When I read about how the trade deal was done, I felt just like I did about the Iraq vote.

[madfloridian]

Like someone had kicked us in the gut, but we didn't know why or how they had done it. Suddenly in the middle of everything this week, there was a press conference. It was just as big a shock to many Democrats in the caucus as it was to us.

Here are those New Democrats who were in the know and on the podium with Nancy Pelosi.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus
House Ways & Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel
House Ways & Means Ranking Member Jim McCrery

New Democrat Coalition Leadership:
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, Chair, New Democrat Coalition
Rep. Adam Smith. Vice-Chair, New Democrat Coalition
Rep. Ron Kind, Vice-Chair, New Democrat Coaltion
Rep. Artur Davis, Vice-Chair, New Democrat Coalition
Rep. Joe Crowley, Vice-Chair and Whip, New Democrat Coaltion

Seeing who was in on the press conference told a lot of us everything we needed to know about who controlled party policy. They made the deal. We are still trying to find out what is in it.

Here are the ones in the back of the room who had no idea what was being presented. I imagine they too felt like many of us did about the IWR vote, before the bankruptcy bill, before so many votes to give Bush his agenda.

...But a half-dozen House Democrats with strong labor ties, watching the news conference from the back of the room, later expressed strong dissatisfaction with the process. The strongest voices for workers and the environment were not included" in the negotiations and were not informed of the deal, said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio.

..."I'm very disappointed that Speaker Pelosi held a press conference before meeting with the caucus," said Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine. "In a democratic process Democrats ought to know."

Labor voices not informed of trade bill

I remember that when Harold Ford became chairman of the DLC, he said they would be the policy shop for the 08 nominee. I guess they are the voice of the congressional Democrats also...because they know all about the bill and proudly posted about it. Meanwhile many bloggers supportive of labor are struggling to find what it is about. Here is the DLC article.

Reviving Trade Policy

It's clear this deal was led by Reps. Rangel and Sander Levin (D-MI), with strong support from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who appeared side-by-side with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab at the press conference announcing it, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), the chief trade strategist for Senate Democrats. It has won enthusiastic support from internationalist Democrats in Congress. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), who chairs the DLC's newly launched Global Economy Project, called the accord "a monumental accomplishment," and said that "Chairman Rangel's leadership paves the way for bipartisan cooperation on trade and greater access to new markets for American goods and services." New Democrat Coalition leaders agreed, with Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) calling it "a major breakthrough that reflects our commitment to the American worker, environmental concerns, and our economic ability to compete globally," and Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) terming it "exactly the kind of forward-thinking trade policy we need."

The deal is just, of course, a starting point for a revival of bipartisan trade policy -- and trade policy in turn is only one element of the larger set of financial, competitiveness and adjustment policies we need to remain the world's leading economy in the decades ahead. The DLC will be active in this debate, through the Global Economy Project, which over this year will be reviewing the broad spectrum of policies the United States will need for the 2010s.

Working Assets links to many labor friendly sites that are trying to find out what our congress just did.

Working Assets blog

If it is such a union and labor friendly bill, why did they do it in secret? Why did they not include labor friendly Democrats?

Just like before the war...why? We never did really figure it out then either.

[Monkeyman]

1. I know I don't like it and most of the guys in the union don't

[madfloridian]

2. MyDD has a post about it with updates.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/5/12/191957/962

I don't pretend to understand it, but I know for sure when something goes through like this bill did that there is something lacking.

[babylonsister]

3. Here's David Sirota's take:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x281016

[acmavm]

4. Back to the times that Upton Sinclair wrote about. Too bad about the

sacrifices of the people who worked so hard to give the American workers rights and protection in this country. They've just been thrown away by a bunch of opportunists with their hands out to corporate America.

[madfloridian]

5. DLC/PPI's Will Marshall rants angrily about "populism."

This is from last week, and if I had read it then I would not have been surprised at the anouuncement. In 2003 they called us anti war fringe activists. Now they are calling some "neo-populists" and in an ugly way.

This is the group that is setting our policy. By their own words.

Never ceases to amaze me.

Populist, Social Democrat or Progressive? The Democrats' Choice on Trade

He says Buchanan and Tancredo on the right and come together with Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders (whom he calls vehemently anti-trade (which is not true)....and they form into Lou Dobbs. :think: And look who he labels populists in a negative way.

Today's neo-populism has right and left strands. Republican populism is mainly anti-immigration: Think Patrick Buchanan or Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Ariz). Democratic populism, personified by two newly elected Senators, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is vehemently anti-trade. The two strands converge in the person of CNN blowhard Lou Dobbs, who blames immigrants and corporations for either taking American jobs or sending them overseas.

U.S. progressives ought to think twice before adopting the "populist" label, and not just because it's commonly hung on such noxious demagogues as Jean Le Pen, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The homegrown American populism of the 1880s and 1890s--the horny-handed-sons-of-toil faith identified first with the People's Party in the 1880s and 1890s and, later, three-time Democratic Presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan--also is a dubious model.

The old populism, after all, was a curious amalgam of cultural reaction and worker-farmer radicalism, mixing calls for important democratic reforms--public regulation of corporations, the progressive income tax, labor union rights, direct election of U.S. Senators--with nutty obsessions like "bimetallism," and nastier tinges of nativism, racism and religious bigotry.

A better model for today's Democrats is the Progressives, who came after the populists. They agitated for fundamental reforms in government and society that went with, rather than against, the grain of industrial transformation and urbanization. That is why they succeeded where populists failed--in gaining power and governing.

This article appears to be against the very things many of us believe in strongly...looks like we got put in our place this week.

[Elidor]

9. Perhaps the DU DLC toadies can explain how this is good for us

Funny, they're usually so eager to defend the DLC, but I don't see any of them in this thread.

[leftofthedial]

6. our enemies in the class war own both parties

those here who try to pretend that the Democrats are really on the side of the people are either misled, ignorant or lying.

I'm sickened by the DLC and all they stand for. A corporatist Democrat pretending to still be a real Democrat is like a vampire still pretending to be human.

[w4rma]

7. Hillary. (nt)

[Peace Patriot]

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

I'm telling you. That IS the problem. That WAS the fascist coup. And all these "free trade" global corporate Democrats voted FOR it. They APPROVED of our votes being "counted" with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations.

The Bush Junta is only one half of the fascist coup that has befallen us. The other half is staring us in the face today--the Democratic leadership conspiring against other Democrats and against all of us--the people of this country--on MORE SECRET TRADE DEALS!

That betrayal--the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002, which occurred in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, and is closely related to it--was the beginning of this. This is the end. "Impeachment is off the table." A table that we were not invited to sit at. A criminal war that 75% of the American people oppose continues and gets ESCALATED, and gets $100 billion more infused into it, and into Blackwater, and into Halliburton, and into CACCI, and into torture and killing. The "unitary executive" receives no curtailment, no comeuppance and no punishment. The president is now, will continue to be, a tyrant. All the crimes they have committed will go unpunished and will now be precedents for future political office holders, with our party leaders parading as "progressive" if they operate only slightly this side of criminality. And we are stuck with an election system that is putting a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists, and in which, even if we "run as fast as we can," we can never really get anywhere.

I am sick at heart. I've been aware of our party leaders' betrayal us, with this Bushite controlled, secret vote counting system for some time. But I am still sick at heart. Each betrayal gets worse. The war. The treason. The unpunished crime. Diebold/ES&S. The 2004 election theft. The 2006 election theft! --a theft disguised as a victory. And now more global corporate piracy (secret trade deals). And, frankly, I don't know what to advise, except the first cry from my lips...

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

[OHdem10]

10. Congress just pulled the same old same old--

Owing their souls to the Business Groups especially the
Transnationals, they play the usual shell game wtih the
people.

They finally put some weakened Environmental and Labor
Standards in the bill. Write them in such a way that
it requires just the President of US to attempt to enforce
them. The Business Community can live with this since
they know no president will cross the Business Community.
They can come out and give a press conference that
sounds wonderful . We did something big here, We put
labor and environmental standards. At this press conference
with the people, they certainly will not say--Only the
president can initiate enforcemnt. T^hey will ballyhoo
the inclusion of the items.

To be fair something is better than nothing, I guess. The
weak standards are there and they were not before.

Remember always, there is a certain wing of our own party
whose primary loyalty lies with Business. They will grudgingly
throw the populace a few crumbs.

Note how alleric they are to the word "populism". Ewoooooooo
that " riff raff", wants fair treatment???

[Morgana LaFey]

11. Well, here's a mouth full of terms we all need to know and

be aware of for future reference and watch for -- a few newish ones and some sad old ones (like "bipartisanship" which always means harm and loss for our side and those counting on our side given the rightward tilt and take-no-prisoners, scorched earth version of bipartisanship with almost all contemporary Republicans since Gingrich):

internationalist Democrats in Congress. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), who chairs the DLC's newly launched Global Economy Project, called the accord "a monumental accomplishment," and said that "Chairman Rangel's leadership paves the way for bipartisan cooperation on trade and greater access to new markets for American goods and services."

Makes me sick.

[Donna Zen]

12. They're out in force

I'm surprised that the DLCers have not found your thread yet. Yet. They are spinning their butts off at Kos.

They will tell you that Dems. got everything they've ever wanted. That they got agreements about labor and the environment. Hooray! Everything is wonderful now. This was never secret according to the DLC, we just didn't need to know.

If you disagree, you just don't get trade and obviously your an isolationist-protectionist.

Oh sure any violations must be filed with the WTO, but this will be great. Any suggestion that ordinary people will not have their voices heard is just answered with a cut-and-paste bit of from this indefensible deal.

How did I learn my lessons? I've just spent two days arguing with the DLC bloggers.

One other thing I learned was NAFTA is great too, and a success.

I am not a Green. I voted for Gore. I gave money and worked for Kerry. I am finished.

They will be in your face about this, and they've got their talking points. Be prepared.

[madfloridian]

13. I am been wondering where they were.

I expected it sooner. If they are spinning at Kos, then I got a brief respite.

I saw some of that at Kos. It was amazing.

[Donna Zen]

14. It is awful. Kicked in the gut sums it up.

What is truly insulting is they actually believe that we're dumb enough buy this spew.

[madfloridian]

15. Delete...wrong thread.

[Jack Sprat]

16. If the Democratic Party plans to offend Labor,

they will do it at their own peril. Without Labor, 06 will become a fleeting thought.

[madfloridian]

17. Six House Democrats asked the announement be put off until they were filled in.

From a paragraph in Sirota's post at Daily Kos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/14/103541/657

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."

Here's the letter sent to Rahm Emanuel.

http://www.mydd.com/images/admin/20070510152311895.pdf

[madfloridian]

18. Latest update from Working for Change..

http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/05/secret_trade_deal_day_6_senato.html

"Six days after the press conference announcing a secret free trade deal between Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush White House, a full-scale revolt appears to be brewing on Capitol Hill. Rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have demanded an immediate debate about the deal, and Democratic leaders have responded by rejecting such a request."

Something is wrong with this picture.

This morning from Sirota:

"Responding to the reporting of this story, a spokeswoman for Emanuel's office this morning emailed me to say that the cancellation of the trade debate occurred because of "time constraints" and that Emanuel has now promised the caucus "we would continue with our plan to have a trade-focused caucus meeting soon." He did not set a date certain for that meeting."

[LWolf]

19. Tell me again

why I ought to blindly hold my nose and cast a vote for any candidate with a "D" next to his/her name.

:puke: