Monday, May 21, 2007

David Sirota: Secret Trade Deal: Cokie Roberts Says Workers Are "Losers" & Dems Must Ignore the Labor Movement. This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration. The White House now says the secret trade deal will most likely not mean adding labor and environmental standards into the core text of trade agreements, but instead will mean merely unenforceable NAFTA-esque "side agreements" or even weaker "letters" of understanding. A group of House Democrats is pushing a hearing on a resolution that would prevent Democratic leaders from bringing fast track to the floor of the House if a majority of Democrats oppose it. And the pundit attack machine pushing the deal is out in full force. "Journalists" Cokie and Steve Roberts say "Democrats can't afford to listen to the labor movement" and that workers are "losers" who "should not be allowed to dictate trade policy." Here's today's update. WHITE HOUSE SAYS DEAL WILL NOT BE PUT IN TRADE PACTS' CORE TEXT, BUT WILL MOST LIKELY END UP BEING "SIDE AGREEMENTS" OR "LETTERS": Industry newsletter Inside U.S. Trade provides clues as to why so many K Street corporate lobbyists are saying they have been given "assurances" that the much-touted labor and environmental provisions in the secret deal will end up being unenforceable. The newsletter reports that the White House is looking for ways to make sure the trade deal does not force a "reopening [of] the Peru and Colombia free trade agreements." Business sources tell the newsletter that "they have received signals from USTR this week that one possible way to approach the issue would be an exchange of letters" - a potentially weaker route than even the NAFTA side agreements, which proved to be unenforceable because they were not written into the pact's core text. This approach is sure to raise the ire of many of the most powerful fair trade lawmakers in Congress. Just last week, five senators held a press conference to attack the concept of "side agreements" or "letters" with Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) saying, "If the plan is to offer side deals, then nothing new is on the table except a $5.00 Rolex." To date, the draft legislative language of the deal remains secret, and Inside U.S. Trade has previously reported that Democrats are delegating responsibility to the White House to finalize the legislative language. FAIR TRADE DEMS CRAFTING RESOLUTION AS HOUSE LEADERS STILL PREVENTING OPEN DEBATE: Inside U.S. Trade reports that "House Democrats critical of the process that led to the announcement of last week's free trade agreement template are still waiting for the leadership to allow the detailed discussion on trade they are demanding in the caucus." Said Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH): "We are still trying to figure out what the deal is." A May 22nd meeting has been tentatively scheduled and "would provide an opportunity for discussion of a resolution proposed by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA)" stating "that Congress should not consider any extension of trade promotion authority unless it is supported by a majority of Democrats." COKIE AND STEVE ROBERTS SAY "DEMS CAN'T AFFORD TO LISTEN TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT": Millionaire "journalists" Cokie and Steve Roberts penned a syndicated column this weekend saying "Democratic leaders cannot afford to listen to the labor movement as the country approaches a major debate over trade policy." Like the rest of the country, the Roberts have not seen the legislative text of the secret deal. Nonetheless, they claim as definitive fact that "the agreement says that future trade pacts have to protect workers' rights and promote the environment" while attacking the deal's critics for being having "reactionary, head-in-the-sand views." Cokie Roberts continues to bill herself as an objective "journalist," yet in her column, she acknowledges that she is an "ardent free trader" who has "long been skeptical of including labor and environmental rules in trade deals" because she claims "they smacked too much of protectionism." She does not say whether she believes strict patent, copyright and intellectual property provisions already in trade deals "smack too much of protectionism." The column concludes by saying "losers and their labor bosses should not be allowed to dictate trade policy." TOP CLINTONITE - DEAL IS "AMAZINGLY BIPARTISAN" THANKS TO RANGEL'S EMULATION OF A CONVICTED FELON: Former Clinton administration economic adviser Gene Sperling, one of the champions of NAFTA and China PNTR, has a new Bloomberg News column praising Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D) for making the deal in a way that emulates the tactics of convicted felon Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the 1980s. Sperling says nothing about the fact that the legislative language of the deal remains secret, instead applauding the "amazingly bipartisan news conference" to announce the deal. Oddly, he cites the Clinton-era Jordan Free Trade Agreement as a model for a pact that "included enforceable labor standards" even though just last week U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) took to the Senate floor to show how those standards were unenforceable. "Last year there were findings of sweatshops operating underneath the umbrella of a free-trade agreement with supposedly strong labor standards is in Jordan," Dorgan said. "The Government of Jordan has taken some steps to try to fix some of these problems. Is that because our U.S. trade officials tried to enforce the labor provisions in the trade agreement? No. It's because a labor rights group called the National Labor Committee exposed these problems...So it's not the labor standards in the trade agreement that got the Jordan government to start to do the right thing." Nonetheless, Sperling concluded his piece by urging Rangel to continue triangulating against the majority of his party in Congress as he pushes the deal. RANGEL TO APPEAR ON DOBBS SHOW TONIGHT: According to CNN's website, Rangel will be appearing on Lou Dobbs Tonight on Monday evening "to discuss the Democrats deal with the Bush Administration to pass two new trade agreements." As a teaser, Dobbs asks, "Is he selling out America's middle class?" The show appears between 6pm-7pm EST. Rangel this weekend attacked his own Democratic congressional colleagues and progressive organizations who are criticizing the secret deal, saying they should be ignored. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 1:55:31 PM    comment []

Barbara Ehrenreich: The Apocalypse is Yours Now. This is the speech I gave at the Haverford College commencement on Sunday May 20. Thanks so much for inviting me to share this day with you. I'd like to start by saluting the parents here. What I want to know is: After paying tuition for four years, how did you manage to get here today -- by Greyhound? I'd also like to acknowledge another group of people for their contribution to higher education. It's not just the faculty and administrators who make education possible, you know. Everyone who works on campus plays a role, and I mean the custodians, the maintenance workers, the food service staff, the clerical workers, and the security staff. Let's give them a big round of applause! Now I want to thank you so much for this honorary degree. Maybe, I'll finally be able to get a decent job! Of course I'm hoping that all of you graduates will also find decent jobs -- meaning jobs that are fascinating, challenging and compatible with your ideals. I know that won't be easy. At the moment you accept your diploma today, you will have an average debt of $20,000 and no health insurance. You may be feeling desperate enough to take whatever comes along. Some of you will get caged in cubicles until you're ejected by the next wave of layoffs. Others -- some of the best and brightest of you in fact -- will still be behind a counter in Starbucks or Borders three years down the road. Parents, if that happens to your child, don't blame him or her, because the sad fact is that the middle class is crumbling under our feet just as these accomplished young people are setting out to find a place in it -- destroyed by layoffs and outsourcings and by severe under-funding for vital fields like science, social work, and education. Benefits are evaporating, and job security is a thing of the past. That's just one regrettable feature of the world today's graduates are entering. There are others. Most of you are Americans, meaning that you are citizens of a nation that is busy making enemies much faster than it can kill them. You know, they say it's not so easy to get out of Iraq. Well, I have a plan: Thousands of Iraqis flee their country every day. Just find out how they're getting out and take the same route! And let me mention the most terrifying feature of the world you are entering: Ever notice how many movies, novels and TV series today are about a post-apocalyptic world? I'm thinking of everything from Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Road to the new movie 28 Weeks Later. Well, there's a reason for that: Our planet may be becoming less and less inhabitable, at least in any civilized way. And the change will be painfully evident within your lifetimes. One thing that's for sure: Our way of life -- our gas-guzzling, tree-destroying, extinction-producing way of life -- is finished. We have to find a new way of life, and that's going to be your task. But if I have my say in it, it'll be one that involves having more fun, while using a lot less stuff. Look, I'm really sorry about the mess my generation and your parents' generation is leaving to you: the cruel economy, the bloody quagmire of US foreign and military policy, our threatened habitat. And I just want you to understand that we tried to do better -- maybe not enough of us, maybe not hard enough -- but we tried. And now you have to try, only with one big difference. For us it was matter of idealism, for you it's a matter of survival. So, my final instruction to the class of '07: Go out there and raise hell! [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 1:52:07 PM    comment []

Byron Williams: Do We Really Need a Truman?. History, especially invoked during the campaign trail, can be one of the most seductive weapons a candidate possesses. A candidate can reference an event or individual, and provide scant detail in order to receive a desired outcome. So, with little surprise, candidates from both parties want to align themselves with former President Harry S. Truman. Truman was recently featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine under the title: "Wanted a New Truman: Does anyone in the 2008 (presidential) field have what it takes?" Democrats and Republicans now lionize Truman the underdog, the originator of the "Straight Talk Express," the standard-bearer for where the buck should stop to such a degree that without the benefit of history it's easy to forget why he still isn't president. Though it is sexy for candidates to cloak themselves in the Truman mystique circa 2007, few were doing it when Truman left office in 1953. The contemporary lauding of the historical Truman tends to omit that shortly after he announced that he would not seek re-election in 1952, his approval rating, according to Gallup, stood at 22 percent -- the lowest mark for any active president. Truman's blunt, at-times acerbic presidential style did not exactly play well. It's extremely difficult to imagine the Truman playbook now in the risk adverse, focus group dependent, 24-hour news cycle that has become a hallmark of American politics. To be Truman, you have to place what is best for the country above personal ambitions -- rare for any period of American politics, practically inconceivable today. Can anyone be honest about Iraq, the deficit, or Social Security and get elected in 2008? In 1948, an election year, Truman submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that focused on issues such as voting rights and fair employment practices. This act enraged Southern Democrats, who were key to the party's success in the fall, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates. But my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten." Moreover, with a 36 percent approval rating, Truman limped into the 1948 Democratic Convention embracing a civil rights plank that prompted every Alabama delegate and a portion of Mississippi delegates to walk out. Two weeks later, Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which racially integrated the armed forces. Shortly thereafter, Strom Thurmond announced he was a third-party candidate for president under the States' Rights Democratic Party. Truman had to overcome his own race sensibilities to do what was best for the country. This episode makes Truman far more progressive on the issue of civil rights in 1948 than John Kennedy in 1963. Truman also recognized the state of Israel against the wishes of then Secretary of State George C. Marshall. And when he relieved the popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur of command in Korea and Japan in 1951, members of Congress, the press and the public called for Truman's impeachment. When candidates today parse every word so their speeches become soliloquies of nothingness, as they struggle to find the right words on Iraq, and try to avoid at all times an unflattering moment posted on YouTube, it is easy to conclude that we only want Truman in theory. Just as Lincoln did not belong to the ages until he was assassinated, and King had more people following his mule-drawn casket down the streets of Atlanta in 1968 than who stood with him as he publicly opposed the Vietnam War in 1967, the same holds true for our adulation of Truman. During a 1948 whistle-stop speech in Harrisburg, Ill., a supporter yelled, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" To which Truman replied, "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth -- and they think it's hell." I am quite certain such a response today would require the approval of focus groups and media consultants before being uttered. Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or leave a message at (510) 208-6417. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 7:27:48 AM    comment []

James Boyce: Al Gore Never Said "I invented the Internet." Never. Said. It.. Tomorrow, Al Gore's new book, "The Assault On Reason" will be released. In it, the former Vice President asks some serious questions about where we are as a country, how we got here, and how we might get back on track - good timing, considering the recent polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of Americans think we are headed the wrong way. You might think this is something any American of either party would want to talk about. You would be sadly mistaken. Because instead of addressing the issues Gore raises, the right is already focusing on running old lies and half-truths run up the wing nut flagpole. Taylor Marsh did a great job debunking one of them, but another big one still lingers. Mention Al Gore to any right wing spokesperson and on cue, they spit out: The guy who claimed he invented the Internet! They snicker, they chuckle, they high five themselves into happiness, but there's one little problem. Al Gore never said that. Seriously. You wouldn't know by all the news links and articles and quotes and our beloved President Bush even ran a tv commercial in 2000 claiming that Gore said it so let me repeat. Al Gore never said that. Here's the truth. In March 1999, Vice President Al Gore was doing an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. In the course of that interview, he said: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." And guess what? It's true. Let's quite Vincent Cerf, a man often called The Father of the Internet, "The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator." Marc Andreesen, Internet pioneer who actually received federal funding thanks to Al Gore, who while Senator wrote the "High Performance Computing Act" also credits Gore. Another Internet expert, Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today." Multiple early web pioneers say that Gore was the first political leader to grasp and understand the Internet and its possibilities. They all say it was his vision and yes, initiative, that helped turn the Internet into what it is today. Al Gore took an essentially internal government program and set it free to the marketplace. This is something he should be proud of. But it's not just reason that is under assault in our modern world, it's accomplishment. If you're child grew up to be fluent in a foreign language, would you be proud or shamed? Proud of course, but John Kerry's ability to speak French was a huge negative in 2004. Not only should Al Gore get credit for this work on the web, but here it is, eight years after he was misquoted, and this is what they will lead with in their attacks on him. Pre-order the book today or buy it in the store tomorrow. Sadly, what Al Gore says is true, and the reaction to the book proves it. This week, stay tuned as the Right Wing attacks Al Gore and his book, not for what he says in the book, but directly and personally and with old lies. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 6:56:04 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2007 Patricia Thurston.