I sincerely have come to believe they would rather lose an election to the Republicans than to have a (God forbid!) dyed-in-the-wool-Lefty-populist-progressive-(egad!)LIBERAL Democrat win the election.

They are a pox on this Party and are turning it into the Republican-Lite Party they have wanted for a very long time now.

TC

[Totally Committed]

12. The DLC is the perfect "mimic" that has infiltrated our hive in order

to subvert or species, to prevent us from thriving, and to conquer us in the process.

Mimicry

To look, act, smell or sound like something else, such as another organism or other natural object, it is a form of deception practiced by a variety of animals, to gain some advantage of protections. For many animals, including insects and spiders, a key problem is how to eat without being eaten. By mimicking something else, they gain some protection and increase their chances of survival.
In the Insects and Spiders world, the term mimicry is commonly applied to the resemblance of one insect or spider (called the mimic) to another (called the model) so that a third insect or other observer is deceived into confusing the two.

Comparing mimicry with camouflage or deceptive behavior, animals that are protected by mimicry are the most cost effective. They do not have to change their behavior or stay against a safe background to disguise themselves. Their appearance tell their predator to keep away. They can go about their daily life with extra protections.

http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_insects/Mimicry.htm

They have been in our hive long enough to be mistaken for us at first glance, but is an entirely different species.

Ever see the horror movie "Mimic"?

TC

[ixion]

15. the DLC is no friend to the Democratic Party, IMO

they seem to do nothing more than continually seek to undermine and marginalize their base. :grr:

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Indeed. Can we have a party that represents working people?

Just one? The corporations appear to have two parties, one party on the right, and one on the far right. This crap has got to end.

[depakid]

13. A wolf in sheep's clothing

They also reinforce the stereotype that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the parties....

And unfortunately- as we saw with the watering down of the recent pharmaceutical regulations- with a significant number of Dems- there's NOT.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

4. K&R nt

[Rydz777]

10. My thanks to Babylon too. This issue needs to be front and

center. It is complicated and all the damage is hidden in the fine print. The two Democrats most responsible for selling out are Charlie Rangel in the House and Max Baucus in the Senate. I applaud Charlie Rangel's strong stand against the war, but he is doing badly on this. A few, like Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Michael Michaud (D-ME), are fighting to protect our workers against this outrage, but they need a lot of help.

[w4rma]

14. Hillary. (nt)

[Peace Patriot]

16. Everyone who participated in this cheerleading for global corporate piracy,

while US soldiers and Iraqis are dying in that miserable war, ought to be horsewhipped out of office.

A more disgusting thing I have never seen. Making "trade deals" behind closed doors, while Bush throws more cannon fodder into his oil buddies' war.

How do they have time for the Corporate Predator agenda--when the US is waging unjust, illegal, heinous war on two fronts? Or do they think it's all fixed now that Bush/Cheney have to give them a "report" on Iraq? Those lying bastards are gonna give a "report." I can't wait. And now that our so-called representatives have insured more carnage, and larded all their war profiteer friends with $100 billion more of our non-existent dollars, now they have plenty of time to pay off their other contributors by destroying the labor movement AND the planet. Well done, Speaker Pelosi and conspirators!

I've advocated against a split in the Democratic Party, and for maintaining a slow steady pace, focused on election reform, which I think should be Priority No. 1 (getting rid of Diebold/ES&S and their secret code). I do worry about Germany 1932, and the fracture of the center/left that gave rise to Hitler. I have told people that Hillary Clinton has very likely already been selected. There is nothing we can do about it as long as Diebold/ES&S are "counting" all our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy. We must think long term. We MUST restore our right to vote, however we can. Everything else--even the war--is a distraction, because we can't stop the war without transparent vote counting. We SHOULD HAVE a 75/25 Congress on the war issue! Why don't we? Or AT LEAST (given the other influences on elections, like money) at least a veto-proof majority: 60/40. Why do we have a pro-war Congress--one that is approving and paying for an ESCALATION of the war? No matter what they SAY they're doing, that's what they're doing. Transparent vote counting is the ONLY thing that can change this. And we must not get side-tracked by our anger and rage, into merely yelling about things, when we lack the basic power to change them by electing true representatives of the people. And we have to work with Hillary--or whoever gets installed--to accomplish this. We have to at least neutralize the White House on this issue.

That's been my position. But I am at the breaking point. How many betrayals can we take? I had not really felt, in my gut, how loathsome it would be, for instance, to stomach yet more Clintonite "free trade" in exchange for restoration of our right to vote at some future time.

This is as bad a betrayal by our Democratic Party leadership as the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002, in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution (and closely related to it). That was treason. So is this. Selling away our right to vote. Selling away our nation's soul, with unjust war. Selling away our right to labor protections. Selling away our right to protect our planetary environment from global corporate predators. Killing our planet.

And there is yet another aspect to this that is galling, and it is the betrayal of the magnificent democracy movement that is sweeping South America, with country after country rejecting US-dictated "free trade" (and economic ruination), and onerous World Bank/IMF policy (handmaiden to "free trade"), and with millions of people engaged in the heartfelt and dangerous work of union organizing, grass roots community organizing, environmental protection, small farmer protection, and the hard, slogging work of establishing transparent elections. People are dying for these causes in South America. Yet more mass graves of union organizers and other leftists were just uncovered in Colombia, one of Bush's choice "free trade" partners. Parts of Peru and other Andean countries are hardly safer. Colombian and other paramilitaries are regularly killing people in the border areas of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Bush has poured billions of dollars into the Colombian government, and the result has been rightwing paramilitaries who engage in drug trafficking, mass murder and plots against the Andean democracies.

It is UNCONSCIONABLE that our Democratic leadership would add to the difficulties of these poor people in democratizing Colombia and Peru, and defending genuine democratic and progressive states such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. They might as well be grinding the heels of their shoes in the faces of the poor. The ravages of "free trade" are everywhere--in vast poverty and environmental damage. The Andean democracies, Argentina and others are bravely trying to recover from decades of wretched trade agreements and associated World Bank/IMF loans. With these "free trade" deals--as described above--the rich elites will prosper in the sellout countries, and everybody else will suffer, and the real democracies will be forced to compete with UNFAIR trade next door. It is a brutal decision that shocks even me, and I have no illusions about our party. I started losing those in 1964, when I cast my first vote for president and chose the one who advocated for peace. LBJ.

Secret vote counting.
Baldfaced lying about the war.
Escalation of the war.
Secret budgets.
Secret trade deals.

And yet another false choice (like the one in 1968). Fascism-lite. Or fascism-brutal. Take your pick.

In 2006, as the result of OUR efforts, the American people outvoted the machines that our own party leaders inflicted us with, and elevated Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House with as strong a majority as we could manage--given the 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" against our choices--and did our best in the Senate, giving the Democrats a slim majority, with only 1/3 of the Senate up for reelection. We did the impossible. And this is the thanks we get? This is no better than Bush/Cheney's contempt.

On the war, I can somewhat understand the Democratic leadership's dilemma. For one thing, it is potentially two wars, or rather three: Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. What to bargain with, to de-escalate the situation, to prevent an attack on Iran? Possibly impeachment. And Iraq is a bloody mess (so also is Afghanistan). Not easy to solve. I held out hope that they knew what they were doing. Perhaps all they could accomplish was preventing war on Iran.

But this "free trade" deal did not have to be. They had strong bargaining chips. They had yet to consult their constituents. The demand for labor and environmental protection had been in the air since at least Seattle 1999. They knew it. They knew this would be a slap in the face of the American people, and in particular of the grass roots of the Democratic Party, and they did it anyway, and they did it IN SECRET. The VERY OBJECTION of the Seattle 1999 protesters against the WTO. SECRET trade deals! Undemocratic exclusion.

Nor did Diebold/ES&S and "trade secret" vote counting have to be. It was completely unnecessary, and blatantly anti-democratic. Totally gratuitous fascism: Secret vote counting. And a $3.9 billion boondoggle for corporate democracy-killers. How could they have supported this? Are they nuts? But they DID support it. And they still do. Apparently, they wanted Bush to "win," and wanted there to be an artificial, manufactured endorsement of the Iraq War, in 2004. And any of their protestations against the war, then or now, have been utter hypocrisy.

That's who our party is led by, I'm afraid: Hypocrites. Liars. Secret dealers. Fascists.

Can it be reformed? That is the question. This Corporate Junta is worse than even I thought, and I knew it was pretty bad. I really am just sitting here open-mouthed that they would dare to undertake secret trade deals with Bush. And it must be because they, too, feel immunity from our anger. I don't know. Today. I just don't know. The perils of a fracture of the center/left are not to be taken lightly. That's all I know. And my disgust with our leadership tonight is almost more than I can bear.

[Elidor]

17. Pelosi took impeachment off the table for this???

To make shabby backroom deals with the devil? :grr:

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

18. Sirota's the main reason I miss the Al Franken Show

His commentaries beat any of the DLC insiders Ed Schultz books