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Today's Globe has a story about legislation in Vermont to declare the state's aquifers a public trust, thereby regulating the business of bottling and selling the stuff. Sounds like a good idea, and one that New Hampshire might want to copy (we've had our own bottler battlers here).
But there's a catch:
But she said that even with a new law in place, Vermont might be targeted by litigation brought under the North American Fair Trade Agreement saying the state's efforts to limit water withdrawals interfere with international trade in bottled water.
Jon Bresler has been involved in this question of trade agreements and a state's authority to regulate its own resources. I hope he'll weigh in here.
But the story also triggered a connection that had not previously occurred to me.
Since the days of Reagan, America has been chasing a Theory.
Since the Clinton era, and the rise of NAFTA and Global Free Trade, our "Corporate Leaders" have been conducting an unprecedented Social Experiment.
The Experiment: Economic Darwinism
The Test Subjects in this Experiment: none other than American Workers and our "more competitive" counterparts, overseas.
Supply-siders have argued that Economic Growth comes from empowering Corporate Interests to become "More Productive", by whatever means necessary. Be it "Tax-Give-aways to the Wealthy", or "Job-Give-aways to Poor Foreigners", well that's just fine with them, long is it results in Corporate Growth.
Supply-siders are happy to trade away American Dignity for the sake of short-term Profits: "American Workers just need some retraining. They just need to apply themselves."
"We just need to learn to Adapt" ... (to Global Markets?)
That's the Theory, that's the Spin. What are the Results of this on-going plan to outsource the American Dream?
For those who don't know, the Clintons' NAFTA not only impoverished American farmers and textile workers and their families, but also wiped out the Mexican corn-growing economy and the lives of 15 million people. About 5 million of those have illegally crossed into the US -- just because of NAFTA allowing cheap subsidized corn from the US into Mexico, dropping the corn price there 70%.
Next year NAFTA fully kicks in, meaning an additional 500,000 economic refugees that we ourselves caused. The former corn farmers and unemployed workers don't come because we are great, they come because the policies of both governments is starving their children.
And the Clintons pushed NAFTA through without the safeguards wanted by the Democrats. Hillary touted NAFTA to no end in the 1996 campaign and for a decade thereafter. Remember Hillary chuckled and said it didn't work out the way we wanted!
NAFTA Will Boost Mexican Emigration to US
Mexico, Dec 16 (Prensa Latina) Mexican emigration to the United States will increase as of January 2008, when the tariffs on corn and beans will be lifted within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), expert Steve Suppan said on Saturday.
In statements to Prensa Latina, the experts from the Institute of Agricultural and Commercial Policies, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the United States, described rural migrations caused by NAFTA as the migration crisis that broke out in 1994, when the first NAFTA adjustments were made.
"There are many Mexican workers with little options and they resort to the hard march to the North seeking higher wages to help their families in their communities of origin," he noted.
Suppan noted that the situation will worsen as 300,000 farmers and 200,000 people from Mexican cities are expected to emigrate, due to the lack of development opportunities.
Experts are concerned at a forced economic exodus to the United States, a situation that will increase food insecurity in Mexico, he said.
The big economy will flood the small economy with its products and tragedy will mostly affect indigenous groups who had guarded their basic resources for humankind but are starving at present.
The governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico could renegotiate the NAFTA if they took into account the harm they are causing to the disposed, because only the big private consortiums will benefit instead of farmers and small businesspeople.
Suppan referred to the world campaign in favor of preserving food resources, especially corn, as a human right of economic use, and pointed out that the campaign could even be taken to the United Nations if there were political will.
MARION, Iowa — Senator Barack Obama is accusing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of waiting until she was a presidential candidate to suggest that the North American Free Trade Agreement -– enacted during her husband’s administration -– was a mistake.
“I think it’s important to note that Senator Clinton was a cheerleader for Nafta for more than a decade. As of a year ago, she was calling it a boon to the economy,” Mr. Obama told reporters here today. “It seems to me that the only thing that has changed in the last year is that it’s now election time.”
Mr. Obama opened a two-day Iowa campaign swing in this city outside of Cedar Rapids. As he delivered his criticism, he glanced down to his printed notes, which rested on a podium.
“As some of you probably heard at the debate the other night, Senator Clinton called Nafta a mistake,” Mr. Obama said. “I was pleased to hear her say that because, as more than 10,000 jobless Iowans know, that’s exactly what Nafta has been.”
Now that Mr. Reid will be making a critical decision on the FISA legislation and we need so desperately our Representaitives to be vocal about their opposition to immunity, let's be clear about where Kucinich stands:
"I object to any immunity for telecommunications companies and demand a full accounting of these companies' involvement to Congress and to the American public. When corporations cooperate with the government to strip people of their Constitutional rights, that is a text book description of fascism. There must not be any place in America for this type of conduct."
-Dennis Kucinich
We cannot forget who we are. We are a nation of, a nation welcoming and built by immigrants. And though this Administration wants to divert attention from its current mistakes, we cannot forget who we are in the process. To Dennis Kucinich, America means "give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses...". To Dennis Kucinich, in an open and free democratic nation there must be a path to citizenship. To Dennis Kucinich, there is no such thing as an illegal human being.
I owned and operated a woven label factory that temployed 60 people in 1996. It was then 68 years in continuous operation. The employees had health, dental, and retirement plans in effect. We had New Hampshire competitors(the founders came here mainly from Germany and some were related)in Claremont, West Swanzey, Barnstead and Pittsfield. There were also large factories in the South, Midwest, and California. They were all domestically owned and operated. Being a mature industry after 5,000 years, textiles tended to be an indigenous business. Food, clothing, and shelter being generally in use where civilization had taken hold, there were also woven label factories in every country in the world. Today there is one domestically owned plant left in this country. It is in Pittsfield and they are operating under bankruptcy protection. (cont. below as comment)
This says it all. You get what you deserve in life, if you sit back and buy the Party line, straight from the coffers of the Big Interests and the Trusts.
I don't wanna work, I wanna play on the drums all day...
What I want to do is explain what Dennis Kucinich is offering our country right now when he talks about "Strength through Peace"; to get a better understanding of what he means by peace and how it will make our country stronger as a whole. We need to understand that creating peace is not simply some idealistic hope for ending wars, but rather a very pragmatic plan that builds relationships based upon fairness and justice and which, predictably, reduces the likelihood of hostilities that lead to crimes, violence and wars. I want people to start seeing peace as a balance, not only in our foreign relationships, but here at home as well; a balance in the economy, a balance in healthcare, in education and government. And I want others to understand peace as paying us a dividend, that peace is a practical investment in our future. But, I want to begin by looking at where we are. Where is America right now?
I went to see Elizabeth Edwards in Brentwood, NH at a stunning home in a beautiful country setting right outside Exeter last Friday. She "hadn't done one of these in quite some time," but she wasn't rusty and the packed house of about 100 people were happy to get a chance to see our favorite Elizabeth talk about the campaign.
She gave us a good look at her husband and who he really is, the broad strokes on the rationale for the Edwards message, discussed the 50 state strategy, answered a few questions and she met Margery, a wise sage, published poet and a Great American.
Follow me below the fold for all the video of Mrs. Edwards in Brentwood.
Welcome to your Saturday night Edwards Evening News edition, where we're working to save the planet! I am delighted about tonight's news, which includes:
Dr. Helen Caldicott says vote for JRE!
Edwards Opposes Peru Free Trade Agreement
Edwards visits 99th Iowa County
Media Shocker: the Washington Post Has a Decent Story on Edwards!
I know many will want to drill down, complain, or explain away this position. I am against any more "Free Trade" deals, until we finish understanding the ramifications of the disasters already passed. Since the Oman and Jordan deals signed by Hillary and Barack had little to no worker protections we should, IMHO, have a moratorium on new deals until after the next election. I can't believe this. I like Sen. Obama though I am an Edwards supporter. I want to know what I am missing here.
http://www.workingas...
BREAKING: Obama Says He Will Vote for NAFTA Expansion
By David Sirota
Working Assets, 10/9/07
Hot off the presses from MSNBC:
"Obama said he would vote for a Peruvian trade agreement next week, in response to a question from a man in Londonderry, NH who called NAFTA and CAFTA a disaster for American workers. He said he supported the trade agreement with Peru because it contained the labor and environmental standards sought by groups like the AFL-CIO, despite the voter's protests to the contrary. He also affirmed his support for free trade."
The voter's "protests to the contrary" are exactly right. The AFL-CIO does not support the Peruvian agreement, and the labor/environmental standards leave enforcement up to the Bush administration, rather than empowering third parties to enforce them (like corporations have the power to enforce investor rights provisions in these same trade agreements).
Obama is the first presidential candidate to officially declare his/her support for the NAFTA expansion moving through the Congress. His announcement is not necessarily surprising, considering he was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Hamilton Project - a Wall Street front group working to drive a wedge between Democrats and organized labor on globalization issues. His announcement comes just days after a Wall Street Journal poll found strong bipartisan opposition to lobbyist-written NAFTA-style trade policies.
Trade has been known to be a huge issue in Iowa (remember Dick Gephardt in 1988), so this announcement could very well ripple through the 2008 primary.
Bill Richardson appeared in Keene this past Friday for a retail politics event he advertised as a "job interview". During it, he was asked about his stance on the pending free trade agreements with Panama and Peru.
Here's the question from the event, and Richardson's answer:
There's a couple things that disturb me about this answer.
1) He's the "resume" candidate. His congressional experience focussed heavily on Latin American relations.
If this is truly a "job interview" as he has asked us to view it, I would expect just a little of his knowledge of that region to show through in the answer. Give us a sense of why Panama and Peru are different than, say, Mexico. Have the respect to educate your audience. Instead, the answer is walked directly to the talking points about all trade policy. I can get that at the website -- we need more here.
Just as in a real job interview, the lack of specifics here makes me uneasy that the resume may reflect postions held, instead of experience gained.
2) Speaking of Mexico: conspicously absent from his answer was this -- Richardson is widely credited with getting NAFTA passed in the Congress. Bonior, the majority whip at the time, was against NAFTA, so the task of chief arm-twister on NAFTA fell to Richardson, the deputy whip. Richardson famously called Perot a racist for calling attention to wage disparities, environmental issues, and working conditions etc. south of the border. Consider the lead paragraph from an article that ran in the Dallas Morning News on June 11, 1993:
Two Hispanic congressmen and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce took on Ross Perot on Wednesday, calling his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement "anti-Mexico' and filled with racial overtones.
`Unable to wage his campaign on the facts and the economics of the trade pact, Ross Perot is relying on hateful stereotypes, Mexico-bashing and racially offensive rhetoric to kill NAFTA,' Rep. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., told reporters...
Or consider how Richardson celebrated after he and President Clinton were able to marshall the NAFTA votes in a surprise victory -- I give you the lead paragraph of an article from the Journal of Commerce, November 22, 1993:
Rep. Bill Richardson wasted no time unveiling the latest addition to his wardrobe: a white T-shirt that once bore the battle cry for backers of the North American Free Trade Agreement - "NAFTA NOW!" But with the help of a red marker, the New Mexico Democrat had changed the message."NAFTA WOW!" it now read.
And "wow" it was.
(Incidentally you can see these lead paragraphs for free by searching http://www.newslibra... -- it's impossible to link directly...)
Should he have to make that disclaimer at the beginning of every speech, that without his efforts NAFTA would not have been passed? And that his job with NAFTA was to go against those that said its protections were inadequate?
No. But it's disingenous to talk this way, as if he's the long-standing critic of these crazy Democrats that keep caving on free trade deals.
I could go on. I won't. But the essential questions in a "job interview" are "Does this candidate match what we saw on the resume?" and "Is he being straight with us?"
The answer in Keene this Friday night to both questions was no. Here's hoping for a more straightforward and informative interview in the future.
(cont. below as comment)
I went to see Elizabeth Edwards in Brentwood, NH at a stunning home in a beautiful country setting right outside Exeter last Friday. She "hadn't done one of these in quite some time," but she wasn't rusty and the packed house of about 100 people were happy to get a chance to see our favorite Elizabeth talk about the campaign.
