Meanwhile, back at the WaPo shill factory - er, editorial staff - they're DEFENDING Mark Penn

even the title is un-friggingly-believable...

The Sin of Speaking Truth

and it just gets worse from there...

item...

Yet another Democratic adviser is in trouble for having more common sense that his candidate -- or at least, more than his candidate has the courage to admit having.

item...

Austan Goolsbee, Sen. Barack Obama's economic adviser ... suggested to Canadian officials that a President Obama probably wouldn't be foolish enough to repudiate [NAFTA, but since] Mr. Obama had been running hard against NAFTA, blaming it for a million lost jobs and ignoring the good it has done for the poorer people of Mexico, Mr. Goolsbee's comments had to be repudiated.

item...

Mark J. Penn, was helping Colombia's government win congressional approval of a U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement that Ms. Clinton opposes.

[...]

This is a particular danger in the case of Colombia, since the arguments against the pact are so flimsy.

[...]

Both Democratic candidates rest their opposition on supposed concern about assassination of trade unionists in Colombia, although such violence has fallen so much that the crime rate for them now is lower -- as we've pointed out in past editorials -- than for the population at large. Mr. Obama committed a particularly egregious libel last week when he said, referring to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has taken on the violent left and the violent right at considerable risk to himself, "You've got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition."

and, finally, the jaw-dropping conclusion...

Does Ms. Clinton really believe a newly elected president should adhere to a year-old timetable for troop withdrawal, regardless of circumstances? Are they each unaware of the real statistics on NAFTA's effects? Voters are left to wonder, and to ponder which would be worse: that the candidates are sincere and misguided or are insincere and lacking the courage to speak honestly.

i wouldn't even know where to begin... is claiming that nafta has been good for the "poorer people of mexico" more patently ridiculous than portraying colombia's chief drug-runner and total washington toady, Álvaro Uribe, as a risk-taker for democracy...? the wapo apparently believes that "the courage to speak honestly" equates with espousing bush administration-approved and wapo-adopted talking points... this is what passes for journalism in our nation's capital...

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David Sirota and The Who on Hillary - "Meet the new boss..."

there's no way our country can afford to be fooled again...

from david sirota via daily kos...



i have to confess... i supported nafta, and, in fact, used the nafta debate that was happening at the time as the basis for a negotiation simulation in a class i was teaching in international management... it's just a perfect example of how, as every single year passes, i look back on the previous year and marvel at how much i have learned and grown...

what i supported about nafta was precisely what it was NOT intended to accomplish, which was, in my naive world view of the time, to help blur artificial national boundaries and bring people closer together... i find it amazing that, in hindsight, i couldn't see it for the naked ploy it was, a scheme for the rich to get richer on the backs of everyone else, regardless of race, creed, color, religious belief, or nationality...

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Earth to the NYT: don't pass the Peruvian FTA

the nyt's wrong-headed editorial, endorsing the peruvian free trade agreement...

Pass the Peruvian F.T.A.

The Peruvian deal would help expand trade between Peru and the United States, which today stands at about $9 billion. It would give American businesses greater access to Peru’s markets in everything from grains to tractors and other machinery.

Perhaps more important, the agreement would strengthen an essential ally in the combat against illegal narcotics in the Andes and tighten relations with one of the United States’ few remaining friends in South America — where Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is gaining allies by spreading oil wealth around. In an open letter, all eight living former secretaries of state urged Congress to approve the Peru deal.

i'm thoroughly sick and tired of these bogus arguments for reducing yet another country to the status of u.s. chattel... american businesses do not need "greater access" to anywhere... they're already heavily exploiting peru, and all the fta will do is to make such exploitation easier... it certainly won't fix la oroya (see here and here)...

and then there's the bogus drug war, simply another way of shackling a country to the united states in the form of mountains of aid that also opens the door to the permanent stationing of u.s. troops as we are seeing in both colombia (here and here) and paraguay (see here)...

finally, could we PLEASE stop making hugo chávez the latest embodiment of the great satan...? why, ferchrissakes, do we ALWAYS have to have a great satan threatening us...? (never mind... i know why...)

let's stop the bullshit... we need to stop kidding ourselves about what these so-called "free" trade agreements are really meant to accomplish...

from my post of october 18...

The Peru Trade Agreement: Exploiting the Rainforest and Workers

Democratic leaders are threatening to try to pass a trade agreement with Peru that would give U.S. oil companies powerful new rights to exploit Peru’s Amazonian rainforest. It would also give Citibank the right to sue Peru if the country reverses the failed privatization of its Social Security system. No U.S. union or environmental, faith or development group supports the agreement. Peruvian indigenous leaders are calling for its rejection.

This agreement was negotiated by the Bush administration on the same principles as NAFTA. Some Democrats claim to have added labor and environmental standards, but these do nothing to fix many of the worst effects of the agreement.

when are we going to learn that the world is not ours to do with as we goddam well please...?

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Exploiting the rainforest of the Amazon headwaters in Peru

being a part-time resident of argentina, and after my various posts on la oroya, peru (here and here), and the more recent one on gold mining in honduras, i am feeling particularly sensitive to the exploitation of resources in latin america by u.s. companies...

The Peru Trade Agreement: Exploiting the Rainforest and Workers

Democratic leaders are threatening to try to pass a trade agreement with Peru that would give U.S. oil companies powerful new rights to exploit Peru’s Amazonian rainforest. It would also give Citibank the right to sue Peru if the country reverses the failed privatization of its Social Security system. No U.S. union or environmental, faith or development group supports the agreement. Peruvian indigenous leaders are calling for its rejection.

This agreement was negotiated by the Bush administration on the same principles as NAFTA. Some Democrats claim to have added labor and environmental standards, but these do nothing to fix many of the worst effects of the agreement.

you can voice your concerns here...

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How our Democratic leadership is selling us down the river

none of what david sirota says should be surprising to anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever to how liberal and progressive ideals have been systematically betrayed in this country by the leadership of the very party that purports to support them... and, even if you haven't been paying attention, you've probably experienced the effects, and wondered why everything in our economy seems to work against the wage slaves that are toiling away year after year keeping all the machinery of the system running...

there was a very strong message sent in the 2006 elections, a message from the grassroots, from folks like us that nobody in congress or the white house seems to pay any attention to unless they're trying to baffle us with bullshit... watching developments since the new congressional session began in january, i can only conclude that, if the message registered, it certainly hasn't been taken to heart...

sirota highlights what's going on and, more importantly, what ISN'T going on, in three important areas - trade, lobbying and iraq - all three of which were part of the message sent by the 2006 elections...

trade...

[T]he Democratic congressional leadership and less than half of all Democratic lawmakers (as during NAFTA) join with all Republicans to ram a free trade package through Congress over the objections of the progressive movement and rank-and-file Democrats who ran against lobbyist-written trade policies in 2006.

lobbying...

[T]he Democratic congressional leadership would join with all Republicans to ram a sham lobbying "reform" bill through Congress potentially over the objections of many of rank-and-file Democrats and the progressive movement.

iraq...

[T]he Democratic congressional leadership would join with all Republicans to ram a blank check Iraq spending bill through Congress potentially over the objections of many of rank-and-file Democrats and the progressive movement.

and the result...?

Thus, we get Democratic leaders who just months after election to the majority are attempting to triangulate against their own party and the progressive movement. That this strategy helped destroy the progressive agenda, the Democratic Party, and Democrats' electoral prospects for the better part of a decade seems of no concern to the people trying to perform these acrobatics - all they seem to be focused on is bringing a smile to David Broder's face and a truckload of Wall Street cash to their campaign coffers. Whether their triangulation defies political history and brings them electoral success in 2008 is less important than what the actual real-world consequences of such behavior is for the country - and if the current trend continues, those consequences could be severe.

we have no business sitting still for THIS shit any more than we can sit still for bushco's unrelenting assault on our constitution and everything else that serves as the foundation for our republic...

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