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The Democratic Party leadership is stabbing its base in the back with secret "free trade" deals made behind closed doors with the White House. Now congressional Democrats may be on the verge of a significant split. While Democratic leaders and President Bush do the hard sell on bipartisan immigration reform, they are now pushing secret, anti-worker, anti-environment trade agreements that will only exacerbate U.S. immigration problems.
The contentious agreements are bilateral trade deals between the U.S. and Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea. The deals were announced in a bipartisan press conference May 10, with principal credit going to Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee (long dubbed by some as the "Ways to be Mean" Committee). According to Inside U.S. Trade, as noted by blogger David Sirota, House Democrats admit that the White House is drafting the legal language of the trade deals.
Rick MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and author of the book "The Selling of 'Free Trade': NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy," calls these agreements "a fundraising gambit by the House leadership."
He told me: "Rangel and [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi are saying, 'Well, we're gearing up for the 2008 election. We've got to raise a lot of money.' They're closer to the Clinton wing of the party, which is the pro-so-called-free-trade wing of the party, the pro-NAFTA, pro-permanent-normal-trade-relations-with-China part of the party. And this is a way of saying to the corporate community—Wall Street, Wal-Mart—that we're open for business, we want to raise money from you." In order to compete for campaign money, the logic goes, the Democrats have to cater to big corporate donors.
MacArthur points out that the agreements with the four small countries are not key. The big money, he says, lies with China. This is where Hillary Clinton comes in. She served on the Wal-Mart board of directors for six years when her husband was the governor of Arkansas (where Wal-Mart is based). Wal-Mart, MacArthur says, "depends on dedicated factories in China, where you cannot form a labor union. Wildcat strikes are met with violence. You get your head busted or you get thrown in jail."
The corporate Democrats and their Republican allies are promising labor and environmental protections. But 13 years after NAFTA passed, with President Clinton orchestrating pork-barrel payouts to buy the vote, promised safeguards have proved unenforceable: Workers, especially in Mexico, earn low wages with little or no security, while companies crush union-organizing efforts and pollute with impunity. As jobs move to Mexico, China and other low-wage havens, the U.S. is the loser. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, knows it all too well: "We see that kind of job loss in the thousands ... devastates communities. It hurts the local business owner, the drugstore, the grocery store, the neighborhood restaurant. It hurts communities. It hurts schools. It hurts police forces. It hurts fire departments."
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., also slammed the trade deals, saying it was as if "the foxes and wolves had reached a deal on guarding the henhouse." He went on: "I wish I could lay the blame at the feet of our colleagues in the other party. But members of both parties have aided and abetted these flawed policies."
Feingold pointed out that the trade deals have not been endorsed by any union or environment groups, but they have been endorsed by three of the most powerful organizations representing corporate interests: the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
If the Washington power brokers are betting on Americans not understanding or caring about arcane trade policy, they should recall the Battle of Seattle. In late 1999, when the World Trade Organization tried to meet in Seattle to impose global corporate trade policies, it was met by tens of thousands of protesters, from Teamsters to environmentalists, healthcare workers to students to farmworkers. The meetings were shut down. Compound this potential backlash with the millions of hardworking immigrants now staring down the barrel of another bipartisan agreement. These are the people who took to the streets in the millions last year.
When the rules are rigged to allow money to move freely across borders, then people will follow. Falling wages south of the border, caused by "free trade," drive people north—no matter how high the wall or how many detention facilities are built to contain them. Make no mistake about it—trade and immigration are linked.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.
© 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
22 Comments so far
Show All"free" trade is not just another issue. if the world gets globalized by big capital the whole Global South is gonna die. it's not bad its godawful monstrous. look at this- in case you missed it:
ttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/25/1439/
$18 an hour. Where? I've NEVER made that kind of money, college degree and everything. However, I'm not interested in the pursuit of a Lexus or any other status symbols. I want to work at what I love and be paid a decent wage for it, live in a nice cottage with just enough space and no more, drive a vehicle that uses alternative fuel, walk anywhere without fear because most people have joy in their lives, and see my loved ones happy whether they deemed "successful" by today's standards or not. I want to be proud to be a citizen of the United States of America. Right now, I'm not, not only because of the way I've been forced to live, but because of the way the leaders of this country trade the lives of people in other countries for the own selfish gains. Let us find, work for and elect he best candidates who are willing to use our so-called Super Power for true justice and make me proud to be a USA citizen.
Hello
I would like to add Al Gore to the list of corporate Republican right wing Democrats.
It is the "good cop/bad cop" scenario and a brilliant platform, Global Warming...Karl Rove could not have done this one any better.
Global warming is another fear inducing "war on...."
to generate fear and $$$$$ yes, we the people will be paying for in sudden taxes. i was slow to wake up to this...it is important to peel away the layers. yes, pollution is a major problem and is excessive use of resources...yet the warming is due to the growing strength of the sun and evidence of this has been recorded for centuries. The agenda is a global one that will serve the few and control the many (us!)
May I suggest "tales from the time loop" by david icke.
thank you.
I foresee America becoming more and more leftist in the coming years because well, people are going to be hungry, under- or unemployed, have no future, nothing to put in their bank accounts, and no way to gain any upward mobility.. ahh finally I won't be so alone anymore.
Like the article here said a few weeks ago, the Hippies were right. Maybe this lack of "stuff" we're gonna have available to us is going to finally get our collective consciousness right since we won't have it in our faces all the time to distract us from the real problems that have been festering all around us for the last century.. Guess it's only in a crisis that we can all finally see that we really have a lot more in common than not.
Radical since 1975.
We were born in it.
America has been a corporate slave ranch for generations.
Yippi ti yi yay
Solidarity!
Every day, I wake up and wonder how I ended up in this prison?
It is hard to believe how sickening these Democrats are. Just when you assumed competing with the loathesome Bush administration for sheer odiousness a human impossibility, comes this band of ethical fraudsters who continue the process of rubbing excrement over the faces of the American public. And all this while knowing that 70% of the voting public are significantly to the left of our government's policies, foreign and domestic.
All of which proves that our democracy is a candidate for extreme unction, and that there is truly no way out of this mess into which we have been thrust.
It pains me to agree with Patrick Buchanan on ANYTHING, but I do, in general terms, accept that we are in dire need of a dose of "economic nationalism". In the same way that the best of foreign leaders, like Hugo Chavez, are taking steps to provide economic protection for his population by nationalizing Venezuala's oil wealth, America should consider taking similar steps to protect it's workers from job loss, call it nationalizing jobs instead of oil. It comes to the same thing. Steal our oil or steal our jobs, either way, the population starves.
Nobody in Washington is concerned about our evaporating middle class and an economy filling up with slave-wage jobs for our college graduates. Who is going to buy the $60,000 Lexus or take the $10,000 family vacation on an $18.00 per hour salary? Can't corporate America and their Washington lackeys stop swindling us for five seconds to contemplate the suicidal implications of their scandalous conduct?
For one thing, the Green Party has been around for a long time now. With the level of dissatisfaction we have had for many years, they have made no significant progress. They have no members of Congress. They have no statewide officials. Why should we expect them to do any better now? They are an electoral party that does not win elections.
That's why I say we need a Democracy Movement - one that will agitate explicitly against the current electoral system in favor of policies supported by large majorities. People know the system is crooked. The Greens just try to win elections. They aren't going to.
Interesting that the Greens are compared to the Libertarians, another large group of people chiefly distinguished by missing the point. I know the Greens say they are neither left nor right. The Republicans say they are honest. The Democrats say they represent the middle class. A large majority of the people do not believe any of those things. The Greens keep saying that if only they could get a fair hearing people would flock to them. Well, they aren't going to get a fair hearing and their way of coping with that is to complain about the unfairness of it. That may be good for feelings of self righteousness but it doesn't do much for winning.
The Democrats make the same argument that I've just made but they use it as a reason to adhere to Republican policies. As long as opposition to the current system is in the form of running candidates in first past the post elections, these third parties will be viewes solely as spoilers. Even if the Democrats are 99% useless, enough people will vote for them that the third party candidate actually will be nothing but a spoiler.
Because of this, the Republicans are encouraged to take more extreme positions. This functions to scare people into voting for the Democrats and allows the Democrats to take positions very close to the Republicans. The more extreme the Republicans, the more people are afraid to vote for third parties. It's a scam but running third party candidates reinforces it. A democracy movement has explicity oppose the fake electoral system but participate in it only if it can win. Supporting some Rs & Ds would be useful. In certain cases, a candidate could be run. This would probably be worthwhile in a situation where R & D candidates are both unpopular.
I'm talking off the top of my head here but it seems clear to me that a normal third party is not going to do anything other than embitter people whose support would be needed.
If we are ever to see alternatives elected we have to have instant runoff elections with a voter verified paper audit trail. When folks can vote their conscience without fear of wasting their vote CHANGE will happen!!
Conrad: The Green Party is neither left nor right. Its Ten Key Values organizes politics more into bioregional, local, decentralized, self-deterministic terms. Left/right is a complex symbolic misnomer anyway. What do these terms really mean? Aisles in a congressional hall dominated by two parties? Socialism and capitalism have both given up the ghost, rendering themselves devoid of any useful semantics in a corporo-government hybridized reality.
If we must simplify anything in dualistic terms, the Green Party, like the Populists, is a bottom vs. up party. It entails a grassroots/emergent voice. That's neither left nor right.
http://paulbramscher.blogspot.com/2007/03/leftright-versus-updown.html
The Libertarians have sometimes tried to portray themselves in a similar light, and certainly the original libertarians (lower-case "l"), 19th century European intellectual anarchists, qualified. Friends of neither the capitalist nor the statist.
you vote for the repubs you know what you get;you vote for the demos and you never know what you will get but you can bet your ass that you will probobly have their hand in your pocket.Tony
Thanks for your great work Amy. I hope you'll keep your options open. Perhaps you will become a lovely, smiling white house press secretary for the administration of one President Dennis Kucinich.
Everyone please check out Kucinich and throw your support to him. The others are pro-status quo - pro-corporate control of the world. They're rotten to the core!
http://kucinich.us/
Conrad, If you believe the mainstream is unhappy with both, I SURE AS HELL AM!!!, why are you so sure the Green Party will not be embraced??? How the hell can we know since they never get any sort of fair coverage in the MSM and even progressives seem to want to hold out hope for the Dems who have f---ed them over time and time again. It ain't gonna happen until we start believing it can happen and maybe we should start working to make it happen for our kids and grandkids! I want to leave some sort of valuable legacy to mine, how bout you???
Much as I respect some of the Greens, the Greens are definitely not it. Their positions are basically the far left wish list. While I may agree with most of these wishes, we absolutely have to have a sane group take actual power soon. The Greens will never take power. For one thing, they are perceived as a fringe group to the left of the Democrats. They also have the unfair yet real negative of being old news. They also have a very strong counter-cultural flavor. Again, nothing wrong with this but the majority will not accept it. The Greens are a perfectly fine fringe party. In a proportional system, they would function well - I might even vote for them. But in the present situation, something entirely different is necessary.
My point is that the mainstream is now very unhappy with both Republicans and Democrats. The mainstream will never accept the Greens.
yes to the Green Party. it won't happen until the people hurt. we have to feel real pain before there is any movement away from the capitalist game. no pain same game. capitalism always been a lie.
It's only Wednesday, and already I've burned by voter reg card and re-applied as an Independent.
Never another pol party ever.
Conrad:
The Greens, the largest third party, have the best Democracy Movement--Grassroots Democracy, electoral reform with proportional representation, direct election of the president, enforcement of voting rights and controls on campaign finance, they'll end the Iraq invasion, give us national health care and fair trade policies. Joining the Greens will give progressives the power to decide elections and you will never again be taken for granted.
We do need a second party but the electoral system is rigged against it. For now, we need a Democracy Movement that would press for the vital fixes we need for survival that are broadly supported. Those would be electoral reform that would include some sort of proportional representation, direct election of the president, enforcement of voting rights and controls on campaign finance. Other issues with broad support but no support by the Rekleptocrats such as ending the Iraq invasion, national health care and fair trade policies could be pushed as well.
I think we are at the point where such a movement would have broad support, even from some who call themselves conservatives. The biggest obstacle would be the fear that such a movement would split the "vote" and put Bushists in again. Having a Democracy Movement instead of a "3rd party" would address that. Care would have to be taken to only use eletoral policits in a way that wouldn't be susceptible to that objection. Perhaps limiting electoral action to endorsing candidates would be the answer.
As it is now, all efforts go to supporting the Democrats who then betray or squander. If there is a movement independent of the Democratic Party, momentum could be built for a real party and/or a more democratic system of choosing leaders.
Charles Rangel's recent top contributers:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000964&cycle=2006
For example, General Electric (the India nuclear deal), Altria Group (Philip Morris foods), Gap, Estee Lauder - a list of companies that benefit from neoliberal trade policy. Of course they did this in secret, because it works against the interests of both white and blue collar middle class American professionals, traditionally the Democratic base of support.
This secretive vote on a trade deal mimics the vote over the India nuclear deal (passed 85-12 by the Senate, 359-68 by the House). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6155842.stm (Senate) and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5219230.stm (House). Rangel voted for the deal, as did most Democrats and all Republicans. India never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but since US contractors will make billions on the deal, it's going forward with little opposition.
Your article is to the point. It suggests that it's long overdue that we establish a second party in America as the existing parties are mnothing more than flip sides of the same coin - the Capitalist party. To think we can change the corrupt government of this fast fading nation is ludicrous.
Amy,
Appreciate so much your making the link between free trade and immigration in such a clear, to the point manner. Wish Lou Dobbs could understand this; perhaps he would place blame elsewhere than on the backs of the poor struggling to get on their feet, out from under US policies.
Have to agree with PJD about the progress of the neoliberal project continuing unabated, but must say that the Battle of Seattle and other events led for the formation of the World Social Forum. Although this organization, or interest group, has received almost no attention from the mainstream press, it continues to bring thousands and thousands or representatives of NGOs across the world together, to reshape the vision of the possible, to inspire, to share ideas. In other words, to tackle together the problems, resources, politics, education, etc. of the 21st century. Recently heard a speaker on C-span cite his experiences at the last forum, this the first above ground reference I had caught on the mainstream - if C-span can be referred to as this - and I could literally "feel" the bubbling up of the influence of the events. James Michener may not have been the first, but he was the first I read who said, "In all my travels, I have found nothing as powerful as the strength of an idea whose time has come."
"If the Washington power brokers are betting on Americans not understanding or caring about arcane trade policy, they should recall the Battle of Seattle..."
At this point, how many even remember Seattle, or Goteborg, or Genoa, or Quebec? With the people distracted by the bush outrages, the capitalist's neoliberal project continues unabated.
Virtually all progress of the past century is in full reversal. Even abolishing jim crow would be impossible if we had to do it today - it would be considered an "socialistic" imposition on the freedom of business.