This is an article that I wrote early this morning about the new free trade deals that are taking place by elite planners in the US government. Additional commentary has been provided by Dr. Chomsky, who is Professor Emeritus at MIT's Linguistics and Philosophy Department. His contributions are labeled NC, while mine are indentified by arrows.
> On the weekly edition of "Bill Moyers’" Journal that
> aired 18 May 2007, there was coverage of the new
> "breakthrough" free trade agreement policy that was
> being negotiated behind closed doors between the Bush
> administration and leading Democrats (Pelosi, Baucus,
> and Rangel) and going to be sent to Congress as a
> "fast-track" resolution/bill. The Moyers went on to
> say that the agreement has been widely touted by the
> mainstream press (e.g. NY Times and Washington Post),
> though the press are largely unaware of the details
> of the agreement because they were not made public by
> the current press time.
NC: That's correct. And normal.
>
> Moyers’ guest analyst for the story was John R.
> MacArthur of Harper’s Magazine, who has written a
> book apparently arguing against neoliberal
> globalization titled, "The Selling of Free Trade."
> MacArthur made several interesting points, among them
> is the fact that "fast-track" Congressional proposals
> are not subject to amendment, which MacArthur feels
> in undermining American democracy.
NC: Also correct. By definition, "fast track" allows Congress to vote Yes or No, but not even to discuss it, let alone amend it. The measures, strongly supported by Clinton Democrats, are designed to undermine democracy and rights.
Furthermore, he
> stated that trade between countries of relatively
> similar levels of income and prosperity is "healthy,"
> however the free trade bills such as NAFTA that are
> pushed Congress are really designed to allow US
> corporations to operate as cheaply as possible.
NC: Also correct. They are investor rights agreements, which have little to do
with "free trade," in fact little to do with trade at all.
> MacArthur stated that these laws are "union killers"
> which allow businesses to circumvent formal
> structures of employee governance and that as a
> result the median income of US laborers has fallen
> because capital has greater mobility than labor.
>
NC: Median income has been fairly stagnant for about 30 years, since the
neoliberal programs were introduced. Note that professionals are protected
from competition: only working people are set into competition with one
another, which of course drives wages and benefits down, as intended. NAFTA
led to a very sharp increase in illegal attacks on unions, permitted by the
Clinton administration, well documented by Kate Bronfenbrenner and others.
> The assertions that the free trade deals are "union
> killing" efforts has already received some attention.
> The bipartisan deal already contains some policies
> that organized labor groups find to be suspect:
> "labor groups and some lawmakers like Sen. Sherrod
> Brown, an Ohio Democrat, were suspicious of a
> provision that would only allow national governments
> to file a labor complaint under the pact. Without
> assurances enforcement will not be ‘left to the
> devices of the Bush administration, we will be hard
> pressed to support this agreement,’ the United
> Steelworkers union said in a statement"
> ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/... )
>
>
NC: True, but only tip of an iceberg.
> Meanwhile, as labor groups oppose such a pact, the
> National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has
> "voiced support for the new enforceable labor
> provisions" (Ibid.). Incidentally, in a true example
> of the fox guarding the henhouse, the Bush
> administration announced former NAM vice-chairman
> William "Woody" Sutton as the Commerce Department
> assistant secretary for manufacturing and services.
> One wonders if these kinds of institutional
> connections within the executive structure of the
> government lead the Bush administration to favor
> policies that organizations like NAM find desirable.
NC: Hardly necessary to wonder. All administrations are basically business run,
but Bush II to an extreme extent.
>
> The allegations that the press are lauding free
> trade policies about which they are uncertain, turns
> out to be true. But the media campaign for these free
> trade formulations is more nuanced, and perhaps more
> insidious, than such an overly-simplistic
> identification. Today’s New York Times is running an
> article titled, "Bush and Democrats Are Working
> Together, but for How Long?" which was shortly
> re-titled to the more inane and acceptable "A New
> Reality in Washington, but Can It Last
> ( http://www.nytimes.com/... ).
> Though the article says very little about the free
> trade agreement deal – presenting it as a side-bar to
> the much more prevalent immigration deal, it is
> essentially an article in support of "pragmatic"
> bipartisan deal-making, like the kind required for
> "fast-track" neoliberal trade legislation.
NC: Even the reference to "free trade" is propaganda, which could never happen
in a Free Press. Democrats and Republicans indeed act in a bipartisan
manner on these matters, in sharp opposition to the public. The media
simply bar discussion of these matters. This goes way back, and became
extreme as NAFTA was rammed through. I wrote about it at the time, with
details, as have others.
>
> The Democratic Leadership Council itself has made a
> public statement
> ( http://www.ndol.org/... )
> devoted to lauding the beauty of the bipartisan free
> trade consensus, which could lead to more bilateral
> free trade agreements (in spite of the business
> community’s concern that multilateral free trade
> agreements remain elusive at this advanced stage of
> the Doha Round of GATTS).
NC: The DLC are moderate Republicans.
>
> David Sirota of the Huffington Post devoted his blog
> to it from which I derive several sources, by looking
> at "new revelations about who is supporting the deal
> and who is opposing it, though remember - it is
> difficult to make any hard and fast conclusions
> because Democratic leaders and the White House
> continue to keep the details of the deal completely
> secret"
> ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... ).
> Sirota, in support of his logic of inquiry, goes on
> to say that: "a look at who is supporting the deal
> and who is opposing it provides some key insights
> into what this deal is really all about. Already, the
> New York Times has reported that at least half of all
> House Democrats may immediately oppose the deal
> because it seems to fly in the face of the Election
> 2006 mandate against lobbyist-written trade policy."
> The Boston Globe relegated the Democratic opposition
> to only "a half-dozen House Democrats with strong
> labor ties later expressed strong dissatisfaction
> with the process"
> ( http://www.boston.com/... ).
> The Globe did make sure to include several emphatic
> statements of support from US Trade Representative
> Susan Schwab, who said that the deal was "a giant
> step forward" and "a (sic) historic bipartisan
> breakthrough."
>
> This Democratic opposition is purportedly because of
> the anti-union proposition that only national
> governments are allowed to file labor disputes,
> essentially destroying the right to legal
> self-defense by labor unions against multinational
> enterprises. Yet, the foreign business press is
> completely ignoring this important point, the
> Financial Times states that this "nascent deal
> between Congress and the US administration to insert
> stronger protection of labour rights into bilateral
> US trade deals, while not disastrous, is a step in
> the wrong direction"
> ( http://www.ft.com/... ).
> The FT goes on to say that labor standards are
> "already well represented in labour law around the
> world" and that moving in this direction poses a
> grave risk because "US labour law could itself be
> reverse-engineered via union-backed challenges under
> a bilateral trade deal." The article does not say how
> this is possible, in fact something to the opposite
> effect in that "Republicans supporting the deal say
> they are comfortable that such legal challenges will
> not be possible..." The FT even extends its criticism
> into the ideological realm, arguing that the "tangle
> of provisions on human rights and the environment
> that frequently have more to do with playing
> political games than they do with promoting trade."
>
NC: The FT is as opposed to free trade as other establishment sectors. This is
mostly farce. There's a very substantial literature on it.